I had a merthur fic idea that it's keeping me awake at night and I just had to write it down (METHUR PROMPT)
OK, so hear me out. What if merlin after having lived 1500+ years has forgot Camelot?
Like not the idea of Camelot, he knows what happened and knows it's true, but like the specifics are blurry. He suddenly can't remember how did the castle looked, or what was the name of the cook, things that, to him made all of the experience, personal. But it gets worse, he can't remember the face of his mother, or Gaius's voice, he can't remember Arthur, so he panics.
He has had SO MUCH TIME, and so he has studied a lot about his magic, most of it through trial and error and personal experimentation, because most of the magics in the world have already vanished, so he tries to create a new spell, to make himself remember, fearing that he won't recognize Arthur when he came back.
This new spell is meant to help him remember, relive if you will, the memories that he lost. He pours every bit of knowledge into this project, practicing with very advance Alzheimer patients (because of course Merlin is a doctor, and a chemist, and a profesor... he has had time alright) and he makes a lot of progress. He spends years into this, but the progress is too little, he can make an Alzheimer patient remember up to 10 years in the best of the cases, but he has lived thousands, 10 years was virtually nothing.
Frustrated, and honestly more than a little drunk, and sad, he decides to wing it, he shouts the spell sobbing and uses all of the magic that he can, begs the gods to listen and he also threatens them for good mesure and then he passes out.
Basically he time travels, but he DOES NOT KNOW THAT. He thinks the spells work so fantastically he is having a really fucking amazing lucid dream of sorts, he doesn't remember the specifics so he can't know that he is not exactly following his original steps.
So we have a homesick Merlin running around Camelot, way to happy just to be there and maybe a bit high on magic (because of course in the past there's so much more magic than he's grown used to with the years).
Obviously shenanigans ensue, a 21 century mind in a medieval setting, a wizard that is used to using his powers regularly because nobody believed in magic anyways, a doctor with modern techniques, a slightly shortsighted profesor who is use to wearing reading glasses, a lovesick idiot who forgot the face of his first and most true love... He does something (I am yet to figure that part out) and make a big change in the course of the events and finally finds out that he timetraveled and that he is probably fucking up history for good, and tries to fix it maybe.
That's basically the basis of the idea, I think there a lot of possibilities this could go and I really love it. I wanted to write it here so if anybody wanted to write something with this idea or expand on it it could be fun
English is not my first language so im sorry if I made a mistake. Pls let me know what you think about it. I might expand this with more head canons later.
Head canons about this idea:
Merlin has had a ton of time to specialize in any field that he thinks it might be helpful to Arthur, to complement his skills but not overlap, so he knows medicine, chemistry and physics, a bit of computer engineering but not much, and so much history. But honestly he never dived into politics or strategies much, he truly found those subjects boring as hell and know that whenever Arthur came back all of the things he'd managed tu understand would be useless in comparison.
Merlin has grown out of tags, he never really understood the necessity to mark and identify yourself to the public, this in every regard but specially in terms of gender and sexual orientation, he is old and one of a kind anyway so no tag could ever describe him. He knows what he is and what he likes, and that's enough for him. This however does not mean he disregard the fight of the people that need this distinctions and tags to feel represented and identified. He will fight wherever there's injustice.
He works through cycles:
First he is productive, he spends a couple decades focusing, incredibly busy in one topic.
Then he stops abruptly, and is overwhelmed by the loneliness and hopelessness, the doubts are too much so he relax in his research and tries to socialize to fill the gaps in his life previously full only with hope and determination, then he has friends, an life, is never fully happy but its content, and calming, that he can still live with out Arthur if he never were to come back.
Then inevitably everyone stars to fall apart, they get their spouses, their lovers, their live and they start to notice that merlin has been really young a lot of time, and once the suspicion arises is very difficult to erase it.
So he leaves most of those times, change places, sometimes even countries and plan to start again. But before he can do that he goes to Avalon and has a good cry, and maybe a decade-long-depresive-episode (if they gave him a nickel every time this has happened he'd had 2 nickels, which isn't much but is weird that it happened twice right?)
Then he decides a new field, or an old one it really doesn't matter, and starts again, hyperfocsing to not think in the possibilities.
Trough out the years when big wars where happening, conflict, injustice, he'd always stopped and came back to Avalon but nothing ever happened.
He has had a handful of lovers, not more than ten, and most of them in the last century, given the fact that he feels more lonely than ever.
Merlin is the only of his kind, as far as he knows (and he has searched, believe him) magic is no longer. There's still magic, because everything is made with it, it's a primordial part of existence, but is no longer running free. He discovered that since Arthur death really magic's been retreating it self to nature, to protect it from the harmful ways that the human kind were developing. And now it can only be found in sacred places, protecting like a shield close to nature or in places never touched but human kind, but never free, never like before.
