The Sacred Simplicity Of You At My Side - part 4/?
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Gwen/Morgana - PG15 - 1.9k - In which Morgana puts Arthur's brilliant plan into action
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She stared at him in utter disbelief.
“This is your plan?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It is a brilliant plan.”
“Invite her to dinner in my chambers… which, incidentally, she probably made herself… with you… and get her drunk? THAT is your plan?!”
“Well, of course it sounds stupid when you put it like that. But honestly, it’s much better in practise than it is in theory.”
“Well, it could hardly be WORSE, could it?” She sighed. “Arthur, you do know I don’t actually want to date rape Gwen, don’t you?”
“What? Of course not!” Arthur looked disgusted. “No! No, that’s not what I meant at all. What do you take me for, Morgana? No, this is how it works…” He put down the small block if wood and carving knife he’d been playing with while they spoke, “… Ok, so you invite her to dinner with you and I. So, it’s not a date, or anything, see? Tell her she’s… I don’t know, getting a reward for good service or something. Or needs to chaperone you in my manly presence - because I’m pretty sure Guinevere has a more properly developed sense of propriety than you do. Anyway, you invite her, there’s good food, good wine. You are irresistibly charming. At a predesignated point, I will make my excuses, leaving you two lovebirds aloooone.” He raised his eyebrows, as if to say I’m brilliant. Tell me I’m brilliant. “The purpose of the wine is not to take advantage of her - and I actually can’t believe that’s where your mind went, by the way - but to smooth the way, so you can press your suit in a way less likely to be cruelly rebuffed, AND to find out how her feelings lie.”
Morgana had to admit, though she still had her doubts, when he explained it like that, it didn’t seem too bad a plan.
This meant that that evening saw her, Gwen, and Arthur, sitting down in her chambers to what looked - at least for the first twenty minutes - to be possibly the most awkward one of her life.
“Guinevere, would you pass the salt, please?”
Arthur, thank god, had at least been on his best behaviour.
So far.
“Thank you Guinevere. My, you have very steady hands.”
Morgana almost dropped her fork. She glared, incredulous, at Arthur. He raised an eyebrow. What?
Gwen, at least, didn’t seem to have noticed the terrible double entendre. She smiled her sweet, slow smile - the one that made the bottom of Morgana’s stomach fall out - as she said, a little hesitantly, “Thank you, my lord. I suppose you have to, in my line of work.”
“Oh, no doubt. You probably have to do a lot of - ah - polishing, don’t you? Gentle rubbing, and the like?
Morgana kicked him under the table. The placid smile didn’t flinch from his face.
Gwen looked a little confused now. “Ah… well, yes. That’s… generally what polishing means, sire.”
“I see, I see… and no doubt you have to do a lot of - erm - reaching… into small, enclosed spaces?”
“Um.” Gwen glanced at Morgana, uncomfortably, “no doubt, my lord.”
“Yes well,” Morgana felt compelled to interrupt before Arthur could open his mouth again, “I’m sure Gwen doesn’t want to talk about her work all night. Do you Gwen?”
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
“See, Morgana? She says she doesn’t mind!”
“Nevertheless,” Morgana smiled at him dangerously, “I want to know about what you do when you’re not working. How did that trip to the market go last week? Did you find anything interesting?”
Gwen smiled softly at her, and Morgana felt something glow inside her at how a simple question about her life seemed to make Gwen visibly relax, launching into an enthusiastic tale about a beautiful, light shawl she’d managed to nab. Gwen, when she was excited, talked with her hands. The demure, sweet-but-servile persona she adopted most of the day cracked, and revealed a girl who loved pretty, simple things, whose feelings ran deep and strong, and who laughed easily. Morgana and Gwen had been together for a long time, but this kind of easiness, where the boundaries of mistress and servant receded completely for a while, was rare. Morgana found herself enchanted by her wild gestures, her unexpectedly loud, uninhibited laughter. And her smiles. Her broad, sunshine-breaking-though-the-clouds smiles. The ones Morgana wished were hers and hers alone.
