Disclaimer: I dont own anything
Old friends
Merlin walked across the land. He had nothing left to live for because Arthur was dead. The days until now he had been busy getting to the queen and telling her of Arthurs death. But from today on he had nothing to distract him. He was alone with his thoughts on what the dragon had said. Arthur will come back. But when? Would Merlin still be alive when he came back? He had so many questions without answers. But the dragon who had always known the answers was gone so he had to do this alone. He still had Gaius of course and that would always be a reason to come back to Camelot but right now he couldn't stand to walk the hallways he had so often ran when he was late for serving breakfast. There were to many memories of Arthur in that castle. He had to get away from that even if it meant not being near Gaius in this time of grief. After a few days of just walking without a destination he found other people. When he heard voices in front of him his first instinct was to turn and walk into another direction because he really didn't want to interact with other people. But his curiosity won over and he decided to listen in on their conversation. As it turned out those men sitting around a fire and telling stories had been some of Morganas men that ran away as soon as Emrys appeared at the battle. He immediately got angry . How dare they just sit there and have fun when they were partly responsible for the death of the once and future king. Suddenly a hand grabbed him from behind and he was dragged in front of the fire. 'Oh, look what we have here. If that isn't that stupid servant boy of that idiot king.' The rest of the group was laughing loudly while the one who held me spoke. ' Now we can at least kill someone and have a little bit of fun.' Merlin considered using his magic. On one hand he hadn't got anything to lose anymore, because the Arthur was dead. On the other hand he didn't really want to live anymore anyways and it would be so easy to just let them kill him. He decided to wait first and hope his decision would become easier as the time passed. He was so busy with his thoughts that he didn't even notice that one of the man had lifted his axe and was holding it above him. He only noticed that when he heard a voice from behind saying ' I wouldn't do that. Well.. unless you are really good at magic and could beat a really powerful warlock.' The bandits just looked at her with a lock on their face that clearly showed that they thought she was crazy. One of them started laughing and soon all of the others joined in. ' And where is this warlock who supposedly is so powerful? Is he hiding because he is afraid or did you invent him? Now you have only shown yourself and we can kill you too!' But Merlin didn't pay attention to the conversation anymore. How did that girl know who he was? And where had he heard her voice before? He couldn't waste any more time on his thoughts, he wasn't alone anymore so the choice of just dying wasn't really a choice anymore. He really had to do something fast while the girl was still talking. He made half of the bandits fly against trees without even uttering a single word and undid his bonds in a very similar way. Then he fought of all of the other bandits before turning around to look at the girl who apparently knew who he was. When he looked at her he suddenly remembered something from his childhood.
He was playing in the woods with Will and was just showing him another magic trick. That was the reason why they had gone so far into the forest so no one would accidentally see them. But that day it didn't work out. Just as he was finished showing his magic to Will a girls voice came from between the trees ' Wow! How did you do that? That is amazing! Can you show me some more.' The first thing that they did was obviously staring at her with open mouths. But they started talking and she told them how she lived in the forest because her parents were dead and she had no one to look out for her. No one would take her in because they all had enough problems feeding their own children. From then on they often met with her in the forest until she didn't show up anymore and they finally came to the conclusion that she had died in some way.
That girl now standing in front of him was exactly that girl. He tried very hard to remember her name but to much had happened since he knew her so he didn't remember. 'Merlin' she said in a soft voice 'you know it is rude to stare at someone like that right. And creepy.' She laughed. He just continued to stare at her until he finally managed to get out a' Sorry. W..we thought you were dead, because you never came to our place anymore.' . She just laughed again even though he could find nothing funny about that situation. She apparently realized that and started to explain ' I found someone who helped me but I didn't have time to say goodbye to you. I always regretted the fact that I could never tell you about it bit I found my destiny and what I live for. Where are you going? Because I would really like to travel with you for some time and hear what you have been up to since then.' Merlins answer was very simple ' I don't want to talk about what happened. And I don't even remember your name.' ' My name is Lilliana. And its fine if you don't want to talk about it. I understand and respect that. But maybe you want to listen to my stories for a while?'
And Merlin listened to her stories about gods and monsters and all of the adventures she had been on. Between all those new and old stories they stayed together until Merlin one day was finally able to tell his stories as well. And it felt so good to tell all of the happy and sad moments he had had with Arthur. He finally felt like returning to Camelot where he got to meet Gaius for a last time before he died. Gwen was a good and fair queen and Merlin lived happily at Camelot for a while. Until someday when he realized he wasn't aging anymore. He didn't want anyone else to notice so he went away again this time meeting all those gods Lilliana had talked about. All that he did happily with Lilliana by her side.