The wind was blowing through Vivien's dark hair, the sound of the horse's hooves on the ground sounding like true freedom, and the smile on her face was so big that Sir Oliver was afraid flies would fly into her mouth.
"We must turn back," he said, "your grandfather would be expecting you by now."
"Oh, come on, Sir, live a little!" And with those words she leaned forward and the horse started running faster, leaving only the echos of her breathy laugh in the air.
Sir Oliver shook his head, and shot after her.
Thirty minutes later he finally managed to convince the free spirited royal to return to the castle.
After Vivien took her bath, and dressed in her rhinestone decorated dress she approached her bookshelf, to find something to distract her mind until her presence was required for dining.
The shelves were a dusty brown, overflowing with hard back covered books of all sizes. Her most prized possessions, ones that she'd been collecting since she was a small child, books organized by years, the growing of her height, on the lowest shelves all of her children's books that she did not have the heart to donate to the castle's library, all the way to the top, where her most recent ones were stored.
A story on the shelves themselves- and not only on the books they were storing- of her life.
Soon, or maybe hours later, there was a soft knocking on her door.
"Enter."
"Princess," her maidservent bowed, "your grandfather is asking for your presence in the throne chamber."
Vivien got up and put her book on the the bedside table, with the gentleness of a mother.
The guards on the massive double doors leading to the chamber shot her uncertain looks instead of the happy smiles she would normally get, and so her black brows furrowed on her freckled forehead and looked at them questionably, only to have them look away and open the doors.
Walking in she saw a group of men dressed in Camelot red sat at the long table.
"Grandfather," she respectfully bowed her head, something she would not usually do, but her grandfather's face was grim and unsure, an unusual sight, that she felt that the most logical course of action on her part was the unusual.
When she lifted her head she sneaked a glace at the Camelotians, only to find them openly staring at her, a long haired men in particular, an almost nostalgic look in his light eyes.
"What's going on?" She asked.
"Sit, my child." He said as he mentioned for the guards to close the doors.
"I must tell you something."
She looked at him strangely, tired of being confused, for she had a strong dislike for things that she did not understand, and sat on the chair to his right and looked at him expectedly.
"I'm afraid that your mother had been untruthful to me, about the circumstances of your being."
Her eyes widened, and she leaned towards him.
"Your father was unaware that she was bearing you," he took her calloused hand in his, "and he was unaware of your existence until today."
Startled and breathless she looked at the men of Camelot, already knowing what was coming.
The long haired man swallowed hard and chocked out the words, "I'm sorry, for not being here, I did not know."
Snapping her head to her grandfather she looked for confirmation, only for him to nod sadly.
"I-" Her words got stuck in her throat. Or maybe in her head. She wasn't sure what one was supposed to say in the current situation.
Her entire life she had thought that her father was a drunk who left her mother bearing a royal bastard, a man that as a child she had dreamed of meeting only to ask him why, or to punch him in his face, or when she grew up to just never meet at all. A man she never truly expected to actually see, much less one that did not know she existed at all until that very day.
And at the same time forcibly changing her mother to a women she almost knew to one that she did not know at all.
Why would she have lied?
This was too much for Vivien, who could feel her heart pulsing through her blue veins.
Ripping her hand out of the king's grip she ran out of the room directly to the stables, got on her horse and hurried out of the court.
"That went far better than I had anticipated." Said the resigned king after the doors shut behind his granddaughter.
"Maybe we should just leave," said Gwaine who was starting to rise out of his chair, only to have Percival hold his forearm until he sat back.
"I know this was not what you were expecting," said Lancelot, "but you have a daughter, Gwaine! Don't let go of this chance you have here."
"Vivien is hot headed," said the king, "give her time, I'm sure she just needs to wrap her mind around this revelation. She looks up to her mother, and not only to see you, but to know that she has lied to us is hard for her."
Gwaine could only nod.
When the king declared that a menservant would take them to their rooms no one argued, and Gwaine could only follow the young man to ignore the pitying and eager looks of his friends.
