Dear Everyone Else
Dear Mr Emrys
Please do not attempt to contact my son again. A restraining order is being arranged to keep you a suitable distance from him. I trust the £5,000,000 which has been deposited into your bank account as a goodwill gesture will help counteract the disappointment of this.
You may still watch Arthur’s marriage to a suitable princess when I have found one, and also his eventual coronation which will be many decades from now. As long as you do so on a television at least fifty miles from Westminster Abbey.
I trust that this will be satisfactory.
Uther Pendragon
HRH King Uther II
Dear Leon
You lying bastard. You sold this like it was the best gig ever and all I’ve done is sit around outside old princey’s hotel room door for two days while he gets laid over and over again. I know he is, I can bloody hear them all the time. They’re keeping on going longer than the bloody Duracell bunny! I’ve offered to join in, tried interrupting them with offers of food, set the fire alarm off, everything I can think of. Arthur just tells me to go away. They’re a pair of selfish, miserable buggers who’ve locked themselves in there and probably think it’s funny to torment me like this. The noises, Leon! The noises! It’s like some cruel and unusual form of torture.
You owe me. Big time.
Gwaine
Dear Gwaine
I most certainly did not sell it as the best gig ever. Worst, that was what I said. You obviously stopped listening as soon as I mentioned the butt plug. I did think at the time that your eyes had glazed over.
Why on earth would you think that they would want you to join in? Concentrate on what you’re supposed to be doing - guarding the crown prince.
Cordially yours
Leon
Head of the Royal Bodyguards
Dear Leon
Was that an offer to come over here, bring butt plugs and generally brighten up my evening with a shag? Prince Arty won’t notice, he’s still locked in his hotel room with his new toy. I think they’re in the shower now, I can hear water running. He did just come out and give me a drink though. Maybe things are looking up.
Come on over, you know you want to. Leon I am soooooooooooooooo bored here. My dick is curling up from neglect. Also I’m sure we’re not supposed to stay on duty this long.
Desperately yours
Gwaine
Dear Gwaine
Your dick is more likely to curl up from overuse or some disgusting disease. Please cease and desist from bothering me with your inappropriate requests.
Not yours at all
Leon
Head of the Royal Bodyguards (So your BOSS, Gwaine! And that had better not have been an alcoholic drink, you’re on duty!)
Dear Boss
Help! They’ve gone! This is all your fault, if you’d come over and relieved me like I asked I wouldn’t have fallen asleep. They must have snuck past me. There’s a note for the king. What do I do? What’s the penalty for losing the crown prince? Uther’s got a spare somewhere, hasn’t he?
Oh God, I’m sacked again, aren’t I?
Gwaine
Dear Father
By the time you read this, Merlin and I will be far away. We’ll also be married. My apologies for not inviting you, but it would have made it hard to hide the ceremony from the press. Also I fear you may have tried to stop the wedding.
There is also the little matter of the restraining order you tried to put on Merlin without my knowledge. Unfortunately these aren’t valid unless the supposed ‘victim’ agrees, not even if you are king. Perhaps you will claim again that this was a joke? Whilst your sense of humour has always been hilariously funny in the past, I think it might now be somewhat lacking. I am even starting to wonder if that pyre you built in the Tower grounds wasn’t serious after all.
Anyway, thank you for the £5,000,000 which we have put to good use. After our honeymoon we will be settling down somewhere quiet and living off your generous donation towards our future happiness. Merlin is touched by your kind and thoughtful gesture and we both have a gesture of our own for you.
I hereby officially abdicate any claim to the throne. The monarchy nowadays is just a figurehead anyway, and I really don’t like the idea of watching myself grow progressively more wrinkled on all the stamps and notes. Morgana will be an amazing queen, and probably slightly terrifying too. Do send over anything I need to sign to de-prince myself. Lord Monmouth has details of my solicitor and everything can be arranged via them until such time as you feel you are able to contact me in a calm and rational manner.
For now, please rest assured that I am quite safe and happy, and that by the time you read this I will have embarked on a lengthy honeymoon somewhere very remote and romantic, doubtless wrapped in the warm embrace of my new husband and enjoying many sunsets together. Don’t bother sending the sniffer corgis after us, they won’t find us.
Your loving son, although you probably wish otherwise at the moment,
Arthur
PS Please do not take this out on the bodyguard, it’s not his fault. I’m afraid I put something in his drink. They aren’t supposed to mistrust anything given to them by their charges, after all.