After finishing his evaluation of my integrity Merlin sighed heavily, revealing the weight of his years, and rubbed his temples with his right hand. “You would tempt me with my one weakness…”

“Múinteoir?”

“Don’t trouble yourself, Xakiah. I accept your proposal.” he said slowly.

“Great! Let’s—“ I cut Lerxia off before she could say more by throwing my arm in front of her. “Now what?”

“I asked Merlin to let me in. I didn’t say anything about granting that same privilege to you. Besides…I need you to stand watch outside while I take care of the rest of this matter.”

Lerxia didn’t bother hiding her frustration with my words. “I don’t know who died and made you queen, but last I checked we were supposed to be doing this as a team.”

Letting out a sigh I said, “You mean after standing there all this time…you still don’t see them?”

“See what?!” I pointed out a three precarious areas around Merlin’s house. Each one was a little different in shape and pattern, but all of them were crafted with one thing in mind. “So? What’s so special about a few decorations?”

“Those ‘decorations’ are demon wards, Lerxia. Unless you enjoy the prospect of being purified on the spot…I suggest you stay put out here.” Actually, my real reason for wanting her to stay outside was to maintain my anonymity in the Organization as solid as possible…for the while, anyway. The wards, however, were real and proved to be a perfect cloak to cover my agenda. Whether or not Lerxia suspected as much, she eventually agreed with me and situated herself on the stone patio we were on.

“Don’t hesitate to call if you need back-up, okay?”

Nodding my head I simply responded, “Of course.” After this final exchange with each other Merlin guided me inside.

~*~

“So tell me Múinteoir, why do you have those wards up anyway when most of your…’uninvited guests’ are of a different stock?” I asked after we had situated ourselves at the table with a fresh, steaming pot of tea lying between us.

He chuckled a little before responding. “Old habits are hard to break Xakiah. You of all people should know that.” He had me there, but it wasn’t a bad thing. I returned his chuckle and let him know of this.

“In any case, we do need to get down to business. My current…employers do seem to prefer that we remain punctual.”

“Yes, indeed.” Merlin took one more sip of his tea before he laid his cup down to begin our Q&A session. Taking some time to think about what he was going to say, Merlin’s then said, “As much as I would like to get straight to the point I’m afraid that I’m going to have to take this backwards to fully understand your motives. And don’t try to deny it Xakiah; you’ve never been the type to just simply act without reason.

“With that in mind, let me start with the basics: What have you been doing with yourself since we last met?”

Now I had to do some thinking. How long has it been since I last asked myself that question? “Hmm…nothing aside from what I usually do, I suppose. If you were expecting more than that, I suggest being more specific.”

“Pretend as if I don’t know you for a moment.”

“Very well; for the past decade or so I’ve been busying myself with assassinations, ranging from common folk to nobility and from the harmless to the devastating.”

“Why?”

“Because that was what I was trained to do. Being an assassin is the very core of my existence.”

“Do you believe that?”

My smile grew wide as I responded, “I see no other fate for me, except my eventual and unavoidable death.”

“Hmm…A fate that we all must accept, I suppose.” said Merlin more to himself than to me.

Reflecting on this for a bit, Merlin went on to the next question. “Why did you leave Avalon? You told me once that Avalon was the one place in the universe that you felt at home, so I can’t help but wonder why you found it necessary to leave.”

“I used to think so…you see, Múinteoir, Avalon…just isn’t what it used to be. Not without Arthur.” I didn’t mean to, but the tone I took upon saying that last sentence was full of remorse. I grew irritated at myself for allowing such a moment of weakness so I turned my head away from the old man to look out the window.

“Xakiah, you know as well as I do that in the state Arthur’s in he’ll never come back. That ‘prophecy’ we made about his resurrection is mostly a means to keep his memory alive.”

Without even looking I knew that he was downcast himself about what happened to our fair King but was trying his best to try and sooth me anyway. Meeting his gaze again I responded, “You don’t need to coddle me like a child, Múinteoir. I’m a Nobody, remember? We don’t…feel like you humans do.”

“Perhaps that’s what Ansem and Yin Sid preach, but I know better than that.” Straightening up I listened to his explanation as to what he meant by that. “If Nobodies such as yourself were truly void of emotion then they wouldn’t find themselves capable of having goals and ideals, let alone the drive to continue forward into the unknown.”

Leave it to Múinteoir to be the only one amongst the elders to have an opposing opinion. “If that be the case, then why do you suppose Ansem the Wise and Yin Sid have said such things?”

Getting up out of his chair Merlin began to slowly pace alongside his ancient bookshelf, and assumed the tone of the wise scholar that he was. “Sadly the answer to this is a pattern found throughout history: when one group of people comes across another group of people that they’re not familiar with and are void of the willingness to be open-minded, the end result is that of fear. From that fear spawns an unjustified sense of arrogance for their own way of life, and from that arrogance comes the notion that anyone—no, anything—else that defies the ‘natural order’ must be beaten into submission. The problem with doing that directly though is that they still identify the other party as being just as human as they are, and are thus bound by the laws of man to refrain from such brutality. It’s not long after bearing that feeling of helplessness that it manifests itself in the form of verbal abuse and segregation. Eventually the original restraint is forgotten because by then the majority of the people from the ‘superior’ group have labeled the other group as ‘inferior,’ ‘uncivilized,’ and ‘incompetent.’ In extreme cases, which unfortunately happen often, they begin to label these people as ‘less than human’ and thus ‘deserving’ of any and all abuse that follows. What makes the situation with Nobodies rather precarious is the fact that, since you lack a heart, you cannot be considered human. However, let’s not forget the man who came up with that title for your lot in the first place.