"Uuuugh! Get it off me! Get it off me!"

Brome's terrified shrieks awakened Gawain from his deep slumber which the fatigued knight could have sworn he had entered only seconds before. He groaned and forced himself to sit upright to see just what exactly was going on. His eyes came into focus on what appeared to be Brome's legs flailing up in the air while a mass of grey fur straddled itself on top of him. Melon sat off to the side, observing with great amusement as her apparently harmless wolf Virginia wiped Brome's face clean with a slobbery tongue.

"Don't just sit there!" screamed Brome, "Get it off me!"

Melon whistled and Virginia trotted over to her with a wagging tail. Incredibly, the animal really was as tame as she had said. If anything, Brome looked like the wild beast, furiously scrambling to his feet and mopping up the excess wolf-saliva with the palms of his hands.

Gawain yawned and rubbed the sleep from his eyes. "Good morning," he said.

"Morning!" greeted Melon cheerfully, "I hope you slept well?"

"Fine, fine," he assured her. By the gods, she was a lovely vision to wake up to in the morning. He noted that she had a kind of warmth and energy that drew him to her in an unusual way. Everything about Melon was ridiculous from her name to her pet wolf to her silly plot to steal from the Romans, but he found that these quirks made her all the more intriguing. She certainly was the last thing he had expected to discover on his journey to rescue Lancelot's woman.

Gawain shook these thoughts from his mind, however, as she presently walked over to him and returned the cloak with which he had covered her the night before. "It's very warm," she said, "Thank you."

"Not at all," replied Gawain, taking the cloak from her and reattaching it at his shoulders. He wanted to tell her that perhaps in the future she might accept more than just a cloak from him to keep her warm, but the thought was lost as he felt down at his sides and realized something was missing.

"My weapons," he said suddenly, "Where are my weapons?"

Melon slipped away quickly, pretending she had not heard him. "Brome!" she called over to the rather agitated man a few feet away, "Stop frightening my wolf!"

Brome had picked up a stick and was brandishing it in warning at the animal sitting in front of him calmly with its head cocked in curiosity. "Down!" he commanded, "Down, you ravenous monster! You wild, venomous beast!"

"Well," Melon remarked dryly, "It appears you have the situation well under control."

"Right, well I've always been one to handle myself with composure in moments of great tension," he admitted, concentrating too hard on the ravenous monster before him to catch the sarcasm in Melon's tone.

Melon, on the other hand, did not catch any of what Brome said at all as she was roughly spun around by a wild, venomous, and overall not very happy knight who did not take the disappearance of his weapons lightly. "My arms," he demanded, "Where are they?"

"Attached to your shoulders, of course," she replied dismissively, once again turning away from him. "Brome! Put the stick down!"

Forget intriguing. This woman was pure evil! "Very funny," Gawain reviled in frustration, tightening his grip on her arm, "Did you take my weapons?"

"You are a very sound sleeper," she reflected, "but maybe that's because you snore so loudly that you can't hear anything."

"That doesn't answer my question," he snapped, "And I don't snore!"

"Oh, but you do," she insisted, nodding her head, "Loudly."

"I wouldn't describe it as loud," interjected Brome who was still bravely warding off the beast, "Raucous or riot would be more exact."

Gawain threw his hands up in the air. "And I used to think Bors was poor company," he muttered, "Now I'm stuck with a manically depressed soothsayer and a deranged pacifist and I have no weapons!"

"Cheer up, Sir Gawain," said Melon lightly, "Maybe Brome will let you borrow his stick."

Gawain gritted his teeth and looked her directly in the eyes. "Where," he demanded, "Did you put my sword and daggers?"

"Don't worry," she assured him, patting him consolingly on the arm, "They are someplace safe."

Gawain's mind was spinning in fury. "I don't want them someplace safe!" he roared, "I want them here! In my belt! What the hell possessed you to take them in the first place?"

"I thought you might be tempted to use them," she replied simply, as if this would explain everything.

"Oh, believe me," he shot back, "At this moment in time, I would be very tempted to use them."

