Wapun Meadow New is always better

- Break a leg! - 
- Bugger off, wizard boy! -
- See you, Ugly Maw! - 
- Love you too, guys! - 

He replayed the heartfelt farewells from the ragtag band that he had been his family for the past few months. The young man missed his comrades, their antics and jokes, which bordered on rudeness, their thirst for life and fearlessness. Among those weathered men of various ages and backgrounds he had found that sense of fitting in that he had not had either with Mahler's wolves, or with Quellcrist, who he had lost track of maybe a couple of weeks after following her out and away from the wilds. They had been his mentors and friends, helped him heal and given an opportunity to move on. They had not questioned about his past life, because for many of them there was none to return to, and that's, what they had taught Elfie: not to live in the past, but start anew. Especially, if that past was so hard to reach. 

He had gained nickname "Merlin", because he had been deemed weird by the rest, and later on he had liked it so much that he had adopted it as his name. New was always better, right? And, what way was better than to let go of his past, cut ties to it entirely, let it lie in the dusty shelves of his patched up memory, where it belonged, and not allow it to interfere with this new present he had forged out for himself. And after a while he had begun to wonder, what if he could create a new life right, where he had left the old one? The Marauders as they called themselves did not object to people coming and going - they were not a pack in the classical sense. For many they were just a temporary solution, a stop along the way. And if it did not work out as well, one could always find them and become part of the group again. 

So on the day, when they happened to be in the vicinity of lands Merlin recognized dimly, he knew that the time had come for him to set out on his own. They exchanged the necessary pleasantries and then their paths parted. The group of bachelors travelled one way and Merlin began his journey northwards. And here he was now, having stopped in his tracks in the middle of a meadow, watching the towering mountain range to his left, thinking, wondering.