Chapter Text
Ealdor; It was a small village where Hunith had grown up and hoped to raise her child as well when he was born. Then The Sick started had started ,and the village of Ealdor had been burned to the ground by Cenred and his men in an attempt to keep it from spreading. Hunith was fortunate enough to make it out alive, and as far as anyone was aware, no one in that village that fateful day was left standing, and the rotten smell of burning flesh could be smelled miles away, reaching just past the border into Camelot.
Hunith had mourned the loss of her town and the people in it, knowing she was the only one left from the small village. But people dealt with grief differently, and Hunith promised herself, and the man she wished she could have married that she would stay strong, if not for herself and her survival, then for the survival of the precious baby she had cradled in her arms.
She journeyed on foot for ten days into the forest before stumbling upon an old abandoned hut. By the looks of it, whoever had lived there previously hadn’t returned in years and were most likely long gone. It was in a secluded area too close to the Perilous Lands for any kingdom to send a patrol out, and she would most likely never have to worry about uninvited guests showing up at her house.
With that in mind, Hunith decided to get to work on cleaning the place up and making sure it would be a safe place to raise a child. She cleaned constantly when she wasn’t taking care of her baby that she hadn’t even been able to name yet, and once that was done, she moved on to actually making the place liveable. She planted fresh seeds in the run down garden out back, and set up a clothes line near the river where she would be able to wash their clothes and collect water. Hell, if she had the time, she would probably have to teach herself how to fish as well.
Things were going well. She was secluded away from the rest of the world, so she had no clue what was going on within the other kingdoms or had any way to get updated news on the sick, but at least he was safe.
Hunith took down the clothes from the laundry line when she heard a small whine coming from the basket beside her. She knelt down next to it and scooped the baby up into her arms. It was hard to hold him comfortably but she did her best.
“Who’s a good boy,” Hunith cooed, trying to keep him from crying. The baby whimpered but as she continued to coo, eventually gave up on trying to throw a fit and instead decided to give Hunith a small toothless smile.
Hunith bounced the child in her arms and spoke out loud to the baby, although she knew he couldn’t really understand her. “I really need to find you a name, don’t I?”
The baby grabbed onto the finger she held in front of his face and laughed. Hunith smiled softly and wiggled the finger in his hand.
“How about-” a bird whistling a little above them cut her off and Hunith looked up to see a small falcon perched in the tree above them looking down at them. Hunith smiled to herself as she remembered the name of the bird. “What about Merlin?”
The baby laughed and clapped their hands together. “Merlin it is…” Hunith said gently, ruffling his hair fondly while avoiding the start of what she believed to be a set of horns, before laying him gently back into his basket, careful of his extra appendages. “Hello Merlin.”
Not much was known on why The Sick started, and variations of the story had spread but most of the stories led back to the same place, the beginning of it all; The Purge. The story she believed to be the most accurate, and the one she would tell Merlin in the future when he began to ask questions, went as such:
King Uther, the King of Camelot, had been desperate for an heir. In an attempt to gain what he desired he made a deal with a sorceress, uncaring of the consequences. When his heir was born and he lost his wife, he went mad with grief and blamed magic for his own wrongdoings. He claimed magic was an evil and vile thing and decided to purge it from the lands. It took twenty years to complete, but when it was over, the king was finally satisfied.
And then The Sick came, when the god of the Old Religion; The Triple Goddess, decided to punish those who committed such heinous monstrosities against their kind. Humans, whether they hunted sorcerers or not, fell ill with an incurable disease that spread like a wildfire among them, while all magic users seemed to be completely immune.
But the Triple Goddess also blessed them with a gift, which years later would start being known as “hybrids”; all magic users who were born after the purge were born with characteristics of animals and some even mythical creatures, such as Griffins and Unicorns. Some believed that they would be the answer to finding the cure, and some believed they were just another abomination created from the same evil as The Sick.
Hunith knew otherwise. The sweet baby laying in her basket, was far from evil. Merlin with his big blue, oversized, tail and wings. It seemed fitting, what he was. For she knew what her lover was as well. She had a feeling that Merlin would grow up to be the spitting image of his Dragonlord father, although he seemed to have a few more dragon-like traits than him.
She smiled remembering him, and wished that he would’ve been able to meet their son. But fate for whatever reason decided to separate them unfairly, and he didn’t even know that Merlin existed. Her small grew smaller knowing she would never be able to find him herself, and that if one day he went looking for her, would presume her dead upon finding the remnants of her life long home.
What a cruel way to live. Outcast and alone the both of them. Scared to be found by anyone, lest they end up dead at the hands of Uther or really anyone with a vendetta against magic users. Hunith wasn’t a magic user herself, but she would do anything to protect her son.
Anything .