A Kingly Feast [Gwaine]

[Elsa de la Noue]

It was Arthur's coronation day and, as was tradition, there was a feast that night to celebrate. All of the knights and nobles from the area had been invited, including important nobles from days' travels away. Elsa hadn't been working in the castle for very long when it came time for this day, but as a servant, she was required to be at the feast and do what was her job: serve. She was to bring out plates of food along with the multiple other servants and make certain people's goblets stayed full and the guests stayed happy.

One of the other things required was that she wear something nice. She only had two dresses that she hadn't made herself: one was silk and a present for her sixteenth birthday and the other was soft cotton. She didn't want to wear either of those if she'd be serving people, however, so she chose the nicest dress she'd made. It was a deep green with long sleeves that flared just slightly -- she didn't often wear sleeves that were too long as they got in the way when she worked -- and accented with lighter green and gold threads. She had embroidered it herself and was rather proud of the job she'd done; it had taken her a long time.

Her hair was another problem. It was so long and curly that it was nearly impossible to completely put up, but she didn't want to leave it free if she would be serving food. Instead, she decided to pull it into a long braid down her back to keep it out of the way. Once she'd pulled on her boots, Elsa deemed herself ready.

It was her first feast. Admittedly, she was only serving, but she'd still never been to a feast before! This was an exciting and nerve-wracking occasion. The thing started before she could even register that it had and she was hurrying back and forth with platters of food and pitchers of drinks. About halfway through the main course, Elsa managed to catch a break and leaned against the wall. These feasts were hard work! With a soft sigh, she straightened back up and grabbed a pitcher of wine, making her way back out into the grand hall.

She filled a few goblets discreetly before she noticed one of the knights was low on his drink. They were all sitting together and were being the loudest out of everyone. She couldn't remember most of their names -- Leon, Elyan, Percival, Gwaine... who else? -- and she certainly couldn't recognize who was who. And so without saying anything, she quietly approached the group of knights and began to fill the empty goblets.

[[ Here is a reference for her hairstyle. (; ]]

[thegwaine]

The celebrations for Arthur’s coronation were going to plan so far. Gwaine probably wasn’t the only Knight to express surprise about the fact that everything was going fine and nothing had happened yet. However, having said that, Gwaine had probably cursed the entire evening and sentenced them all to death. However, so long as no one knew it was him who had delivered the kiss of death then everything would be fine. Gwaine’s eyes scanned the room as he tried to focus on something else and he was quite pleased to find that there was a healthy amount of women in attendance tonight. A few of them, Gwaine had had the pleasure of flirting with before, but there were many fresh faces to jest with and flirt.

Circling the room, Gwaine was disappointed to find that his words with a pretty red haired noblewoman didn’t go down as he had expected. She returned a few of his jests before raising her hand to show a pretty little wedding ring set upon it. Hmm, that was disappointing. Gwaine however continued onwards, not letting this little setback ruin his evening. After all, you didn’t have to have a woman strung along with your words to enjoy an evening did you? Gwaine could think of many other ways of entertaining himself, and one of them involved a rather large amount of ale.

However, as Gwaine was in his Knightly uniform tonight, he couldn’t just drink himself silly as he had a reputation to uphold. The Knights of Camelot were some of the most respected in all of Camelot, and despite Gwaine’s drinking habits, he would have to keep himself under control for now. Gwaine rejoined some of the knights in some jovial light hearted conversation, one of them began to tease him about the fact he was wasting time with them rather than finding a pretty face to focus on. Gwaine took it all on the chin of course, many of his fellow knights often took it in turns to jest at him, rather than with him.

Gwaine drained his goblet with relative ease and stepped back so that he could find a servant to refill it for him. Quickly all his problems of the evening were solved as a pretty young blonde rushed forwards to fill his goblet. “I think that I would much prefer to share this drink with you, rather than have you serve it miss.” He grinned at her, surely no one could refuse such an invitation, “Would you oblige me with your company a while longer?”