About his magic. Like anything Merlin will never tell that he's fully controlled, but he definitely controls it better than he ever could, one of the first thing he did after Camelot was to hide in a cave, he didn't really know how much time he was there, but he really didn`t wanna know either so. He studied the books on magic the could rescue, and steal. He focused on understanding the magic and how it worked, how did the spells and potions worked, and why he could do magic with out them. So now he pretty much knows anything magic, or at least most of it. He wrote all of his findings in a few tomes (37) that he keeps close whenever he moves.
He has tried to end it, several times. He discovered his immortality there and that developed in a desperate attempt to prove it wrong, he spend a couple of years actively trying to die in witch trials. No luck, I think. Now he has a mind of his own, not that clouded by grief, loneliness and probably drugs (it was a fuzzy time) and knows that thats not the best solution, also he is kind of afraid to stay dead and never see Arthur again because of a scare in his last attempt.
HE CAN MAKE HIMSELF OLD. but its not natural for him, meaning he can't "let himself grow old" he just can take a potion to imitate the look of someone older, and this changes is usually to sudden to be believable. He has had several life times where he presented himself in a different age from the beginning, or even a different person entirely, but its a considerable pain in the ass, so he is mostly stayed the same. Its a bit embarrassing to say, but he has to admit that looking like a young white man, generally is the easiest way to go.
this relate to merlin before the time travel, so we have a supero powerful warlock, really smart and terribly sad and touch starved, What could possibly go wrong?
Lucid dream theory pt3, because I kinda liked that title:
(This is a bit more of my personal version, meaning how I would write the story you are all free to take whatever you feel to make your version if you want :))
When I say time traveled... I kinda like the idea of a Hot Merlin™ going back, and eventually try to gaslight the sudden changes in his appearance, but I think the easier way it would be that his soul went back into his young body.
He went back into a time where Arthur was recently crowned, but Lancelot was still alive, because I don't like Uther and I want him to die, basically the whole Dorocha thing happens later, so Merlin can save Lacelot, that's how he finds out that his definitely not dreaming.
He arrives while the time-appropriate-Merlin was dealing with a magical threat to Camelot in the north woods, which I just made up because it sounded nice.
And when he arrives the change its overwhelming and he is bursting with energy and magic, he is practically out of his mind, the magic is everywhere free and liberating, an its so so much. He magics up a storm so strong that it's visible from everywhere, so specifically localized that it CAN´T be natural so obviously reports arrive to the king that something its happening.
After the explosion he promptly passes out, and stays sleeping for another 3 days.
When he wakes up he's still groggy. Around him flowers and flora of all kind has grown to protecting him and several animals were resting surrounding him to make him company, basically he was a Disney princess.
He has a hard time focusing still, he is confused and properly high, he sees thing almost triple and the magic in the air is so pure it tickles his skin. His fingers previously numb feel everything tenfold so he walks through the forest with out real destination because he does not remember where Camelot is and don't really understand where he is anyway, touching everything and maybe licked more than one tree.
He bumps into people an places in his way, they are struggling and Merlin just want to help, so the crops suddenly grown without problems, the elders suddenly feels way better in their pains, and the sick are starting to get miraculously better wherever he goes, he spends another couple of days like this, slowly coming back to his senses. Having forgotten why the hell was he there in the first place.
By then, the court of Camelot its a disaster.
Merlin's been missing for almost 2 weeks and Gaius is worried but can't let it show.
Arthur's been grumpy and short tempered, with everyone. Because his manservant decided to take a vacation without noticing anybody.
But also secretly worried, because it's not normal for Merlin to be gone for so long.
And on top of everything he's been fucking busy: first a beast on the north woods eating livestock, then sudden reports of an ominous storm that looks like a magical thread, probably related to Morgana?, then a ton of reports of a sorcerer freely going on and about doing magic in his kingdom like it's not punishable by death, not to speak of the 3 letters from other kingdoms waiting for a reply in his desk and the treasury reports and MERLIN IS STILL MISSING.
Gaius is lying to him about merlin and he knows it but, even if he wanted to pry for the truth he couldn't possibly leave his kingdom to find him.
So he does what he can, he send the knights to investigate and report back, not engage in case it's a trap.
Part 4 I believe, of the lucid-dream-allucination-but-it's-actually-time-travel- AU(?)
Gaius manages to stay calm to wash Merlin up and to check on him to make sure there's nothing wrong with him (physically), and put him to rest in his room. And the breaks down, he honestly thought that this one might be the one. The one time where Merlin goes to defend the kingdom and her king, and does not comeback.
