Chapter 1: Souls Never Change, Bodies Do

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin. I wish I did though.

The scrying bowl landed mouth down in a large puddle of water as the man swept it off the table in frustration.

A dark haired and beautiful woman entered the room.

"Still having trouble Merlin?" she asked.

He gave her a glare before bending down and picking up the scrying bowl. "I know he's close by, I can feel it. I just can't find him."

She muttered something and the water on the floor returned to the bowl.

He looked down into the bowl.

"Perhaps you're looking for the wrong thing. Instead of looking for Arthur, try looking for his soul," she suggested.

-SPACE-

The alarm went off.

With a groan that came from the depths of my being, I slid an arm from my warm cocoon of blankets to turn it off.

"I have got to stop staying up so late playing video games. No matter how fun they are." I muttered as I tossed the blankets and sheet back and pushed myself onto my hands and knees.

The second alarm went off a minute later.

I shut it off, sat back on my heels, and stretched.

Something in my spine popped and I got out of bed.

I quickly ran through my morning exercises, changed into sweat pants and a loose T-shirt, pulled on socks and running shoes, and grabbed a quick breakfast as I passed the kitchen.

Running every morning was my way of keeping in shape besides yoga, tai chi, and karate. It was also my way of analyzing and packing away the unexplainable dreams that I sometimes had and had been having since I was very young.

My mind soon emptied and I quickly ran through my day.

It was the beginning of a new school year and I was starting my one year Master's degree.

I had a yearlong class three times a week that went in depth about the characters of the Arthurian Legends and two one semester classes two times a week that went in depth about folklore and myths. I also had a class I was teaching twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays after my three hour in-depth class.

It was my own class that I looked forward to the most since I was going to teach an introductory course about the Arthurian Legends.

I already had a degree in Liberal Arts, focusing on the folklore and myths of the British Isles.

It was a family trait to be practically obsessed with the tales of King Arthur and his Knights; I was just the first to really do anything specific with them.

My best friend and roommate was hunched over a steaming cup of black coffee and the sugar bowl when I let myself into the apartment we shared. She gave her usual morning grunt when I greeted her.

I grabbed clean clothes and entered my bathroom to grab a quick shower.

There came a knock on my door as I finished getting ready.

"Hey you, hurry up. I'm not walking by myself," my friend stated.

I opened the door. "Chill Liv. I'm done. Let me put on my boots and grab my bag, then we'll go. Still don't understand why you can't walk by yourself on a campus of less than five thousand students. Camelot University is a private college after all and has one of the safest campuses in the state."

She followed me into my room, completely ready to go. "Yeah, but I'm very much a social creature, Lys. I'm not like you. I don't like to be alone with my thoughts."

I pulled on my boots and grabbed my bag and hoodie. "If you say so Liv."

'Well I do, so come on." She dragged me from our apartment and across the open expanse of tree-flower-statue-fountain-bench dotted 'path garden' that separated the two five-story buildings that held the sixty two-bedroom and bath apartments that made up the whole of Camelot University's on-campus housing from the buildings containing the classrooms, computer labs, the extensive library, and food court.

Camelot University had been founded in the early eighteen sixties by two transplanted Cornish Britts on a high rise of land on the coast of northern-most Maine that overlooked a stony beach. Both men had been raised from the crib with the story of Camelot, King Arthur, his Knights, and Merlin, so it wasn't hard to decide on a name. It also didn't hurt that, like the slogan says, 'the minds of future leaders are molded here.'

It's a very difficult college to get into. You either pay an outrageous amount of money to get in as a freshman or you were invited. Olivia and I were two of the latter kind. Most of the students were working on graduate level degrees because actually had the money to get in and the drive to stay there.

A few of the other students making their way across the grounds, the more awake ones, called out a greeting to Olivia and a couple even greeted me by name.

Olivia Diane Williamson was a blonde bombshell with a mind most men found not only entrancing, but intimidating. She was an engineering major, going for her Master's degree, and more often than not I had no idea what she was talking about. She also came from old money and could have been one of the few who went to Camelot U straight from high school and stayed there, only she had devoted herself to me in the form of a close sister.

I, one Alys Morgan Penn, was your average everyday type of woman. I wasn't gorgeous, but I wasn't ugly either. I was a couple inches taller than average and in great shape though you really couldn't tell since I liked to wear loose jeans and shirts and the baggy black hoodie with my last name and the silhouette of a dragon on the back, a reminder of my high school fencing days. I was smart, but didn't always like to show it. I came from a middle-class family that worked hard, and was just as devoted to Olivia as she was to me.

We'd met during the second semester of seventh grade after I had gotten a full ride scholarship to the private school she went to. Olivia was one of two people who befriended me since the rich kids didn't really like the scholarship kids and the half scholarship students didn't like the full scholarship students. She and Gavin, our other close friend, had helped pick up my books after they'd been knocked from my arms and fend off my tormentors. Without them, I was sure I would have quit after my first week.

"So Lys, where's this monster class of yours at?" Liv asked as we neared the building her first class was in.

"Have to go all the way to the De Bois building. I'll see you at lunch." I replied, veering off to take the path that led straight to the Tristan De Bois building on the far side of campus.

The T.D.B. or De Bois building as we students called it was home to a lot of the arts and contained the six hundred seat auditorium. It was always deserted this time of morning, but this morning there was a tall gentleman about two or three years older than me trying to wrestle with a large box and open the door to the stairwell.

I caught the box as it began to fall. "Here, let me help you."

He smiled. "Thank you." he said with a British accent.

I shook away the feeling of knowing him and smiled back. "No problem. With a box like this, it's easier to take the elevator."

He held open the stairwell door for me. "I'm used to taking the stairs."

"So am I. What floor?"

"Third. I'm trying to finish stocking my office before my first class this morning." He dashed up the stairs.

