HC: Merlin’s perception of the world as he grows up.
When Merlin was 4, he thought the world was wide and big and consisted entirely of a small town called Ealdor. By the time he turned 7, enough foreigners had walked through to make him understand the world was a bit bigger than that; it had hills and lakes and kings who never visited and thought magic was bad.
At age 12, Merlin thought the world could be as big or as small as it goddamn pleased. All he needed was right there in Ealdor, including his mum and his best friend. The town was big enough for the quiet life he was meant to have, and he was happy with that.
Merlin turned 16 on a cold morning, and stayed home because villagers had seen a patrol nearby the day before. They had destroyed a druid village and taken those who hadn’t been killed hostage. So he stayed home, cried, and distracted himself through the menial tasks of cooking and cleaning. The world was big, there had to be somewhere he could go and be himself, no need to hide his magic. Suddenly, Ealdor was no longer big enough.
The first time Merlin walked into Camelot, he was 18 and desperate for some freedom, some proof that there was more in life than the small village he’d left behind. At 19, he’d walked more paths than he had ever expected, travelled most of Camelot (and ocassionally, a bit further than that) with Arthur by his side. At 20, he realised the world was a lot, lot bigger than he’d originally expected. It was a pleasant surprise.
At 21, Merlin revised his definition of WORLD, and decided that it had blue eyes, a royal title, and was somehow both impossibly big and impossibly small. It didn’t really matter; the world could be as big or as small as it goddamn pleased as long as he could stay by Arthur’s side.
The World died in Merlin’s arms. Merlin was days shy of 27.
By the time he turned 40, he’d decided once again that the world was big and needed him to explore it. When he turned 139, he had lived in two continents and spoke six languages. At 568, he’d had more names than he could count and lost more people than he could properly remember.He had just turned 832 when he realized the world was much, much smaller than he’d originally expected. It was certainly not big enough to run away from the sadness that was still chasing him.
Merlin doesn’t know how old he is. Somewhere around fifteen centuries, he thinks. The Earth is still too small, and the World still hasn’t come back.
Sometimes he wonders if it ever will.