thatsamilkshake | Camelot: Saturday Afternoon. While Merlin And Arthur Are Off Holding Hands Like Otters.

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Camelot: Saturday Afternoon. While Merlin And Arthur Are Off Holding Hands Like Otters.

Francine had long ago figured out that Angelica Demesnes and her ilk -- not that Francine would use the word ilk unless she was trying to spell milk in a game of Scrabble and somebody else had already laid down the M -- had no clue what life was like in a medieval kingdom.

What she was sadly finding out now was that medieval kingdoms had no clue how to write historically-suspect bodice-heaving romance the way Angelica Demesnes did.

Instead, she got to sit on a step and try to make it through at least one paragraph of Ye Tragik Historye of Sir Ethelred the Dubious and His Enormouse-Busumed Wyfe before her eyes started swimming again.

[For NPC shenanigans, though The Girl, she is welcome also!]

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She couldn't exactly say I met Katchoo. That happened when she was twelve.

"I suppose I did. Finally. I could've had that life -- I almost did, with Merlin -- but we both finally realized we wanted something else." Cough. some people realized that faster than others, Francine.

Gwen sat up. "Oh," she said, "Oh, sorry, I didn't realise that you and Merlin-- I mean, you are very lovely, I just didn't know--"

"No, I... I mean, um, thanks? So are you." She wasn't just being polite and flustered, though those applied too. "That was a long time ago, though. We're not, you know. Anymore."

Okay, not quite a year ago, but long in Fandom time? Yes.

"He didn't tell me he had courted anyone," Gwen said, still flailing a bit on the inside. "Let alone come close to marriage."

...Going by the context, that wasn't a weird assumption to make. "I'm sorry."

"No, we didn't--erf." Way to trip over her own tongue and Merlin's. "I just meant that it could've happened someday. But we're still good friends; there's nothing to be sorry about. I'm where I want to be."

"You've got another man, then?" Gwen sighed, hiding the relief badly. "I haven't seen him with anybody else-- not that he'd have the time, Gaius and Arthur work him to the bone."

No, he does and splorfle being inappropriate reactions, much as the second one wanted to come burbling out of her throat, Francine went with a careful, "I don't think Merlin has a girlfriend, no."

What to say about the first part? She knew Gwen was Merlin's friend, but...dark ages. "I don't have a man, but that's okay. I don't want one."

Gwen frowned at her. "All right," she said, slowly. "I suppose men are a bit useless, aren't they? I mean-- sometimes. Not all the time. Still-- no wonder you were in need of a job, then."

"Some of them are." Not that Francine was bitter about that, either. "Not all. But I'd still rather be with Katchoo. Um, Katina." There, that was... nonspecific enough, wasn't it? "So we both needed jobs."

That... was a very specific kind of nonspecific. Gwen's mouth set a little warily. She... heard about things, sometimes. "Oh." She smoothed her hands out over her skirts. Should she say something more? Was she thinking in the wrong direction? She fidgeted.

It was catching. Or Merlin was just not at all wrong when he said Francine reminded him of her. Either way, Francine was suddenly very interested in the heavily-illustrated A at the top of the page.

Silence was bad though. Right? Um. Er. Uh... "So how 'bout that troll?"

Gwen exhaled, unanswered questions still dancing around her head, but a little grateful for a lack of those answers at the same time. "That was awful," she said, at last. "I mean, the King being tricked like that-- and Prince Arthur, after he gave back all the taxes... for a moment I thought he'd-- we'd go hungry for years."

"He wouldn't have let that happen." She wouldn't, of course, be Francine if she knew when to shut up. "Arthur, I mean, not his father." She wouldn't be Francine if she knew how to keep her dislike of Uther out of her voice, either.

"King Uther disinherited him," she said, shaking her head. "I-- it doesn't matter any more, though. Everything is back as it should be."

"Right. Exactly." With people like Merlin hiding so they didn't get burned at the stake. "I guess."

She couldn't say she hadn't been warned, hadn't had plenty of notice that Camelot wasn't a musical extravaganza where it never rains til after sunset. It wasn't even bad, most of the time; it was just.... full of secrets.

Yes.

Gwen didn't like the awkward silence all that much, so she clapped her hands to her knees, and said, "And the two of you have been a real help. I should've known Merlin would've made such interesting foreign friends. Er. Not that it's obvious!"

Yes. Yes, it was.

"It so is." Francine laughed. "You don't want to hear me try to do an E--- er, Albion accent."

"You do sound a bit funny," she admitted, finally. "Sorry. It's still nice to meet you, though. Merlin doesn't talk about his time in Northumbria much, and yet he seems... different. I mean, he's moved into Arthur's servants' room, for god's sake."

Is that what they were calling Arthur's bed these days?

Cough. "He, um, he didn't stay there before?" Francine asked innocently.

"He used to live with Gaius," she said, "I hardly see him there any more, except for chores."

"I guess Arthur needs him around more, now." That didn't sound dirty, did it? No. Right? Mmm, paranoia. "They were the only people from Camelot there. In, um, Northumbria. For a long time. So they had to depend on each other."

"We didn't hear much from them," Gwen replied, fidgeting. "Or from the Lady Morgana, when she went." Which had been... yeah.

"It was cut off, for a while. There really wasn't any way to get messages through." Francine glanced over at the other girl. "Is she doing okay? Morgana? We used to work together to patch people up, when the i--" Northumbria: not an island. "--the castle was under attack."

Gwen blinked, and her head came up suddenly. "You worked with the Lady Morgana?" she said, somewhat incredulously. "Times must have been dire!"

Well...sometimes, yes. "Hey, every hand helps, right?"

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camelotfolk.livejournal.com - 2010-09-19 21:08 (UTC) - Expand

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