Room 413 [Thursday afternoon]

[notqueenyet]

When Aravis arrived back in her room after taking Trenor and Ata out for some brisk (very, very brisk -- still no love lost for the cold over here) exercise, she was just shaking the snow off her furs when she spotted the letter. It was neatly addressed to her in Cor's familiar scrawl

Comments

[bloody_luck]

"I've brought you a cookie!" Mat said very proudly from the doorway. "The magic reserves was selling them."

[notqueenyet]

"My hero," Aravis said fondly. "Saving me from starvation."

[bloody_luck]

"Well, I could go off and hunt up a rabbit, but that would take time," he said, winking. "And it's cold outside and I don't want to go out. Cookies will have to suffice."

[notqueenyet]

"I have lived on cookies before," she assured him.

[bloody_luck]

"I didn't ask what kind they were," Mat admitted, finding a seat and handing one to Aravis, "but how bad can they be?"

Silly Mat.

[notqueenyet]

"Did someone here at school bake them?" she asked, tilting her head.

[bloody_luck]

"I think so," Mat said. "Merlin, maybe? But he's a servant, so he should know what he's doing."

[notqueenyet]

"His being a servant has nothing to do with anything," Aravis said, frowning a bit.

[bloody_luck]

"Do servants not learn to cook where you live?" Mat replied.

[notqueenyet]

"...not all of them, but I just don't know that treating him like a servant here is right," Aravis said carefully. "Arthur and I have had our differences about that."

[bloody_luck]

"Arthur is an arrogant bastard most of the time," Mat agreed cheerfully, "but why should his servant not be a servant here?"

[notqueenyet]

"If I don't require a maid here to assist me with my hair and dress, I can hardly imagine what it is that Arthur needs Merlin for," Aravis replied.

[bloody_luck]

Mat thought back to what Nerim did for Talmanes. "Mending clothes and cleaning his room and packing his belongings and nagging him near to death, I imagine," he said finally.

[notqueenyet]

"Why can't he be a big boy and clean his own room?" Aravis asked with a small smile. "Everyone else here seems to survive."

[bloody_luck]

"Maybe Merlin likes the work?" Mat offered. "I know that if Nerim, the servant for my--" how to explain Telmanes, "second-in-command," he finally blurted, "isn't allowed to do his job, he gets very sulky. We had to come to an arrangement where he'd sigh over me and pick out my outfits and mend my boots and fix my meals and in return I'd be allowed to dress myself."

[notqueenyet]

"Hm." Aravis still looked irritable. "I just don't think he should be treated as lesser."