Which meant that when she realised that Arthur seemed to be getting just as many of those smiles as she was, her gut twisted, just a little.
Arthur was naturally charming. As much as Morgana complained about his selfishness and his arrogance, it was impossible to deny that in spite of this, his innate nobility, goodness and - and, well, raw sexual appeal shined through. Morgana herself was by no means immune to it. And it seemed not to matter to Arthur whether the aim was to charm for himself, or to charm for someone else. Sometime into the conversation, Arthur had offered Gwen the wine (“Oh no, sire, I couldn’t! This is the king’s own cask!” “Of course you must, Guinevere, I insist. You’re our guest.”) and now they were two jugs in, and Gwen’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining, her gestures more and more elaborate. Arthur (who had drunk more than anyone) was laughing, winking at Morgana when he thought Gwen wasn’t watching, and Morgana (who had been too nervous to drink at all) was clenching her fingers on the tabletop - one moment from electricity when Gwen looked at her, and the next with a stab of jealousy when she smiled at Arthur. When Gwen laughed raucously at a wildly inappropriate joke of Arthur’s, laying her hand on his arm at the same time, a roaring rose up in Morgana’s ears and she stood abruptly from the table.
“Arthur has to go now.”
Both Gwen and Arthur looked up at her in surprise. After a second, Arthur’s brain seemed to catch up, and he mouthed a silent ohhh, before rising too, a slightly lecherous grin on his face. “Ahh, yes! I do - I do indeed have to go now. Yes, I must go and do… do stuff. In my chambers. While you two remain here and do… other stuff. Goodnight Guinevere! Goodnight Morgana!” With one more utterly unsubtle wink, he strode unsteadily from the room.
A slightly awkward hung in the room after the door closed behind him. Gwen smiled a little quizzically at her.
“Well… that was sudden.”
“Yes.” Morgana was still standing, running her fingertips back and forth over the surface of the table, just to have something to do with her hands.
“Um. Perhaps I should go too…?”
“No.” Morgana sat quickly, reaching across to grab Gwen’s hand where it lay on the table. “No, stay. Stay with me for a while, please.”
Gwen’s smile turned warm, and she turned her hand over to lace her fingers with Morgana’s.
“Ok.”
She let her head fall back over the back of the chair, huffing a small laugh. “Wow, this wine sure is… good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this - this wobbly.” She laughed again, bashful.
“Um.” Morgana said, distracted by the stretch of Gwen’s neck. “Yes.”
Gwen pulled her head up, her eyes bright as her mouth quirked in a way so mischievous it looked almost indecent on her. “Shall we have some more?”
---
It wasn’t much later - Morgana had not drunk much, and Gwen had not drunk much more. But - it seemed - Gwen was a fairly cheap drunk. They were on the floor by the fire, curled up together on the thick rug. Gwen was half lying, propped up against Morgana’s side. Morgana couldn’t remember a time she’d been more perfectly and completely happy. She felt warm all the way through - from the fire, from the wine, from laughter and from the comfortable press of Gwen’s nearness. She could feel the bones in Gwen’s face moving as it scrunched up with laughter against her shoulder.
“… and then, then,” Gwen’s voice shook with loose giggles, “then the COOK walked in on ‘em! In the storeroom! And her legs were, ha, were aaaall the way up HERE!” She jerked one leg in the air briefly, before dissolving into snorted chuckles once again.
“Oh god, I can just imagine.” Morgana turned her head slightly, liking the feel of Gwen’s hair brushing her cheek.
“You shoulda been there.” Gwen sniggered a few more times, calming and slumping closer to Morgana’s side. “You shoulda… should’ve been there.”
They sat in companionable silence then, Morgana moving her cheek minutely back and forth against Gwen’s hair, and Gwen drawing indecipherable patterns across Morgana’s knee. After a while, Gwen gave a shallow sigh.
“Hey, hey M’gana. Hey. You know Arthur?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s… he’s very pretty, isn’t he?”
The warmth drained from Morgana, leaving her feeling old. She sighed too, “Yes. Yes, I suppose he is.”
