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dragons-stories-hoard · 10 hours ago

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Okay but I don't think it should be day one of Merlin being in Camelot, cause then frankly nothing is stopping Morgana from going all game of thrones on Uther and Arther.

Might I suggest, they come back when they're kids? Hear me out. Morgana may have been messed up and evil but even she wasn't going around killing squishy baby-faced ten year Olds. So she's going to hesitate at trying to kill Arthur because he's a child, and vice versa for Arthur and co seeing Morgana. Plus none of them have the strength (in body or magic) to start challenging Uther for the throne so they can instigate chamge, but theres time where they cant change much but they can think and plan for the future. So they have time to deal with their feelings at seeing old enemies again but they're friends still. (None realize they aren't the only one who time traveled). Maybe it's soon after Morgana moved to Camelot, so her sudden anger at Uther and temper can be attributed to a grieving child.

Arthur and Gwen both know how Morgana turns evil so they're looking out for signs of her magic and hey look at that she's being given sleeping draughts even as a young child. And they realize Uther would still kill this baby-faced Morgana if he knew, and they know how her fear of him turned her to hate everyone. They see their friend as a scared grieving child and want to change her fate. So they start trying to assure her without directly letting her know about the magic. Meanwhile Morgana is seeing Arthur stand up to his father on her behalf, and promising her he will protect her even from Uther if he has to. And she can't remember if he'd done that before, thinks maybe she forgot in all her fear and anger. And she has time to realize she may have had reason to fear but she never did give Gwen and Arthur a chance to be good. She was the one who turned on them first.

MEANWHILE Merlin has much better control of his magic because he already has so much knowledge of the old religion and it's language from the previous life. He works harder on controlling and improving his magic and skills from a young age. He is determined to fight fate and save everyone so he needs to be better stronger more knowledgeable. He starts taking trips to the druids under the guise of "taking goods from the village to trade" (he does trade but keeps the fact that it's with druids to himself and maybe Will since he'd want to come with his friend sometimes). He learns from books and people he had no chance to learn from before, building on his knowledge. He looks into death magic and high priestesses, knowing Nimueh will eventually target him and Arthur and Gaius and his mother. He thinks ahead to ways to keep Lancelots sacrifice from happening or even ways to bring someone back from the veil without tearing it if he must. He thinks of Elyan and looks into ways to heal unhealable wounds, thinks of Morgana and plans to kill Morgause before she can put the spell on the kingdom and use Morgana as the center. He looks up obscure poisons and remedies, looks for Protective enchantments and healing spells he can layer into the knights armor and clothes the second he sees them again. He takes time to hunt down traffickers and cage fighting rings to destroy them before Lancelot or Gwaine ever have a chance to be forced into fights to the death again. He looks for rumors of the last dragonlord so he can free Kilgarrah and hatch Aithusa without Leon ever having to be revived from the flames.

Due to his frequent travels, whichever of the wandering knights try to find their young friend early think they got the wrong village whenever they arrive in Ealdor. (Gwen Arthur and Morgana are the only ones who went before amd they don't exactly have a reasonable excuse to go there to see their friend now. They have to wait).

I bet Elyan was first to try to find Merlin early. He was closest and he started his travels pretty early, thinks he can suggest Merlin start the apprenticeship sooner but he can't seem to find Merlins village (he found it but Merlin was away learning death magic or whatever). However this time on his travels Elyan stays in touch with his family, returns occasionally to help with the forge, tries to talk his sister out of getting a job at the castle to her confusion (she's stubborn and by then is determined to stop Morgana from turning evil due to fear so she does not take this well).

Leon sees Uthers reign, remembers Arthur's and how much better it was amd how much happier he had been with all of Arthur's changes, and he starts subtly backing Arthur more. Talking Arthur's suggestions up to Uther, giving Arthur support earlier. He's Arthur's knight before Uthers this time around and he is disgusted by some of Uthers choices having seen the consequences. Having seen a better way of living.

Percival keeps hearing rumors of the fabled Emrys being alive, making moves, accessing powerful magics. He lives near and was partially raised by druids, so he hears these whispers and with future insight is able to piece together Arthur is the OAFK. He starts training.

Lancelot honestly knows the least of them (he died first man) so he's just gonna show up to Camelot earlier than before and do his best to support his friends and keep Arthur and Merlin alive.

Gwaine saw the sorcerer saving Camelots troops in that final battle, and he never had strong opinions about magic before but now he thinks about it and realizes if they allowed magic it would save so many lives. Hell, it would remove so many enemies. And he's always had a rather pushy relationship with Arthur so he can manage to nudge him towards being okay with magic without crossing the line and making Arthur think he's gonna commit treason. Plus he'd love to see young awkward child Merlin (sadly he also arrives in Ealdor while Merlin is away, probably learning to shape-shift or smt).

