A/N: Been holding off and cross-posting things here due to the influx of spammers in my inbox, but at this point I haven't posted anything recently and they're still coming into my inbox so I'm just gonna post and not care.
Originally written in 2020, edited and shared on AO3 originally, and finally cross-posted here today. Just mostly a one-shot about a few of my old head-canons from then about Ealdor and Merlin's and Hunith's backstories. If I were to write it today, I would change a few things, but eh I don't really care to. I will probably be posting my new versions of The Golden Years here when I write it, but otherwise my old version of fics in this AU are on my AO3 and locked.
Ealdor was a small, simple farming village nestled along the border of the kingdoms of Camelot and Essetir, where life was interminably consistent. Even when going through tumultuous times, it was predictable.
Hunith was the best at the healing arts in the village, since she used to live in Camelot where she'd learned from their court physician for a short time. Most of the time, someone visiting the village who might need medical attention would stay at her place. That's just the way it was.
About magic, well, very few of the nearby villages had any resident sorcerers as most able sorcerers in Essetir were forced into the army. In Camelot just across from them, sorcerers had been more commonplace, though usually the stronger ones went to the city or the Isle of the Blessed. Druids roamed around and were accepted throughout the kingdoms, but they were shrouded in mystery. In general, sorcery was frowned upon in the simple farming life, even if it was legal.
It was shortly after the fields were harvested that life changed.
People poured into the village, begging for help. Countless more fled on by, their cold campfires and the trampled plants the only evidence of their escape. The ones who were brave or desperate enough to come into the village for help were usually injured in some way. It was too much for the village to properly take care of, but they wouldn't turn away the refugees, out of hospitality and out of fear of the strangers forcefully taking from the village.
They were all fleeing from the same thing: Uther. Apparently, King Uther of Camelot had banned magic and anything to do with it, declaring that it had killed the Queen and was pure evil. And so began the Great Purge, which was definitely a tumultuous time.
Diligently, Hunith tried to provide care for everyone that needed it. Thankfully, a few of the sorcerers were healers and were all willing to help out, but it was still overwhelming in the early days.
The refugees often stayed as short as possible before they were once again on their way. While they tried to repay the village in any way that they could, Ealdor quickly adopted a stance to grant the refugees some shelter and medical aid, but no food unless absolutely necessary. Food was scarce enough for them; there were simply too many to feed.
This went on for several weeks. Everyone was exhausted. It seemed like it would never end.
There were only three refugees in the village on the day that Camelot knights came riding in the village, searching and demanding. Truly, they had no right to trespass so, but the old king of Essetir cared little for the villages near the border. The Camelot knights wasted no time asking nicely; they aggressively shoved through the villagers trying to determine if they were hiding any escapees.
Since they had no real authority there, though, the knights left after they failed to find the refugees, who were hiding in the nearby tunnels.
After that there was a steady but declining stream of visitors. Whether that was because there simply weren't many magic users left or because they now avoided Ealdor after the knights' little excursion, the villagers didn't know.
The remaining refugees would help the farmers plant the fields out of gratitude, then move on when ready. By summer, there were no more refugees. None of them had stayed to settle, moving further in either because they had family or because they found shelter elsewhere.
Then came along a man who stayed. He'd shown up injured at Hunith's doorstep just when the villagers thought there would be no more strangers. To the village, he claimed that his name was Robert, but some thought they overheard Hunith call him "Bal" many times. Robert, or "Bal", wasn't exactly skilled at farming, but he helped tremendously with the carpentry, repairing everything that hadn't been done in a long time and even constructing some new buildings. His favorite thing to do, however, was to carve little figurines out of wood. Despite his strange arrival and unknown past, the village accepted that he may actually stay as they watched the love blossom between him and Hunith. It was funny for the villagers to watch, as Hunith had always joked she'd die an old maid.
It was a rainy night in spring, however, that the Camelot knights returned, much more fiercely than the last time. They demanded to know where they were hiding a dragonlord, threatening them.
Well, nobody in the village knew what in the world a dragonlord was, but they had some suspicions. Despite how thoroughly they investigated, the knights found no trace of the wanted man.
Nobody else found any trace of him either.
Trying to pursue the man, the knights left the same day once they concluded that he was not in the village. The villagers put aside the incident for a little while as nobody came to the village, and they focused on supporting Hunith as she seemed heartbroken.
She also seemed to be somewhat sick for quite a while.
Then a few months later, whispers and rumors started circulating. Did it seem to anybody else that Hunith's stomach was growing?
