FIC: Walking in a Winter Wonderland

[winter-mod.livejournal.com]

Title: Walking in a Winter Wonderland
Pairing(s): morgwen
Prompt: #5 Garden
Word Count/Art Medium: 2264
Rating: T
Contains (Highlight to view): * mention of past bad relationship with family members.*
Disclaimer: Merlin characters are the property of Shine and BBC. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.
Notes: thank to ratsbys on discord for the quick beta!
Summary: In which Morgana meets a cute girl and somehow ends up setting up a vary of Christmas displays.

Link to AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/winterknights2021/works/35469055

Morgana groaned loudly as she scrolled through stupid Christmas Pinterest posts, looking for anything she could use for tonight, when an annoying voice said, “Are you on Pinterest?”

She glanced up to see her stupid brother smirking down at her from the door of her office. “Go away Arthur,” she growled.

Because he was the most annoying younger brother in the universe, he ignored her and walked over to her laptop, looking far too pleased as he said, “Oh gods, you are!”

He laughed loudly before asking, “Why on earth are you looking up Christmas decorations? You hate Christmas.”

Morgana lifted her head and tried to feign innocence. “Maybe I’ve changed my tune.”

Arthur snorted, “Yeah, and my boyfriend isn’t forcing me to go caroling with him this weekend.”

She grinned at that, it had been her idea actually. She may have suggested the outing to Merlin the other night while they were doing the dreaded Christmas shop.

“Oh, I can’t wait to watch that video.” She said, smiling smugly. While Arthur wasn’t a terrible singer, he had a hard time staying on tempo.

He glared. “Not if I get a say you won’t-,” He gasped. “You’re just trying to distract me from the fact that you're on Pinterest!”

So close . She sighed. “You remember Merlin’s cute coworker from his birthday party?”

Arthur shrugged causing her to groan. “What? I was a bit busy.”

“Yeah busy sticking your tongue down Merlin’s throat,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Remember Gwen?”

Arthur smirked at that, “Oh? You mean the one you kept pestering my boyfriend about after she left early?”

And wasn’t that the start of all her trouble? “Right, so I might have run into her the other day…”

Morgana gritted her teeth as walked through the heavily trafficked sidewalk. She pulled her winter coat closer during the brisk night as she was bumped and shoved by all the people rushing about to finish their Christmas shop. All the while being forced to listen to All I Want for Christmas is You as she passed every other shop on the street because apparently, that was the only song all these idiotic shopkeepers could think to play outside their store!

Just a little further, she thought to herself as she muscled her way through the crowd, before finally reaching the small side path between two cafes.

The path was worn and cracked with dead grass coming through and to anyone standing at the beginning of the path it looked like a dead-end. Morgana, however, knew better. She knew that if you walked all the way up to the brick wall, at what looked like the end of the path there was a bend to the path. A bend that led to a small and forgotten public garden.

Morgana sighed in relief as took in the beautiful iron archway. She had found the hidden garden long ago when she was an unruly teen trying to get away from her infuriating father.

She had been looking for a getaway. A place she could scream and process her feelings away from her family. Her strict father hadn’t understood her and while Arthur had tried, he had also been desperate for their father’s approval back then.

It was in the middle of that anger and frustration that had led to Morgana accidentally walking into this place. She had been strolling around late one fall night, not going anywhere in particular, just seeing where her feet took her when her feet took her here.

The garden had been barely holding on then, as if the city itself had forgotten it.

The moment she walked inside the iron archway something inside her seemed to settle down.

Before she knew it, she was coming three times a week fixing the place up. Putting her hands into the ground and using her magic to enrich the soil. She was buying seeds and using magic to quicken their growth to make the garden lusher. Making the trees taller to enclose the garden from outside view. Creating floating lights with magic that would turn on as the sun began to set, even when she wasn’t there.

Beautiful flowers and plants covered everything. Both in season and out, looking so wild and free that anyone that didn’t know better would think this was simple nature taking its course.

Only magic could create something new and wondrous in the dead of winter.

Even after things were better with her family; her father making attempts to share her interests, and her brother learning to be his own person, she would still come to the garden.

The garden had become her paradise. Her place to grow things, to nurture life, to experiment with her magic. Her place to vent and her happy place.

She would change everything in the garden at a whim. Sometimes leaving it be for a month’s time, other times changing it three times in one week.

The plants and spells she used often reflected her mood, one week flushed with bright flowers and glowing lights, the next full of vines and dark red roses with large thorns and lots of shade.

She even played up whatever holiday was coming for fun sometimes. The only holiday she ignored as a rule was Christmas. She loathed how in your face and everywhere the holiday was.

Ridding herself of terrible Christmas thoughts, Morgana smiled as she walked through the archway and the sounds of the city falling away. She had placed a sound barrier spell on the place years ago, the smartest decision she ever made.

She made it three steps into paradise only for her legs to lock up.

Sitting on her bench was Gwen!

Gwen, Merlin’s ridiculously gorgeous friend who worked at the hospital with him! She had met her at Merlin’s birthday party earlier that month. They were having the best conversation about women in fantasy novels when Gwen had gotten a page and had to leave early.

Morgana had wanted to ask for her number, but Gwen had run off before she had the chance.

She had no clue how Gwen had found this place, but Morgana refused to let this chance slip through her fingers. Straightening her shoulders, and using a quick spell to make sure her makeup was perfect while she proceeded to slowly stroll forward as if she hadn’t a care in the world.

“Hi there. Gwen, right? I think we met at Merlin’s birthday.”

Gwen looked up in surprise. She smiled as she said, “Hi! Yes, I think we did. You’re Morgana, right?”

Morgana grinned, pleased that the beautiful brunette remembered her. “Yup that’s me. Fancy meeting you here.”

