winterknights | ART + FIC: In the Bleak Midwinter (Balinor/Hunith - 517

Title: In the Bleak Midwinter
Author/Artist: ???
Pairing(s): Hunith/Balinor, background pre-Merlin/Arthur
Prompt: 34: Balinor didn’t die in “The Last Dragonlord.”
Word Count/Art Medium: 517 words, digital art
Rating: G
Contains (Highlight to view): *Fluff and a wee bit of angst.*
Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: Many thanks to K for the last-minute beta, and to the ever-patient mods for running this wonderful fest.
Summary: Canon AU. Merlin turns up in Ealdor shortly after the events of 2x13, bringing a surprise guest to celebrate Yule with his mother.
Read it on AO3: http://archiveofourown.org/works/12889455

Merlin turns up in Hunith's kitchen a few weeks before Yule, pale and hollow-eyed but otherwise unhurt, his cheeks still smudged with ash as if he hasn’t thought to wash in several days. Despite his gaunt appearance, he seems lighter, now, as if a weight she hadn’t noticed him carrying has finally been set down.

“Come with me,” he tells her, taking her hands. He’s smiling, and though there’s sadness in it, the force of it is blinding. “There’s someone I want you to meet.”

Even in Ealdor, there have been rumours about the attacks on the city. Refugees from Camelot have trickled through in twos and threes, speaking in hushed voices of the dragon who'd brought the citadel to its knees. The prince had killed it, or so she’d heard. It’s not a stretch to imagine there might be a little more to it than that, but the thought feels too much like hope, and she's too old to let that blind her again.

“Close your eyes,” Merlin says, when they’re deep in the woods. There’s a new moon tonight, the forest drenched in shadows. Hunith holds tight to Merlin’s hands, trusting him to guide her, and when he tells her to stop, she does. She waits, arms outstretched. Listening.

Someone else takes her hands.

There are, beneath her palms, calluses. He holds her with the tender touch reserved for flightless birds, his hands gentle. “Hunith,” he says, trembling.

“Mum.” And that’s Merlin, at her side again, a prompting touch at her elbow. “You can open your eyes now, Mum.”

She opens them.

The years have not treated Balinor kindly: he has a weathered face, his dark hair already streaked with grey. And yet, his eyes are the same. Wet with unshed tears. Dark with unspoken thoughts. When she was a girl—and she had been a girl then, so very young—she had loved those eyes, and when she dies she will love them still. Her fingers tighten on his. “Balinor.”

She listens as he and Merlin tell her of their adventures. Most of the words wash over her, drowned out by the startling echo of their voices, the pattern of their conversation. A few things stand out.

“The dragon?”

Merlin shakes his head. “Bal—Dad ordered him to stop. He’s gone now.”

“But—” She looks from one to the other: her boys, so very alike when seen together. "The prince?”

“He knows, Mum.” And that is where the sadness comes from, Hunith guesses, the light in his face dimming for just a moment. “He’s…not happy. But he’ll come round.”

Balinor makes a grumbling noise but to her surprise does not dispute this. Another convert to the inevitable pull of destiny, it seems, though Merlin is apparently oblivious to what this means.

“He let me have the week off, to come and visit you,” he adds, gathering her up in a hug that Balinor immediately—tentatively—joins. “So I guess that’s something, isn’t it?”

“My boy,” Hunith says, cupping the back of his head like she had when he was a child. “It’s everything.”