This title should make all the My Little Pony fans out there happy. What will make you less happy: this is a Morgana-less chapter. After all the recent Mergana development, I wanted to give Arwen and Fraine a little screen time, with bonus character growth for Prince Prat and Gwaine the barfly.
Warning: includes mentions of public nudity. It's all in a humorous context, unless you're tired of jokes at Gwaine's expense.
Gwen returned to work in the morning, just as Morgana had foreseen, and was warmly received by the lady, who told her that the business with things catching fire and exploding in her bedchamber had been resolved. Gwen was relieved to hear it and thought things could now get back to normal, but during the course of the next few days she noticed a change in her mistress. For one thing, Morgana never told her who was behind the magical vandalism. She was also secretive and distant in a way she'd never been before, and once or twice Gwen caught Morgana watching her with a very strange expression on her face. All efforts to find out what was troubling Morgana were deflected or outright rebuffed, however, which caused Gwen no end of distress.
When at last she decided she could no longer keep her concerns to herself, the first person she thought of sharing them with was Merlin. Not having been confined to bed for three days, he'd had many more chances to observe Morgana and had perhaps discerned the cause of her sudden shift in demeanor; if not, perhaps she'd confided in him as she refused to do with Gwen. After all, it was only natural for her fiancé to take the uppermost place in her affections, even over her best friend. Gwen therefore sought out Merlin at her earliest opportunity.
According to Will, who was cleaning Merlin's chambers when Gwen stuck her head in to look for him there, the prince had gone for an early morning ride and, if he'd returned, could probably be found in the stables. "Gwaine will be there too, so if you want to speak with Merlin alone, you'd best take Freya with you." Will winked at Gwen. "She'll be able to get Gwaine out of your way."
Freya was none too pleased about being dragged out to the stables to serve as a distraction for Gwaine, but she agreed when Gwen promised to take over their least desirable duty - washing Morgana's undergarments - for the week in exchange. She went in first, spied Gwaine and Merlin brushing horses, and lured Gwaine out by asking him to take a walk with her.
He readily agreed, and they strolled out into the meadow beyond the palace walls. It was gorgeous land, carpeted with lush green grass and colorful wildflowers; the only thing more beautiful was Freya in her dark green dress and black vest with colorful floral embroidery. Her attire almost made her look like part of the scenery, and she seemed somehow more alive here, amidst the kind of natural beauty she grew up with, than when she was surrounded by the castle's stone walls and all its artificial, manmade splendor. While Gwaine would have been content to admire her all day, eventually he had to ask why she had pulled him away from his work for a pleasurable but purposeless walk. It wasn't like her.
"Oh, well…Lady Morgana wanted me to tell you that the stable hands need to be more thorough with polishing Justinia's tack. It isn't shiny enough, and she wants to be able to see her face in it."
Gwaine stopped and turned to face Freya. "You are a terrible liar. You didn't have to bring me out here to tell me that. I know what you're really up to."
"You do?" Freya asked nervously. Why had she let Gwen talk her into this? Washing a hundred pairs of underpants dirtier than Morgana's ever were would be preferable to Gwaine's knowing smirk as he caught her failing miserably at subterfuge.
"Of course. If you wanted the pleasure of my company so badly, all you had to do was ask."
"What? You think I wanted to flirt with you?"
"Back when the wyverns invaded, you said if I got the king back before they razed the city to the ground, you'd kiss me," Gwaine reminded her. "You're obviously attracted to me, even though you insist on denying it."
"I said I would consider kissing you," Freya shot back, "and since the next time I saw you was at the feast celebrating Merlin and Morgana's engagement and you were drunk, like always, I decided not to. I do like you, Gwaine, but you drink too much, and it turns you into a loud-mouthed, ill-mannered troublemaker."
By the time she finished, Gwaine's mouth was hanging open. Yes, he was fond of his liquor, and he was aware he occasionally consumed it to excess, but that had never been a problem for him. Drinking had never seriously impeded his ability to do what he had to do to get by, or to entice whoever he fancied into his bed - until now. Freya wasn't like the girls he usually pursued; she was the kind of girl he might actually want to settle down with - the kind of girl that could actually make settling down appealing - unlike the tavern harlots who lost their allure after a single night. She seemed immune to the superficial charm that had served him so well in the past, though, and after months of knowing her, Gwaine was starting to realize that if he ever wanted to get anywhere with her, he might have to make some serious changes in his lifestyle.
