Arthur's Chambers, Citadel, Camelot, Wednesday Morning

[bitchprince]

Arthur had deposited Francine's beast of a cake where it belonged - namely, in a corner of his room where he and Merlin could pick at it occasionally. It was easily one of the better gifts he'd gotten for the whole waste of a day that was his birthday, barring perhaps the sword from Lord Ewyn, but he didn't have as much of an apetite for it as he'd thought. At least, not for a single go.

He'd left his door open this morning after Merlin had dressed him: not something he often did, but now it stood as a clear sign to any wayward women from the twenty-first century who might want to come in and speak to him before he took to the training field that day.

They were serving as a brilliant distraction, at least; the time he didn't spend with them was fruitfully spent worrying about their safety, instead of the significance of the past Sunday.

He leaned against the wall near one of the windows and stared out over the courtyard, thinking.

[[ open to anyone in Camelot ]]

Comments

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

At least the servant costume wasn't a shock this time, and all things considered Katchoo could pull off the role pretty convincingly. Consider, as an example, the businesslike way she'd bustled into Arthur's chambers with an armful of linens.

"Shouldn't you be heading out to beat on some impossibly pretty knights right about now?"

. . . well, it was mostly convincing.

[bitchprince]

"Not for another candlemark, Katina," Arthur said, doing a credible job of looking like he wasn't pleased to see her.

... a sort of credible job. "I see you're making yourself useful."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Pfft. Katchoo wouldn't believe he wasn't at least marginally pleased to see her even if you paid her.

. . . well, hang on. How much would you pay her to -- never mind.

"Tell that to whoever's bed these actually belong on," she said dryly. Her glance landed on the cake, and she huffed a laugh. "If she'd made that thing any bigger, one of us could've jumped out of it. You'll be eating cake for as long as it's any good."

[bitchprince]

"You haven't seen Merlin eat, obviously," Arthur said, with a quick roll of his eyes, but he'd pulled away from the bed now. "You might as well leave those linens here."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"I'm not that familiar with his eating habits," conceded Katchoo, and now the laughable part came in when she attempted to fold the linens into a halfway presentable stack. "But now I think about it, Francine probably kept that in mind while she was making the mountain of sugar there."

[bitchprince]

"He always did like her pastries," Arthur agreed. He sounded far away for a few moments before he shook it off.

"In any event," he said, "Welcome back to Camelot. Let's hope it isn't as much of a mess as it was last time."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Seems a helluva lot less tense, I'll say that." Katchoo made sure she was out of sight from the doorway before she leaned casually against a wall, but lowered her voice anyway. "If this is a visit that doesn't involve faking anyone's death, I'm not gonna complain."

[bitchprince]

"Trust me, that wasn't particularly pleasant for me, either," Arthur said, wrinkling his nose. He dragged his chair away from his desk and sat down on it. "It's been calm for... a few days, at the least. Father is... traditionally less interested in kingdom affairs this time of year."

For obvious reasons.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo, whose own recently-passed birthday tended to go without much comment for similarly less-than-pleasant reasons, grunted in vague sympathy.

"Can't say I blame him for that. Lucky for you, you got us this time, eh?"

[bitchprince]

"That depends," Arthur said, casting her a vaguely humorous look - Merlin had managed to salvage some of his mood. "Are you going to threaten to hug me again?" He rubbed at his leg. "I don't blame him either."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"If you'd just frikkin' let me, I wouldn't have to keep threatening it," Katchoo retorted, her own mood in that nebulous general vicinity of humorous. She'd missed the hell out of ribbing him like this in person. It just wasn't the same without the facial expressions.

[bitchprince]

He was shooting her one of those facial expressions right now, actually. "I'm a knight. We don't do that."

Suuure.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"I didn't see that carved in stone or highlighted in the rulebook anywhere," argued Katchoo, not that she'd gone actively looking for either of those things or was about to.

[bitchprince]

"Yes, well, it's not in the Knight's Code. It's just understood."

Other knights got hugs, Arthur. Just saying.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"By who?" Katchoo persisted. "I mean, geez! Is one hug gonna violate your warranty? Like tearing the tag off a mattress?"

[bitchprince]

"Why is this so important to you?" he groaned. "Don't you have something better to do? Stuff cake in that mouth of yours, perhaps?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Because," Katchoo said, losing patience, "I only need one hand to count the friends I have."

That wasn't strictly true, Chewie, but it got the point across.

"Means I have more attention to pay to the few of 'em, so isn't it just your frikkin' luck you get that?"

[bitchprince]

Arthur eyed her from his position in his chair. Finally, he reached up and rubbed at his own hair. "I know," he said, though it sounded like he'd just had to wrestle his own small intestine to say so. "But this is not exactly my--" Handwave. Yes.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

". . . ah, don't worry about it," Katchoo said gruffly, after a moment. "Be pretty hard to see the look on your face from that angle anyway, and that's half the fun."

She studied him quietly for the space of a breath or two. "Your knights in for a rough workout today?"

[bitchprince]

Arthur snorted, but he'd obscured his expression by means of a quick glance at the window. "If I can get them to move in this weather," he said. "It's too bloody hot out."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"And that's supposed to stop a bunch of tough guys like you?" Katchoo inquired smoothly.

