Dark!merlin Redemption Au Where Nimueh Steals Merlin As A Baby And Raises Him To Be Cold And Ruthless.

dark!merlin redemption au where nimueh steals merlin as a baby and raises him to be Cold and Ruthless. his job is to murder uther and arthur, slowly, with his power, so it looks like a disease. instead of becoming arthur’s manservant, he becomes uther’s. he curses uther’s breakfast every morning before giving it to him, and barely interacts w arthur at all.

when uther dies, arthur is merlin’s next target. he becomes arthur’s manservant because arthur views him as a connection to his deceased father, thinking maybe merlin saw a different, softer, kinder side of uther that arthur never got to witness. no such side existed. instead, all merlin saw was a broken, cruel, cowardly man, consumed by fear and hatred, who only smiled around three times during the year that he served him.

uther hated magic, hunted magic, and in turn, it hated him. it hunted him. uther lost, magic won, and that was that.

arthur, on the other hand.

he’s different. merlin sees that right away. at first, being cruel and hardened by nimueh, he doesn’t care that much. he curses his breakfast like he did uther’s. but then arthur starts banishing sorcerers instead of executing them—which merlin knows isn’t that much better. he starts giving them proper, fair trials, and merlin almost hesitates. he doesn’t, of course, but almost. there’s a job to be done, whether the king was slightly more lenient to sorcerers or not.

then arthur starts letting commoners be knights, and starts asking questions about magic, and starts visiting druids and begging forgiveness, and merlin really does hesitate. so arthur isn’t his father. so what? he still hated magic. he still hunted sorcerers as a sixteen year old boy, who was brainwashed by his father, who was scared and desperate for approval, who—

no. that doesn’t matter. arthur killed sorcerers. well, his men killed druids, but he led the whole thing. what does merlin care that he cries about it every night, has nightmares, keeps trying to pass laws to protect them and supports morgana in her practice of magic? he made mistakes. those mistakes got people killed.

perhaps the curse that merlin puts on his breakfast gets a little weaker.

nimueh is angry. nimueh is getting impatient.

“he’s getting tired. he’s ill,” merlin argues.

“it did not take you two years to finish uther,” she returns.

“uther was older.”

“don’t think you can toy with me, emrys. see to it that the pendragon dies within the year, or you both shall suffer.”

arthur still treats merlin like shit most of the time, but merlin notices that there’s no real bite to it anymore. no more heaping of unnecessary tasks, no more hitting him with spoons or sending him to the stocks. this arthur is fairer, and kinder, and a tyrant, merlin reminds himself, though he isn’t even sure of that anymore.

mordred is the first sorcerer to be a knight. he uses his magic to defend camelot.

merlin is confused. conflicted. concerned.

the year passes and nimueh is furious. when merlin kills her, he tries to make it quick. she raised him to be so cruel and stunted that, when he does kill his mother figure, he only sheds a single tear. then he moves on.

may write more idk