Category: Gen (canon)
Characters/Pairings: Hunith, Merlin
Rating/Warnings: K+ (some disturbing themes)
Summary: Hunith witnesses her infant son performing magic and must make a choice.
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin.
Notes: I don't know where this came from but it intrigued the hell out of me. I got the lyrics off of someone's blog by searching 'medieval lullaby.' Special thanks goes to Heather for soundly assuring me that this was not the most messed-up concept in existence. There's Orc/Boromir necrophilia out there, guys. 0.o

"Lullay lullow, lullay lully... beway bewy, lullay lullow..."

Hunith huddled closer to the fire as another gust of wind blew through the gaps in the stone and whistled a lonely backup to her voice. She needed to go get more wood; there were only two small logs left by the door. The flames were burning low in the hearth, and the warmth wasn't enough; it was never enough in this cold. But she didn't want to move, didn't want to venture out in the bitter snowstorm, didn't want to leave her son alone and freezing. "Lullay lully," she whispered instead to the little bundle of blankets in her arms. "Baw me bairne, sleep softly now."

She was singing more for her own comfort than his; he was already asleep, with his face hidden in one of her summer shawls. She had wrapped him in every scrap of cloth that she could spare, and then some that she couldn't, because it didn't matter how cold she was because she needed him to live. He was her only tie to Balinor, and even though he didn't even have a name yet — he wouldn't, not until he survived the winter — she had never felt such powerful love as she did when she looked at his tiny face. "I saw a sweet and seemly sight," she sang, and another gust of wind ripped through the house.

And then her son's eyes cracked open as he shivered awake, and he looked around like he always did - such an inquisitive boy already — and he watched the fire flicker for a moment, and suddenly it was burning brighter, higher, warmer — and when he turned his head again to look up at her and gurgle a laugh, his eyes were burning a brilliant, impossible gold —

No.

It was pure instinct that kept her from dropping the boy, though her hands were shaking so hard that it was a near miss. She could try to lie to herself, try to tell herself that she was imagining things, that it had merely been the reflection of the flames, but unnatural warmth was washing over the room and besides, she had seen Balinor's eyes do the same thing a hundred times before he fled. She knew exactly what she'd seen. She couldn't delude herself.

Magic.

Her son was dead, then. It didn't matter that he still breathed, that he moved and cried and lived. He was dead, because all those with magic running through their veins were dead, even if they didn't know it yet. They were dead because the mad king of Camelot would hunt them down and wouldn't stop until they were eradicated, like animals, like vermin, just like he had done with her Balinor.

She choked on a sob at the thought, and stared at the only piece of him she had left, the little son who she'd loved more than life since the moment the midwife had handed him over. He blinked up at her, blue-eyed and normal and doomed, and she tried to convince herself that it wouldn't be so bad, that it would be easy to hide — but she was warm down to her bones now, in a way that took long spells and formidable magic. He had merely blinked at the fire and it bent to his will, and he was only a few weeks old with no words to speak. She'd never heard of such power, and it would never be hidden, because all it would take was one slip, one careless word, one accidental witness, and the secret would be out.

And it would be the death of both of them.

Uther wouldn't care that she had no magic herself. In his eyes she bore him, she harbored him, and therefore she would die with him. And she couldn't do that — she knew in her heart that she would gladly die for him, but with him — she couldn't bear to see it, and the image of him dead in some foreign courtyard, headless or burnt to ashes, was enough to make her turn and vomit up the little food she'd rationed herself that day.

"Lullay lully," she whispered as he began to fuss, sucking in air that was sharp and painful, and stroked his soft cheek when he quieted. "Beway bewy, lullay lullow..."

She could never let that happen. And there was only one way to ensure that it didn't.

No one would blame her if the baby didn't live. Too little food, too few blankets, and a life hardly anchored to the tiny, frail body... there were a hundred different reasons why he could have died. No one would ask questions. And it would be better, infinitely better than a life of secrets and fear, with an end found in terror and agony and flames. She could not let him go to his death with the sound of a jeering, ravenous crowd and an executioner's heavy drum echoing in his ears, with his eyes full of the terrible smile of a triumphant madman staring down at him from above. Better to do it now, before he was aware, at the hand of one who loved him enough to save him from that life and its only possible end.

It was mercy she was showing now, she told herself, and fetched the pillow from her bed. It was mercy, she told herself as she knelt down again, with blurry eyes and ragged breaths. It was mercy.

"Baw me bairne," she choked out, and lowered the pillow. It was mercy. "Sleep — softly — now."

The room grew colder as his struggles grew weaker, and she shivered and cried and held on, because it was the only way to save him. And she had never felt so much hatred, toward herself, toward Uther Pendragon and his cursed dead wife, toward the witch Nimueh who'd caused it, toward the gods for allowing it.

Mercy. Mercy, she pleaded with them. Mercy.

And then his tiny hand found her sleeve, the faintest ghost of a sign, and she came undone.

She flung the pillow across the room with a visceral cry, and held her son close as he screamed himself purple. She curled around him in front of the fire and wept and swore that she would teach him paranoia and mistrust and fear, tell him bedtime stories of executions and danger, drive his secret-keeping deep inside to root on his very soul, as long as he could live.

Then her tears were spent, her body limp and exhausted from sobbing, and she kissed his precious forehead, wrapped him tighter in his blankets, and whispered, "Sleep now, my boy." She soothed his tears away, until he burrowed close and fell asleep with a sigh, and she joined him soon after.

And when she awoke, the fire was still burning brightly in the hearth.