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Usually such a glorious day in Camelot would be something to rejoice in, or at least be happy about. At present Gwaine was still cursing the sun for deciding to shine when he had a hangover to recover from. He cupped one of his hands over his eyes and looked about the forest. It was a lot easier to see and react to his surroundings without the sun blaring into his eyes. He lowered his hands and looked about him, luckily it was just a slight headache which he was afflicted with this morning. His reflexes were still sharp enough if anything did happen. He wasn’t stupid enough to come out on patrol with Arthur practically dying from the after effects of drink.

“Looks can be deceiving.” He winked at Arthur, he was sober, well ish. He was more sober than he had been this morning when he had been getting ready to come out on patrol so that had to count for something really. He took another swig of his hip flask, looking about at his surroundings and wondering if anything interesting was going to happen this morning. He would rather not be flung head first into a battle against a creature or something similar at this hour of the morning, but it would certainly be more interesting than getting jumpy over ever branch which snapped beyond their view.

He sighed out softly, his thoughts quickly diverting to wonder what they would be doing later on in the day. He knew that Leon and Lucan had challenged him to some sword practice later in the day. Well Gwaine, with a clear head, could certainly give either a run for their money. Therefore he hoped if that was how he were to spend his afternoon he could at least face the sunlight before then. As Arthur spoke he looked round at the Prince and blinked, his thoughts quickly returning to the present. They were walking side by side, so as Arthur edged forwards, Gwaine did too. His hand was at the hilt of his sword, ready in case anything did happen.

At that moment, Gwaine almost felt weightless for a moment, he was flung off balance and as was Arthur beside him. He tried to move but could do little than to flex his arms and legs slightly. Whatever had happened seemed to stop for a moment and Gwaine closed his eyes, this really wasn’t helping his hangover one jot. He opened his eyes again, trying to get a grasp of the situation. They were in... a net? He looked at Arthur and ran a hand over his face and sighed out, “This isn’t helping my hangover.” He pointed out rather annoyed in a way. At least when neither were squirming in the net it kept relatively still. “What the...?” He then asked, looking round at the net, they were quite a way up from the ground; how had this even happened, and who on earth was laying traps like this in the forest?

Brynn was of course right, since Arthur’s relationship with Gwen had become public there had been a sort of crisis with the divide between noble and servant. If a servant could rise to sit next to the future King of Camelot, then how could they treat servants as beneath them? Gwaine always treated everyone the same, so it was no issue for him. However, there were some who were taking longer to come round to the possibility of having a previous servant on the throne. Gwaine could not be happier than he was for the pair of them, they were both close friends and deserved each other. He internally shuddered, lord he wasn’t going soft was he?

“Arthur and Gwen are certainly crossing boundaries.” Gwaine agreed, he just hoped that they would not meet any opposition from the Lord’s of Camelot in the near future. He was sure no one would defy Arthur when he became King, but that remained to be seen didn’t it?

Well at least she was content to use his first name by itself. Well, at least she appeared to be fine with it. Even though Gwaine did pride himself upon being a knight, and he felt like it defined him in a way here in Camelot, he preferred to just be called by his first name in conversation. After all, to him he was still just Gwaine, even though he had become a knight that didn’t change who he physically was did it? He grinned at Brynn’s words, but did not comment any further as the topic had really been exhausted anyway.

As she spoke about her upbringing, Gwaine thought about how normal it all sounded. His own upbringing had been a little hazy after the death of his father but that wasn’t really anything to think on now. It had happened, and you dealt with things like that, if you just mulled over them constantly then what good would that do? It wouldn’t change anything. “Is it just you and your mother?” He asked rather curiously.

