I decided to do a 31 Days of Christmas thing for Merlin. I found a couple of lists of Christmas prompts and have planned accordingly. There will probably be more than 31 chapters to this, just because I liked every prompt I came across and had a hard time really narrowing it down, but you'll get one chapter a day, and some days you'll get two; on those days you should consider yourselves lucky that I love this fandom so much.
Roughly half of these are going to be canonverse, and the other half modern day. The modern day ones will be more Merthury than the canonverse ones. I don't really know why, that's just how it turned out. No one's evil in the canonverse ones. If Morgana is mentioned she's not evil, Arthur is king in some of these, prince in others, no one's married unless it's said or heavily implied. They are very loosely connected, and should be considered separate entities from each other unless otherwise stated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin. If I did, do you think this is where we would be having this conversation? No? I didn't think so.
31 Days of Christmas
Day 1:
Snowball Fight
Fic:
The first snowfall of the winter months was often met with dread and wonder, discontent and glee—a mixed bag of emotions all across the land no matter one's age. It was certainly a sight to behold, at least. Almost a foot of snow blanketed the kingdom that morning not a month before Yule, the sun glinting off the white wonder in a beautiful way that almost made the bitter cold worth it to some.
Arthur, of course, didn't care how it looked or how it brought such joy to the children out playing in it or how it gave the cool morning air even more bite than usual.
No, all that he cared about was Merlin. And the fact that he was missing. Or at least he better bloody be for missing work without warning.
Arthur had woken up late, with no breakfast, had to dress himself, find where all his things were and where Merlin might have left them all by himself…
And then, forgetting about whatever work he was supposed to be doing, he stalked through the castle, checking everywhere he could think to look for Merlin. But he wasn't with Gaius or Gwen or in the kitchen or armory, the tavern was closed, he wasn't lurking about…
After wasting away the whole morning looking for his manservant and growing angrier and hungrier with every second that he couldn't find him, Arthur decided at last to seek out the knights of his round table. Merlin was good friends with them; perhaps one of them might know something.
But his knights were no where to be found either. And it wasn't as though any of them were meant to leave the castle that day…
No, this had Merlin written all over it. That much he was sure of.
Deciding to try his luck around the courtyard, Arthur followed the sounds of laughter and the hollering of what sounded like grown men until he found his knights and manservant just near the edge of the caste.
They were playing around in the snow like children! Making snow angels and building forts and—ugh, the audacity! He had a kingdom to run, people to protect, and his best men were wasting valuable training time running around like giant five year olds?
Fine, if they wanted to act like children, he could act like one, too.
Ducking quickly out of sight before they could spot him, Arthur made quick work of the snow around him, stocking snow packed into perfect spheres next to him. Making sure they still hadn't seem him, he then pelted them with the snowballs, hitting Merlin and Gwaine in the back of the head before taking cover once more.
After getting the rest of his men—terrible reflexes they were showing. Even Merlin managed to duck more than them once he grasped the situation—they all piled up their own snow balls and were on him in seconds, all surprised but still unrelenting when they found out it was their king who had attacked them.
The rest of the day was spent running about like children in knight clothing, pelting each other with snowballs and declaring war and revenge when a fort was taken out or claimed in Percival's name or Merlin's.
They all stumbled into the castle soaked and halfway frozen to death at the end of the day, but the berating and terrible medicine given to them by Gaius was worth it when they all collapsed, half-naked, on the floor in Gaius' chambers in a fit of giggles.
Arthur forgot all about being mad at Merlin for ditching work that day. Acting like the child they still were inside seemed to do that to a person.
Fin.
Just because I haven't got enough on my plate writing-wise—insert sarcastic eyeroll here—if there are any Christmasy prompts you want me to tackle, leave it in a review, a PM, or hit me up on tumblr, my name there is hisa-ai.
Always,
Hisa-Ai.