A month later, Merlin had grudgingly gotten used to his new sort-of neighbors. The two children tended to be noisy and ran around startling the animals and trampling the undergrowth, but he did learn that they only played outside on certain days at certain times. Never after the sun had begun to set, and only on days where there was no other activity on the roads nearby-which wasn't often anyway, but still. So, he kindly made slight adjustments to his schedule.
He did need to replenish his food supply, though. Luckily, despite being old and creaky, his magic was a magnificent hunting tool, and he collected herbs, birds, and other small animals for both food and material. He was in the middle of eyeing a deer, the lone arrow raised to his lips, which were pursed and already forming the words of a spell to fly the arrow perfectly into its heart, when the animal straightened and darted out of sight. Merlin scowled, lips now forming a curse word in frustration as the cracking continued. For their normal behavior, the children were actually being fairly quiet. But not enough, dammit!
He turned in the direction of the clumsy footsteps, deep scowl and glare at the ready, before reality poured like ice down his back, freezing and shocking him so that his body and mind fell into a blank, stunned state.
The gangly boy climbed with almost too many limbs through the bushes and fallen branches, his hair in a shaggy mop hanging over his eyes. Yet, the saunter with which he covered his obvious lack of grace and the easy grin on his lips betrayed him and Merlin knew exactly who he was. Somewhere below his shock, a tiny voice wiggled in the back of his mind to be grateful for his habitual cloaking spell. It was a light one that didn't require much concentration and thus didn't cover much more than sight-if he stomped on a branch, or coughed they could probably hear-but it kept the boy's curious glances from lingering on him. But still, that wasn't quite what left Merlin choking for air as his lungs froze in his chest.
As Gwaine stepped past the invisible old man, his steps purposeful and covering the ground quickly, the little girl lagged behind and huffed as her brother's head stayed firmly in the clouds. She looked tall for her age-or maybe he had estimated wrong and there wasn't as strict of a pattern as he'd thought-but did not walk nearly as loudly or clumsily as her brother.
Until her eyes locked with Merlin's. He watched the blue eyes widen and then disappear from his line of sight. Jolted into confusion, he glanced down to see the girl's legs tangled in her thin skirt, the thin body managing to look both spread out and curled up awkwardly on the ground. Part of him wanted to chuckle until the soft, tentative sounds of sobs trickled into his ears and the details of her pupils and corneas blurred under the layer of unshed tears.
"Shh, don't cry," Merlin croaked automatically, knees bending with surprising ease to get him to her level. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes glassy, yet her lips were pressed together in a proud line and her chin was tilted up. He felt a prick at the corners of his mouth.
"I'm not," she ground out, and Merlin could see her clenched teeth as her lips moved. Her voice was quiet and high-pitched as a child, but admirably not all that shaky. "I scraped my leg and it stings."
He nodded, feeling the businesslike expression on his face and wanting to react to it. She spoke like she made so much sense, as if the idea of her being a crying little girl at the feet of a strange old man was preposterous.
Then Merlin froze again. She was looking at him, talking to him. With his spell still on. "How did you scrape your leg?" the words were still half-thought, his being just knowing to continue speaking to the child Susetthe without doubt, even while his conscious mind continued to spin at her being able to see through his magic.
"I was following Gwaine and then I saw you," she mumbled quickly. "Mama said nobody else lived very close. But then I fell." Her shoulders twitched in finality.
The sunlight weaving through the branches above them cast her hair in a swirl of mahogany and gold and bronze, and it crossed over his view of her flushed, stubborn face as her head bent down to inspect her legs. The limbs were still tangled in the dirt-stained, light green fabric, but the hem was up around one knee and he found dark spots along it. Her shin was crusted in dirt and blood, already drying but still seeping from several shallow cuts. His tongue smacking against his teeth, Merlin felt his body move of its own accord, flowing easily and willingly through the motions of a simple healing spell that glowed prettily as it cleaned and restored the pale skin.
The loud gasp that she made no effort to hide left him chuckling, her whole face lighting up with awe and glee. "Thanks!" Her voice was high and shrill, broken by a giggle as she ran her fingers lightly, tickling the now-perfect skin. Merlin nodded, white hair framing the edges of his vision.
"How did you do that? What's your name? Why are you here? Why didn't Mama or Papa know you?" she fired, and Merlin blinked in surprise at her quick recovery and the determined expression on her face. Her blue eyes pinned his, cutting mercilessly through his lined face and tempered thoughts. And his cloaking spell, which was still active mind you.
