Songs to Dance - Song 8 - I wouldn't die (part 2)
Title: Songs to Dance
Author: kbrand5333
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Arthur/Gwen
They dine alone, in a small room shown to them by the innkeeper’s wife, overcome by the romance of their seemingly sudden marriage. The innkeeper indulges his wife, but cannot help wondering what they are running from or if the blonde stranger has gotten the tiny brown beauty in a family way. His wife shushes him, dismissing his concerns, calling them “poppycock” just before she heads in to check on the trio.
“Can I get you anything else, dears?” she asks, after knocking softly.
“Perhaps a top-up of my ale, if you please,” Arthur asks, holding his mug aloft. “G- Goldevia, do you need anything, Love?” he asks, smirking at her, using her new pseudonym for the first time.
“No thank you, ma’am, I’m simply stuffed,” she says, smiling at the older woman. She notices that the girl’s plate is only half-eaten.
“Are you sure, Lamb? You’ve got a lot left there,” the innkeeper’s wife asks, a mother’s concern showing in her voice. She studies Guinevere, cursing her husband and his ridiculous ideas. She looks healthy, but not glowing. Neither ill nor ravenous. Full breasts, but not too much so. This girl is not with child, she thinks, but she knows she’ll be keeping a keen ear out in the morning for anything sounding remotely like someone being sick. She curses her husband again.
Gwen smiles kindly at her. “I’ve always been a light eater, sorry. It was excellent, thank you.”
“I’ll finish it,” Merlin says, reaching for her plate. Arthur rolls his eyes at him, but the innkeeper’s wife only smiles.
“I’d say you could do with a second or even a third helping, my dear,” she smiles at Merlin, who holds his mug aloft to her in a silent toast, his mouth full. He takes a drink, and she rushes to refill him.
“Um, I do have some honey cakes, made fresh this afternoon…” she offers. “It is traditional to have a bite of cake after a wedding, you know.”
“Thank you, that would be lovely,” Arthur says, smiling at Gwen.
The older woman scurries out, bustling back to get the cakes for them. Cakes she made especially for them, actually.
The innkeeper frowns over at his wife as she speeds through with the cakes. She sticks her tongue out at him and delivers the cakes to the young couple and their friend.
xXx
“Beginning to feel like an intruder here,” Merlin mutters, standing. The conversation has been dwindling steadily over the last hour due to Gwen and Arthur becoming more and more absorbed in one another.
“Sorry, Merlin,” Gwen blushes, standing also. “It… it has been a long day, hasn’t it?”
Arthur stands, knocking his stool over in his haste. Gwen hides her giggle behind her hand while Merlin laughs openly. Arthur swings his arm around Merlin’s shoulders, squeezing him into a headlock and half dragging him from the room. Merlin just laughs and quickly worms himself free, giving Arthur a friendly shove on the shoulder.
Arthur turns suddenly out of habit, ready to dispense punishment, but Gwen’s hand on his arm reminds him that he isn’t the prince any more. He is Aldwin the potential farmer. Merlin - Marden - is his equal now.
And besides, if Merlin wanted to, he could blast Arthur through the wall into the next room.
They reach their rooms and suddenly awkwardness takes over.
“Goodnight… you two,” Merlin says, trying to keep the innuendo out of his voice and not quite achieving that goal.
Gwen blushes, but steps over to him and hugs him tightly. “Thank you, Merlin. I’d be dead by now were it not for you,” she says, leaning up to kiss his cheek.
“Merlin,” Arthur says, regarding his best friend (May as well admit it, man.) and former servant.
“Arthur.”
“Thanks,” he says, slapping him companionably on the shoulder. Then, surprising them both, he grabs him and hugs him. “You are a true friend,” he says, then releases him. “Even if you are a wizard.”
Merlin turns and heads to his room. Arthur bends and lifts his bride into his arms. Gwen laughs, turns the knob to the door, and Arthur kicks it open.
“Mind her head in the doorway,” Merlin calls, before shutting his door.
Gwen laughs again, resting her head on Arthur’s shoulder as he goes through the narrow doorway, turning sideway slightly to avoid bumping any part of her.
He kicks the door closed behind them.
xXx
“Dinner!” Guinevere calls from the doorway of the modest house the three of them share.
Arthur and Merlin lift their heads, grateful to be able to come in out of the sun. The cool breeze drifting from the sea helps cool their skin, but the sun is relentless. Arthur’s skin has turned golden from the exposure and his hair is a shade lighter. Merlin has put on a few pounds of muscle and has a perpetual sunburn.