"See!" she exclaimed triumphantly, "You're proving my point exactly. You are completely incapable of resolving any conflicts without resorting to violence."

"And there's something…wrong with that?" Gawain countered in utter vexation.

"Yes," replied Melon in a tone of expertise, "The way of the soldier is a very unfulfilling lifestyle. Violence is incredibly damaging to your psyche."

"I think I can judge for myself what is and is not damaging to my psyche," he retorted.

"Very well," she said, "You just ruminate over that for awhile and we'll continue our discussion at a later date."

"Does that mean you're going to give me back my weapons?" he asked.

"Nope," she replied.

"Damn it, woman!" he shouted in exasperation.

Melon ignored his outburst and patted him cordially on the shoulder. "Come on," she coaxed, heading over towards the horses, "It will be afternoon before you know it."

"I'm not leaving without my weapons," he insisted firmly.

"Don't worry," she assured him, "We'll bring them along."

Gawain let out an antagonized sigh and reluctantly followed. "Brome," he called over to the man who in comparison now seemed to be the ideal traveling companion, "We're leaving."

Brome proceeded with caution, shuffling warily around the wolf that in reality was not so threatening, and mounted his horse with his trusty stick still in hand. Gawain climbed up in his saddle behind Melon and the three travelers were off once again down the trail. Melon turned back once and smiled to see Virginia stalking after them in the brush. Brome, of course, was less than pleased with the wolf's pursuit.

There was little talking as they rode onward through the forest. Gawain sat stiffly in the saddle, clearly still sour with Melon for stealing his weapons. Finally unable to cope with being disarmed any longer, he started rummaging through the gear and supplies attached at the sides of the horse's saddle, but it was to no avail. His sword and daggers were nowhere to be found.

"Brome, see if my weapons are inside your luggage," he pleaded desperately, suspecting Melon had perhaps hidden them with him.

"Why would they be there?" Brome asked, naturally disinclined to lift a finger to help anyone.

"Because they are not with me," Gawain replied, growing more frustrated by the second. "Melon," he added sharply, "You're sure we didn't leave them behind?"

"Now you see," she replied casually, "This is what we call separation anxiety---"

"Damn it! Will you just answer the question for once?" he cried.

"---the tension you can no longer release physically you are now forced to release verbally," she continued; then asked in overemphasized concern, "Do you have trouble trusting people, Sir Gawain?"

"I know I do," interjected Brome, though as usual no one was listening, "I suspect it's probably because my parents hated me. I was nothing but a disappointment to them. You see, I was supposed to have inherited the great talents of fortunetelling, but what do I get instead? I get---"

"I have trouble trusting people who steal from me," Gawain countered.

"And I don't trust people who are heavily armed," Melon returned.

"Need I remind you," said Gawain, "that you don't actually need to be tagging along with us? If you don't like that I carry weapons, then you could find someone else to travel with."

"I can't do that," Melon insisted, "I owe you for saving my life and I never leave debts unpaid. So whether you like it or not, you're stuck with me."

"Why don't you just give me back my weapons and we'll call it even?"

"Because I am giving you something much more important."

"Oh really? And what would that be?"

"Independence from your reliance on violence as a means to solve your problems."

"What the hell does that even mean?" asked Gawain, twisting his face in befuddlement, "And what makes you think I'm dependent on violence in the first place?"

"Have you thought about anything at all besides your weapons in the last five minutes?"

Gawain paused for a moment, thinking it over. "Of course not," said Melon victoriously, "Believe me, I know all about what serving in the Roman military does to people."

"She certainly does," Brome added in agreement, "If only you knew about---"

"I just know," interrupted Melon quickly, "that swords and knives and arrows never did anyone any good."

"Except keep me alive on the battlefield," Gawain muttered.

