A Princely Dalliance

It should not have happened like that, he thought, because all he had been doing was running around the castle, searching for Morgana for something or another and perhaps somewhat rudely marching into her chambers, standing in the middle of them and calling her name loudly. But only Gwen was there, various lengths of fabric hanging from the crook of her arm as she bustled around the room, informing him that Morgana had left for a walk earlier in the morning and had not yet returned, and he felt a tinge of guilt to have intruded upon her like that.

"Would you like me to tell her that you wanted to speak to her?" Gwen asked, setting the fabric aside. "I'm sure that she'll be back eventually."

He should have given her a simple answer -- a yes, because it was a matter of great importance, or no, because it really was quite insignificant -- but perhaps it was because Gwen was carrying herself just like that, with a gentle arch in her back and brown eyes cast towards the glass-fractured sunlight, that Arthur found himself muttering something indistinct, and Gwen stepped closer to him, a quizzical expression upon her face.

"Sorry, Arthur, did you say something?"

"Just -- um -- lovely day today, isn't it, Gwen?"

"Is something wrong?" She took another step forward, tentatively, the skirt of her gown settling behind her. "Pardon me for saying so, but you seem -- you seem to be acting a little bit odd is all."

"Hardly," Arthur insisted, shaking his head vigorously. "You're just -- "

He regretted them, instantly, the words, and cursed himself for not leaving when the chance was given to him. He could not quite contemplate leaving at that point, though, because, suddenly, Gwen seemed quite close to him -- maybe she had always been that close -- and wondered, without fully acknowledging that he wondered it, what should happen in the most unlikely and highly inconceivable event that his attentions were to become a bit too focused on the vague area around her mouth.

Meanwhile, it did not occur to Arthur that Gwen had already pursued this particular line of thought to its inexorable conclusion and that, in absence of any initiation on his part, she was committed to seeing it realized.

"You've -- you've never done this before, have you?" she ventured, her voice low.

"I haven't a clue as to what you're talking about."

"You've never -- " Gwen's face screwed up with concentration " -- stolen a kiss from a servant girl, or maybe Morgana?"

Arthur frowned, rather unable to take note of anything but his impatient pulse. "You know full well that Morgana would sooner slap me than let me kiss her."

There was something prodding his thoughts with tiring insistence -- merely lean in a few inches, perhaps a little more, close your eyes, and everything will happen, simply, the way that it ought to happen. Gwen giggled, and he managed a weak smile. "Morgana would be like that with any man, not just you. But you still haven't answered my question."

"That is because it's a ridiculous question. Of course I have kissed someone before -- that is, I have kissed all the time, Gwen, and if you don't believe me -- "

"What was it like?" she prompted.

"What -- "

Then Gwen let the fabrics slither from her grasp, and his words drifted into silence as she narrowed the distance between their noses until there was none and silence itself devolved into a shocking warmth on his lips.

When she pulled away, he could only gape at her unreadable expression, his hands at her waist. Later, he would not be able to explain how it was they ended up, of all places, there. "It was," he began after a few moments, "like that. Just like that."

"Just like that?" she echoed, drawing yet closer.

He could count every curl of her eyelashes. "Yes, just like that."