Uther looked back and forth between the two of them and pursed his lips. For a moment he realized what it would be like to have two children that would defend each other til the end. He had often had many such meetings with Arthur and Morgana over the years, but they quickly turned to one blaming the other for something and he would send them both to their rooms before they drove him mad with their bickering. This was an entirely different situation, and one he wasn't quite sure he was ready to handle. They were both very nearly adults, and one of them was not really his to do more with than scold. And it surprised him that he wasn't more upset. There was a small-very small-part of him that was pleased that Arthur and Jaya were getting along so well that Arthur had made it a point to defend her. He sighed heavily and looked back and forth between the two of them. "Very well. But I expect absolutely no trouble. Do I make myself clear?"
Jaya knew he was talking to her and nodded in agreement. "Yes Sire."
Once they were out into the hallway Arthur roughly hung his arm around Jaya's neck. "Saved your hide."
Jaya looked at him like she wasn't sure what to do with him and snorted. "What. Was that?"
"I owed you one. I heard Father starting to give you a lecture, so I thought that I would step in and make sure that he didn't scold you any more." Arthur grinned.
Jaya looked at him and pursed her lips for a moment. "Well thank you. It did sound like he was warming up to quite a storm."
Arthur frowned. "I'm sorry about him, Jaya."
"You didn't know what he was going to say. And he's just a boy. I shouldn't have lost my temper." Jaya shrugged, sounding very apologetic.
It never ceased to amaze Arthur that Jaya could just figure out what he was talking about when he really wasn't clear to begin with. "I think you did fine. I'm sure that I would have lost my temper much sooner."
Jaya shrugged. "Doesn't make what I did the right thing."
Arthur frowned at her. "Did Father yell at you for something else? Normally you're not this-" he waved his left hand around at her.
"Did you know that Lord Bayard is coming to Camelot?" Jaya looked at him and raised her eyebrows slightly.
Arthur frowned for a moment while he thought. He was sure that he remembered hearing something about it in one of the latest boring council meetings. It wasn't coming to him, but he understood now why his father had pulled Jaya aside. "I'm sure I did at one point. Don't worry about it, Jaya. You'll be splendid. They'll love you. Bayard always has loved to swap war stories. He'll be very entertained by you, I'm sure."
Jaya snorted. "Now you're just making me sound like the jester." she grinned and him and shoved him slightly. "I'm going to get Ridire and take him hunting. Would you like to come?"
Arthur looked eager.
"He would love to, but he can't because he has a council meeting that he's required to be at in less than an hour." Merlin spoke up, seemingly appearing out of thin air next to Arthur's left shoulder.
Arthur pulled his arm from around Jaya's neck and glared at him. "What? How could you not tell me?"
"I did tell you. Yesterday. And this morning. And just now." Merlin shrugged, looking completely unfazed by Arthur's irritation.
Jaya giggled and waved her hand as she turned toward the corridor that lead toward her room. "Have fun with that. Maybe try listening for a change!"
"You haven't been to one!" Arthur exclaimed sounding frustrated.
Jaya turned around and shrugged.
"Honestly, Jaya, how can you be so indecisive?" Freya cried, tossing up her hands in frustration.
Jaya sat on the edge of her bed, feet kicking the foot board lightly, looking like a little child that was being scolded for something that they didn't understand. "I am not!"
"You are! Just pick a dress." Freya gestured to the three dresses that were hanging on the changing screen across the way from Jaya. "It will never cease to amaze me that you can make split second decisions when it comes to everything, but put a few dresses in front of you and you couldn't make a decision to save you life."
"You want me to wear the green one, don't you?" Jaya asked, nodded to the green dress that had thin brown leather stitching up the arms and on the bodice.
Freya looked at it and then back at Jaya again. "Please. It's fancy, but Lord Bayard won't mistake you for a royal like Morgana."
Jaya's eyebrows rose and bobbed her head back and forth. "I suppose you have a point. Though I don't know why it is that you ask my opinions when you already know what you want me to wear."
"Because I want to make sure that I don't put you in something that you don't want to wear." Freya sighed, sounding like the conversation had already been had so many times she was surprised they didn't have exact lines down.
Jaya looked guilty-like Freya knew she would-and smiled. "You're too good for me, Fey. The green one will be perfect."
Once Freya was done with Jaya, she looked like her normal self, just dressed up more. Jaya's wild curls had been pinned so they all fell over her right shoulder and tumbled down to almost her elbow. The hair that was left on the left side of her head was braided into small ropes and draped around her head, studded with emeralds and a small scattering of diamonds. A dark brown leather vest pulled close to Jaya's ribs with the leather stitching that matched the dress topped off the look.
Gwaine groaned and looked at Jaya softly. "I wish that there were pictures. You must have been gorgeous."
Jaya's cheeks turned a little pink. "I don't think-"
"I do." Gwaine smiled at her. "You're so pretty. And with leather...mmmmm."
Jaya clicked her tongue and ducked her head slightly. "May I continue?"
Gwaine nodded and smiled at her. "Yes. Go on, my Warrior Princess."
Freya stepped back to look at her and smiled. "There. You look like a regular warrior princess. If that even is such a thing. I'm sure Lord Bayard will be impressed."
Jaya looked at herself in the mirror and nodded. "I could go to battle like this. I might not be very effective, but I could do it."
Freya snorted, but she looked pleased and quickly went to get herself changed so that she could be in attendance for the official meeting.
