Shared Chambers: Departure
Title Shared Chambers: Departure (note: You might want to just click on the title, not the link underneath. That seems to mess up the font? I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm seeing that when I click on that. If you click on the title, it's not centered, adjusted correctly. ah, lj.)
Rating Teen
Characters/Pairing Arthur/Gwen
Word Count 1,538
Warnings/Spoilers spoilers for series 5, 5.01 specifically, nothing beyond
Author’s Note This is a possible missing scene from 5.01 Arthur's Bane. Arthur goes off to save his knights, but the early morning before he shares private time with his wife, Queen Guinevere. This was lovely to write and flowed pretty simply. Got it done last night. So if there’s interest for more, and series 5 is inspiring, I could probably enjoy creating some more about their ‘shared chambers’. Thanks, hope you enjoy. So far series 5 is very exciting to me!
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Shared Chambers:Departure
The room is still dark as she feels the movement and catches the shifting shadow. The hearth’s glow is out, but still her eyes find it easy to accustom. It was little more than three years ago she lived in a much smaller dwelling in which any light from an imaginary hearth would have been a dream.
His silhouette is appealing for certain. It is muscled and lean, but for that stubborn paunch of stomach she now knows well. Although she understands why he wakes so early, she sighs with regret that he must go.
Which he hears.
“Guinevere?”
Pushing back the satin red outer covers and white golden inner ones, she sits up on the bed. Her fingers gather at her white, gold trimmed nightgown, the material brushing over her thighs appealingly.
Even in the dark he notices the abundance of feminine limbs that have closed over his waist before in moments of passion. He looks away from them, concentrating upon her face instead.
She bites at her bottom lip, scooting forward on her knees, holding possessively to his blonde strands of hair. “You’re leaving now?”
He eyes her fondly, giving a moan as she pulls too hard, which she quickly appeases with a loving squeeze instead. “Getting ready. So we can be out of here by dawn’s light.”
She nods, lowering her hands, finding the sculpted planes of his chest. She caresses the nakedness with long meaningful strokes. ‘You’ll be careful?”
He stares at her lips for a moment, moving his head in. Kissing under her chin and around her neck, before answering, eyes closed. “I will be.”
She is certain that passage through Annis’s lands will keep him much safer. It was why she suggested it. But still she can’t help but worry as she keeps intimately touching his chest.
There was a time these feelings were new and these actions were novel, juvenile and exciting. Now there is still a thrill and yet it is calmed by maturity. She knows where his scars of battle are. She can find the inflictions upon his skin with ease and history of understanding. She touches him with a solid foundation of familiarity.
As he does the same with her. Fingers climbing up and within the plunge of her nightgown. He caresses her tender breasts as his lips gently play upon her neck and collarbone.
“You sometimes are too daring on these missions. You worry so much for your men that you take chances.”
She has a lot more to say than that, but he definitively hushes her as her fingers find that paunch of his stomach, glide over it and just a bit lower to where it commences, a man’s mark. She’s careful not to go further. This is not about sexual desire even though she has no rushes of embarrassment about that anymore. Hasn’t for a good sum of years. It’s just matched by how he only kindly strokes her breast, knowing making the gesture more handled would bring up her own passionate desires.
Basically she wants him to feel loved and fulfill her own need to touch him, feel him near. As she is aware he is doing the same with her constitution.
She gives a sigh, giving it up, pulling him close, holding tightly at his back. He gives his own, grasping her nightgown’s material hard in his fingers.
She knew when she came into this it was how it would be. This truly is the price of marrying a ruler and not a farmer. If Arthur was nothing but a farmer he’d have to fear maybe bandit attacks and storms, not a woman of magic who hates him so much, hates his rule so much she will stop at nothing to see him dead and gain his throne.
Morgana is so dangerous now, so bitterly changed from the lady she once served that her appearance chills everyone.
His fingers lift under her braided hair, impatiently letting it out of its binds. She would laugh at his boyish egotistical urge if she wasn’t so concerned. He prefers her hair down, loving its long ringlets. Yet she braids it at night to keep it from tangling into a mess in the morning. Especially with early wake up calls during times he’s away, it is a necessity. Now he’s ruined it though. She can just feel his satisfactory smile as his fingers frolic into what they have unbound.
And she allows it. Would allow him anything now as it could be weeks, possibly more than a month before she sees him again. It means the kingdom will be hers to command.
There was a time that made her feel nervous. Now she is entirely used to her role and ready to fulfill it. What it comes down to is that the kingdom must be protected and kept within good stead. While her husband, knights and Merlin are away that will be her duty, one she takes very seriously.
As if understanding that feeling, he whispers now, “The thing about these trips away is before I wasn’t sure how Camelot would fare. Ever since marrying you, making you Queen though, I don’t worry so much. You’re too good at this.”
She smiles at the compliment, hearing no more and not expecting it. Praise is nice, but never necessary. She is not so juvenile to need it and he must focus on the mission. Gwen pulls away a little and then brings her arms up and around his sides. She loves the warmth of his chest, and the smoothness of his skin, but for his scars, but for the fine lines of hair upon his chest. She moves her hands up over his breast, grazes at his nipples, hearing him murmur against her.
His eyes look down, upon, and he kisses her firmly, this time upon the lips. His tongue finds convolution with hers. His mouth opens more and he holds her pressingly, intimately, fervently. His mouth whispers nonsense words in between. And then hungrily finds hers again. Lips that ache with little liquid fire under his. She tastes like the sweet nature and heavenly juice of life. His head falls upon her shoulder, leaving her lips husbandly used, as his part and nip at her shoulder, tiny little love bite.
Gwen pushes at his head with a moan, sees his eyes fix on hers. “I can’t delay any more.”
It’s like a solemn confession. She nods her head, kissing his lips one more time and then resting her hands upon his naked shoulders.
These are their shared chambers. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. It hasn’t been for many other rulers that she knows of. When this marriage started, according to tradition, he had a separate room made up for her. However, the first night they slept together. There has only been one night, during the times he is in Camelot, that they have slept apart.
It was after a fervent disagreement on his duty. That night, not letting the argument get too heated, she went to her room, leaving him alone to think. The next morning, after the sun started to find the sky and light it, they talked and made up privately, within these shared chambers.
If she’s dressing for an occasion or whatnot she goes back to her own room where most her clothing is, but her nightgown is in the wardrobe she shares with him and so are a few of her dresses and robe. This is their combined room, where the intimacies of marriage are kept secret. This is where they share their love, and where she wants to hold to him tightly now.
But she will not for she respects who he is. More than three years ago passage through Annis’s lands would not be so simple, unheard of really. The alliances they have built together though will afford him that now, thankfully. She doubts strongly that Annis will turn him away. The bond has been created.
Still her heart holds little prickles of worry and she can see in his eyes that he feels it. “I-
She shakes her head, presses her fingers against his lips as her other hand caresses his exposed chest. “No. My love. Tell me when you come back.”
He smiles affectionately, finding her naked heart, pressing his own fingers tenderly there. He kisses her one more time, his mouth drinking in all she is. All he adores.
And she smiles bravely when he is done.
When he departs the room to ready himself more.
You'd think she would have gotten used to this already. Be sure that after his departure she will rule the kingdom with her total concentration upon the land. She will not weakly yearn for her husband to return. She has a role to fulfill in his absence and she always fulfills it entirely. Robustly.
However in the quiet moments of dining, in the intimate moments of laying down in their bed, finding one of his tunics and pulling it over her cold body to feel his warm presence, to smell his masculine scent, her heart will quake for his return.
Her king.
The man she loves.
Arthur Pendragon.
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