They’ve passed themselves off as a young married couple, which is true, and Merlin is introduced as Goldevia’s cousin Marden, to avoid scandalous gossip about a woman living with two men.
Arthur splashes in the water barrel, cooling himself and removing the outermost layer of sweat and grime from his chest and face before grabbing his shirt from where it is carelessly hanging on a fence post.
Merlin follows suit, cleaning only his face and neck. He learned the hard way that he needs to leave his shirt on when working outside.
“Honestly Mer- Marden, you’d think you’d be able to magic yourself some sort of way to not get burned every day,” Arthur says, flicking his shirt at him.
“We’ve managed to stay inconspicuous for nearly two moons now, Aldwin, and I’m not going to risk our solitude and peace by poking skunks.”
“Poking skunks?” Arthur looks sideways at him. “Just when I think you’ve said your last weird thing…”
He enters the house and immediately crosses to Gwen, dishing up food from the stove, and kisses her cheek, his arm wrapping around her waist for a squeeze.
“You stink,” she says.
“And I love you, too,” he chuckles, kissing her neck before going to sit at the table.
“Mmm, who was the unlucky victim tonight?” Merlin asks, leaning forward to smell the delicious chicken placed in front of him.
Gwen turns around and sighs. “I do wish you hadn’t named the chickens, Merlin. It makes it just that much more gruesome when I have to butcher one.”
Arthur and Gwen laugh. “We didn’t give them nice names,” he protests.
“I know. This one was Cenred, I think,” she sighs, sitting.
“Excellent,” Arthur says, rubbing his hands together.
Once a warrior, always a warrior, Gwen thinks, chuckling a bit now herself.
After dinner Arthur and Gwen walk to the nearby cliffs overlooking the sea while Merlin cleans up. He always offers, shooing them out the door, giving them time together and giving him time alone, which they all need. He sits and relaxes while the dishes clean themselves and put themselves away.
“Do you regret leaving?” Gwen asks, her arms wrapped around her husband’s waist as they stand, watching the waves crash on the rocks, the ocean air blowing her curls from her shoulders.
“No. Sometimes. Maybe. I don’t know if ‘regret’ is exactly the word for it,” he answers, his hand stroking small circles on her back. “My only regret is that my father couldn’t allow us to be together like this in Camelot.”
“Couldn’t or wouldn’t?” she asks. “There is a big difference.”
Arthur ponders this. “Wouldn’t,” he allows with a sigh. “He’s the king. He could have changed the rules. But he wouldn’t. So I will.”
Gwen nods, resting her head on his chest. They listen to the roar of the sea, the cries of sea-birds as they dive and swoop.
Arthur winds a lock of her hair around his hand, feeling the strands in his fingers. He dips his head and smells her hair.
Gwen smiles, remembering the first time he did that. Our wedding night. In that inn.
She giggles a little, and he looks at her.
“Something funny?”
“I was just thinking about the first time I caught you smelling my hair like that.”
“Ah. The inn.”
“You were so sweet. I hadn’t realized that you were…”
“Nervous?” he supplies.
“Inexperienced,” she grins at him, and he blushes. “Not that it mattered, of course. I was merely surprised.”
He shrugs. “I only ever wanted you. And before that, I honestly never had any time for… dalliances.”
“We seemed to do pretty well for a couple of first-timers,” she jokes as he turns her, pulling her into both his arms so she is facing him, pressing her small body against his.
“Yes, indeed,” he bends his head and kisses her. “And we keep getting better at it, too,” he says, grinning against her lips, nibbling, remembering his eager hands and hips, her conflict over wanting him but not wanting to appear improper, him coaxing the impropriety out of her, wanting her to enjoy herself as much as he was.
The thoughts and memories spin inside his head as he slips his tongue in between Gwen’s lips, bringing forth a faint whimper from the back of her throat that Arthur has learned to love hearing and, in fact, strives to bring forth as much as possible.
A twig snaps behind them, and they are snapped out of their world, pulling apart, grinning and looking sheepish.
“Evening, Aldwen, Goldie,” the local butcher, out for his evening walk, nods at them as he passes, a knowing smile crossing his weathered face.
“Evening, Bartley,” Arthur says as Gwen returns to his side. She smiles at the man as he passes them to continue along the path that follows the cliff.
“There’s going to be gossip tomorrow,” Gwen giggles as they walk back to the house.