By the time that Freya got done changing and had finally agreed to put on some of the jewelry that Jaya insisted she wear, the girls found themselves rushing through the back halls at a light run. Jaya ended up taking them the back way into the throne room, breezing in just in time to hear the horns announcing Lord Bayard's presence.
Uther must not have realized that Jaya had only just slipped in because when he looked back over his shoulder he just sent her a tight-lipped smile and then turned toward the front of the room again.
When the Lord Bayard and his men walked into the throne room Jaya could feel the temperature drop, and once the tall man with long, light brown hair that was starting to grey came to a stop a few feet from Uther, Jaya was sure that it was because of how the two most powerful men in the room looked at each other. Bayard looked at Uther cooley from light blue eyes. When he shifted slightly to look over everyone in the room, Jaya wasn't sure if she should smile at him or look away. She felt Freya shrink against the back of her arm, and could only assume that Freya didn't like the look that the Lord Bayard had given her either.
"Lord Bayard of Mercia. Welcome to Camelot. Today marks an end to war and beginning to a new friendship between our people." Uther boomed out, sounding important. He extended his hand and only had to wait half a second for Bayard to grasp it.
Jaya started clapping with everyone else as she looked over the people that Bayard had brought with them, momentarily wondering if he realized that he wasn't going to be able to take over every room in the castle, since there were people already living there. That's when she caught sight of a dark haired woman that was not clapping, but was staring at someone across the room. Jaya pursed her lips slightly and glanced around her, but couldn't figure out who she was looking at. Someone was certainly holding that girl's attention. Jaya gave up trying to figure it out and turned back to watching Uther and Lord Bayard. The poor girl was probably drooling over Arthur.
Merlin didn't hear anything that was said. He had been distracted the second that Freya had walked into the room, dressed in a medium green gown that had a braided silver chain draped over her hips. The sleeves ran down her arms and pooled around the knuckles on her hands with delicate silver embroidery edging the cuffs. Her dark black-brown hair was curled and fell loose around her shoulders. She seemed to be comfortable not really moving from behind Jaya. She didn't look scared or anything, it just looked like she was used to being that close to Jaya. He felt a little bit of heat creep into his face about the same time that he caught himself wishing that she was standing that close to him.
Arthur looked over at Merlin in time to catch what looked like a blush. His eyebrows went up and he poked Merlin in the ribs, probably harder than was necessary. "What?" he asked.
Merlin flinched slightly and glared at him. "What?"
"You were blushing."
"I was not."
"You were."
"Was not!" Merlin's eyes flared open slightly and he pursed his lips.
"How do you know, you couldn't see it!" Arthur suddenly straightened up and looked imperial as Lord Bayard walked up to him and looked him up and down. "Lord Bayard." he greeted, poking Merlin's ribs again before he could protest.
"Arthur. I trust you are having a good year?" Lord Bayard looked at him shrewdly.
Arthur nodded. "Training is going well and the tournaments have been very popular." He agreed while not giving away anything.
Lord Bayard nodded and smiled and then walked away, looking as imperial as humanly possible.
"I don't believe I've ever seen you here before. I'm sure I would remember your face."
Jaya looked up and smiled charmingly at him. "Lord Bayard, I do presume."
"You presume correctly." He smiled. "Where are do you come from, Dove?"
Jaya shifted slightly so she was sure that there was still a little more than an arm's length between her and the visiting Lord. "A little island to the west." she hedged.
"And what do you do here, Dove?" he wondered, before catching sight of her necklace and earrings and the jewels in her hair.
"Not much of anything that you would be interested in, M'Lord." Jaya shrugged, doing her best to make her side-step sound like anything that she would have to tell would be terribly boring.
"You must be a Lady of the Court on that little island." Lord Bayard mused, looking harder at her necklace. "Where did you get such a thing?" he asked.
"It's my mother's, M'Lord." Jaya reached up and subconsciously touched the wolf's head that was laying against her neck.
"And now you have it?"
"Aye. It's mine for while I'm in Camelot. For good luck." Jaya smiled, a faraway look in her eyes suddenly.
"I hope to get to know you better during these treaties. You intrigue me, Dove." He bowed and walked away.
Jaya watched him go and her upper lip slowly pulled up in the right corner.
"What did he say to you?" Uther asked quietly, walking up to her quickly.
Jaya looked over at him. "He wanted to know where I was from, and what I do here, and where I got this." Jaya touched the wolf head pendant again. "I don't want to be forward, Sire, but I do not like that man."
Uther pursed his lips and then narrowed his eyes. "Nor do I."
"If I may, Sire, I would like permission to stay away from him. He makes me uncomfortable." Jaya looked at him and waited for what she hoped was a good answer.
Uther looked at her and sighed. "We must do what we can to make sure that this peace treaty holds."
Jaya watched the King walk away realizing that he had just told her that she wasn't allowed to stay away from the Lord of Mercia. A spark of rebellious ire flared up inside her. Why should she have to sacrifice to make sure that a treaty that had almost nothing to do with her held? How could Uther live with himself when he asked to her to do something that made her so uncomfortable when she was from a completely different Kingdom.
"Jaaaayyya." Freya warned.
Jaya smiled over at her. "I'm just going to avoid him, Fey. That's all." She turned to look over the rest of the room. If he continued to pester her, Lord of a neighboring country or no, she was going to put a spell on him to make his curiosity forget about her.