She laughed, “Yeah I certainly didn’t know anyone else knew about this place.”

“Me either.”

“Please sit,” Gwen said, moving her purse to make space. Morgana did, glad she had put a heating charm on the bench at the beginning of fall.

Curious Morgana asked, “How did you find this place?”

Gwen smiled, “Oh found this place by accident when I moved here during the summer. You?”

Morgana smirked, “Oh I’ve been coming here for years.”

The excitement in Gwen’s eyes was turning her insides to goo.

“I’ve never seen such a beautiful magical garden before, whoever’s in charge clearly knows what they are doing.”

Morgana was contemplating telling her it was her when Gwen continued, “I can’t wait to see what they’ll do for Christmas. I bet it will be simply grand.”

Morgana frowned. “Christmas?”

Gwen frowned, “Oh? Do they not usually do something for Christmas? That’s a pity. It’s my first Christmas away from home, so I’ve been coming every night this month hoping they do something special for it.”

It was the look of utter disappointment that did it.

“No, they do!” Morgana replied hastily. “It’s- it’s like a winter wonderland here! Sorry, I was just teasing.”

She then put her foot even further in her stupid mouth and said, “In fact, they usually start doing displays a few days before. The big one is always on Christmas Eve though! It should be starting tomorrow I think.”

Her bones melted as Gwen beamed at her. “In that case do you want to meet up tomorrow and check it out?”

“I’d love to,” Morgana said grinning, while quickly doing the math for what time she’d have to leave from work to get a display done in time for their meetup.

Which led back to Morgana going through Pinterest while she ate lunch on Christmas Eve. Most of her father’s employees had today off, but as CEO’s children who ran their own divisions, they did not.

The first night she had turned her little garden into a beautiful tropical Christmas, with summer and spring florals. She enchanted the trees and snow to look like palm trees and sand and even cut one of the shrubs to look like Santa, with a bit of magical help of course.

The next day into the nutcracker. She had turned twigs, leaves, petals, anything she could find into characters from the play and had let them dance around the garden. She had decorated a small tree with lights, holly, and tinsel.

She was particularly proud of last night. She had turned the garden into a miniature of the Rockefeller skating rink in New York. She had the rink but with wintery plants working as little islands across it and transformed one of the bushes into the Prometheus statue in front of the ring. Gwen had squealed and two had hilariously slid around the ice on their shoes, holding onto each other for dear life trying and failing not to fall.

She was rudely torn away from the fond memory by her brother’s snort. God, she hated her stupid brother. “Why are you still here?”

“Because I rather not listen to you complain all Christmas day that you fucked up with the girl you like,” Arthur said as took over the mouse and started scrolling through. “That and now you have no right to tease me about pretending to like Star Trek when I started seeing Merlin.”

If a stapler magically threw itself at her brother’s head, well, that had nothing to do with her.

“Ow! Here, what about this?”

She rolled her eyes at the Santa workshop. What did that have to do with gardens? “Think plants, Arthur.”

“Right,” he grumbled. It wasn’t until she was nearly done with her carry-out that they finally found the perfect idea.

-

Morgana nearly cursed, she was running out of time, Gwen would be in ten minutes, and she still hadn’t done the lights!

She had made beautiful flowers such as heathers, helleborus, and cyclamens, all flowers that would grow in winter, but instead, she had made them out of ice. She had done out-of-season flowers too, roses and hydrangeas and more.

She had filled the garden up with hundreds of ice flowers that swayed as if they were real ones. In the center of the flowers was a tall Christmas tree decorated with reams of silver ribbons and red berries.

The amount of magic she was using was starting to weigh on her. She shook her hands as if that would help and started adding more lights so that the entire area above the garden was covered in lights.

“Morgana?”

The first word that came to her mind was ‘ shit’ .

She must have run out of time. She turned around slowly to see Gwen looking gorgeous as ever under the golden lights, holding a large Tupperware case with an unreadable look on her face.

She wallowed, “Gwen, you’re early. And you brought…?”

Gwen looked at her in amusement, “Cupcakes, and I’m really not.”

Morgana checked her mobile and silently cursed. She was right, Gwen was punctual as ever. “Gwen-.”

“You’re the magical gardener.”

She couldn’t help but roll her eyes, “Unofficially but yes.”

“All of it? The plants, the lights, everything…?” Gwen said. The lights that covered the sky made her chestnut eyes impossibly warmer.

“Yes.”

“And you do the Christmas displays every year just for fun?”

Morgana felt herself blush. “Actually this is the first time I’ve done it.”

“So you did all of this for me?”

She nodded then nearly jumped as the Tupperware container hit the drop. Gwen ran the short distance between them before wrapping her arms around Morgana’s neck and kissing her.

Her lips were cold, no doubt from the wind, but wonderfully soft. It took only a second for Morgana to curl her arms around her waist and kiss her back.

When they did finally pull apart it was with heads pressed together and blissful giggles.

“I’ve wanted to do that for ages now,” Gwen admitted.

“Me too,” Morgana chirped.

Gwen bit her lip. “You really did all this for me?”

Morgana grinned. “Needed an excuse to keep seeing you.”

Gwen laughed as she said, “You could have asked me out you know? Maybe somewhere warm.” She then ended her teasing with a quick peck.

She shrugged. “This seemed easier, and it was sort of fun. Imagining your reactions to everything.” And it had been. With each spell and creation, she’d had Gwen's smile in mind, her laugh, her look of wonder. Maybe Christmas wasn’t so bad after all. “Which reminds me…” She looked up and said, “Besníwian.”

Soft snowflakes began to slowly flutter down.

Gwen looked up and gasped in delight. She then looked at Morgana with utter amazement.

She looked so pretty with snow falling onto her hat and hair she couldn’t resist kissing her again. And again. And again.