Here's something fluffy and a touch romantic to help you recover from last week.
Lord Merlin Emrys, Court Magician of Albion and Lady Freya Vivienne, Lady of the Lake were on a picnic.
Not that that was an extraordinary event in and among itself. The two regularly attempted to skiv off work in favor of spending a few precious hours together—well, Merlin tried regularly, Freya just delegated everything to Lancelot for the day and made Merlin really wish he had a lackey to boss around—but today they had succeeded. It was the anniversary of the day Freya had first exerted her powers as Lady of the Lake, the day the dragon sword had been drawn from the Lake and the Dark Queen was overthrown and the great blade was cast into stone. While the rest of Camelot celebrated the memory of their success and mourned those past, the magician and the queen of Avalon were having a quiet picnic on a sunny hill outside the city.
"This is very nice, Merlin," Freya said with a smile, sitting down on the blanket he'd just smoothed out with his magic. "Very nice, indeed."
The warlock grinned, cheeky and distracted. "Well, Arthur has enough picnic outings, I figured it had to be a good idea."
Freya raised an eyebrow. "…How many of Arthur's picnics have ended well?"
"Oh," he said, face falling. "Didn't think of that."
She laughed, and he joined in. Time passed—hours could have flown by and they wouldn't have noticed. They ate and talked of nothing and everything, their hands not quite touching throughout the meal. Freya drew fresh water from the earth when Merlin groaned about forgetting drinks, and Merlin, to her delight, made the wind visible for several minutes. While they were watching it dance, Merlin reached onto his bag. "Oh, I made you something," he said, trying to sound casual and failing miserably.
"Oh?" she asked, tearing her eyes away from the twirling winds to face him. "What sort of something?"
He pulled out a small, smooth apple and tossed it to her. She caught it with a small smile playing about her lips. "What sort of wicked symbolism is this?"
"Can't a man just give his lady an apple?" he asked, lying back, his elbows in the grass. "I conjured it myself. It's a special apple."
"A magic wishing apple?" Freya asked, raising the fruit to her nose and sniffing. "It smells delicious, anyway."
"Not a wishing apple, no," he said. "Just take a bite and tell me what you think. I wasn't sure if you liked the crunchy kind or the mealy kind, but in the end I couldn't get it to work with crunchy anyway, so that worked out."
Her smile broadened. "Oh, I like the crunchy ones," she said, mischief in her eyes.
"You would," Merlin said, rolling his own eyes and nudging her with his foot.
Freya smirked and bit deep into the apple. She made a curious face as she chewed—it wasn't a look of displeasure, though. "Oh, how sweet," she said after she'd swallowed.
"…Thanks?"
"No, it's really, really sweet. Positively saccharine," she said, swallowing again and reaching for the water.
He frowned. "Yeah, should have warned you. Couldn't get it any less sweet than that, either. Sorry."
She took another bite, chewing a bit faster this time. "It's not bad, love, just surprising."
They chatted a bit more while Freya munched her apple, Merlin growing more and more fidgety as time drew on. He kept staring at the apple, too. At last, Freya bit down to the core and found out why. "Oh, Merlin, how inventive!" she cried in delight, for instead of a core, the apple contained a juicy red strawberry.
Merlin blushed and shifted a bit more. "Thanks. That's rather why the apple was all mushy and sweet, but I wanted to get the strawberry perfect."
"It's beautiful magic." Freya finished off the surrounding bits of apple and sampled the strawberry. "Mm, and it is perfect. Well done—" She broke off suddenly, seeing something glinting inside the half of the strawberry left in her fingers. "…Merlin?" she asked, pulling the shiny bit out. It wasn't anything special, just a small, slim silver band, sticky with fruit juice, but to the practiced eyes of the Lady of the Lake, it shone with a reflection of the same sort of incredible, deliberate magic that flowed through the waters of the Island of Avalon—and through Merlin.
Merlin was kneeling in front of her when she looked up, not on one knee, just kneeling, leaning with his hands on his knees, clenching and unclenching the material of his pants. "It's not really dinner and dancing, or a room filled with candles, or the start of a passionate life of crime, or anything beautifully romantic like that, but we never really had that kind of relationship, did we?" he asked, smiling, his eyes on the ground.
Her breath caught.
"And…" Merlin swallowed. "Well, it'd still be unusual, wouldn't it? You with Avalon and me with Arthur and Albion. But we could still make it work. The knights and their wives practically do the same thing and make it work, not seeing each other for a while at a time, I mean. I love you, and I think we were probably meant to be together, because Emrys and Vivienne kind of have that echo-y thing going on like Arthur's full name or Tristan and Isolde or Lancelot du Lac, but you don't really believe in that kind of thing, so that has less of an impact than I would like—"
"Merlin, love," Freya said, her voice quiet, eyes sparkling. "Just shut up and ask me."
Merlin gulped and met her gaze. "…Marry me?"
She smiled, nodded, and kissed him, very softly, on the lips. "In a heartbeat."
He broke out into a truly beautiful grin and took her hands, the half-eaten strawberry dropping, forgotten, onto the blanket. "Perfect," he practically purred, flopping onto the blanket beside her again.
Freya stretched out next to him, her head resting on his shoulder. "This is one picnic that ended well, I think," she said, holding the ring up to the sky. "Although we may want to—"
"—wash that off before you actually put it on?" Merlin said with a smirk. "Yes, a sticky ring was the other flaw in my plan."
She frowned and twisted her head to look at him. "Other flaw? What was the other other flaw?"
A drop of water dripped onto her cheek, then Merlin's forehead. "The other other flaw is that I heard thunder a minute ago, and now it's starting to rain."
