*Note:

Thank you everyone for your kind support! I'm afraid I won't be responding to each review individually, but take heart that I love reading each one. For any of you wondering "Is Merlin going to stay old?" the answer is in this chapter.

Also, though I do have some specifics I would like to include in this fic, I'm basically winging it as I go, so if anyone has any favorite headcanons, you can certainly put them in reviews and they may inspire me!

As always, thank you for reading :)

Chapter 2

In his sleep, Merlin dreamt of crusades. While it was difficult to capture the significance of his dreams, it was clear they centered on a familiar theme, though in the morning he could not remember what it had been. And when he woke, he woke late. A rather unfortunate side effect of planting his permanent residence beside the lake of Avalon was its perpetual dampness, which often settled in his limbs and old bones. More often than not, Merlin would wake to a slight ache in his body and stiffness in his joints. On this particular morning however, though he could already see the fog seeping through the cracks in his cottage, he felt pleasantly rested.

Stretching as he sat up, Merlin smacked his lips and grumbled a little, as old men are prone to do. He rubbed the beige fabric of his nightshirt against his chest, effectively ridding himself of an itch.

Standing, he carried himself to the window, still feeling drowsy from his long sleep. He unlocked the panels and threw them open. Merlin's eyes momentarily darted to a specific spot in the lake but did not dwell on it. Instead, he walked into his small kitchen and prepared himself a hot meal of porridge.

He thought about the things he wanted to do today, listing them off in his head: Feed the horses, read the new book and study its origin, write—if he could—some notes on swords forged in a dragon's breath. It was true that Merlin collected a plethora of Arthurian legend texts, but the warlock himself was the author of numerous essays and notes of his time in Camelot, though they would never meet the public. These notes, Merlin had once concluded, was a way of remembering what had truly conspired under reign of the Pendragons. More and more, modern interpretations of the Arthurian legend mingled so tightly with what Merlin had experienced that, with each passing year, it became increasingly difficult to extract the truth from fiction. The result of these notes became folders upon folders of Merlin's scribbling, sometimes in lengthy, well thought-out narrations and other times succinct definitions or dates, or a particular emotion he had had in response to an event. Either way, Merlin had become the owner of the most elaborate (and accurate) Arthurian legend compilation. And today, he would further it.

Merlin rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck as he stood stirring his pot of breakfast on the hot stove. It surprised him how well he felt. Actually, Merlin thought, he hadn't felt this good in years. Ignoring his sudden burst of wellbeing (don't question the positives, just let them be), Merlin opened a nearby drawer of utensils and pulled out a spoon and then reaching above, grabbed a metal plate down.

Dumping the spoon into his porridge, Merlin brought it to the plate when he saw something he had not seen in over a hundred years: a younger version of himself. Yes, in the shining silver of the plate, an image of his younger self reflected back at him.

It was not the boyish face had had when he left Ealdor for Camelot nor was it the more mature face he had grown into under Arthur's rule. Instead, Merlin himself, not quite as the old white-haired man he had grown accustomed to, but with slightly darker, thicker hair. The plate, however, was not an adequate mirror. Shocked, Merlin dropped his plate and rushed to the bathroom where he stared at himself in a proper mirror. There, in stronger detail, Merlin saw he looked about fifty instead of in his late 70s. His hair was a heavy grey instead of white. His wrinkles, though still apparent, were diluted and the age spots on his face (and on his hands as he later inspected) all but disappeared. The many crow's feet around his eyes had reduced to lighter lines. His skin, overall, felt fresher and tighter than it had in years.

Involuntarily, Merlin let out a shuddered gasp. After a moment of poking and prodding his own remarkable face, Merlin rushed to his bedroom, to his desk, where he retrieved an ancient book on sorcery, charms, and herbs Gaius had so kindly given him when he was a boy. He flicked through the pages, manually at first. But then, impatient, Merlin's eyes burned gold and the book was rapidly turning it's own pages. As he spotted the word "age" or "aging," Merlin paused to read the page. Quickly enough, he came across an aging potion he was all too well acquainted with. There were also herbs said to slow the aging process, spells and incantations to momentarily reverse aging, among other magical properties involved in aging. There was, however, nothing about losing what appeared to be almost thirty years overnight.

Frustrated, Merlin moved onto a smaller book entitled Immortality, Mortality, and the Search for the Philosopher's Stone. While Merlin himself acknowledged about half of the book to be utter nonsense, written by men with factious desires and beliefs, he currently felt desperate. Again, there was nothing.

In a bitter battle of his emotions, Merlin felt marveled, impressed, and worried all at once. Collapsing into the spindly wooden chair at his desk, Merlin shook his head, confused. For only about a second he considered looking for help, for someone who might be able to give him an answer to this riddle, but then Merlin quickly reminded himself he was the oldest sorcerer, as far as he knew, in existence. Additionally, there was likely no one with a greater knowledge of magical circumstances than himself, Merlin thought proudly. The Druid people had long died out, save for a small few who had preserved the lineage, though they were nowhere near as useful to him now as they once had been.

