A/N The idea for this one-shot came from listening to Happy Ending, by Mika, soon after watching the audio commentary for S2E10, Sweet Dreams :P

Disclaimer: Neither Happy Ending or Shakespeare's 18th sonnet belong to me. Nor, unfortunately, does Merlin.

Vivian sat back, and regarded her latest poem with satisfaction. She felt it was her best yet.

My love has eyes like the sky in summer

When I had to leave it was a bummer

His hair is as soft as a bird's feather

And some of his clothes are made of leather

He and I are meant to be

Can't wait for our children three

When we kissed my heart soared

I would never have got bored

I love him more than pretty dresses

He ran his fingers through my tresses

Although the two of us are now apart

I'll soon be back, to rejoin my heart

She was still in a creative mood, so she found a new bit of parchment and started another poem.

Shall I compare thee to a Summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And oft' is his gold complexion dimm'd;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd:

But thy eternal Summer shall not fade

Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

Nor shall Death brag thou wanderest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou growest:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Vivian frowned as she read over the fourteen lines she had just written. "That just doesn't make any sense" she said aloud, crumpling up the parchment and throwing it to the floor. Maybe her creativity for the day had been used up after all.

Rising from her chair, she crossed the room to her mirror and gazed into it. She sighed deeply at her expression, noting that even wearing an anguished expression, her face was very beautiful. This cheered her up slightly, but not much. "I just miss him so!" the girl wailed, running to her bed and throwing herself face down onto it.

Lady Vivian had been acting in this way for two months, ever since she had been forced to leave Camelot and, more importantly, Prince Arthur, her heart's desire. Her father had not allowed her to speak to anyone except himself and the (female) castle servants in all that time, so she spent her days pining after Arthur. She had found out about the terrible dangers he had faced only recently, from her servant Adela, and had almost fainted as the maid recounted what she knew of the terrible knights of Medhir and the ferocious dragon. And she was filled with pride by his brave slaying of that dragon. Her father refused to tell her anything about Arthur or even Camelot, which was why she had to resort to asking her maidservant what she knew of the dashing Prince. King Olaf was wary of "further fuelling her childish infatuation" by giving her any news of the object of her affections.

Now she wept noisily (she rarely did anything quietly) in the hope that Adela would hear and come running; which she did. Lady Vivian sobbed as she poured out her feelings, yet again. "We're so in love, Adela! How could father be so cruel as to keep us apart? No-one could understand how much I love him, and how much I miss him! Everyday is like torture without him. He was my reason for living, he was my whole life!" Adela rolled her eyes, though of course she was careful not to let her mistress see her doing so. She would have been considerably more sympathetic had she not heard an almost identical outburst several times a day for the last nine weeks. As it was, it had become hard for the longsuffering maid to even feign sympathy for the spoilt princess. She did her best however, aware that King Olaf indulged his daughter's every whim - well, every whim that didn't involve men - and would not hesitate to fire her if Vivian demanded it. So she forced herself to pat Vivian soothingly on the back, yet again, and make "there there" noises.

Adela's eyes wandered around the luxuriously furnished room, taking in the terrible portraits of Arthur that her mistress had attempted. Adela had never seen Prince Arthur herself, but she was sure Vivian's portraits had not done him justice. For one thing, if he was really as fat, red faced, large-nosed, effeminate, and hunchbacked as various portraits showed him to be, her extremely superficial mistress would never have fallen for the man.

If she was honest with herself, Adela was a little worried about the Lady Vivian. In her four years serving the girl (a record, she was told - the average time a servant to the Lady Vivian lasted was about three months) she had never seen one of her obsession's last as long as this one had. When her mistress had decided to learn to play the harp, for example, after a week she had declared that she never wanted to see the "horrid thing" again. What was different this time, she wondered as she half-heartedly comforted Vivian.

A/N Please review! Just a couple of lines is fine if that's all you want to write. Praise and criticism equally welcome, honestly. xxx