"You must be a new professor then." I said as I followed.

"I'm Professor Davenport's replacement." He held open the door to the third floor.

"I loved Prof D. I took his 'Places in Arthurian Legends' class last year. I was sorry I didn't get to take his 'People in Arthurian Legends.' He was good at what he did, even outside the classroom. I helped him grade the stuff from his intro classes." I followed him down the hall to what was once Professor Gary Davenport's office.

"You wouldn't happen to be Alys Penn, would you?" He took the box from me and began to unpack books and nick-knacks.

"I am actually. If you tell me where things go, I'll help put them away."

"Books go on the empty bookshelf. Place the other stuff wherever. Gary warned me about you."

I grabbed things and began to place them where I thought they belonged. "He warned you about me?"

"Told me that you knew the stories inside and out, backwards and forwards, and that you would very rarely get something wrong. After that he sang your praises and said that you should be the first I asked if I needed an assistant or help grading."

I chuckled. "He was always surprised by that. He'd give me special tests every so often when there was little work for me to do. He'd put in extremely tricky questions and I'd always get them."

He gathered up a thick folder and his laptop case once we finished. "Apparently you also gave much more likely scenarios for things, including battle plans. What's your first class?"

"People in Arthurian Legends. I only gave the ones that seemed logical." I didn't mention that I had seen the battles in my dreams, as well as the planning sessions that came before them.

"Yes, I remember seeing your name on my roster. Would you be averse to setting out the syllabus and schedule while I set up my laptop?" he asked as we entered the classroom just down the hall.

"Of course not. If you ever need any help, please don't hesitate to ask."

While he fiddled with getting his laptop connected to the projector, I placed fifteen of each packet at seats and then sat down at the center seat of the front row to look through mine.

Classmates began to arrive and looked through theirs.

"Good morning Alys," a male voice stated silkily from my right.

I held back a groan and did not allow my head to drop to the tabletop. "Nigel."

"Funny running into you here. I've really been looking forward to this class. The tales are amazing, and now we get to learn all about the characters."

I gave a small tight smile in return and went back to reading the schedule.

Nigel Killbourne was my 'stalker,' as Olivia and Gavin called him. He thought he was God's gift and I was the subject of his desire. He tried to follow me around, had changed his major to mine, and tried to get in the same classes.

I wished he'd leave me alone.

The lack of one very important character on the schedule caught my attention.

"Dr. Emrys, why isn't Merlin going to be covered?" a fellow classmate asked.

He leaned against the front of the table his laptop sat on. "I don't cover him. There's too little actually known about him, and what is known conflicts with itself. He will be mentioned, but we won't go into detail. I will give and optional lecture over Fall Break about my thoughts on who and what Merlin was." He stood up and launched into his first lecture.

-SPACE-

Olivia joined me at the table I sat at. "I swear that Cabel is going to try and kill me."

I looked up from looking over my notes for the class I was going to be teaching after lunch. "Then you shouldn't correct his math."

"The building would have collapsed, killing countless people. What about you?" She bit into a bite of her salad.

I smiled and swallowed my bite of cheeseburger. "It was wonderful. My professor is Prof D's replacement. He knows his stuff."

She leaned over. "Ok, what's the best part? 'Cause you're keeping something from me."

"He's utterly gorgeous. High cheekbones, absolutely stunning blue eyes, a cute smile that does make him look a little dorky. He looks as thin as a rail and has some big ears." I replied, jotting down a quick note on my paper.

"You know what they say about big ears, Lys." she teased.

I rolled my eyes. "Two things. One, he's my professor, so it's never gonna happen. And two, not true as Gav proved to us."

"When?" she practically screeched.

"You were drunk and I was just intoxicated enough to not protest. It was that party to celebrate Gav getting into med school."

She pouted. "Well damn. I'd have liked to remember that." She glanced at my notebook. "Revising what you're gonna do for your class?"

"Just a bit. Dr. Emrys doesn't cover Merlin in depth, so I'm gonna slip him in so my students have been properly introduced to him."

"Seen your stalker yet?"

I groaned. "He sat next to me in class. I spent first break chatting with Cynthia Blake. Second break I spent in a discussion with Dr. Emrys over a fact about Uther Pendragon I thought he'd gotten wrong. I think I convinced him it was wrong."

"Good for you. If only we could get rid of your stalker."

"I wish."

-SPACE-

Dr. Emrys sat in the back of my class, observing.

My students were filling out a crossword I'd made over characters and places.

"Interesting way to start off class." Dr. Emrys stated, his completed crossword before him.

"Just trying to gauge what they already know." I continued on my round.

By the end of class, I found that most had a passing knowledge of the legends and was able to launch right into comparing various versions of how Arthur came into being.

-SPACE-

The man was bent over the scrying bowl, a smile on his face.

The woman entered.

"I found him," he stated.

"Oh?" she asked.

He laughed and looked at her. "I did what you suggested. Souls never change, but the bodies do. Everyone may be like they were, but he's always been different. I just hope they can take orders from a female Arthur."

-SPACE-

I sat up in bed, glancing at my alarm.

There was an hour to go until it went off.

I got ready for my run, sleep not going to come back.

A/N: I am trying to work on Garden, but currently Arthur and Rhyannon are having a stand-off that Merlin is refusing to help resolve. Something about wanting to keep his head if I'm understanding his mutterings right. And Gwaine is no help since he's munching on popcorn and watching them while Lancelot and Percival are playing with the kids. This was just a story I had written in a notebook and finally finished typing up. I decided I had to share it since it was actually finished. Trust me, when it comes to my stories, actually finishing something is an achievement to be proud of. And at the moment I'm not pleased with the document stuff in FF. I don't like the -SPACE- I had to put in when it shouldn't be there.