Merlin sat, like he often did, on the shores of the lake of Avalon. Every day, he would walk by the old lake (whose modern name the old sorcerer never bothered to remember); he would stop and whisper a small greeting, a silent prayer. But on some days, particularly cold and particularly blustery days, words were not enough. And so he would sit on the shore-bed, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours. Sometimes even well into the night. Then, when his heart was no longer as frigid as the world around him, he would pull himself up, his old knees cracking, his messenger bag full of old spell books heavy on his shoulder. If the moon shown bright, he'd walk home in silence, guided by the pale glow. When the moon was hidden, he'd glance around briefly, wondering if anyone was watching him (although he couldn't have seen them, he could always feel them). When he was assured no one was, he would hold his palm out and whisper, softly, bryne on bradhanda. The gentle fire floating in his palm would take him not only home, but to a world of memories he hoped he would never forget, even if he lived forever.
There were certain days, however, in which Merlin would set aside the entire day just to sit by the lake. He did, as some may not have realized, have a life beyond Arthur, beyond Camelot, beyond the great kingdom of Albion. Throughout time he had been a great physician and doctor, a teacher, a diplomat, an alchemist and a chemist, a musician and an actor and an entertainer. Throughout his long life beyond Arthur and Albion, Merlin had lived every role man could come up with multiple times over, except for two. For only Arthur would Merlin ever be a soldier and a servant again.
But on these aforementioned days that Merlin would set aside to sit beside Avalon, the old sorcerer would abandon the life he created for himself. These days came once, maybe twice a year (calendars and time-keeping had changed and varied during his life, and so Merlin relied on his intuition to remind him of these days), and they were always brilliantly sunny days. On fine days, like those that Merlin set aside, children, under both careful and careless supervision by their parents, would play. They would chase each other, screaming with glee. They would build muddy sandcastles and have swordfights with twigs. In more recent times, they would sit on the grass higher up on the shore, watching movies and reading stories on their mobile phones and portable computers, outside only because their parents demanded so.
Nobody had ever come to talk to Merlin, beyond the polite nod of acknowledgement. Every few decades or so, Merlin would change his age, sometimes playing at the young boy he once was all those years ago, the righteous, foolish boy he was when he first entered the city of Camelot. Some decades Merlin was solidly definable as "middle-aged," though for him it was an age that had seen many endings, from the death of dear friends, such as Gaius and Leon, to his final memory of Guinevere. He had never shared a final goodbye with the Great Queen, and for that, he was never sure if he should be saddened or grateful.
It is easy to say that no one ever talked to Merlin simply because they did not recognize him. But humans are subconsciously remarkable creatures, and Merlin knew, after centuries of life, that his fellow inhabitants beside this lake were not easily fooled, just modestly simple. Intuitively, all understood that he had a story too heavy, too grand to be told casually along a lake shore. And so, they all left him alone. Well, almost all of them.
"Do you ever get bored, just staring out at the lake like that?"
Merlin blinked, broken from his reverie by the small voice of a young girl. He furrowed his brow and looked over at the girl, who stood just to his left. With Merlin sitting cross-legged on the muddy sand, the girl's head was above his, and, hoping to find more than just legs to look at, Merlin had to look up and into the sunlight. But all he saw then was a silhouette.
"What?" he replied. The little girl huffed.
"I asked if you get bored. It's a lake, what's there to see?"
Merlin just blinked at the girl. After a few moments, she let out another scalding sigh and dropped to her bottom gracelessly, in a way that only a carefree child could. Merlin could see more than a silhouette now; the little girl, probably no more than nine or perhaps ten years old, had light brown skin and chocolate eyes. Her caramel hair frizzed and curled, cut short so that it just spiraled out from her head, defying gravity. One front tooth was missing, and the rest of her teeth, as she was too young yet for braces, were endearingly crooked. She had the appearance of a little girl that would grow up to be beautiful, humbled by her youth and empowered by her growth.
Merlin looked back out at the lake. Sometimes he forgot that he'd hidden the center island from everyone but himself.
"Well?" the little girl asked indignantly.
"There's everything," Merlin replied, "if you look hard enough." He had expected the little girl to offer a retort, and after a moment of silence, he looked over at her. To his surprise, she was looking hard at the lake. Squinting her eyes, the girl seemed to be studying every wave that slid lazily up the shore. Merlin watched her for a few minutes before interrupting. "Well?"
The girl looked up at him. "Well what?" she asked crossly.
"Well, what do you see?"
"Water," she snapped.
"Just water?" Merlin teased.
"Just water! And don't laugh!" she exclaimed, though Merlin couldn't help but chuckle at the girl's callous frustration. "It's stupid anyways!"
Still smiling, Merlin replied, "Of course it is. And it will be until it isn't." His gaze returned to the lake, a look of longing entering his eyes that didn't even begin to describe how much he missed laughter. True, genuine laughter that often accompanied the teasing of a best friend.
The girl was silent so long, he thought perhaps she had gotten bored and left. Curious, he looked over, only to see her looking back at him, her head titled to the side like a questioning puppy. True to his age, his face furrowed in disgust.