“He’s VERY pretty. All… all golden-y and light-y, and blue eyes and stuff. And so… he’s all manly. He’s, he’s a man.”
“Yes.” Morgana didn’t really know what to say to that. Wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d been feeling so - so happy. So hopeful. Now she just felt tired. “He’s everything you could want.”
There was a short silence, broken by the soft, throaty sound of Gwen’s first snores.
“Gwen?” Morgana pulled back slightly. Gwen’s face was slack, her eyes closed and fluttering. “Gwen? C’mon, wake up,” she stroked her cheek once, gently, “wake up, Gwen, love. You need to go to bed.”
Gwen mumbled something, her eyes cracking open. “Bed,” She chewed wetly on the air, looking around blearily, “Bed.” With that, she lurched unsteadily to her feet, leaning on the furniture. But instead of the door, she made her slow, wobbly way to Morgana’s huge four post bed.
“Gwen? No, Gwen, that’s my bed.”
“Bed.” She sagged, sprawling half onto the bed, face down.
Morgana pushed slowly up from the floor. When she reached the bed, she sighed, before kneeling to pull off Gwen’s shoes. “Ok, ok. You just sleep here tonight, sweetheart,” She stood and took hold of Gwen, gently turning her onto her back. “There. Sleep now.”
Before she could move away, Gwen reached a swaying hand up, tangling her fingers in Morgana’s hair where it hung down between them. She smiled, slow and lazy. “Pretty, pretty, pretty, so…” she yawned, “… so pretty.” Then her hand fell limply onto the sheets, she turned on her side, and her eyes closed. Within seconds, her quiet, rhythmic sleeping breaths filled the slight space between them.
Morgana pulled the cover over her before walking round to the other side of the bed. She kicked off her shoes, and struggled to undo all the clasps on her gown. Finally, she slipped under the covers in her underdress. She stared at the soft in, out, of Gwen’s back as she breathed. Hesitantly, she raised a hand, breaching the space between them to lay it lightly between Gwen’s shoulder blades. “Night, love.”
It should have been hard to sleep, but within minutes she did.
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Gwen/Morgana - PG15 - 1.9k - In which Morgana puts Arthur's brilliant plan into action
---
She stared at him in utter disbelief.
“This is your plan?”
“Don’t look at me like that. It is a brilliant plan.”
“Invite her to dinner in my chambers… which, incidentally, she probably made herself… with you… and get her drunk? THAT is your plan?!”
“Well, of course it sounds stupid when you put it like that. But honestly, it’s much better in practise than it is in theory.”
“Well, it could hardly be WORSE, could it?” She sighed. “Arthur, you do know I don’t actually want to date rape Gwen, don’t you?”
“What? Of course not!” Arthur looked disgusted. “No! No, that’s not what I meant at all. What do you take me for, Morgana? No, this is how it works…” He put down the small block if wood and carving knife he’d been playing with while they spoke, “… Ok, so you invite her to dinner with you and I. So, it’s not a date, or anything, see? Tell her she’s… I don’t know, getting a reward for good service or something. Or needs to chaperone you in my manly presence - because I’m pretty sure Guinevere has a more properly developed sense of propriety than you do. Anyway, you invite her, there’s good food, good wine. You are irresistibly charming. At a predesignated point, I will make my excuses, leaving you two lovebirds aloooone.” He raised his eyebrows, as if to say I’m brilliant. Tell me I’m brilliant. “The purpose of the wine is not to take advantage of her - and I actually can’t believe that’s where your mind went, by the way - but to smooth the way, so you can press your suit in a way less likely to be cruelly rebuffed, AND to find out how her feelings lie.”
Morgana had to admit, though she still had her doubts, when he explained it like that, it didn’t seem too bad a plan.
This meant that that evening saw her, Gwen, and Arthur, sitting down in her chambers to what looked - at least for the first twenty minutes - to be possibly the most awkward one of her life.
“Guinevere, would you pass the salt, please?”
Arthur, thank god, had at least been on his best behaviour.
So far.
“Thank you Guinevere. My, you have very steady hands.”
Morgana almost dropped her fork. She glared, incredulous, at Arthur. He raised an eyebrow. What?