Lately keeping the secret that made sure he was not to be killed immediately was sitting heavier and heavier on Merlin's chest, ever since Arthur's crowning, and he had told Gaius so. He had asked for Gaius's opinion on the matter and had promptly closed up when Gaius said that he hadn't changed his mind.
Obviously the matter of the death of the former king and Merlin involvement in the issue were the main problem now but he didn't think that helped Merlin's mood.
Gaius felt wrong but he honestly didn't know what to do. He remember the worst of the Purge, he remember watching his friends die one after the other and that couldn't happen to Merlin.
When he had informed Merlin that the livestock attacks report that they were receiving were likely from magical creature Merlin just stood up and walked to the door, saying goodbye to Gaius lightly. Like a routine, like he had just assumed that this was gonna be his life, moving in the shadows, protecting his friends from danger by putting himself in danger, and protecting himself from his friends, and everybody really, without help, alone.
By the third day Gaius was cold with worry, he feared that the beast bested Merlin and nobody, not even himself knew where to find him. So he told Lancelot.
It was unusual to involve Lancelot in anything since his knighting ceremony, even if Lancelot really wanted to help, Merlin didn't want to divide his friends loyalties.
He had been distancing himself, from everybody, and nobody actually noticed until he disappeared forcing his friends to remember the last time that he actually spent time with them.
Lancelot changed his patrol routes subtly, and then not so subtly went looking for him in his free time. He couldn't really tell everybody until he was sure that Merlin wasn't caught red-handed, the last thing he needed it's to be found and rescued from a dire situation just to be executed. He didn't have to wait much tho, because Gwaine wasn't as patient.
He loudly demanded Arthur for a explanation on Merlins absence, and when Arthur answered with Merlin's alcohol problem, well... Gwaine laughed a lot... Lancelot tried to buffer, to delay, to stop, but in the end he too was worried for his friend, so he asked too.
And once Arthur was convinced, well nothing could stop him. In the end Lancelot had to search for Merlin while throwing everyone else off the right path.
And Gaius had no better idea than make Merlin look like a mess, in Arthur's eye. Lancelot suspected the overcompensation was not working like Gaius wanted.
Gaius spent all that day besides Merlin. He could do it's thank him for coming home.
Once Arthur received word that Merlin was in Camelot he had to give notice to the knights to stop the search, word to the council that was already on his back for calling the search in the first place.
Then he was nervous which was weird. Gwen told him the news excited, and then Lancelot came to report them. So it was confirmed. He been busy, and everybody else seem to have lost hope, so he was unprepared.
He ought to stop everything and barge into Gaius's workshop, demanding explanation. But that made him feel anxious. He knew, because of Lancelot's report that Merlin was not fine, nobody knew exactly what it was or why, not yet anyway. And Arthur felt... guilty.
Even when Gwaine insisted that something was wrong, even when he knew that Gaius's stories didn't really match, even when Lancelot raised up his worries, he stubbornly denied help.
And everyday that passed since then weighted heavy in his conscience, what if he was ill, or hurt, or lost, or dead, and he denied help.
So he delayed the visit as much as he could.
I don't really know when, but I really want this to happen at some point:
Merlin was no chef
He knew how to feed himself, and with time even the worst cook in history improves, so Merlin actually learns how to cook properly.
He becomes picky about certain things, because the food quality worsen with time, he usually makes all of his food himself.
Not to mention that he had lived like a hermit in the woods for almost half of his life, yes, he used a lot his magic, but that doesn't really matter.
HE NEEDS LASAGNA
He understands that there's things he can not get in Camelot, not a big loss most of the time (except for pipes systems) but he is just craving a good Lasagna bolognese.
the cook, actually chase him off with a broom when she sees him in the kitchens.
but eventually she agrees to a deal: if he gets all of the ingredients, uses the kitchen when everybody is asleep, and cleans after he can do whatever he wants there
This ingredients mission was definitely easier said than done. He forgot that he actually needs to grind the flour, kill the meat, and not all the spices are available, not all the greens are in season, or even considered, or the right kind, and HE DOESN'T HAVE PROPER MONEY
He thought he had been living a hard live, well, no, but he didn't realize how comfortably he had been living.
He does cheat a bit, and in the forest he prepares a little space for his own vegetable patch. So no one asked about the different plants and the harvest times and everything else.
He actually is looking forward to hunt with Arthur, because if he catch something, even if it's quite tiny, it's his. So no buying expensive meat!
then he sees things die and loses excitement but not determination.
It's about 2 month of collecting before he finally had all of the ingredients to do it, and even then he needed a lot of help from his magic, but he could finally eat Lasagna.
Arthur actually catched him, and had to share, but that made it even better