[bitchprince]

"Not me, of course, but you know some of them will complain," Arthur muttered. "Maybe I should have them do laps, first."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Oh, right. That oughta cool 'em right down," Katchoo deadpanned.

[bitchprince]

"No, but it might stop them whining," Arthur pointed out, glancing away from the window - a prime target for visual brooding - to shoot Katchoo a look.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Katchoo raised both eyebrows at him. "Where you can hear them, at least."

[bitchprince]

"It's good for them," Arthur said, decisively. "Character building. If they can't muster up the discipline and the stiff upper lip that being a knight requires, they shouldn't be serving Camelot like that."

See, Katchoo? This was so much easier to talk about!

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Good to know someone's maintaining standards," Katchoo drawled. Out of pure curiosity, she had to ask. "What happens to 'em if they wash out, anyway?"

[bitchprince]

"We send them back to their noble fathers," Arthur said, reaching over to pick up a piece of cheese a servant had left on his desk earlier.

Probably Merlin, actually, considering it was one of his favorites. He stared at it for a moment. "Or they die before the time comes. We usually manage to weed out the worst before it gets that far."

... Camelot had a long and noble history of stocking up on redcapes.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Efficient." That was, Katchoo realized, a very Darcy-like thing to say -- she hadn't been entirely sarcastic about it, because some part of her brain acknowledged that it was. "Go through a lot of 'em, you figure that out soon enough, I guess."

[bitchprince]

"I'd rather not have knights dying on me because I let someone through who isn't good enough." This had taken a turn for the morbid quickly, didn't it?

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

This was Katchoo, Arthur. Everything took a turn for the morbid eventually.

"Go figure, that's why I actually like you, Pendragon." She let a faint smirk show through. "You actually give a shit."

[bitchprince]

"It's my duty to the men," he said, lightly, and left it at that. "So what have you been doing with yourself?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

She'd leave it at that too. For now.

"Keeping a running tally of how many weeks I can go without throttling my life drawing teacher," Katchoo offered, picking a stray thread off her sleeve. "Pretentious, self-important bag of hot frikkin' air, thinks we're there to listen to him talk."

She rolled her eyes. "He keeps going on about the meta-philosophy of art or some crap like that. He thinks he's deep."

[bitchprince]

Well, if you wanted this man mocked, you'd come to the right address. Arthur barked out a laugh. "'The meta-philosophy,'" he mimicked, "'Of art'. What is that supposed to mean?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Yes, see, exactly. Katchoo knew where to go for these things.

"Do I look like I know?" she asked, spreading her hands. "Last week he spent half an hour yakking about the emotional process that goes into drawing a line. Give you one guess where he's pulling this crap from, and it sure as hell ain't his ear."

[bitchprince]

Arthur pulled a spectacular incredulous-and-amused face. "Emotional process," he said not quite squealing like Bradley James at the sight of a carrot, but nearly. "What, are you supposed to weep over your line-drawing skills? Is that what you're learning?"

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Oh, gawd." Katchoo snorted so hard, it sounded like she'd done damage to her sinuses. "Nah, I just tune him out and pay attention to drawing the models. 's what I'm really there for. But if I ever catch myself bawling my eyes when a squiggly line just moves me that frikkin' much, I'll make sure you find out about it."

Riiiiiiight.

[bitchprince]

"Take a picture of yourself when you do," Arthur advised. "That might actually be a useful application of the sort of thing Merlin keeps doing with his bloody phone."

Er, well, except that kind of useful and NEVERMIND. "Maybe I should speak to your teachers." Oh boy.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, that would go well, wouldn't it?

"And deprive me of the entertainment value?" Katchoo wheedled. "It's fine, geez. If they get rid of the drawing models, then you can bitch at 'em."

By the way, Katchoo wasn't asking about that kind of useful.

[bitchprince]

Good. Good! Er. Not that there was anything wrong with that. Unless she ever had the misfortune of getting a hold of Merlin's phone.

"Well, they're clearly not teaching you anything worth knowing," said Arthur, who didn't actually even know what was worth knowing about art anyway.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

Who said there was anything wrong with it? She just didn't want to know.

Katchoo's vague smirk broadened. "And you were an expert on art since when, now?"

[bitchprince]

"I don't need to be an expert to know," he argued. "It's... art."

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"Exactly," maintained Katchoo, most unhelpfully. "It's a frikkin' miracle, is what it is, no matter how much psychobabble someone can drag out of their large intestine to try and explain it."

[bitchprince]

There was a slight, mildly baffled pause.

"You think it's a miracle?"

Arthur just tended to think of it as 'drawings on parchment that showed stuff that some people like'.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

. . . surprise, Arthur, have one of Katchoo's moments of waxing poetic!

"Goddamn right I do," she answered. "You're going to try and figure that one out for about two seconds and give up, aren't you?"

[bitchprince]

"It's lines on parchment. I realise it's a craft and you're dedicated to it, but..." he trailed off. If she hadn't been, he wouldn't have paid for her schooling, after all.

[thismaskiwear.livejournal.com]

"It kept me sane when I was living on the streets," Katchoo said abruptly, but didn't elaborate further; she doubted either of them would have enjoyed it much if she had. "I'm a little attached to it."

[bitchprince]

"I've been to Strokes of Genius," he said, after a beat. "I noticed."

He appreciated the lack of delving into possibly fraught topics.