They spent the rest of the day traveling along on horseback, and, though he was furious with her at the moment, Gawain had to grudgingly admit that Melon certainly was useful to have around. Gawain knew his way around the forests of Britain well enough, but on the mainland, he was completely without a sense of direction. Melon, however, knew the forest trails to such an extent that they covered twice the ground that he had expected. Gawain would never give her the satisfaction of that little piece of information, though. Honestly, how dare she steal his weaponry and then preach to him about fighting as if she knew something of it? She had probably lived her life in some village hidden deep in the forest, sheltered from all warfare. That would at least explain her uneducated views and her complete ignorance of the necessity of violence in some---well, many---situations.

Gawain's blood boiled as these thoughts ran through his head like a stampede of wild horses. Of course, horses could not talk and that made them infinitely better company than the two unbearably irritating counterparts that currently made up his society. Perhaps this was how Tristan had felt on expeditions with him and the rest of the rowdy knights. Gods, Gawain missed the scout sometimes. Now, he would have been one Gawain would not have minded traveling across the Roman Empire with. At least there would have been peace and quiet---and a healthy appreciation for weapons.

Then again, this was all Lancelot's fault, really. Lancelot, who in life had had more women than seed to spread, now in death still had unresolved matters of the heart. Gawain felt guilty for putting all the blame on his deceased friend, but honestly, what had he done to deserve his current unarmed and completely annoyed state of being? When he finally reached the afterlife, Lancelot was going to pay for this.

As it turned out, all of Gawain's thinking had not been for naught, and he eventually came up with a plan for how to get his weapons back. The sun had started setting at last and the entourage of three unlikely companions stopped to make camp. As Melon began unloading supplies from Gawain's horse, the scheming knight approached her from behind and slipped a hand around her waist. He leaned in close, breathing in the scent of her hair.

"I'm sorry for my hostility earlier," he murmured, letting his hand roam across her midriff.

Her body tensed. "That's---alright---" she stammered, caught completely off-guard by this sudden intimacy.

"I've been thinking," he continued, pulling her closer against his chest, "that maybe you were right and I shouldn't rely so much on my weapons..."

He began to lightly kiss her neck and she found herself letting out a soft moan in delight. "Yes," she replied, her voice hoarse and cracked, "There are other ways to get what you want."

"Yes," he whispered, wrapping both arms around her now and letting his hands explore the curves of her body, "Many other ways." He pulled back the sleeve of her shirt, revealing the silky skin of her shoulder, which he tasted with his lips.

"For instance," she persisted, "One might use sex…"

Gawain froze suddenly in mid-seduction. Had she seen through his ploy? "I would never degrade myself to that…" he said rather unconvincingly, returning his lips to her neck.

"Well that's good," she replied huskily, "because you could be a god in bed and I still wouldn't give you your weapons back."

'Damn it!' Gawain cursed inwardly. Was he really that transparent? Actually he had to admit that he had secretly been yearning to hold her exactly in that manner for quite awhile. She infuriated him; this was true, but she also enkindled something in him. He hoped that wasn't transparent as well.

Melon laughed as he released her from his embrace. "That's what I thought," she said in amusement, though secretly she had hoped to have been proved wrong. After all, what was the real reason she had been so eager to accompany this knight through the forest? She supposed she did not want to know the answer to that question.

"What gave me away?" Gawain asked in consternation, considerably disappointed that his charms had failed.

Melon smirked. "Believe me," she replied, "I know when a man wants me and when he wants something else."

At least she thought she knew, but when Gawain suddenly pulled her to him and kissed her firmly on the lips, she was no longer completely certain. "I told you," she said after he had once again released her, "I'm not going to tell you where they are."

He kissed her again. "It's not going to work," she insisted.

He pulled her to him once more and captured her lips with his, this time deepening the kiss. She responded instinctively, opening her mouth and allowing him to explore it with his tongue. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let her fingers intertwine themselves in the long curls of his hair.

"I'll never give in," she whispered breathlessly.

Gawain leaned in for another taste, but was suddenly interrupted by a large crash breaking through the trees. Roman soldiers on horseback charged towards them with swords drawn. "Halt where you are!" they shouted.

Gawain looked at Melon in hopeless defeat. "I really wish you'd reconsider."