It was a peaceful feeling waking up in sync with her body. The caves magic had calmed her successfully down. Rhiannon did not freak out seeing she was still in her dragon-form. It felt natural and very much needed.

After a few moments she tried to change but found that she couldn't.

'Am I stuck?' she asked herself. Even under the influence of the cave her heart began to race.

'Calm down. Don't panic. You aren't stuck forever... You're just stuck as long as it takes your body to repair the damages you inflicted on yourself.' the voice she had heard in the library right before her body went downhill. She sighed.

'Why do you think I inflicted damage to my own body and how did I do it in your opinion.' she asked in a tone somewhere between interest and sarcasm.

'I like the way you think. Always questioning what you are told. That's a scientist's mind... Maybe I have a worthy apprentice at last...' the voice sounded amused. Rhia gridded her teeth. The man in hiding had the nerve to lecture her again and again without even introducing himself. He even called her his apprentice without asking her. Her life was really going downhill.

' Well... Couldn't you simply answer my questions... It would be nice if you could probably introduce and show yourself. It's quite unnerving not to know where to speak to... I presume you're not some kind of ghost...' she answered and tried hard to keep her voice in check. But it was hard to do so since she felt like crying out of pure frustration. She hated losing control.

'Oh... Well... Didn't I... Uh... That's unfortunate... I keep on forgetting such minor stuff...' the voice stuttered seemingly ashamed and the sound of steps resounded. Claws on stone precisely. A giant silver dragon appeared in front of Rhiannons smaller night-blue dragon-form.

She felt it hard to imagine that she would be such a giant one day. His current much smaller size still felt hard to perceive sometimes.

Dragons kept on growing their whole life, only slowing down at a certain age. The silver dragon was ancient regarding only the size he showed. But Rhiannon was fairly certain he even suppressed a good deal of his strength. He was even more powerful than the queen. But even though he was emitting a certain grace she could not help but admire. His scales and eyes seemed to be made of moonlight on a quiet lake. Beautiful.

'I didn't mean to be rude. My name is Merlin Drake. I am an elder of the dragon-clan. A wizard. A scientist. Your master in all a dragon that has ancestors of the fifth clan needs to know. A mentor and a friend if you want me to. I will teach you everything I know if you let.' Merlin offered with a kind smile that struck with even more awe.

'Are you by chance THE legendary Merlin who taught Arthur Pendragon?' she asked hoping it would be true.

He smiled and answered. 'That's me... Arthur was one of our lesser clan-members... He was more of a human than most of us... No real dragon-form only a knack for magic and strategy... I loved that boy.' he reminisced. After a few moments of silence, he shot Rhiannon a beautiful smile, she did the same.

'Well let's quit reminiscing... You are much more important than the past is right now... You asked why I think you were hurting yourself.' the wizard answered and looked in the eyes as he continued 'You're currently in a very fragile moment in your life. You are merging that means you are rebuild in and outside. Your brain does the same thing it did in puberty, especially your front lobe. And you keep on interrupting the progress since it needs to be equally inducted from both of your main forms. Your old human as well as your new dragon-side. Otherwise, the mixture will be uneven and tending towards the lesser used form. Stupid kid. You didn't even know anything before you acted.' he finished sounding more concerned than angry. He just couldn't fathom the possibility of her losing her mind like many others. It would be a shame losing an open-minded person amidst these single-minded clan-members of late. Those with the greatest powers were most afflicted by this corruption of magic whilst merging. Many a promising young clan-members, both born and changed, had been turned into mindless beasts. He sighed in dismay.

While the older dragon was lost in thought Rhiannon felt offended and upset. It had been a while since she had been last called a stupid child. The fact she had indeed behaved like one didn't make it any better. She felt ashamed of herself of being so naïve and arrogant to believe she was able to access a situation she barely understood. The young dragon face-palmed herself. A very human gesture unfitting of her dragon-form. Merlin smiled at her knowingly.

'well, it seems you get it... let's make sure you stay yourself whilst using your powers in the best way possible. It would be a shame not to use a power like yours.' He added convinced he had purged her self-destructive thoughts. 'I did not want to become a monster at all.' she answered stubbornly growling at him in her deep dragon-form voice. He laughed at her display whilst being a little surprised at her childish behaviour. He didn't mind her implying that all Clan-members were monsters. In his mind they were. But even as a monster one could be a good person. Her attitude was more than refreshing. But he knew he had to change her opinion on their race to help her through. 'well, your attitude won't help you getting anywhere... quite literally actually. The cave won't let you leave until you come to terms with yourself. It has saved more dragons than I can count.' Merlin declared assuringly and laughed again at her frown. The giant dragons laugh resounded in the smaller one's ears and Rhiannon grumbled unsatisfied.

She knew Merlin wasn't mocking her. His laugh was far too good natured, he was simply amused upon seeing her pointless resistance. Rhiannon sighed and decided on stopping to make a fool out of herself. Her earlier attempts to reach her goals on her own had been futile in best case detrimental and dangerous in any other perspective. She knew it and the caves calming atmosphere helped a great deal accepting it. And maybe a little curiosity – being taught by Merlin himself didn't sound half as bad to her. She had always loved Camelot. She sighed... it seemed an apologize was due. The young dragon hated to apologize. It was hard to admit defeat.

