This I wrote as a birthday gift to myself, because today, I am officially seventeen years old! (Man, has it sneaked up on me this year...!)
Birthday Gift
From his people, he received fresh flowers and seeds upon the front stairs of the castle, and when he took his personal noontime walk in the streets, men and women bowed and offered their loving gifts of fruit and fine linens to him with adoration in their eyes; he refused most of these things, but assured each and all that he was grateful and that their loyalty was all that he desired.
From his knights, he received wide and sincere smiles from the newer and meaningful thumps on the back from the older, and from Gwaine he received the question of what they would have to drink at the evening feast.
From his beloved wife, he received a braided leather bracelet which he supposed must have taken a great deal of time and talent to make; she had, in that particular manner which made him feel strangely warm and at ease, quietly told him it was a way for him to remember her affections no matter if they were apart. Normally, he was not one for sentimentalisms, but he gladly accepted this one which was simple enough to be appealing, just as she had known it would be.
Still, none of these things lifted him entirely out of his low spirits as he remembered the terrible death this day now also symbolized, and he entered his chambers that night feeling weary and heavy-burdened after barely managing to escape the grand feast thrown in his honor.
Merlin had been absent for the first few minutes of the banquet, but he had hardly wondered at that; Merlin was absent for most everything.
When he saw the warm glow from the fireplace flickering shadows into the carefully-formed edges of an unfamiliar statuette, and touched his hand to the carved crown upon the small, wooden dragon's head—identical to the heavy golden crown he had just removed from his own head, he decided he could forgive his manservant's lateness, just this once, because the dark shadow in his heart was suddenly lifted by this subtle reminder of the king Arthur was destined to be.
Wish me happy birthday in a review, maybe...?