Chapter Text
Uther sat on his throne staring at his son. “Do you know why you’re here?”
“No, father.”
“You have been spending too much time in the lower town. You must show strength-“
“Father, I’m their prince!”
“Leave us.” He commanded the servants and guards in the room. They quickly filed out. “After I die and you become king, you will do whatever you want because I won’t be there, but until then do not ever disappoint me, you hear?”
“Yes, father.”
“If you continue to go against my will, Morgana will be the crown princess, as you know.”
He nodded, it was a common threat. “Yes, sire.”
***
Arthur slammed the door to his room shut behind him, huffing.
“Hello to you too, sire” Merlin said cheekily.
Arthur jumped a foot in the air. He had not seen his beloved servant standing there. “Oh Merlin, I, uh, didn’t see you there.”
“Are you okay?” Merlin frowned
“Ugh, yeah,” he kicked off his boots. “my father just gets on my nerves!”
“Have you tried telling him? It’s fun to tell you-“
“Don’t tell me how to talk to my father!” He snapped. “Sorry. Sorry..”
“Arthur Pendragon apologizing? something must be truly wrong.”
Arthur gave him a small smile.
“But seriously, Arthur, What’s up?”
“He told me I have to stop going to the lower town.”
“You love going to the lower town. That’s like your second favourite thing to do!”
“Second favourite?”
“Your favourite being, of course, hunting various animals for sport.”
Arthur rolled his eyes. His shoulders' tension loosened slightly. “I’ll have to find a way to go to the lower town without him knowing, or some way of finding out their needs, I can’t just ignore my people!”
“What’s he going to do if you continue?”
“He threatened to take away my Crown.”
“As he always does, he’s never going to do it, you know how it works. You're the firstborn son, he’s not going to give the crown to a woman, even though if I’d like to see women in power this is not the age of Feminist movements. Though I was thinking of secretly starting a feminist movement, I haven’t-“
“Merlin, can you stop your nattering? I can’t hear myself think!”
“You, thinking? What has this world come to!” Merlin snickered
Arthur shoved him.
Arthur tends to spend most of his mornings training. Merlin would say his training makes him a better prat, Arthur says it’s to better his abilities to protect. Either way, he practices different fighting techniques.
Today was just regular sword fighting as well as the average running drills and the like.
Leon started the drills with having the knights and the crown Prince run laps.
Merlin smiled and sighed, content. “Ah, look at the sight of conformity. You know-“
“Merlin, aren’t you supposed to be doing laundry right now?” Sir Leon asked, raising an eyebrow in a gesture not unlike Gaius.
“Sir, yes, sir!” Merlin said, with only a little bit of sass, before running off to supposedly do laundry. Everyone was at least a little scared of Leon.
***
Gwen paced as she thought. She looked back at her dresser. She had laid out two outfits and both weren’t good enough. Every day she ran into this dilemma, she wanted to look pretty for Morgana, but she just had ordinary clothes.
She sighed and picked up the cleaner of the two. She wished she had a chance with her lady. But Gwen was just a maid, and a woman at that.
Gwen picked up the small bouquet of flowers she picked for Morgana and walked to Morgana’s room.
“Hello, my lady!” Gwen said, knocking
“Come in!” The lady Morgana answered
Gwen walked in. “I picked these for you.”
“Oh they are beautiful Gwen! You always pick the best flowers.” Morgana smiled, “put them in the vase over there.”
She walked over to the vase, taking out old flowers to put in the new ones. The old ones were from her too. Was she being too obvious?
“What do you think I should wear?” Morgana held up two dresses, one red and one green.
“Ooh that’s hard. The green one compliments your eyes and the red one goes well with your jewelry.”
“Hmm,” Morgana considered this. “The green one it is.”
Gwen followed Morgana to the dining hall, just behind like she was trained. Morgana sat across from her brother. Gwen smiled at Merlin, who was standing over his own master. Merlin made a face as Uther came into the room. Gwen hid her month in an attempt to disguise her giggle as a cough.
Uther sat down, starting the dinner.
After the dinner, Gwen helped Morgana out of her clothes and into a more comfortable dress.
“I wish Uther was more.. friendly.”
Gwen hid a laugh. “More friendly, my lady?”
“He’s prickly.”
Gwen smiled. “He is indeed.”
Morgana gave a fake scandalized gasp. “You cannot agree with me about the king!”
They both laughed
Morgana sighed. “I wish you could come to the ball Uther is throwing. Then it would be tolerable.”