Gwaine was rather taken aback at her offer, he had thought she would want to turn and run away from him as quickly as possible. He wasn’t complaining though, it was refreshing for a woman to ask him to accompany them rather than Gwaine turning into some sort of stalker. He didn’t see much past the face value of her words, and he was amusing himself with the thought of spending an afternoon with Brynn and her geese. Perhaps it might even cure his banging head. “I would be honoured.” He inclined his head in a small sort of bow towards Brynn. It was not as big as his earlier gesture, and was only meant as a sort of respectful gesture. Well it just wouldn’t be Gwaine to not be slightly over the top would it? “I must admit, I’m itching to see the geese which would tear you away from the Knights.” It was a slight tease, but she already seemed to take it well enough so he was sure a little more would not hurt.

The moonlight was giving Gwaine some sot of direction, fantastic, at least that was a start. It wasn’t that Gwaine was lost exactly, he just could not recall his exact location. The worst part of this whole scenario was that he wasn’t even drunk, he had managed to lose his way in the middle of the night, whilst being as sober as a rock; fabulous. Gwaine had been out walking, it wasn’t completely uncharacteristic as it was giving him a bit of time by himself which until quite recently had been the norm. The last few weeks or so had been quite a lot to take in, so he was glad of a few moments by himself. He had changed the life he had known, the life he had chosen for himself on the words of the Prince of Camelot, and he still did not regret that. However, in Gwaine’s head, the transition was proving a bit more difficult than he thought it would be. He was unused to seeing the same faces every day. True, he had seen Merlin and Arthur after their first meeting, but that had been some time afterwards. Now he saw all the other knights every day and it just took some getting used to.

Of course in front of them Gwaine took it all in his stride. It was after all his way. When he was with the other knights, none of these worries ever surfaced, he was his usual self at all times and that was just fine. When he was by himself though he felt strange knowing he would be living the same life he had today again tomorrow, rather than stumbling into the next tavern to find a fresh set of faces. It was not an unwelcomed change to his previous life style, he got on well with the other knights, though they took it upon themselves to torment him during training, especially when he was hung-over.

He smiled to himself , he had training in the morning, and of course he would only make it if he could find his bed at some point before first light. He wasn’t going up against Leon or Lucan with no sleep; with a hangover was bad enough. He looked up, as if that was going to help. At least it wasn’t raining, and there was enough street light for him to know that he was heading in the general direction of the castle. After all, Camelot castle was pretty hard to miss really. He wasn’t wearing his knights attire tonight, he knew that he probably should in case he was quickly called to duty. However, with some good luck that would not happen, and he sometimes felt more like himself in his usual casual attire. Having said that, Gwaine was finding that having the Scarlet cloak draped around his shoulders worked wonders with the ladies...

He looked up again and was confronted with two figures in the distance. It was too dark to make out their faces straight away, but Gwaine had a sneaky suspicion he knew who it was before their faces swam into the starlight. He approached them with his usual over confident, slightly cocky air and observed the pair. “Not disturbing anything am I?” He asked cheekily, holding his hands up as if to protest innocence if he had walked on the pair sharing some sort of intimate moment. Lowering his hands, he then raised one to run through his hair, making it look slightly more ruffled than it already did. “There’s me thinking I was the only one up at this hour.”

Apart from the other Knights, and the odd serving man and woman in the castle, Gwaine had had few actual conversations with the people of Camelot. He was quite enjoying conversing with this woman already. She was quite refreshing given the fact Gwaine had spent most of his mornings and afternoons having seven bells knocked out to him during training. Of course he was not trying to purposely embarrass her, nor did he want to give the impression of her being anything more than a friendly acquaintance, or perhaps a friend to him. He was flirty by nature, not because he felt incredibly attracted to every woman he came across.

Her surprise at him wishing to be called by his first name was expected. After all, not many understood his past as he did not just go around telling everyone and anyone about his past. He felt uncomfortable with the full formality of his ‘Sir Gwaine’ title. He much preferred Gwaine, it just felt more like him. He could be a knight on his terms, without having to don the title all the time. He didn’t even particularly like being waited on in the castle, which the servants had been put out by on his first few nights in the castle so he had just let them change his bed and whatever else they wanted to do for fear of upsetting them. “How does it ‘rub wrong’?” He asked her softly. He was not insulted, as he had come across many who had wondered about why he wanted to be so informal over the weeks he had been in Camelot. “It is how I wished to be addressed, it is more ‘me’.” He replied happily, and hoped she could not be so insulted with his choice of title.

