The first of what I hope will become a short series of Merlin/Arthur Christmas drabbles~ :D
Don't worry, this is just a little starter. How I think Christmas will function at Camelot will be elaborated later!
Snow in the Courtyard - Cloudgauntlet
With the sounds of children playing happily down in the courtyard audible, Merlin found he could work much better. Every single morning Arthur left his room in an absolute tip - he was sure that the night before when he was cleaning up, there hadn't been this much crap everywhere. Either Arthur rolled about a lot during his sleep... er, all over the room... or... well, or it was unexplainable. Perhaps he was some sort of Crap Magnet. Merlin sighed a little at this image, as it created even more crap in his mind, and crossed the room to lift another pile of clothing that had managed to be strewn five metres from the wardrobe.
Merlin knew though, why all Arthur's clothes were asunder. Merlin had arrived at Arthur's chambers that morning to find Arthur's room empty, and a small note addressed to Merlin, telling him that he was out for a knock-around with his mates. Which meant some of the other knights. Which meant he would be away until the afternoon, probably, because even Arthur was delighted with snow. Well, that and one of them would probably fall over at some point and have to be sent to the infirmary. He felt a little lonely, wandering around polishing boots... organising mess... perhaps using a little bit of magic to get rid of dust bunnies... it'd give him back ache one day. He'd end up like Gaius and need an assistant too.
Whistling sadly, he replaced the clothes back on the pile he'd picked it up from, not really in the mood for going through Arthur's wardrobe at the moment, the state that it was. So he turned around, about to go check on Arthur's private horse down in the stables, when he froze in surprise. There, resting on the doorframe casually with one arm and bearing a very critical, long-suffering expression, was the Crown Prince himself. "You are absolutely tone deaf. Close that window, it's freezing," he added, not looking at it.
"I thought you were going for a 'knockaround'?" Merlin enquired, not managing to keep his inner grin to himself.
"Yeah, well, I changed my mind. Thought I'd spend some time with you instead, since you've never seen year's first snow in Camelot before. Don't make me change my mind, come on."
Merlin immediately raced after Arthur, warm with delight that his friend would want to spend time with him whatsoever. Arthur was tucking his hands in his pockets awkwardly as they jogged down the stairs, and Merlin realised that it had actually snowed already that year.
XXX
When Uther grew irritated enough hearing his son's laughter so much out of the window, since it was clear he wasn't actually doing anything productive that morning, he finally pushed himself to his feet, dropping his quill in annoyance. Was there any limit to that boy's incompetence lately? The only reason he had let him go out playing around in the snow was because he had said he was going to go out with the other knights he'd grown friendly enough with and practice some fighting technique, not so he could mess about with his servant of all people.
But when he reached the window to gaze down into the courtyard, he couldn't help the small smile that crept onto his face at the sight he met - Arthur and Merlin running around down below only just in earshot, laughing and yelling, the occasional snowball hurled, many footprints on a white canvas of ground that had been spotless before they arrived, and many disjointed shapes etched into the ground; Merlin's perfect snow angels and Arthur's own less-practiced imitations, the fresher ones the more complete.