Gwen, at least, didn’t seem to have noticed the terrible double entendre. She smiled her sweet, slow smile - the one that made the bottom of Morgana’s stomach fall out - as she said, a little hesitantly, “Thank you, my lord. I suppose you have to, in my line of work.”
“Oh, no doubt. You probably have to do a lot of - ah - polishing, don’t you? Gentle rubbing, and the like?
Morgana kicked him under the table. The placid smile didn’t flinch from his face.
Gwen looked a little confused now. “Ah… well, yes. That’s… generally what polishing means, sire.”
“I see, I see… and no doubt you have to do a lot of - erm - reaching… into small, enclosed spaces?”
“Um.” Gwen glanced at Morgana, uncomfortably, “no doubt, my lord.”
“Yes well,” Morgana felt compelled to interrupt before Arthur could open his mouth again, “I’m sure Gwen doesn’t want to talk about her work all night. Do you Gwen?”
“Oh, I don’t mind.”
“See, Morgana? She says she doesn’t mind!”
“Nevertheless,” Morgana smiled at him dangerously, “I want to know about what you do when you’re not working. How did that trip to the market go last week? Did you find anything interesting?”
Gwen smiled softly at her, and Morgana felt something glow inside her at how a simple question about her life seemed to make Gwen visibly relax, launching into an enthusiastic tale about a beautiful, light shawl she’d managed to nab. Gwen, when she was excited, talked with her hands. The demure, sweet-but-servile persona she adopted most of the day cracked, and revealed a girl who loved pretty, simple things, whose feelings ran deep and strong, and who laughed easily. Morgana and Gwen had been together for a long time, but this kind of easiness, where the boundaries of mistress and servant receded completely for a while, was rare. Morgana found herself enchanted by her wild gestures, her unexpectedly loud, uninhibited laughter. And her smiles. Her broad, sunshine-breaking-though-the-clouds smiles. The ones Morgana wished were hers and hers alone.
Which meant that when she realised that Arthur seemed to be getting just as many of those smiles as she was, her gut twisted, just a little.
Arthur was naturally charming. As much as Morgana complained about his selfishness and his arrogance, it was impossible to deny that in spite of this, his innate nobility, goodness and - and, well, raw sexual appeal shined through. Morgana herself was by no means immune to it. And it seemed not to matter to Arthur whether the aim was to charm for himself, or to charm for someone else. Sometime into the conversation, Arthur had offered Gwen the wine (“Oh no, sire, I couldn’t! This is the king’s own cask!” “Of course you must, Guinevere, I insist. You’re our guest.”) and now they were two jugs in, and Gwen’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes shining, her gestures more and more elaborate. Arthur (who had drunk more than anyone) was laughing, winking at Morgana when he thought Gwen wasn’t watching, and Morgana (who had been too nervous to drink at all) was clenching her fingers on the tabletop - one moment from electricity when Gwen looked at her, and the next with a stab of jealousy when she smiled at Arthur. When Gwen laughed raucously at a wildly inappropriate joke of Arthur’s, laying her hand on his arm at the same time, a roaring rose up in Morgana’s ears and she stood abruptly from the table.
“Arthur has to go now.”
Both Gwen and Arthur looked up at her in surprise. After a second, Arthur’s brain seemed to catch up, and he mouthed a silent ohhh, before rising too, a slightly lecherous grin on his face. “Ahh, yes! I do - I do indeed have to go now. Yes, I must go and do… do stuff. In my chambers. While you two remain here and do… other stuff. Goodnight Guinevere! Goodnight Morgana!” With one more utterly unsubtle wink, he strode unsteadily from the room.
A slightly awkward hung in the room after the door closed behind him. Gwen smiled a little quizzically at her.
“Well… that was sudden.”
“Yes.” Morgana was still standing, running her fingertips back and forth over the surface of the table, just to have something to do with her hands.
“Um. Perhaps I should go too…?”
“No.” Morgana sat quickly, reaching across to grab Gwen’s hand where it lay on the table. “No, stay. Stay with me for a while, please.”
