Category: Gen (canon)
Characters/Pairings: Merlin, Iseldir, various druids
Rating/Warnings: K+ (minor swearing) *minor spoilers for series 5 if you squint*
Notes: In the process of severely neglecting the enormous amounts of work that I have to get done, I sat down to write a drabble and ended up producing another oneshot. Whoops. The idea came to me after watching 5x01. You'll know the scene when you see it.

Merlin didn't know what it was that made him seek out the druid camp — it wasn't the urgent press of destiny, because for once, Camelot was calm. Perhaps it was the crushing weight of the frustration of living a lie, of being amongst people who looked at him all day long but never saw him, but one evening Merlin had felt overwhelmingly stifled, and had left Camelot without a word of notice to anyone.

Iseldir had met him on the edge of the forest as if they had made some sort of arrangement, and they arrived back at the campsite to find that dinner was almost prepared. The entire camp seemed jittery, as if something was putting them on edge; and it took Merlin a few moments of shy glances and excited mutterings behind his back to realize that it was his presence, and once again he felt the burden of not belonging.

The feeling remained even as they were sitting around the fire, clutching makeshift bowls and eating an astonishingly delicious stew — although anything would taste delicious after years of eating Gaius' food and potions. He chuckled quietly at the thought, but it died quickly when he heard whispers racing around the fire. He had felt the weight of their eyes throughout dinner, but now he turned to Iseldir, who was sitting next to him, and whispered, "Why are they staring?"

"They are curious about you," Iseldir replied calmly. "There's so much they don't know. They know your future—"

"Wish someone would tell me. Tell me honestly," Merlin muttered bitterly.

"—but they don't know your past or present."

"They can ask. I'll answer," he said after a pause, because anything was better than the awkward, hushed atmosphere that had prevailed thus far.

It was like a dam breaking. Questions flooded in — what was his first memory of performing magic? What was the most dangerous thing he'd done to protect the king? Was it true that he'd actually hatched the dragon egg they'd helped him find? The questions just kept coming and coming, and slowly the druids stopped being so wary and instead leaned forward eagerly, eyeing him with hunger and hope. And Merlin found himself becoming more comfortable as well, because it was so nice to talk for once, and now it did not feel as if he were playing a double role, not here amongst his people. Then—

"Tell us about your childhood, Emrys," someone requested.

—and for a moment Merlin had to look away, because this would not be a story about Emrys — this would be about Merlin, a boy from Ealdor, a boy who did not exist in their minds, and his double life came back full-force in a way he'd never felt it before. They would not want to hear about how harsh and dull the life of a farmer was; how difficult the winters were, with the bitter cold and the fear of starvation; how lonely it was to grow up in a place where he could never be himself among those he considered family. They would not want to hear about his human sufferings because they believed him to be above them.

And so he chose an innocent story, one with magic because it was expected; but also one with simplicity, because it hinted that there was a person drowning beneath their hopes.

"When I was young, a group of performers came through my village," he began, and allowed the details of the memory to wash over him. "They put on a show for us in exchange for food and shelter, and I remember — me and Will would hardly leave the juggler alone until he showed us how he did it. And after they left, we spent ages practicing with anything we could get our hands on — rocks, turnips, eggs... Oh, the eggs," Merlin said with a laugh.

"We stole eggs from the henhouse at first, but we made such a mess — we were terrible at it then, and everyone was furious — so after that I would just create them, y'know, with magic, only Will didn't know that — couldn't know that — so he just thought I'd gotten really good at sneaking into the coop, and he was always trying to outdo me and he didn't understand why he always got caught and I never did. And after he found out about my magic, oh, he was furious. Nearly drowned me, he did, for all the beatings he'd gotten, and after that I had to be careful because he'd be as like to throw my eggs at me as juggle them, the traitor."

He had hardly let himself think about Will since he died, and for some reason the pain seemed less sharp, softened as it was by the glow of happy memory. It was nice to think of a simpler time, before destiny had touched his life, when he was just Merlin and Emrys was still just a name in a legend; and even though he was remembering now, in front of a crowd with his thoughts laid bare, for a moment the ache of loneliness went away, and he smiled as if for the first time in ages.

Then someone across the fire said hoarsely, "I — I'm sorry, Emrys, but did you say that you created eggs?"

This was not the reaction he had expected, and it was so jarring that all Merlin could do was blink owlishly at him for a few seconds before replying, "Er — yeah, loads of times."

"And were they real?" said the same druid.

"What do you mean?" asked Merlin, confused.

And it was then that Iseldir spoke up, eyeing him intently, and suddenly Merlin felt that he was undergoing some sort of test. "He means, did the eggs you created ever hatch? What did you do with them?"

"Uh," Merlin said, taken aback. "Well, the ones we didn't drop I would usually take to my mother, or put in the coop with the hens. We always needed more food. And I suppose some of them must've hatched, I never really kept track—"

"What incantation did you use?" a woman burst out, who then flushed and partially hid behind her shawl when Merlin looked at her.

"I didn't — I never learned any incantations until I moved to Camelot," he said, just as yet another druid asked, "How old were you?" And Merlin looked around to see all of them staring at him with the same shy curiosity that they had shown when he had first arrived, and none of the familiarity that they had been showing since.

"I — eight summers? Nine? What does it—"

An astonished murmur rippled around the camp, and even Iseldir's usually calm expression had changed to awe. "Emrys," he said, and for one horrible moment Merlin thought he was going to bow; instead he merely stared at him for a few more seconds before continuing, "Emrys, you created life. Even at a such a young age you harnessed a power that none of us could ever dream of. Destiny truly has had you marked for greatness since birth."

And of all the things he could have said, that was the worst.

"They're just eggs," Merlin choked out, horrified, furious, betrayed, because that meant that there was not a moment in his life in which destiny had not meddled, not even the ones where his best friend egged him in the face and yelled, 'Serves you right, you wanker,' then sat on him and rubbed the yolk into his hair. Destiny had taken that friend, it had taken his present and his future, and now it had tainted even his past, and he had nothing left for himself, not even his memories.

"Emrys?" Iseldir said, stepping forward in concern, but Merlin held up a hand, because he knew that Iseldir would never understand why that had gutted him so thoroughly. He would never understand, none of the druids would, because they had never expected anything else from him.

Was this what it meant to be a legend?

"Yes," he said wearily, and bowed his head. "I suppose it is."

It was, he supposed, all he'd ever been.