Deep in thought, Merlin's stomach interrupted him by rudely reminding him he had taken no breakfast yet. Getting up, Merlin decided he would observe the progress (or possible lack thereof) of this new de-aging quandary before he made any sudden actions.

"Yes, yes," he said patting his belly. "Time to eat."

The rest of the day, Merlin attempted to distract himself by doing work he promised himself he would accomplish that day. Shivering slightly in the newly autumn air, Merlin pulled on a dark brown coat with a white Sherpa collar and kept his hands within their sleeves. First, Merlin visited his pair of horses. He brought their food and spent some time grooming them and cleaning their stables. Soon, he tired and returned within his cottage. All the while he read The Tragedy of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, he ignored the question of his age that pushed into the back of his brain like an annoying parasite or, he mused, a king asking him to do tedious chores he didn't want to do. As the night began to fall, Merlin still sat at his chair, reading.

"Forbearne" he said and the candle on his desk lit.

A little while later, candlelight was too dim for the night and Merlin muttered, "Leoht" and a spew of white lights blossomed around him. His magic, at least, conveniently helped him dodge many electrical bills.

A little while later still, Merlin had fallen asleep, face in book.

And again, Merlin missed the steady vibrations of the lake, whose ripples bounced greater that night.

The next morning, upon waking, Merlin immediately ran to his bathroom to inspect himself in the mirror. His eyes narrowed as he saw, though with not such a significant age gap as last time, that he was indeed looking younger. His hair was almost completely black now, with hints of grey streaks. The once lightly clouded eyes Merlin had seen through cleared to their former cerulean blue and his deep wrinkles nearly vanished. Besides considering this strange new transformation, Merlin secondly realized how ridiculous he looked with long black hair and a beard. An old man could get away with such lazy locks, but a man in his (evidently) early forties could not.

Merlin raced to the kitchen with such stealth he surprised even himself. "Where are they?" he murmured. "Ah! Here!" he said, pulling out a pair of long, dangerous-looking scissors. Bringing them back to the bathroom with him, Merlin peered into the mirror hard before taking a deep breath and cutting away his excess hair. It fell into the sink and Merlin amusingly thought he should learn a spell that cuts hair evenly. He then proceeded to shave away his beard.

When he was done, Merlin gently fingered his hair. He felt unusual, like coming home to a place he had thought had changed but realizing it had simply been him who changed. He looked at his old self with young eyes and wondered when this would stop, why it was happening, and what it all meant.

"Hmph," he said to himself in the mirror. The warlock cleaned the hair out of sink and carried it to the trash bin in his kitchen where he saw his radio sitting complacently, in the adjoining living room. He absently thought that this whole aging business had actually distracted him from what was going on in the rest of the world. Turning a dial, Merlin waited for an updated newscast and it was only a moment before a man began to speak, "Listeners. It is my duty to inform you all that another tragedy has taken place in the heart of Great Britain today. A shooting arranged by what we can now confirm was six men killed over a dozen, including men, women, and children and injured sever—"

The radio burst. Merlin dug his nails into his fists and squeezed shut his eyes. His voice, now less raspy, yelled. Pieces of metal shot upward and tiny sparks ignited and then dissolved in the air like fireworks.

This was too much for Merlin, simply too much. Things had been different, years ago, when battles could be anticipated. He could stop things then, and he cared to then. There had been a purpose. Now, he wondered why he should bother. And these recent attacks were not battles; these were murder. This land had taken so much away from him and from each other that it was difficult to want to be its protector.

Albion, he thought, sliding his face into his hand, would fall and he would have no part in saving it. Its people did not deserve it, Merlin thought bitterly.

Three more days passed with gradual change in Merlin's appearance. Each day the progression slowed, but it was steady. And each day Merlin became more and more uncertain as to what it meant or how (and if) he should treat it. His radio went unreplaced.

On the fourth day, Merlin was in his garden. He now looked to be in his late twenties. Kneeling on the grass, clad in a blue hoodie and brown coat, Merlin set down the clippers after snipping away bits of dead flowers. His face was dirtied and he felt sweaty. Sitting down cross-legged, Merlin gave himself a tiny break from work. The tips of his large ears and the ball of his nose were pink in the cold. He cupped his hands and blew into them, spreading happy warmth throughout his entire body with the aid of an unspoken spell.

This then gave Merlin an idea. Again he cupped his hands, but this time he whispered into them, and, opening them, released a blue butterfly that fluttered about him to his absolute merriment.

But as it flew upwards, another small creature blew into view as well. Merlin squinted, and saw it was a near duplicate of his butterfly, albeit its color: red. The edges of its wings were trimmed in gold. The two traced around one another in the air before disappearing from Merlin's view. For a moment, his eyebrows furrowed, wondering why another butterfly would be so active in November. He had never seen one so late in the season. And the intense scarlet color of the insect, too, was curious.

Then, Merlin clumsily staggered to his feet and ran to the shore of the lake.