"What?" he spat. His harshness didn't seem to faze the little girl. She merely broke her gaze, looking at her mud-covered legs stretched out before her.
"My mum says you're lonely, that's why you sit out and stare at the lake," she said. Merlin just blinked, unsure how to respond. "And Pop says you've got too many stories knocking around your head, you're confusing them with the real world, and that's why you stare at the lake."
"That so?" Merlin finally replied softly. He had no defense, for both were true.
"Yeah," the girl said, her voice sounding rather sad. But then she beamed at him. "But I told them that I think you're just waiting to meet someone!" Merlin blinked once, before full, round laughter spilled from his mouth.
"And what makes you think that, exactly?"
"Well, isn't that what people are doing when they sit in the same place all the time? They promise to meet someone at this place at this time, and so you wait, 'cause you know they won't break that promise. Will they?" The gaze the girl fixed on Merlin was hopeful, maybe even tinged with desperation.
"No," Merlin answered, a feeling of determined assurance washing over him. "No, of course he won't."
The two sat in silence for quite some time. The girl, despite her youth, lacked the physical restlessness that drove parents and teachers alike to madness. Her restlessness lay in the mind, situated just behind her eyes that kept them moving always. Something hidden in the water would suddenly cause the surface to ripple like a flag in the wind and her gaze would dart to it. She didn't have to be a druid for Merlin to know the thoughts that ran through her head. This remarkably restless girl was asking herself every question under the sun and moon, and all those that float around the emptiness of space (notably one of Merlin's favorite scientific frontiers of the last 500 years). To her, no story was too heavy or too grand, for since birth had she felt the power of every word that passed the lips of man; their weight had made her strong, their grandeur made her curious.
The sun high in the sky, Merlin asked a mildly simple question. "Who are you?"
"Mum says my name's really Jennifer, but my whole life everyone says Jen," she answered innocently, pulling up her knees. "You can call me Jen, too. I like it better anyways."
"Jen," Merlin echoed, thinking this girl, unlike the billions of faces he had seen, was someone he had known before.
"Well," Jen continued after a moment. "Aren't you going to tell me who you are? 'S only polite, you know." The young girl had an uncanny ability to make Merlin smile wide and genuinely.
"I am who I was and I am who I am, and I am who I always will be," Merlin offered, still smiling at the memories.
"That's a stupid answer," the girl snapped, and leaned forward to put her chin on her knees in a pout. Merlin opened his mouth to respond but she interrupted. "And don't tell me it will be until it won't be, you already said that. I don't like riddles, they're stupid." Merlin laughed as the girl's pout intensified. "Well they are!" she whined. "Life would be a lot easier if people just stopped using riddles and said what they think."
"Like you do?" Merlin inquired. The girl's pout turned sheepish.
"Like I want to do," she answered.
And with those words, Merlin could feel the earth tremble beneath him. With the power of a child's desire, the world was changing, destinies were being challenged and rewritten, fate itself was failing in its permanence. The magic that the universe held deep within its soul was awakening, as it did only when its children called for it, and the old sorcerer's mind was sparking, as if it had been dormant all this time.
"Perhaps," Merlin finally said, "you'd like to hear a story?" He looked at the girl, who was sticking her toes into the muddy sand distractedly.
"Okay, but you have to do two things."
"You've got conditions? You're nine," Merlin teased, eyebrow raised and lips smiling.
"Ten," Jen corrected, raising a hand. "One, it has to be a long story," she said, counting on her fingers.
Merlin nodded. That would be easy enough to satisfy.
Jen continued: "And two, the ending can't be happy."
"You want a sad ending?" Merlin asked, surprise in his voice.
"Only happy stories really end," Jen explained, more interested in a hangnail she'd noticed while listing her terms.
"Well," Merlin replied, "Alright then. I'll see what I can do." He looked at Jen out of the corner of his eye, before shifting his gaze back to the invisible island. Then he began:
"In a land of myth and a time of magic, the destiny of a great kingdom rests on the shoulders of a young boy. Two, actually. And their great kingdom was called Camelot."
"A little to your left, Merlin," Arthur called across the training grounds. With a grunt, Merlin lifted the wooden target. It was heavier than it seemed, and the constant threat of throwing knives was no help to the weight of Merlin's exasperation. He'd been the prince's servant for just over a week, and by now he was beyond convinced that the Great Dragon had made some terrible mistake. "Stop, right there! Ah, actually, a bit to your right!"
Perhaps, Merlin was thinking to himself as he dragged the target through the mud back to his original position, Kilgharra had mistook Merlin for Prince Arthur. What the dragon actually meant was that it was Arthur's destiny to help Merlin unite Albion or rule Camelot or whatever it was exactly the dragon had been foretelling. Merlin had to admit, he didn't believe in prophecies. Prophecies, as far as Merlin was concerned, were for fo—
"Merlin!" The young sorcerer lacked the time to process the fact that a knife was flying towards his nose before it wasn't. More out of instinct than reaction, Merlin's eyes lit gold and the knife flew off to the right. A heartbeat later, he was looking at Arthur and the Knights, who just stared back in response.
After the second heartbeat, Merlin realized what he had just done.