Author's Notes: Another rather forced story, I'm afraid. This time to the music of OOMPH!, a band that among other things write spectacularly odd lyrics. The song of the day is Eisbär.

Warning! Spoilers for the season two finale.

Camelot was not looking its best. Parts of it was in ruins and because of the destruction brought on by the fires, a lot of people were currently living in the castle. The city looked like a refugee camp.

And then there were the dead. The ground was frozen so they would not be put to rest any time soon. In the mean time, they were being carried down to the ice cellars. It was a hard job, emotionally more so than physically. But people bit their teeth together and carried on.

Uther was well aware of his people's suffering. He knew something had to be done. The country was weak, and if an enemy chose to invade at this moment, Camelot would be doomed. So to keep the citizen's spirit up, he had decreed that the midwinter celebrations would proceed as usual - only this year, everyone would be included. Old, young, rich and poor were all invited to a great banquet on midwinter day. Well, a great banquet - it would, of course, not measure up to last year's feast.

Nevertheless, there were preparations to be made. One thing Uther was sure of was that they would need a midwinter tree. So he had sent out Arthur and Merlin for it.

Arthur was grumpy, walking in the forest.

"One day you're fighting a bloody big dragon, and the next, they send you out for a tree!" he muttered to himself. Merlin, who was walking behind him, heard him.

"You should take it as a compliment," Merlin advised. "You father obviously trusts you to find the very best tree there is!" He didn't bother to duck for Arthur's fist which hit him playfully in the head.

"Right," Arthur sighed as they had walked a while in silence. "That one will do, won't it?" He pointed to a spruce in a clearing.

Merlin looked around. He thought he knew this place from somewhere… Then it dawned on him. He looked carefully for marks in the snow but there didn't seem to be any. Lancelot must be long gone.

"Yeah," he agreed. "It looks perfect."

The got out their tools and sawed the tree off by its base. Then they took one end each and started carrying it towards the castle. Arthur, needless to say, ended up with the base end. Merlin was holding the top of the tree.

"Ow!" he exclaimed after a while.

"What?" Arthur asked, resigned.

"Nothing… The tree just pricked me."

They carried on in silence.

When they arrived in the city, people turned around to look at them in the streets. Everywhere they went, they met smiles. At last they walked into the great hall and let the spruce sink to the ground. Gwen, who had happened to be nearby, rushed forward.

"Is that the midwinter tree? It looks gorgeous!"

"I'm glad you like it," Arthur said in a gruff voice. "We did endure a very uncomfortable walk for it." He left the room without another word.

"What's with him?" Gwen whispered to Merlin, who smiled mischievously.

"He thinks it's undignified to be sent out for a tree," Merlin explained.

"Oh. Well, it was certainly worth it," Gwen commented. "That tree is beautiful."

"Yeah." Merlin looked around and leaned closer to her. "It was actually growing right in the clearing where Lancelot had set up camp!"

"Really?" Gwen asked, her face softening. "He wasn't there, was he?"

"No, he's gone," Merlin replied.

"Right," Gwen nodded, looking sad. "Well, I had better start decorating it."

When she was hanging up garlands of straw, Gwen was thinking about Lancelot. She was wondering whether she had seen him for the last time when he brought her midwinter gift. Somehow she didn't think so. She wanted to believe that she would meet him again - one day.

Sorry about this one. It has neither head nor tail, I know. But hey, hard to follow something as great as the finale, right? I promise I'll come up with something better for Christmas Day.

And by the way, the reason there is snow in my stories and none in the series is that the snow magically melts away every time the BBC film crew decide to pay Camelot a visit.