[Elsa de la Noue]

Elsa had filled a few goblets of the knights' before she came to Gwaine. All of them had ignored her -- she was a servant, after all, and meant to be there as if she was a shadow -- and she had found she preferred it that way. It would be embarrassing if a knight chose to speak to her. What if they didn't like how tall she was? What if they made a comment on her height or her curly hair? Not that her hair was too noticeable in the braid that night, but it was still something to worry about in Elsa's mind.

Then as she went to fill Gwaine's goblet, he decided to acknowledge her. The young woman flushed a bit and dipped her head. "Is that appropriate, sir?" she asked softly. "I mean, I'm just a servant... I should be serving." Then she realized what it sounded like she was doing and quickly raised her head to look at him, trying to make amends. "Not that I don't want to! I just... don't want to get in trouble. I'll gladly stay, sir, if you're certain I won't be a burden or get into trouble." She smiled a little. "I did only just get this job. I would hate to lose it."

[thegwaine]

Gwaine was surprised that his fellow knights had left such a beauty go unnoticed, or maybe they had already known that Gwaine would try and make a move. That was quite probably, after all, everyone knew that out of all the knights, Gwaine was the true lover of women. Well, he couldn't help it if women fell for his rustic charms could he? It was just a way of life for him and he intended to keep it like that. And of course one way in continuing this aspect of Gwaine's life was to continue to drink, and charm women, and there was a pretty young blonde in front of him who was filling his goblet with wine. Sometimes Gwaine thought that things were really too good to be true.

Heh, Gwaine couldn't hide a soft grin as the young woman flushed. He enjoyed getting those sort of reactions, because it was so easy to gain them. Well now he had her attention he would be a fool to lose it. Gwaine was quite taken aback by how sweet the young woman was, and perhaps a tad naive, but that remained to be seen. "Trust me, you need not worry about your job. If anyone asks, perhaps you could say I required some," He paused slightly for the effect, "Special attention." He winked at her, although he would not suggest anything so crude straight away, she could take it how she liked. "Perhaps you would grace me with your name, as I am sure such beauty can only be complimented by an equally beautiful name."

[Elsa de la Noue]

This knight was... Gwaine, wasn't it? If she was right, he was the one who was the infamous womanizer of the knights. Well, that made things a bit better with his flirtatious nature. She was an available woman and decently pretty -- despite her hair and height, she thought -- so it made sense that he would choose to speak with her. At his next words, however, she couldn't help but bite her lip and flush a bit darker, glancing down at the floor in embarrassment.

With a hesitant nod, Elsa looked up a moment later and glanced around at the other servants. They were mostly chatting amongst themselves, keeping an eye on the tables, so it couldn't hurt to stand here and keep Gwaine company, right? "All right," she agreed. "I suppose it cannot hurt if I just stand here and take care of the knights' table for awhile..." She gave him a small, shy smile. "My name is Elsa, sir." She stepped back to set the wine pitcher on a small servants' table along the wall before moving back to stand just behind and next to Gwaine. "You are Sir Gwaine, right?"

[thegwaine]

Just to behold this woman’s beauty for a few moments would have been enough for Gwaine if she did not want to respond to his words. However, for now he was being graced with her company for a while longer, and he could only express how grateful he was for that fact through his teases and of course his charming ways. Gwaine wondered how such beauty could end up merely serving nobles for a living. Then again, and although he was slightly bias, the female servants in Camelot were quite good looking on the whole. It made the fact that he lived in the castle more enjoyable, as there was always a woman to distract him.

He nodded as the woman correctly identified him and gave an over exaggerated bow. “The very same, though I would prefer it if you just called me Gwaine.” Hardly anyone called him Sir Gwaine anyway, so it made sense that this woman shouldn’t have to address him in such a formal way either. Gwaine didn’t particularly like having a title. True, he did enjoy being a knight, but he had abandoned his noble title when he had left home, only to now be given a new one. He didn’t really feel like he wanted a title as it looked as if he was superior to the man on the street. Gwaine knew that in some ways he was just like everyone else, except he had the privilege of ensuring the safety of those who resided within Camelot. “Now tell me, how did such a pretty face end up serving those who could never hope to equal your beauty.”