#I haven't decided if Arthur is also gender swapped in this au

[motherofoompaloompas]

Merlin genderswap au where when the gang is hiding Mordred, Merlin gets caught with him by Leon and the knights. They're all "Look! A dark haired child we have never seen before! that must be the druid boy" And Merlin panics and goes full on mama bear. "No! This is my son. I birthed him myself. Don't you dare try to execute him"

So the cover story would probably be something like when Merlin was 11/12 she got SAed by a bandit or a passing knight and gave birth to him young. She left him with Hunith when she first came to Camelot because she didn't know what to expect, but once things stabilized, she wrote home for her son to join her. It was only bad luck that he arrived the day they were looking for the druid boy.

And Mordred's just like "guess I have a mom now" and goes along with it.

Merlin takes Mordred everywhere with her including to work with Arthur. Mordred learns how to handle Arthur and do chores around the castle under Merlin's instruction. When he gets old enough, he starts training to become a knight.

He now gets to accompany his mom and Arthur. And while he is a knight of Camelot, he still has to answer to his mom. So it's just Merlin bossing him around the campsite and making him help with dinner. And he does it because it's his mom and he has been doing this stuff his whole life anyway.

The knights try to make fun of him for it but he's just like "???????? Of course I'm helping with dinner and setting up bed rolls. In fact, why aren't you?"

And Merlin is just so proud of her boy