"Are you saying you'd like me better if I drank less?" he asked.
Freya nodded. "You're also an entirely indiscriminate flirt when you're drunk. I can't take you seriously knowing you could just as easily be chasing after some other girl if she happened to be standing there instead of me."
"I'll keep that in mind at the next feast, then. Look, there's your favorite spot." He pointed ahead to a pond whose wind-ruffled surface sparkled in the sunlight. "Smaller than the lake you grew up with but almost as beautiful, right?"
"I can't believe you remember I said that."
"It's also a good place for a swim, isn't it?"
Freya concurred and agreed to go swimming with him on the condition that they undressed on opposite sides of a nearby weeping willow, and she would enter the water first so she could make sure he kept his eyes closed until she was submerged.
Just as Gwaine finished disrobing, Freya poked her head around the tree, frowning. "How did you know this was a good place for swimming? I just remembered I never told you that."
"No, but you've done it before."
Her dark eyes narrowed. "How would you know? Gwaine, did you spy on me?"
"Not exactly - Merlin, Will, and I were out riding and looking for a good place to stop for lunch when I spotted your dress hung over a branch and figured you must be swimming in the pond. Will bet ten coppers that Merlin wouldn't notice a naked girl right in front of him if he had his nose in a book, and I said there was no way any man could be that clueless, even him, so we got him to sit under the tree and gave him something to read, and sure enough, he never looked up when you came out of the water. Worst bet I ever made."
Freya's eyes were now catlike slits of fury. She recalled that incident, having thought at the time that a very inconvenient coincidence had caused Merlin to sit and read so close to where she'd left her clothes. She never imagined that her other friends had put him there as part of some stupid wager. "So you thought it'd be funny to make me parade around naked for everyone to see, did you? Let's see how you like it."
Gwaine suddenly found himself soaring through the air. He landed in the pond with a huge splash and surfaced just in time to see Freya storming toward the citadel. She appeared to be taking all his clothes with her, leaving him nothing to dry off or cover himself with when he made it back to the shore. Well, this is an unfortunate turn of events.
###
Left alone in the barn with him after Gwaine and Freya departed, Gwen approached Merlin. "Excuse me, sire, I wonder if I might speak with you."
Merlin glanced up from the chestnut tail he was combing. "You are talking to me."
"Well, yes, I am, but having this particular conversation would be easier if you weren't looking at a horse's hindquarters."
He finally put the wooden comb aside. "Oh, so this is something serious. Does it have anything to do with Freya suddenly wanting to go for a walk with Gwaine? You put her up to it to get rid of him?" Blushing, Gwen nodded. "Poor Gwaine. So what's on your mind?"
Gwen leaned forward, resting her elbows on the stall's half door. "I'm worried about Morgana, my lord."
"Why? Has she been having nightmares again?"
"No, in fact she's never slept better in her life than she has this past week. It's just that she… Ever since I came back to work, she's been different. We aren't as close as we once were, and every time I try to confront her about it or remind her that I am her friend, she turns me away."
"I'm sorry, Gwen, but these things happen. People grow apart-"
"That is not what's happening to us!" Gwen burst out. Merlin's eyes widened - he'd never before heard her raise her voice - but she couldn't bring herself to care at the moment. "Morgana and I are not drifting apart; it's as if there's something hanging in the air whenever I try talking to her as her friend rather than her maid, pushing its way between us, it's… It's as if she no longer trusts me. I just wondered if you had noticed these changes in her as well, and if perhaps you'd had better luck uncovering the reasons behind them since you seem closer to her than ever." Gwen couldn't keep herself from sounding bitter, which she was, just a little. Just because Morgana was soon to be married, it shouldn't mean she had to cast aside someone who'd been her devoted friend since childhood.
Merlin leaned on the door beside Gwen, mirroring her pose - being much taller, he had to hunch over to do so - and gazed almost pityingly at her. Gwen hated it. "I really am sorry. Morgana says all the time that you're the best friend she's ever had, and I know she hates feeling like she can't trust you with everything-"
"But why can't she trust me? What have I done!"