No, some argued. It was just a trick of the eye, this season they had plenty of food, and perhaps she was just finally getting over her sickness and broken heart. Nobody would dishonor the village like that.
However, it soon became apparent that there was no other conclusion. Hunith had gotten pregnant, probably with the missing man's child. Nobody was sure how to feel about that.
The baby was born a few months later in the middle of winter: a blue-eyed boy. He was skinny and lanky but not unhealthily so. She named him Merlin, which the village decided was a fitting name. An odd name for an odd boy; the son of a runaway who was most likely a dragonlord and at least associated with sorcery.
For the first three years of his life, Merlin was rarely seen as he stayed inside Hunith's hut. While the villagers had their opinions that this was not truly healthy for the boy, they also didn't really want the boy to mingle with their children.
His father never returned, and Hunith never got married.
By the time he was four, Merlin was seen sometimes in the village, always trying to be helpful despite being snubbed. Protectively, Hunith tried to keep him as close as possible to her. Even though he was a good-natured kid, whenever he showed any sign of being upset she scooped him up and comforted him.
The villagers thought that she was spoiling him and not disciplining him well enough, and quickly they grew brave enough to tell her so. Hunith just immediately shot back that he was her son and she would raise him however she saw fit to.
Once he turned seven, he became more rambunctious and independent, oftentimes running into the woods when there wasn't work to do (and sometimes when there was). The other kids would pick on him, ganging up on him as much as they could without getting into too much trouble. Merlin would smirk and call them things they didn't understand, then when one kid threw a punch Merlin tried to run away. Sometimes, he didn't immediately succeed, but he still managed to always get away eventually, usually with the kid attacking him tripping on the ground.
When Merlin turned nine, he finally gained a friend. While the kids generally grew less hostile as they grew up and became too busy, there were still plenty that liked to torment Merlin.
Nobody had guessed that Merlin and Will would become good friends, though perhaps it wasn't so much of a shock. Merlin was a relatively good boy, if a bit of a loner with quite a mouth. On the other hand, Will was mischievous, always slacking off and playing pranks on anyone he could, especially since his father was oftentimes off fighting in the army.
Reportedly, their friendship started on a day that Merlin, who was trying to hide away in the woods, reportedly saved Will from drowning in the river, after swimming when he wasn't supposed to be. From then on, they regularly spent time in each other's company. While Will worked harder due to Merlin's influence, he also several times managed to coerce the mild-mannered boy into helping him play pranks, mostly on Old Man Simmons.
Old Man Simmons complained that they once tried to drop a tree on him when they didn't even have any axes on them, but no one really listened to the kooky old man anyway. After Will's father was killed in action, the two boys grew even closer.
By the time Merlin reached his teens, he still wasn't popular in the village by any means, but they had accepted that he was staying and would be part of the village's future. That's the way it was until one day when Merlin was eighteen, when he abruptly left to move to Camelot.
Not much was heard about him, and nobody really missed him except Hunith and Will. A few letters were exchanged between the mother and son, but there wasn't any information that the village cared about in them.
Inevitably, it was harvest time again and Kanen returned, more brutal and demanding than the previous times. They tried to appeal to Cenred, but he ignored them yet again. They discussed what they should do. Should they try to hide with their supplies and hope that Kanen goes away? Should they give him what he asked for and try to make it through winter?
Hunith then informed them that Merlin had become Prince Arthur's manservant, making it at least possible that they could get help from Camelot. While they knew it wasn't likely Uther would actually spare any men, it was worth trying.
They agreed to this plan, and Hunith went on her way to Camelot. They didn't like her traveling all that distance all by herself, but they couldn't spare anyone else.
In the end, Hunith had returned with Merlin and a few of his friends, surprisingly including Prince Arthur. Somehow, Merlin and his band of friends were all the help they needed to drive Kanen away. But there had been some casualties, including Will, who had apparently used sorcery to save them.
As the villagers prepared a funeral for all of the fallen, which were thankfully few, they discussed this new information, admitting that they always thought there was something up with those two boys, only that they thought that Merlin would've been more likely to be a sorcerer due to his father. Not that this necessarily disproved that, as it was convenient that Will died confessing to be a sorcerer right after the prince of Camelot witnessed sorcery.
The next day, the prince whisked Merlin away and they didn't see him until a few years later. Hunith went to visit him in Camelot a couple of times, but he didn't come back to Ealdor. After all, now with Will gone, Merlin's only reason for visiting was his mother, and the prince kept him very busy.
