Title: Shur'tugalar Rïsa.
Pairing(s): Arthur/Merlin, a bit of Arthur/Gwen, and a bit of Gwen/Lancelot, even a bit of Merlin/Morgana. Later on, anyway.
Warnings: Violence, dragons, elves, magic. Y'know, fantasy stuff.
Spoiler(s): Nope. None at all.
Word count: 4072 for this chapter.
Rating: PG. At the moment, anyway. Different chapters may change.
Summary: AU, based on the Inheritence Cycle books by Christopher Paolini - you don't need to have read them to follow this story, however. Merlin is an elf with blue eyes - rare - who is Rider to a white dragon - also rare. He is broken, and the last hope for training the new Rider when the final free egg hatches. It does hatch, to Arthur Pendragon, son of Uther, King of the nation Surda. The egg hatches for Arthur while visiting the Varden - he picked it up when someone dropped it, and it hatched. Uther hates Riders and doesn't want his son to be one, but Arthur is adament. So he goes back to Du Weldenvarden to be training by Merlin and his dragon, Aravae. They dislike each other from the start.
Author's Notes: I utterly adore Christopher Paolini's books, and I've always wanted to write something based on them. I was thinking and thinking and I came up with this. I've loved writing it, and I hope that you enjoy reading it. The title means Dragon Riders Rise in the Ancient Language, the ones used in the books. I couldn't come up with anything I liked in English, so I used that instead.
Author's Note II: Chapter four, and the shortest I've written so far. I couldn't squeeze much more out of it, though. Here, Arthur starts learning archery and getting better at sword fighting, Vesparr starts talking - they grow up so fast! - and Mordred makes his first appearance. Don't ask me how I managed to get four thousand words out of that, because I honestly couldn't tell you.
It was horribly clear to Merlin that Arthur had never even held a bow before, much less used one. Master post.