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The first time she experienced heartbreak she had been three years old and her little lip trembled as fat crocodile tears painted her cheeks. Her favorite stuffed animal, a penguin named Mr. Pete, had been stolen by a villager’s dog. The stuffing strewn across several yards might as well have been body parts to her little mind. The loss of her first friend had shattered her little world. A hurt that Merlin had wanted to soothe but at the command of her mother he refrained. It is a hard lesson but sometimes we lose the things we love, and they can’t be brought back or replaced. She didn’t remember her mom saying those words, but Merlin had let it slip years later during one of his episodes. If she had remembered than maybe what came later would have made much more sense.
Her second heartbreak happened at the tender age of five. Her Papa, a fierce advocate for the rights of magic users, was slaughtered in a government sanctioned show of brute force during a peaceful protest. The far-right government had claimed the protestors were rioting, causing property damage, and creating possibility for bodily harm to the public. They had met the protestors with cold iron bullets, cold iron shackles, and brute force. She had witnessed her father’s body being returned to their village. She hadn’t known it was him until she saw him necklace. A small intricate locket that held a picture of her smiling face. His face was puffy, blood had dried on his face and clothes. His shirt torn with six little round holes that at the time she hadn’t recognized. She remembered her mom screaming, a noise that sounded more akin to the sound of a wailing ghost. The way she had collapsed by her father’s side and how she wouldn’t look at him even as sobs wracked her body. She remembered her grandmother and merlin trying to approach her mother, but their attempts were rebuffed with her mother’s uncontrolled magic. Instead her gran had turned away and caught sight of her granddaughter’s figure watching the entire spectacle. She remembered her Gran’s eyes had been so sad and filled with tears. It would take months before she really grasped that her father was gone and for the first time in a long time she would remember Mr. Pete.
Her mother had tried. She really had at least that’s what Mya told herself. However, no matter how hard Ingrid had tried, she just couldn’t stay. She had never been content with the idea of having her destiny dictated by a dead woman in a lake. She had always wanted to go and explore the world. Which in of itself would have been perfectly fine but Ingrid wanted to explore and never come back home. In the long line of women who had heeded the gwraig mewn llyn’s orders, to guard Emrys, to keep him from falling too far, from sinking to deeply into his own memory filled mind, she was the first one to disobey. Mya had the misfortune of resembling her father…. from her smile to the way she rubbed her eyes when she became sleepy. This resemblance often caused her mother to avoid her only child. A child that was a painful reminder of who had been taken from her. By the time Mya reached seven years old her day to day care was managed by her grandmother and much of Mya’s free time was spent in Merlin’s lab under his watchful eye. It hadn’t surprised anyone except perhaps Emrys himself when Ingrid packed her things and left. Her last words to all of them had left their scars on each of their hearts. I forsake my duty as given to be by the gwraig mewn llyn. Upon the death of my mother, it is my daughter who will take her place as his shadow. I cannot be a protector, a companion, a dutiful daughter, or a loving mother. I am of no use here where even the sight of my child brings the vile taste of bitterness to my throat. It had been the most professional she had ever heard her mother. It was like she had practiced the words many times before she spoke them. As she watched her mother leave the safety of the village gates her little heart broke again. Mya, not for the first time wondered why it hurt so much to love another person.
Her grandmother, or Gran as she called her, raised her the best way she knew. She taught her much about the old ways and the duty that was expected of each new generation. Her gran had been keen on emphasizing that just because they were to keep Emrys company did not mean they could not live their own lives. They called it duty but really it was a choice. Little Mya was sixteen before she really understood what that meant. At the age of ten however, her gran waxing poetic about the honor of serving another was lost on her inquisitive mind. Before she knew it, her thoughts had wandered, and she had accidently set Merlin’s chair on fire while he was sitting in it. That stunt had ended up with her grounded and writing an essay about the Burning Times. She had nightmares for ages afterwards. It was a little before her eleventh birthday when her Gran’s frail body finally succumbed to age. It was then in a house both old and new that she felt truly adrift. Her last remaining family member had left her, and she didn’t think her heart would ever mend again. It was after the funeral services and her grandmother had been laid to rest that she felt Merlin’s presence join her on the ground in front of the grave. His knee brushed her but otherwise he did not initiate any contact, he didn’t offer platitudes, he didn’t ask for comfort for having lost another friend. Instead he sat there and with her in the silence. His presence acting as a balm to an open wound. He was steady in the treacherous sea that was her mind and heart. A life preserver in the hands of drowning victim. She did not have her father. She did not have her mother. She did not have her Gran. However, she did have Merlin and maybe, she thought, that could be enough for now.