Already Familiar {Merlin}

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It had been months.

Months where things had changed. Rene wasn't just thinking about her longer hair or the marks of near misses on her body. Nor was she particularly thinking about her "home" at all. instead, she was thinking about her friends, and about this place in particular. The school seemed different. Some of her friends seemed different. Which meant that things were.... different.

Rene suspected magic.

When she suspected magic, there was always one person in particular she could go to, one person who was always there to help her figure things out. He'd always been just a step ahead of her in magical studies as it was, and surely after several more months, he had to be all kinds of impressive. Plus, if Rene was being wholly honest, she wanted to know what she'd missed, what was going on in her friends' lives. This seemed like a good way of handling two birds with one stone.

"Here's hoping I don't look too different," muttered Rene. She reached for a table ornament, playing lightly with it. A few muttered words, and it was glowing softly. some things, you just never forget.

The sound of footsteps approaching drew Rene's attention. She looked up from the table. Blinked. Smiled. And slowly rose.

"Merlin!" she cried. Within moments, the scrawny wizard boy would find himself wrapped up in a hug, whether he wanted one or not. "It's been so long! I--"

Rene let herself get caught up, emotionally, words choking. The hug would just have to do. For the moment.

[Merlin Emrys]

It was a good job that Merlin had gotten used to being round girls and expected Rene to throw herself at him as soon as they saw each other again after all this time, so he managed to brace himself in time to catch her and hug back, rather than clumsily falling over like he might have if taken by surprise.
In truth, he was glad to see her as well, so it was a few minutes of tight hugging before he was ready to speak as well.

"I've missed you." He started simple, hugging her a little tighter "I think we've got a lot to talk about."
He couldn't even remember what had happened the last time they'd spoken, what Rene know about how his life had been going, what had been happening to Rene herself - which he definitely wanted to know.

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Rene apparently didn't quite want to let Merlin go just yet, but instead stood there and hugged her friend, even giving him a reassuring squeeze. It was real. She was back here, and there was her friend. And apparently nothing magical had messed with his brain. If he had gotten married though, well, Rene was likely to kill him.

"It has been way too long," said Rene. She sighed and finally released Merlin, smiling at him. "I had to go back home. Someone tried to kill Kazul, and, well," Rene's smile looked a little sad, "she needed help. She's fine though. We both are," though Rene had a few more scars to show for it, thanks to some nasty close calls.

She sighed and stepped back, moving to the table. Rene waved for Merlin to take a seat before plunking down in a chair. A few shifts to get comfortable, and she was looking at her old friend with alarming intensity.

"What's the most important thing I need to know about what happened?" she asked point blank. No need to bandy words, not with Merlin.

[Merlin Emrys]

"Kill Kazul!?" Merlin's eyes widened. He didn't exactly get on with Kilgharrah, but he knew he'd be the first in line to try and help if somebody tried to kill him, and he knew that Rene actually was quite close with the dragon that she knew back home, so he was very glad to hear that things had gone well and that they were both fine. "It's good she's ok, and you."

"The most important?" He repeated, sitting down as well with a thoughtful expression "Well, between more Apollo, more Arthur drama, the wedding, and whatever's going on here." he waved a hand to indicate the general world "I'm not sure where to start."
Then he realised he'd mentioned the wedding. The wedding that she probably shouldn't know about from him... he really, really hoped she either didn't ask, or already knew.

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Rene nodded. The assassination attempt had surprised even her. Kazul was actually fairly popular with most of her neighbors, since she actually did something among her people. That and she had a fairly tolerant policy, which Rene tried to help enforce when she could. Probably part of the reason why Kazul had nudged Rene toward her particular field of study.

"If you're talking about Marian's and Robin's wedding, you can skip that," said Rene, smiling. "She told me herself. I wouldn't want to be them when Wil gets ahold of them... whatever happened to her." A mystery for later, and one that Rene was as determined to solve as any. "And if you've fallen in with Apollo again, I think you can guess what I'm going to say," a slightly hard look there, before it dashed off for a smile's cue. "Sounds like you'd better start with Arthur. What is going on with him? We're due to work together for student council, but nobody's announced a meeting yet..."

Something they really should get on. Rene was still busy fitting in and getting back into the groove though. She couldn't quite remember the name of the "real" president, but she was confident that he could actually do it. It wasn't Arthur, was it? You'd think she'd remember something like that.

Regardless, Rene leaned back now, all smiles and encouraging looks, obviously wanting to hear exactly what she'd missed with Arthur in the intervening months.

[Merlin Emrys]

It wasn't deliberate, but the relief on Merlin's face when Rene revealed she knew about the wedding was very obvious. He quickly changed the subject, though, not wanting to dwell on it. She was smiling, but he still didn't want her to have to think about it for any longer than was necessary.

"Oh so you do know all about Apollo? I couldn't remember what had happened when you left, so much goes on in this place it's hard to keep track." he admitted, and speaking of dwelling, he definitely did not want to dwell on that sordid story if he could help it. "Arthur... well, nothing unusual, he's been pretty stressed with his dad around I think, but Uther's gone back to Camelot for now so he can relax again. Mostly he's just being... well, Arthur."

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Rene's eyebrows bounced up for a moment. this sounded something like news. Uther had gone home... and Rene hadn't even really gotten a chance to confront him about anything. why had he even bothered to come here? Just to scare everyone, make them nervous? Rene nearly rolled her eyes at the thought.

"Good riddance to Uther," she said. "As for Apollo," her smile slid, "last I knew, he'd taken advantage of you a few times. Essentially he treated you like a child's toy, playing with you till he got bored and moved on. It certainly did not sound like a productive, happy relationship."

Because Rene was clearly an expert on those, what with her super-awesome track record on such things. she shifted. Chips, fries, whatever you called them, they had finally arrived, at least giving Rene something to do with her hands while she pondered each piece of new information. That was one thing that she had certainly missed while she was gone, and something that she hadn't been able to quite recreate.

"It's good that Arthur's back to being himself. there were times there..." she trailed off, half tempted to wave her hand. Instead she munched on a chip. "But what about your relationship with him? Has anything come with that, or are you still washing socks?"

[Merlin Emrys]

"It wasn't a few times!" Merlin protested, foregoing agreeing with her Uther statement to rectify the slight against his honour "He was perfectly lovely to me, until he'd got what he wanted, and then he left."
Admittedly she was definitely right and he knew it, it hadn't been a productive, happy relationship, and Apollo had just been playing, but the way she phrased it made it sound even worse, and he didn't need to think about that situation in any worse a light than he already did.

"My relationship with Arthur?" He repeated after a moment, his tone a little calmer and the tiniest bit apologetic, he hadn't meant to snap at her, however unaggressive it may have been. "It's just how it's always been, or, well, we're friends but I'm still his manservant." He didn't say it in a particularly depressed tone, in fact he seemed quite happy with that version of events.