Chapter one of "I Must Agree With Hamlet (being a prince is rough)". I claim no ownership of "Merlin", no copyright infringement is intended; this story is just for fun.

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Arthur sat by the window trying to use the last of the really good light to capture the final details of the scene in front of him. Sometimes, his friends were spread across the world, but mostly, the wast majority of them were in Camelot at any given time, though only a few of them were natives.

He had studied art, for example, at a university in France, of all places, when he had met Galahad, who was a very talented pianist.

It was Percival and Lancelot who were now at the door, awakening Arthur from his musings and tearing his eyes away from the the snowy courtyard outside.

Percival was his first new friend, not studying but applying for a spot in their native garde, then he'd met Lancelot, run into him in the corridors of his own home one Christmas when he'd come back with Guinevere for the holidays. Gwen had been Morgana's best friend since the girls were eight and went at boarding school together, after Morgana's mother had died.

She had only been there a few months, words having been slow to reach King Uther that his ex-lover was dead. After that, Morgana had gotten to move to Camelot, and live with them in the castle. She and Gwen had stayed in touch and, both Gwen's now fiance Lancelot and her brother Elyan were great friends to Arthur.

Freya, he had run into during a semester at Reykjavik, where he had studied politics and she had been doing her engineering degree. Upon finishing, she had come joined them in Camelot, becoming knighted the year after.

It was a very old tradition, that the Crown Prince had to be surrounded by a group of Knights, and it remained important, thought the rules for said group of Knights had shifted dramatically. They no longer had to be men, born of noble families out of Albion. In the end, Arthur made friends that mattered to him and cared for him, and those who proved to stick around were knighted eventually, so that the tradition was kept up.

Traditionally, the group was a protective force, but this, as well, was given up - there were bodyguards for that sort of thing, after all.

Arthur would have, in fact, welcomed the presence of bodyguards a bit more around especially Gwaine, who could be a menace, and also from his sister, who was almost patologically stubborn.

"You alright, Arthur?" Lance asked him with concern. "You've been up here for hours now!" Leon, knowing him for far longer, after all, would possibly not have asked, but it usually took a decade or so for people to give up on him. Not counting his sister, who never gave up, just regrouped.

"Yes. It is the snow" Arthur gestured vaguely in the direction of the window and the courtyard outside, making very pretty scenery, and then went back to his painting, capturing the very last of the light. With an eyeroll, Lancelot told him "well, when the light goes, come down have dinner with us, will you? Your sister and Gwen tends to team up, you know, and I might get into trouble. I think Leon would agree..."

Absentmindedly, Arthur nodded, and like the excellent friends they were, they left him alone. Half an hour later, tired and with splatter of paint still on his hands, Arthur joined the King, Queen, Princess and some very selected members of the court in the small dining room, quite ready to once again be the dutiful son.