I think something I have been meaning to put in was that everyone's totally OOC, but I think you've probably noticed by now. Cheers to all you lovely reviewers. You make my groggy mornings when I run out of jam lovely and orange tinted.
27th December.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
Three french hens.
'Tis beauty truly blent, whose red and white
Nature's own sweet and cunning hand laid on:
Lady, you are the cruell'st she alive
If you will lead these graces to the grave
And leave the world no copy.
Twelfth Night, Act 1, Scene 5.
"I have hens."
"Crucified Christ," Arthur growls. "Will you not leave me alone? I care very little for your plans to turn Camelot self-sufficient."
"Sourpuss," Morgana smiles, seating herself on the edge of his covers. "I'm keeping them indoors because of the weather. Meet Katerina, Elinor and Bianca. I think they've taken quite a shine to you."
"Get them off my bed. Where's Merlin?"
"Oh," she sighs. "I expect he's out in the snow."
"The snow?"
"Mm," she says, picking up one of the hens. "I've let Gwen get a head up on those knights. Never did like that Sir Muchin, so he's in for it this morning."
"You let Gwen get a head start and didn't tell me?" Arthur yells, crashing through his bedroom looking for clothes.
"Modest and decorum thrown out the window for the cause of what, snow?"
"This is about so much more than snow, and you know that," the prince shouts.
"Alright, alright."
"Have you seen my gloves?"
"Your gloves don't do anything for your hands. Aesthetically, obviously. You wouldn't be wearing them if they just kept your hands cold."
"I wasn't asking for an opinion, I was asking whether you'd seen them," he says shortly.
"No. No I haven't. I have a pair if you want them," she says, fishing a pair of little woollen gloves out of a pocket. Ignoring the blatant lack of absorbency, Arthur snatches them and races out the room. He's got some honour to uphold.
There's a tradition Gwen has to explain to Merlin which, to the warlock's mind, sounds like the best one he's heard in a while.
"We get together, the servants, and basically have a massive icy fight with the knights."
"Surely you out-number the knights?"
"We haven't been trained to main since birth and our average age is about twelve so really, we're the ones at the disadvantage. Yo, Gregs!" She hails a member of the kitchen staff. "Is our crack team ready?"
"Rosie's twisted her ankle but we're all here. Four cooks, three stable hands, you, me, Merlin and eight cleaners. That makes, what, eighteen."
"One for two knights," Merlin points out.
"That's where our beautiful Plan B comes in," Gwen beams. "Are they in place?"
"Knights at twelve 'o' clock," Gregs says.
"There's nothing like the sight of thirty six odd knights striding towards you to cheer you up of a morning," Gwen says.
"Together, as a collective entity, we've had them all," he says proudly. Gwen cackles lustily.
"Come on boys," she says, tugging at Merlin's arm. "We're going to show them what the proles can do."
Though he'd never admit it, least of all to Gwen, Merlin's not overtly sure what a prole is. Also, he thinks they should be armed with snow and that, had he known that he's be throwing cold things, he'd have brought gloves.
"What took you so long, Arthur?" she beams.
"Same rules as last year," the prince declares. "When you want to surrender, just let us know."
"Same applies to you," Gregs says. "And no fighting dirty."
"Says Queenie!"
"Let's leave the derogatory comments until later, Percivil," she tells him icily. "What's our signal?"
"Morgana will drop a handkerchief from that tower. When it hits the floor, we commence."
"Very noble," she says, grinning. "Lighten up, princey. It doesn't matter that much if you lose."
But of course it does. Everyone on the field knows that. It's a matter of pride, and Camelot takes matters of pride very seriously.
"Morgana is in position," Gregs says as both side retreat to their lines.
"Bring it." Gwen glances over at Merlin and smiles. "Just run around a bit. You're still doing your bit. Snowballs ready?" she asks.
"Ready."
"Plan B ready?"
"As far as I can tell." The eighteen servants stand and watch as the Lady Morgana leans over the tower with a scrap of white fabric and lets it drop. It dances in the wind like the ghost of a long dead leaf. "Three," Gregs says quietly, "two."
"One!"
Gwen flings a snowball in the direction of the knights. It hits Sir Percivil square in the chest.
"Nice shot," Merlin says meekly.
"Cheers." The knights start their charge, running towards the servants who hold their ground. "Wait, wait," Gwen says, taking the warlock's arm in an iron grip. "Wait. Now! Signal!"
Gregs turns and waves furiously in the direction of the stables.
"What's he doing?" Arthur asks himself.
Out from behind piles of straw and horse crap emerges one of the most terrifying sights ever to grace the wall of Camelot. It's like the cast Lord of the Flies has suddenly graced the walls of the castle, as fifty children smothered in camouflage paint appear from behind walls and horse, and race towards the knights.
"Are they allowed to do this?" Sir Bors asks quietly.
"Come and have a go if you think you're hard enough!" Coming from the lips of Guinevere, that wouldn't sound so threatening. Coming from the lips of twelve-year-old Gretel, it sounds blood-curdling.
"You bitch!" Arthur shouts, throwing snow right at Gwen, who just cackles at him.
"Homicidal children, smothered in mud? Where's your courage?" The prince is promptly floored by seven children under the age of ten who set about rubbing snow into his hair. "Best of luck sweetheart," she shouts, running away to fight Bors, who seems to have some resilience to infants.