In Ealdor, people passed away, babies were born, and fields were sown and reaped while rebellions were fought and new rulers came to power in Albion.
But the signs of a takeover of Camelot came with the return of one of Merlin's friends, the maid Gwen. She stayed with Hunith for a few weeks, making herself useful in many ways, repairing their tools and clothes and such.
Around the time of Beltane, Merlin and King Arthur arrived as fugitives with two strangers, one clearly injured. They didn't talk to anybody except Hunith and Guinevere.
That night, however, a small army surrounded the village, then plowed through and began to search aggressively. Leading the enemies away from the village, the Camelot group fled for the tunnels. Simultaneously, the village was relieved the enemies left but also hoped that the Camelot group would be alright.
Mere moments later, a dragon, a DRAGON, flew over the village heading directly for the army. They heard its roar and saw the smoke. Almost as swiftly as it came, it left, and all was silent.
A few men ran and discovered that the majority of the enemy had been destroyed by dragonfire.
The villagers suspected that the Camelot knights of Uther's day had never found that dragonlord.
A few weeks later, Merlin returned to check on his mother and told them that King Arthur and his loyal knights had retaken Camelot, and Guinevere was now Queen of Camelot.
Over the next three years, everything once again seemed peaceful. But times of peace seemed always temporary. They heard the witch Morgana was now gathering a Saxon army, trying to overtake Camelot yet again. This time, however, the armies clashed at an ominous place called Camlann. The war was won once and for all as the witch was finally dead.
For a couple months after the victory, little was heard from Camelot; only a couple letters were sent to Hunith that Merlin and his friends were fine.
Seemingly out of the blue, however, a knight of Camelot arrived. He visited Hunith, staying overnight in her hut. She left with him in the morning. Strangely, she returned nearly a week later with a wagon and some other strangers. They moved some of her belongings out of the hut but left quite a bit behind, for whoever would inevitably move in.
Shocking the village, Hunith announced that she was permanently moving to Camelot to be with her son.
Over the next few weeks, the village felt Hunith's absence more keenly than they had Merlin's, but it eventually faded as most things did.
At this point, it really didn't come as a surprise when only a month later after Hunith left one of the young boys ran through the village, yelling, "Camelot has magic! Camelot has magic!"
"Slow down, lad," a farmer tried to calm down the boy, not being his father. "You're not making much sense at all. What did you say?"
The people that overheard surrounded the boy, curious.
"Camelot…" the boy slowed down dramatically, emphasizing, "now allows magic. They don't kill ya for it no more."
"What?!" some exclaimed while others asked the boy, "Are you sure?"
Hesitating, the boy shrugged, "Well, I mean, that's what they said. Why would they lie to me?"
Pushing the boy on his way back to his parents in the field, the adults that had gathered stayed and discussed it.
"Why would Camelot allow magic again?" they speculated.
"And so shortly after Hunith left," one woman pointed out. "That's got to mean something."
"Well, King Arthur is certainly not like his father, he might do it," another said.
"I think that we should wait until we get proof. The boy could have been mistaken," yet another decided.
Reluctantly, they went back about their day, gossiping to any of their neighbors that hadn't heard initially. Before the evening had come, each wondered what the future would bring if Camelot had truly allowed magic back into their kingdom.
Predictably, it wasn't long before the news was officially confirmed. Yes, Camelot had accepted magic nearly 30 years after the infamous Great Purge. But perhaps the more surprising piece of news was that the new Court Sorcerer of Camelot was none other than Merlin, the son of Hunith and a dragonlord, born and raised in their very village.
Old Man Simmons, who was still around somehow, shook his finger and insisted that he always knew something was not quite right with that kid. Some of the once-bullies were slightly embarrassed and shocked upon hearing the news, admitting that they might have been too harsh to Merlin. A few of the young on the cusp of adulthood would keenly watch the sunset. However, most just agreed that it explained his oddness and how he didn't truly belong in the village or the farming life, and then went about their own way again.
It would end up being nearly two decades before Ealdor saw Hunith and Merlin again. Despite the prosperity that came with their grudging acceptance of sorcery, the village had changed little as the next generation flew to the cities at the first opportunity.
With the mother and son traveled a pretty lady and two dark-haired youths. They wore clothes much finer than any of the villagers. They gathered quickly enough that the pretty lady was Merlin's wife, and the children were theirs.
Hunith stayed in the village, catching up with all of her old friends and acquaintances, while Merlin took their companions around and showed them where he grew up.
They left again after a couple days. The village had well grown accustomed to it. Some people never really fit in, after all.