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'Okay. You win. I apologize... my behaviour was detrimental and silly. Would you please correct my ways?' she muttered in a kind of formal tone. It sounded so stiff and forced Merlin had to force down his amusement since he didn't want to affront her. 'Right. It seems you are already infected by our clan’s greatest sin. Pride. But you are very welcome. I do accept your apologize. No need to dive further into that topic. I am here to help you. Show you ways to use your new self, to control your powers and open up new possibilities in your future. Miriam told me you were a participant in our laboratory’s internship-program? I am the only scientist in this darn clan of fighters and politicians. I sincerely hope you will join me in my futile efforts to beat sense into the clans’ heads.' he offered and smiled. His speech and smile were quite contagious and Rhiannon relaxed as she felt welcome.

'I would love to continue working in the medical and scientific branch. Miriam told me I had to take a gap year in my studies... but I would really love to join you if you let me.' she assured him smiling widely. 'That's what I wanted to hear.' he told her. 'But before you are able to do anything else you will have to deal with your rapid merging. You have to become a full-fledged dragon to be yourself again... so first of all I am going to teach you everything you need to know about your own body and abilities. We will start with our training in our true form since it's your only available right now. Later on, we will deal with your druid-heritage whilst using human-form. These lessons will include the basics of magic, agility, sparring, history, etiquette, politics and biological details. You will feel far less foreign in our world once you are able to leave the cave.' the old dragon explained. The schedule sounded packed and Rhiannon wondered when she would be able to leave the cave. But when her eyes met the silver dragon’s eyes, she nodded in agreement.

'Okay...first of all show me how much you are able to do without further instructions. Get up and show me your body-control.' Merlin said and lifted his right front paw up in the air. His index drew a rune into the empty air. It glowed blue and disappeared. The moment the rune had disappeared a parcourse appeared.

It was huge. Rollers, spikes, staffs, pendulums and bars. All of the obstacles moved themselves in different places and all of them were big enough to accommodate her in her dragon-form. It looked just like a machine she had seen in a movie. Her heart couldn't help but race in excitement.

'This is your parcourse. You will be using it to get to know that body of yours. We will start easy; I will slow the obstacles so you will be able to understand how it works. Later on, it will be ever-changing and much more demanding. Okay start now, let me see what you got.' her master told her smilingly. Rhiannon gulped. Ever-changing. She had to learn quickly otherwise she felt she would be beaten up until she did.

She flapped her wings once and got onto the starting platform. This course would have been hard to do in her human-form she was used to. But using her new dragon-form in her first try would be near impossible. But no pain no gain.

She entered the course her first task was relatively easy. The blue dragon had to cross a balance beam that went up and down in a regular predictable rhythm. Rhiannon had to sort her four legs, her unfamiliar long neck and tail as well as her wings whilst avoiding poles that criss-crossed over the beam. The task involved timing, body-control, spatial perception and balance.

Her first try ended when she was knocked of the beam due to being hit by a pole. She had forgotten about her tail and lost balance because she hadn't been prepared for the hit. After one hour of trial and error she was on, bruised and battered. Her right wing had a bleeding tore in its membrane her head hurt due to being hit several times. She looked miserable. But every-time she stood on the beam she advanced further, gained more self-control and self-confidence. It felt rewarding and great. Maybe the clan's attitude towards fighting was contagious. She didn't care.

Right now, she stood again on the platform her wings tightly folded on her back. Her concentrated gaze registered every movement the beam made as she tried to memories the pattern. She made a strategy and waited for the right moment to enter. There it was the opening she had been waiting for. She jumped in ducked under the first pole as the beam went up and advanced. The tightness of the beam didn't pose any threat any-more. She smiled and sped up as she had to on the other side of the second pole before the beam went up again. The young dragon did it and she had to do her utmost to keep her tail from twitching in excitement. She ducked and crossed the third and fourth in one go. Now only the fifth and sixth obstacle remained, they were the hardest once since the amplitude of the beams raise and fall were the biggest here. Her two hearts raced as she passed the fifth at a scale’s breadth. The beam went up again and there it was the sixth and only obstacle she had to finish yet. As it went down again Rhiannon opened her wings and dove right under the pole before ascending on the second platform. She felt draft the beam created as she quickly put her tail out of harm’s way. It had been a close call but she had finally succeeded. She smiled.

'Well done.' Merlin commented on her performance. 'There is still a lot of work to do, but you are far from hopeless. We will continue tomorrow. Go get some food. They have served us two cows whilst you were occupied. I understand you have never fed in this form?' he asked and added as she nodded 'Don't worry your instincts will teach you. As for how much you have to eat... it depends on in which form you eat. Since we are going to feed in true form it will be one cow each. You will get used to it.' He smiled at her tired expression and they went over to the two cows that had been brought.

'oh, it seems they wanted to make I easier for you and killed them in beforehand. It's good since it's your first day, but don't get used to it. I guess you will have to kill your meal on your own by tomorrow.' Merlin told her as they reached the two bloodied corpses. If I had been before her transformation, she would not have been attracted to the raw meat but right now her ravenous hunger made her devour the whole cow as it was. Her humanity seemed to be further away than ever. Even the thought of killing her meal by tomorrow only triggered some primal predatory longing to hunt but no dread. Even before her transformation she had no qualms dealing with dead animals, she had lots of experience since she studied veterinary medicine. And she had never qualms eating meat but her total lack of compassion towards the animal in front of her reminded her that she had changed in complex manner she had yet to understand.

Meeting Merlin’s gaze she felt relieved to have him to talk to, to make her cope with her new life and to offer her a perspective.

Maybe she wasn't the monster she had secretly felt like over the course of her time in dragon-mountain. She smiled as she thought about it and wondered if she went crazy coming to such a conclusion whilst feeding on a bloodied carcass that looked more like carnage than an actual meal. Maybe she was crazy, but she felt much better. Being a monster might not mean being a bad person.