"My name is Merlin, and I was born with magic," he whispered, the basic phrase feeling like a secret whispered between long friends instead of a (probably crazy, he had to be by now) old man and an unusually intelligent-looking child. Her eyes lit up, and she had jumped to her feet before his eyes could even follow her movements.
The only detail Merlin's eyes were able to catch was the large, toothy grin curling around Susetthe's lips as she sprinted away from him and back through the trees, in the direction of her home and her brother Gwaine.
*************
The night Merlin met Susetthe for the third time, he walked silently to the house her family had moved into and stood outside for what felt like ages. The sun had set just two hours after their brief meeting-which Merlin still could not quite comprehend and was sure he looked like a clotpole with his wide eyes and gaping mouth-and he had waited until the moon was high.
He had recognized the girl immediately, nearly the same age as she had been in the last lifetime he'd met her...and as she had died. This time, he was determined that that would not happen. Three times he'd met her, three times in over a thousand years. That could be coincidence, yes, but he had learned long ago not to question fate and destiny. All the times he had met her, she had been Gwaine's sister, and had looked and been the exact same. The others from Camelot reincarnated with the same appearances and personalities each time.
Merlin wondered if it really was purposeful, or he was just hoping for it to be. Perhaps every person reincarnated multiple times, and with the same traits. He wouldn't know-he barely even interacted with people at all.
Still, if nothing else, it had been horrible to watch the young Romany girl die, and Merlin's heart couldn't go through the long, disgusting loss again. So, he carefully stepped a perfect circle around the house and covered the area in protective spells. Besides, these would help her entire family-they'd run from a war confusingly and swiftly tearing their homeland apart, and now they were as safe as they could possibly be.
Of course, she was a child who had just met a magic man. Her six-year-old mind had probably already characterized him as her imagination, or some other mystical being like a unicorn. One that was fun to play with and think about, but always knowing deep down that he wasn't real, or worth truly caring about. The old man half-doubted his own mind, wondering if he'd finally gone mad.
But had definitely done dumber, more impulsive things in the names of less kind or noble or necessary causes in his youth. His original youth, that is, not the recurring physical state.
************
When the sun broke through his thin curtains the following dawn, Merlin's eyes were already open and waiting for it. As the moon had observed him peacefully, the old warlock had alternated between pensively staring at the vials of blood, flipping through the pages of several specific books, and just pacing while he muttered to himself.
The sun's prying rays seemed to urge him to his feet from his seat on his bed and he shuffled outside. Perhaps a breath of fresh air and the meditative stillness of dawn would help ease his speeding, tangled thoughts.
The deep breaths, perfumed with flowers waking and grass catching dewdrops, were quite nice. Merlin matched his breathing with long, slow steps, feeling the earth cradle his foot and watching small ground plants seem to shift to the side of his path. It was all shattered by a high-pitched call of both curiosity and challenge, as if daring the world to deny her an answer.
"Merlin," his steps had altered to move his aching body toward the sound. Again, his body was of a mind separate from his.
The trees thinned into a small clearing, no larger than one room in his home, though it appeared to be unknown. He had only been to it once, but, oddly, no useful plants grew in it or within a few yards' vicinity of it.
The ancient warlock could only barely remember the last time someone had spoken his name, had known his identity, or had called for him. The last memory of responding to such a call was even fainter. But he had gone to it nonetheless, and tried not to sob at the deep sense of familiarity in his soul, despite his knowledge that no such scene had happened like this.
Susetthe stood with a stature that Merlin assumed uncommon for most children, as she faced him squarely. Despite its vacancy, the clearing had only grass, which was beautifully green and uncannily neat. No stray twigs or fallen leaves interrupted it, no animal's previous footsteps tangled the thin blades. Susetthe, meanwhile, stood in a brown dress, the frayed edges contrasting with her light ankles, and a few strands of hair curled around her forehead and cheeks as they escaped from the messy tie at the back of her head. Her shoulders were squared, as thin as they had been the last time, and her expression was an eerie mixture of childish curiosity and wise calculation. Bright eyes wide but never ceasing their movements as she watched everything around her simultaneously, lips in a line, jaw still.
"You're here," she breathed, the wariness melting as the awe once again took over. She had called him, and he came. Merlin felt similar emotion loosen his body as he nodded.