So when Merlin finally realizes it's time to head to Camelot, he tells his mother he wishes to apprentice with his uncle to learn medicine (she felt he was able to hide his gifts this time and didn't feel the need to send him away to protect him). He arrives amd when all the knights of the round table end up arriving much sooner than before he assumes it's ripple effects of all the stuff he'd been doing with the druids and his self imposed quests. Leon, Gwen, Arthur and Morgana just assume they did something to affect some policy of Uthers so they shrug off any changes as well. I think Lancelot is the only one who's really confused/concerned with all the shifts because it's making it harder for him to help Merlin dammit.

I think Gwaine, Percival, Leon and Elyan never got the chance to find out about Merlins magic but the others did so everyone is working off different levels of knowledge and it's chaos cause they all assume they know more than everyone else.

Merlin is so used to working alone he's hiding his magic from everyone and he's losing so much sleep trying to deal with threats before they come near his people but the others are GOING NEAR THE THREATS ITS FINE. At least they're more prone to believe him this time and less fond of >insert villain of the week<

The others are remembering almost these threats like "Jesus Christ how did this get solved last time?" Everyone is trying to keep Merlin from drinking the poisoned chalice, Leon is ready to go searching for the flower himself or go with Arthur or hell, even ready to sneak into the dungeons to talk to Arthur to get the flower for Merlin himself (everyone is a lot angrier at Uther for his refusal to allow anyone to get the flower to save Merlin despite him not knowing its anything but a simple task, even Morgana who is hesitant/still kinda mad at Merlin is pissed) (this makes her think on Merlins POV more because frankly if she was scared to reveal her magic, of course Merlin would be. He had even less protections, Uther was okay with allowing him to die when he thought Merlin had saved his son AGAIN.) So maybe she is a bit sympathetic to the man who killed her. Who was once her friend. Because she's seeing how much bullshit he had to deal with in keeping Arthur alive and now she knows he has magic she's realizing he was the one protecting her and Arthur and the kingdom long before she knew about her own magic. Because how else did these things get solved when it wasn't Arthur or herself (she is the first to put together just how much Merlin did for all of them tbh).

One of them walks in on Edwin (idk if that was his name the cure all ills guy) attacking Merlin and helps dispatch him while Merlin is unconscious and it scares the hell out of Merlin that they fought a sorcerer when he was out of commission, while whoever came in wad terrified at seeing/hearing Merlin Crack his skull on the wall from Edwin throwing him and seeing him lying there. They see how much danger Merlin was/is putting himself in to protect them and it scares them.

Merlin is definitely losing sleep trying to stay ahead of all the threats and his friends who keep HEADIMG TOWARDS DANGER so like. He's exhausted and his friends are seeing how tired amd clumsy he is with new eyes once they know he's the one dispatching threats when they're not looking.

Also frankly all of them are hit hard with seeing their friends so young, seeing them before everything happened. And they're all definitely way more emotional about it and I feel like as the youngest they're all so protective of this baby faced Merlin because gods above he was so small and youthful and energetic how was he ever this skinny? (It's jarring for Percival especially he didn't meet Merlin until he'd been a fighting magical threats to Camelot for a few years, and if he thought Merlin was small before he's downright concerned now). (Doesn't help Merlin is worse at taking care of himself this time) (Merlin is as cheery as he was in early seasons because hey this is when shit was easy, and the moral dilemmas were way less intense and he gets to see all his friends and Morgana isn't evil and he can protect them all this is great! He loves spending time with them when hes not working or protecting them and he will make the most of this time). (The rest of them are like wtf because they are comparing baby Merlin to end season Merlin and realizing somewhere along the way he lost that cheer and enthusiasm and they're like we gotta protect the small and they are all working themselves into protective flurries over Merlin and being so nice to him).

Not gonna write a full fic but had to get my thoughts out. This is a fun au and it would be fascinating to keep track of who knows what amd when people come back and how everyone tries to deal with threat of the week or when they each even realize "oh shit that person tried to kill me!" Cause I guarantee they didn't realize some of the threats were threats the first time around.

I think it would be insanely funny if after Arthur’s death everyone returns back in time to the place they were the day Merlin arrived in Camelot. But like, everyone thinks they are the only ones who has returned. We see it all from Merlin’s pov, who’s traumatised and wondering why the fuck Arthur is so much sweeter to him this time around and keeps saying ‘thank you’. He wonders why Lancelot shows up earlier, why all of a sudden Gwaine is there three years too early, saying he got hurt in a tavern bawl and needs a physician. He wonders why Leon keeps pretending like he didn’t just accidentally see Merlin do magic. Why Gwen keeps giving him these knowing looks. And why Morgana doesn’t seem as afraid as she used to when she was figuring out that she had magic. Everyone is trying their best to change history for the better, thinking they are alone with this duty... and then one day when uther is dead and they are sitting around the round table, merlin steps forward and is like: ‘I need to confess that I have magic, but also that I have returned from the future.’ And everyone just whips around and is like ‘YOU TOO??!’ And then they realise that they’ve all returned and wasted their time thinking they were alone.

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