A/N: Warnings for a lot of darkness and contemplation of both murder and . . . kinslaying, for lack of a better word.
Ealdor used to have a meeting hall.
Hunith didn't remember it well. She had been very young when they were plagued by a group of raiders season after season and some of the men had gathered there to argue about what to do.
The raiders had come again that very night. They'd barred the door and then had lit the place on fire.
Hunith's father had been in there. Hunith had run towards the flames to try to get him out.
Hunith's mother had caught her back. "It's too late," she sobbed, "it's too late."
It hadn't been too late though, Hunith had still heard screams -
She had broken free and had run towards the fire. She'd reached the door and started tugging at it when the sparks had caught her dress and set her alight.
Hunith used to have a father.
Now she had scars hidden under her dress and a tendency to flinch back from flames.
Balinor flinched from the flames too. He spoke of them, sometimes. Spoke of how greedily they'd devoured his kin. Spoke of the screams that had choked the air more than the smoke. Spoke of the pain he'd felt when he'd tried and failed to pull someone off a pyre.
She felt a kinship with that, and she loved the way that he didn't flinch when she rolled up her sleeves and the scars shone. Instead he pulled her close and whispered that she was brave.
She felt brave when she stood with him like that. When she gave shelter when no one else would. When she learned she had a fugitive in her house and let him stay anyway.
When the knights came looking, she didn't feel brave anymore.
"I have to go," Balinor said with panic stricken eyes. "You're not safe if I stay."
Where will you go? What will you do? What kind of life can you possibly find away from here?
I'm pregnant with your child.
The words caught in her lungs like smoke, and she just nodded.
Being in love was a wonderful thing, but she would never understand anyone who compared it to the strength of the flames.
Her baby was born with eyes that burned like fire.
She raised him as best she could anyway. She taught him to keep the magic hidden. She taught him to be careful. To be cautious. To be safe.
To stay far, far away from the fire.
Merlin learned his letter. He learned how to tend the crops. He learned how to run fast and far.
But he never learned how to keep his magic pressed down.
Every year, more stories poured into the village. Drownings. Beheadings. Slavers.
And whole families burned for the magic of one.
Merlin burned his hand once, and Hunith wept over it, because she'd known from the beginning that her baby was destined for the flames.
Will found out when Merlin burned the chicken coop down, and Hunith wasn't sure which part was worse: that someone knew, or that Merlin was setting fires of his own now, and that both news and magic were entirely out of control.
If Merlin stayed, then either the village would find out and burn them both or Merlin would set their hut alight in his sleep and burn them both anyway.
Hunith tried for a week to think of something to do, and then tried for another when the answer came to her because the answer was too awful to contemplate.
Hunith was willing to die for her son. The thought frightened her - she didn't want to die - but she could do it. If Merlin was tied to a pyre, then she could fling herself at it to drag him down.
But to wait for the flames. To sit, always dreading. To know that there was no escape, no matter what she did. To know one day she might have to watch him writhe and know her turn was next -
Hunith did not feel brave.
She gathered herbs from the woods and looked at them. It would be easy, so easy, to slip some into the stew. They could eat and go to bed, and that would be the end of the matter. They'd both escape the flames that seemed to be their fate.
Then Merlin came in laughing, and she couldn't do it. She couldn't. She couldn't watch her baby die.
Hunith found out when two weeks were passed that she couldn't think of another answer, and Hunith wasn't sure which part was worse: that she was forcing Gaius to take her spot on the pyre, or that she was sending her son to Camelot, knowing it was only a matter of time before he was burned at the stake.
She had a special place under the mattress that she kept a small sack.
In the sack was a stack of writing paper, carefully rationed, a tiny pot of ink, and a lone quill. There was also a stack of letters received from Gaius and her son.
She answered all letters immediately, filling up a page with all the village news she could think of. She treasured their words.
But the first thing she always checked was the handwriting.
Because one day, Gaius would send a letter, and Merlin would not be able to, or they would both be unable and she would only be able to pray that someone would think to send notice to her.
When that happened, she would get out the second pouch she kept under her mattress, and she would finally make that stew she'd considered long ago.
She dreamed of a world where she only had one sack under her bed, and when she woke, she wept until her eyes burned like flame.