"Nothing. Believe me, Gwen, none of this is your fault. Not that it's Morgana's fault either; sometimes something happens that isn't anybody's fault but still drives even the best of friends apart because maybe one person thinks if they were completely honest about what happened, the other person wouldn't understand and might not want to be their friend anymore. Do you see what I mean?"
"Not at all," Gwen admitted, in case her expression of perplexity wasn't answer enough. "Whatever it is you know, why can't you simply tell me instead of speaking in riddles?"
"Because that would mean betraying Morgana's confidence." The grave finality in his tone made it clear that any further inquiries would be pointless - whatever secrets Morgana had shared with him, Merlin would take them to his grave. Seeing Gwen's look of dissatisfaction, he added, "I can tell her you've noticed the change in her and it's hurting you, but I can't promise anything. Morgana's been through a lot recently-"
"She and I have been through a lot together," Gwen said indignantly, interrupting him yet again. "I've helped her through some of the worst times of her life, and she's done the same for me. There was never any secret she couldn't share with me until she met you. I don't know if this is your influence or not, but I don't like it one little bit." Then she rushed out in a whirl of lavender skirts before she could regret being so confrontational with a prince who was also a sorcerer, or he decided to turn her into a toad.
Making it out of the stable with her original form still intact - or so she thought; at least she hadn't felt any spells hitting her in the back - she walked quickly but aimlessly across the courtyard, blinking hard to stem the tears that threatened to seep from her eyes. Despite Merlin's attempt at comforting her, if that was really what he'd been doing, she felt like she was losing her best friend, and there didn't seem to be anything she could do about it.
"Ooof!"
Gwen had stalked right into some man's broad, muscular chest, and while he grunted at the impact, it was she who was knocked backward. Luckily, the man caught and steadied her. "Guinevere?" It was Arthur.
"S-sorry, sire, I wasn't watching where I was going," she sniffed.
"Are you crying?"
Gwen ducked her head to hide those few traitorous tears that had escaped. "No."
"Yes, you are." Seizing her arm gently but firmly, Arthur steered her over to a stone bench and set her down on it. "Tell me what's upset you."
Though worded as an order, the request was uttered with such genuine friendly concern that Gwen found herself complying, not because Arthur was a prince who had asked something of her, but because she felt he might actually want to help - not like Merlin, who'd been sympathetic but too infuriatingly cryptic and evasive to be any real comfort. "It's Morgana." Gwen detailed the changes in her mistress since she'd come back to work and the toll it was taking on their friendship, ending with, "I used to know her so well, and now I can't begin to guess what's going on in her mind these days."
"It can't be that hard; I'm usually convinced there's nothing going on in there at all."
"Sire!"
"I'm sorry, Guinevere. I wish I could help, but I haven't noticed anything. Morgana seems exactly the same as ever. I mean, she is less anxious now, but that's only to be expected now that Merlin's put a stop to the magical disturbances in her bedchamber."
"And she's very tight-lipped about how he managed that," Gwen muttered. "I suppose you wouldn't have noticed the things I have, since I'm the one with her at all hours of the day and night." She froze, her lips forming an O as the words jogged something from her memory.
"Guinevere?"
"Last night - I just remembered that last night I thought I heard Morgana getting up, but I was only half awake, so I assumed I was dreaming."
"You think Morgana went out last night?"
"Perhaps. As I said, I could have been dreaming."
"Here's what we'll do, then," Arthur said in the same tone he used for plotting military campaigns. "Tonight we'll keep watch on her, and if she leaves at a suspicious hour, we'll follow her. If she's sneaking out at night, it's my duty as her chaperone to find out why."
Just then, a scuffle at the gate caught their attention. Gwaine, barefoot and wrapped in a guard's spare cloak, was being marched in by a pair of guards who had been patrolling the city. Apparently they had found him outdoors without a stitch of clothing on, and when a breeze ruffled his cloak Arthur and Gwen saw that he was not in fact wearing anything underneath. Arthur pushed Gwen behind himself to shield her from the sight.
After Gwaine had been taken away so he could get dressed before being put in the stocks for public indecency, Arthur said, "You see Guinevere, no matter how bad a day you think you're having, there's always someone worse off."
Poor Gwaine. Someday I'll stop picking on him…but not today.
Next up: Arthur tries to spy on Morgana, which won't work because she's much smarter than him, but at least he'll get some quality time with Gwen. Also, Morgana questions Merlin's relationship with Nimueh.