Arthur

5:00 Have pity taken on you and leave council meeting to go help with the feast preparations

6:30 Ready Merlin for the feast

Arthur dropped the pitcher of watered down wine off in the kitchens, promising another servant—Joan—that he would be back to help with last minute feast preparations after he folded the king's laundry. He hoped that wasn't a lie; he didn't actually know how long it would take him to fold the laundry. And he had to ready Merlin for the feast at some point.

He rushed back up towards his chambers and snatched the piece of laundry off the top of the pile; it was a tunic, one of his favorites. Arthur held the article of clothing up as he tried to remember if Merlin folded his tunics or hung them in the wardrobe.

As he considered both options, his heart dropped, the tunic was wrinkled. Not just slightly, but majorly wrinkled. Merlin would never let it go if the clothes he was supposed to launder came back less than perfect. Arthur racked his brain, how did one get wrinkles out of clothes? He didn't know. He threw the tunic on his unmade bed to check the rest of the laundry.

"Aauuggghh." Arthur groaned, his face in his hands.

After allowing himself a moment of despair he pulled himself together and went over to the tunic. He'd just have to figure out a way to get the wrinkles out through trial and error.

His first try was shaking the tunic out, which helped a little, but not enough. Then he tried laying it down flat on his mattress and smoothing it out manually. This once again helped, but the tunic was certainly not nearly as smooth as Merlin usually managed to get them (when he put in the effort).

He didn't have a third idea. Frustration edged its way into his actions as he repeated the shaking and smoothing of the tunic. After about three tries, the garment was passable. Not good by any measure, but not so wrinkly that he'd make Merlin relaunder it later.

Arthur repeated the process with the bedsheets. This attempt took significantly more time and he hoped that Merlin wouldn't walk in as he was waving the fabric through the air like an idiot. He also hoped that no one in the courtyard was looking up at his bedroom window because he had left the curtains wide open and it was entirely possible some random citizen had looked up and seen him flailing about in front of the window.

After his graceful bedsheet dance, Arthur proceeded to make the bed for the second time that day. And since no one else was in the room and he had pulled the curtains closed after his last epiphany, no one would ever know that he jumped across the bed to get to the other side and promptly fell off the far side. No one would ever know.

When Merlin entered the room, Arthur was just standing up from his bed making endeavors.

Merlin lifted an eyebrow at him in amusement, having guessed what happened in the moments before he had entered the room. "You're still doing the laundry?"

Arthur huffed at him. "Yes, some of us were abandoned by those who were supposed to be guiding us."

"You still haven't found Harold?" Merlin laughed.

"No, I haven't and it's rather inconvenient." Arthur frowned. The absence of the other servant was severely hindering his ability to do his chores correctly.

Merlin pointed to the laundry basket, still half full of wrinkled linens. "Yes, well I can see that your washing skills leave something to be desired."

Arthur scowled. "Yes well…" Arthur made a face in lieu of an actual response, making Merlin laugh at him again.

"You left them here when you were at the council meeting." Merlin commented. "That's what made them wrinkled. If you want to get them smooth again, you'll have to heat them up, hold them by the fire or something and then shake them out."

Arthur made another face and Merlin shrugged, enjoying Arthur's incompetence.

Arthur ignored the laundry he still had to fold and put away to pull out fresh clothes for Merlin for the feast. He didn't make much conversation as he pulled the clothes onto Merlin and pushed him out the door so he could finish his chores before rushing to the feast himself.

Merlin smirked as he stood in the hallway for a moment to laugh at Arthur's actions.

Arthur flew around the room with renewed vigor, folding and smoothing the clothes until they were acceptable. He didn't have time to try Merlin's heat trick since there was no fire lit in the room and he wasn't about to light one just for some wrinkly clothing.

While he certainly wouldn't be early to the feast, Arthur didn't think that he'd be super late. He was on time at the moment, if he could manage to avoid actually doing any last minute work, he might make it and not have to face Merlin's gloating.

Arthur practically ran through the halls to get to the kitchens. He just needed to grab a pitcher of wine for serving and then get to the banquet hall. As luck would have it, he was stopped the moment he walked into the kitchen.

"Arthur!" Mary shouted.

Arthur sighed, he had been so close. "What do you need, Mary?"

"We still need a few more pitchers of wine. Can you pour the wine into the pitchers stacked over there?" She pointed to a row of pitchers on the table across the far wall. "Lucy opened the wine bottles already and you only need to fill them to about half full." Mary moved away to finish her own tasks the moment she got out the last instruction.

Arthur weaved between the few straggling servants still in the room. Most had either already gone into the banquet hall or were still working to prepare the food in the other room.

He quickly grabbed the first bottle of wine and began pouring. It was a much slower process than he would have like and he found himself cursing as he waited for each bottle to completely empty. After he had filled about twelve pitchers, he grabbed one for himself and left before anyone else could stop him.

Arthur stealthily slipped through the servants' door and edged his way around the room to get to Merlin's side. He had thought he was being stealthy enough that no one would notice his entrance. And no one had, until Merlin announced, "And there's my servant now."