Gwen’s smile turned warm, and she turned her hand over to lace her fingers with Morgana’s.
“Ok.”
She let her head fall back over the back of the chair, huffing a small laugh. “Wow, this wine sure is… good. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this - this wobbly.” She laughed again, bashful.
“Um.” Morgana said, distracted by the stretch of Gwen’s neck. “Yes.”
Gwen pulled her head up, her eyes bright as her mouth quirked in a way so mischievous it looked almost indecent on her. “Shall we have some more?”
---
It wasn’t much later - Morgana had not drunk much, and Gwen had not drunk much more. But - it seemed - Gwen was a fairly cheap drunk. They were on the floor by the fire, curled up together on the thick rug. Gwen was half lying, propped up against Morgana’s side. Morgana couldn’t remember a time she’d been more perfectly and completely happy. She felt warm all the way through - from the fire, from the wine, from laughter and from the comfortable press of Gwen’s nearness. She could feel the bones in Gwen’s face moving as it scrunched up with laughter against her shoulder.
“… and then, then,” Gwen’s voice shook with loose giggles, “then the COOK walked in on ‘em! In the storeroom! And her legs were, ha, were aaaall the way up HERE!” She jerked one leg in the air briefly, before dissolving into snorted chuckles once again.
“Oh god, I can just imagine.” Morgana turned her head slightly, liking the feel of Gwen’s hair brushing her cheek.
“You shoulda been there.” Gwen sniggered a few more times, calming and slumping closer to Morgana’s side. “You shoulda… should’ve been there.”
They sat in companionable silence then, Morgana moving her cheek minutely back and forth against Gwen’s hair, and Gwen drawing indecipherable patterns across Morgana’s knee. After a while, Gwen gave a shallow sigh.
“Hey, hey M’gana. Hey. You know Arthur?”
“Yeah?”
“He’s… he’s very pretty, isn’t he?”
The warmth drained from Morgana, leaving her feeling old. She sighed too, “Yes. Yes, I suppose he is.”
“He’s VERY pretty. All… all golden-y and light-y, and blue eyes and stuff. And so… he’s all manly. He’s, he’s a man.”
“Yes.” Morgana didn’t really know what to say to that. Wasn’t sure she wanted to. She’d been feeling so - so happy. So hopeful. Now she just felt tired. “He’s everything you could want.”
There was a short silence, broken by the soft, throaty sound of Gwen’s first snores.
“Gwen?” Morgana pulled back slightly. Gwen’s face was slack, her eyes closed and fluttering. “Gwen? C’mon, wake up,” she stroked her cheek once, gently, “wake up, Gwen, love. You need to go to bed.”
Gwen mumbled something, her eyes cracking open. “Bed,” She chewed wetly on the air, looking around blearily, “Bed.” With that, she lurched unsteadily to her feet, leaning on the furniture. But instead of the door, she made her slow, wobbly way to Morgana’s huge four post bed.
“Gwen? No, Gwen, that’s my bed.”
“Bed.” She sagged, sprawling half onto the bed, face down.
Morgana pushed slowly up from the floor. When she reached the bed, she sighed, before kneeling to pull off Gwen’s shoes. “Ok, ok. You just sleep here tonight, sweetheart,” She stood and took hold of Gwen, gently turning her onto her back. “There. Sleep now.”
Before she could move away, Gwen reached a swaying hand up, tangling her fingers in Morgana’s hair where it hung down between them. She smiled, slow and lazy. “Pretty, pretty, pretty, so…” she yawned, “… so pretty.” Then her hand fell limply onto the sheets, she turned on her side, and her eyes closed. Within seconds, her quiet, rhythmic sleeping breaths filled the slight space between them.
Morgana pulled the cover over her before walking round to the other side of the bed. She kicked off her shoes, and struggled to undo all the clasps on her gown. Finally, she slipped under the covers in her underdress. She stared at the soft in, out, of Gwen’s back as she breathed. Hesitantly, she raised a hand, breaching the space between them to lay it lightly between Gwen’s shoulder blades. “Night, love.”
It should have been hard to sleep, but within minutes she did.
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