"What do I do now?" Merlin shouts at her.
"Make snowballs!" she tells him. "And follow me. An education in the art of the snow fight is called for, I think." She scoops a handful of snow into one hand and pats it down. "One, get your weapon. Two," she nods at Bors, "choose a target. Three-" Merlin pulls her down, and a hail of snowballs fly over their heads. "Good lad," she tells him, slapping him on the back.
"It's what I'm here for."
"Gretel! Leave the poor man alone! Merlin, get her off him." She points to where the twelve-year-old has a knight in a headlock and is pushing snow up his nose.
"Er, Gretel," the warlock says. "Please stop it."
"Don't wanna."
No where in my job description, he thinks, did it say that I'd be forced to defend knights from angry twelve-year-olds. Merlin thought he was employed to work as a dogsbody, not as a failed child minder.
"I'll give you cake if you get off him," he promises.
"What sort of cake?" she asks.
"Any sort of cake you like." He ducks to avoid flying snow. "I promise. Just get off that man."
"Alright," Gretel says sweetly, climbing out of the snow and offering Merlin a damp mitten. He looks around to see Gwen engaged in some fierce, angry fighting with nameless knights. His presence won't be missed.
"Do you want to go to the kitchen?" he asks.
"I'm bored now," she says, shrugging. "Will there be cake?"
"Immense amounts of cake. If there isn't enough cake, I will make you cake. By hand." He leads her off the field and into the stables. He is about to take her down to the kitchens and officially retire from the fighting in favour of hot chocolate and fire, when someone stops them.
"Hey Merlin," a smug voice says. "Where'd you think you're going?"
"I could take you," Gretel says, giving the crown prince an overtly dirty look.
"Gretel, why don't you head down to the kitchen?" Merlin says. "I don't think Prince Arthur's up to fighting scary girls."
"There better be cake or I'm going to find you," she says pointedly, disappearing down a staircase.
"She's going to hurt you if you're wrong," Arthur says, raising a snowball at him.
"Nice mittens!" Merlin yells. The prince glances at his hands, distracted for just long enough for the warlock to get a head start with the running.
Camelot was not designed to aid those in need of a hasty getaway on a frozen morning. Its flagged courtyards are death traps, with hidden dips filled with ice, and black ice at that.
"For the honour of the knights of Camelot," Arthur yells, "I'm going to kill you." Round a corner, Merlin almost takes out Morgana and her growing collection of birds.
"Unleash the hens!" he tells her.
"What?" she laughs.
"Just do it!" She drops the birds to the floor. They scatter in confusion and as Arthur appears around the corner, they act as an incredibly effective method of tripping the royal up.
"That was elegant," Morgana says, sweeping the birds back up.
"Shut up. Which way did he go?"
"Which way did who go?"
"He went this way!" Arthur shouts to himself, dashing up a flight of steps, almost forgetting where they lead, right up until the moment he sees sunlight and feels a cold fist of snow hit him square in the jaw.
"Hah!"
"You're going down, Merlin!" The warlock backs himself into an alcove in the wall, in readiness to start a stalemate when there's a cheer from the field. He steps out and peers over, in time to see Gwen being held aloft by cheering throngs of servants. She spots him, high above in amongst the crenelations and waves. "Gotcha."
The prince floors him, and Merlin finds himself flat on his back, shielding his face with his arms.
"Git!" he shouts as Arthur wrestles to keep him still on the frozen stone. "It's over. We won."
"Don't care. This is personal." He squirms violently but to no avail.
"I'll set Gretel on you!" There's the sound of gloved hands sweeping across snow. "Bitch!" He starts to flail again. In answer to this, Arthur grabs a handful of snow and shoves it down Merlin's tunic. "I hate you and I'm going to hurt you."
"Are you now?" The warlock, though no knight, has some pretty sweet skills built from pub brawls with Gwen, Camelot's finest street fighter. He's got deadly elbows, and the prince finds out as he is knocked sideways and smashed into the crenelations. "Wow!" he laughs, oblivious to the fact that Merlin is both sitting on his chest, and frantically scooping up snow. "Where'd you learn that?"
"The Guinevere and Gregory school of brawling," he says, narrowly avoiding breaking the prince's nose with his elbow and pushing a handful of snow into his top.
"Wanker! That's freezing!"
"I know! You did it to me!" Arthur grabs a handful of snow and shoves it into Merlin's hair.
"Powdered!" he shouts triumphantly.
"Git!"
The two of them continue fighting in almost perfect snow until they are bodily separated by Gwen, who later recounts the tale to Morgana, using words like 'ravishing,' 'growling' and 'fisting.'
Luckily, Morgana was born with a sense of the rational, but unfortunately for the two lads, she wasn't born without a sense of romance. For this reason, on December 27th, Morgana join Gwen and Greg's Conspiracy To Bring Love To Camelot.
Consequences, causalities and egotistical noblewomen be damned.
Yay, back to writing longer chapters. On account of my computer being contraband tomorrow (damn this family togetherness) I wish you goodwill, peace and love to all you lovely people, with love from Cosmia, Augustus and Augustus' soon-to-be lady friend Livia (not that there'll be any romance. Gussy's the biggest queen I know).
