Merlin Headcanons

Increments

 WARNINGS: Contains a lot of implied violence and some torture. It's probably not any worse than anything you've seen so far, but since at least one person seemed in need of some brain bleach after the scientist talked about wanting to dissect Merlin, I thought I should probably include this. If you think it'll be a problem, just skip the section where Arthur's thirty years old.

. . . . .

Arthur is newly born. He is too young to understand why the whole castle is in an uproar and soon the whole kingdom will be. He doesn't know that Nimueh disappeared in a flash of light after Uther charged her with a spear, and he doesn't know that the family she didn't have time to take with her was slaughtered and that their blood is even now being scrubbed from the floor by terrified maids.

He is too young to form a lasting memory of the bearded man that holds and rocks him gently while the dragonlord's brothers, some in power and some in blood, talk to him in worried voices. He is too young to know why the wetnurse who makes the mobile above him spin without touching it bites her lip and flees when his father comes in and roars.

He is too young to know that his birth has started a war.

. . . . .

Arthur is five years old. He does not recognize the man in the courtyard with the dragon, but the man recognizes him and smiles. The man is weary and scarred but hopeful, because he could never help but believe the best of his old friend.

Someone hurries Arthur away, but he hears the roars of the dragon later and the screams.

He has become almost used to the screams. He has heard so many of them in his short life. He does not remember a time when executions were rare and pyres unheard of. He does not remember a time when the people in the lower town didn't eye their neighbors with nervous suspicion and anything reflective with guilt. He does not remember a time when the citadel was happy and a good deal more filled with people than it is now.

He does, however, remember the hideous wounds on the men who are brought back to Gaius for healing after they come back from the front lines of fighting for the Isle of the Blessed. He never thinks to wonder if Gaius has always looked so weary and defensive.

His father announces later that the war is all but won.

Arthur wonders if that means his father will have time for him now. He hopes it does.

. . . . .

Arthur is ten. He has started training with weapons, and he is determined to be good at it, the very best. He will make his father proud.

He is starting to learn to hide his emotions, his loneliness and desperate need for his father's love. It is not fitting for a man to show these things, he's told, and he wants to be a man.

His father has no time for children, but he speaks to his men.

It is better to be proud, he learns. He is the prince. The world is his for the taking.

But he dreams of screams sometimes, and he doesn't know why.

. . . . .

He is fifteen now, and he has made his father proud. He should feel better about this. He has destroyed a druid encampment, and his father is proud.

His father doesn't know how he froze up, though. His father didn't see the children -

But they were just magic users. They didn't matter. They weren't real people.

He accepts the praise that comes his way and ignores the dreams.

Morgana is there now. He doesn't like her very much. She always gives him this look, and it makes his nightmares worse.