Merlin's Festival Woes
Morning of the Festival
It's five in the morning; Merlin is already awake, dressed, barely fed and waiting outside the kitchen for Arthur's breakfast. The head cook, a grumpy old hag, is giving all the cooking staff hell for no apparent reason, but Merlin is oblivious to the chaos happening.
He's daydreaming, thinking to himself, if I were Arthur right now I'd call off the festival because it's raining and everyone can go back to bed till ten, call it a sleep day for all the knights and servants and cooking staff and stable boys and …
"ARGH!" whined Merlin as a clumsy and rather tired maid spilt boiling water down him.
"Sorry" she yawned, she passed him a grubby towel and wandered off into the busy sea of people, now gathering in the great kitchen as they readied to prepare for the day ahead of them.
Great! Now it looks like I've wet myself, all the knights will make fun of me. Just absolutely GREAT!
"Well, hey there Merlin, been waiting along time? Didn't quite make it to the toilet?" joked Gwaine, gesturing towards Merlin's wet trousers.
"No, it was a maid,"
"Oh, I see, you saw one you like,"
"NO! Oh, I give up on today already." Merlin's voice was strained with frustration.
"I'm only kidding with you mate," Gwaine flashed a dazzling smile at one of the maids "Can I get this good mans order please!" he gave one wink at the girl, she melted and instantly bought everything Merlin had ordered for Arthur's breakfast.
Why don't I have that effect on girls, if I did any thing Gwaine did, if I even tried, I'd be called a pervert or worse. Slapped! Merlin kept pondering about this up until he had to clamber on to a soggy horses saddle, so that a grand tent could be pulled up. Still raining, stupid rain makes me even wetter! At least it covers the patch on my trousers, silly wet patch, and stupid maid, made me get ridiculed by Gwaine!
"Stop," called Percival from behind him, "MERLIN, I SAID STOP!"
"Sorry!" he called back, he steadily backed the mare up a few spaces and Percival began to hammer in the pegs. How ever did I get roped in for this. Oh yeah! I'm the manservant to the King! Why doesn't Gaius get something to do?
Two hours into the preparation, solid nagging rain and constant instructions and confusion from someone or other, it was getting pretty boring for Merlin. Thankfully by now someone had gagged Gwaine, so he could no longer tell his continuous stories or lame jokes. Leon was at wits end with Percival as he either banged the pegs in to deep, in the wrong place or he lost them. Elyan, the lucky basket, had been called away to deal with another issue. But none of this was what got Merlin down; it was Gwen with her early ideas of where to put flowers or how to hang the bunting.
Just stop! Please! I'm not a girl; I don't do this type of thing.Merlin continued to nod his head as if knowing and understanding what the queen was saying. No one had called over to him to get on a horse or put pegs in, talking to Gwen was getting him out of working.Yeah!
"So why didn't you go for the red bunting, that would go with the Camelot flag?"
"That's the point Merlin, if everything was red there would be nothing to stand out, a little contrast never hurt anybody." Gwen explained with glee, then there came a tap on Merlin's shoulder.
"Get back to working you," said Elyan with a laugh, "And you stop pestering him, your majesty." He over enforsized the word MAJESTY and Gwen shuffled off like a child; she wished them both luck and went back to the castle.
"You looked like you needed saving from 'all the pretty colours', I know I've been there" Elyan smirked at Merlin as he made sarcastic quotation marks with his hands; he then wandered off in the opposite direction to the castle.