Gwaine laughed at her self nickname. Goose lady? He had to admit it had a nice quirky ring to it and he nodded, studying Brynn for a moment as she told her about her father’s employment. A guard of Camelot was something that Gwaine certainly respected. As a Knight he was obviously of higher rank, but ranks mattered little to Gwaine, in some situations they would be fighting side by side, there were no class divisions when they were defending their city. He gave a little mock bow to her with a cheeky grin so she knew he was joking, “Then from this day on you shall be known as the Goose Lady by my.” He gave her a quick wink as well, the more he said it in his mind, the more he liked the title. “But you must still call me Gwaine.” He quickly insisted before she thought to give him a similarly quirky nickname. “How long have you lived in Camelot?”

So he had lied a little about being new to Camelot, but in his defence he was fairly new to the City. They had been so busy in the past few weeks, helping out where they could and what not that had left little time for Gwaine to explore the city. The last time he had been here he had only had a short stroll out to the markets before having to head back to the castle. Anyway, this one lie would mean nothing, he was sure that Romily too was lying that she was going to get lost. “We can find our way together.” He suggested, giving her a quick wink, showing her that cheeky side to him was still very much alive and well.

Gwaine wasn’t quite sure how to progress the conversation further than that. After all, he had left it in her hands. If she still wanted nothing to do with him then he would let her go, after all it would hardly be gentlemanly to practically harass Romily would it? Gwaine was therefore glad at her suggestion of them getting lost together, and strode to her side with a grin on his face, “That, Romily, sounds like a fantastic suggestion.” He then looked about the market place, he hadn’t really been down this part of Camelot before so he really was in the dark. He pressed his lips together thoughtfully, “Now, if getting lost is the aim, lets try this way.” He gestured right, and walked in that direction rather spontaneously.

Gwaine was sure he would get back whichever knight caused him his injuries today. Had it been Leon? Or perhaps even Lucan? He couldn’t remember, which was probably an after effect of the alcohol, but he was sure he would make whichever one of them it was pay dearly. Well, as soon as he remembered which one it had been, it could have even been Percival. Merlin was probably unaware of the effect his question on the functioning’s of Gwaine’s head. He thought about it hard but shrugged, he couldn’t be bothered with complicated things like names with that amount of ale in his body. “No idea.” He said honestly, using his hands to emphasise his annoyance, “But I’m sure it was Lucan or Leon, I remember someone beginning with ‘L’ being involved.” He paused thoughtfully for a moment before looking back to Merlin with a grin on his face.

Gwaine resented being called addicted to taverns. He wasn’t addicted, he just enjoyed the atmosphere, and anyway, he hadn’t been drinking a lot recently. Well, at least not as much as usual. He tried to raise an eye brow at Merlin and scoffed, “I’m not addicted.” He said in probably a more hurt tone than he was intending, “I just enjoy…the ale!” Ok that wasn’t exactly what he had been aiming for but he wasn’t thinking incredibly well at the moment so that would have to do for now. “The others just don’t know how to have a good time.” There, clearly it was everyone else’s fault for not wanting to drink with him.

So it had been Gauis who had been clipping Merlin’s heels this evening then? Gwaine couldn’t say he was surprised. Between Gauis and Arthur, Gwaine was surprised that Merlin looked so perky all the time. As his friend reminded him that it was all worth it he nodded silently before sinking his lips into his drink. He was right really. Even though Gwaine often complained of the long training hours, now he thought about it he wouldn’t give up being a knight of Camelot for anything. He’d been trained to be a knight from being a young lad, it was all he knew. “Well, I suppose being beaten up is worth it in the end too.” He gave a quick laugh, “After all, what are us knights for?”

This situation felt familiar, Gwen had had a similar reaction to his charms when he had tried them on her all those months ago. Was this just a trait with the women in Camelot? To not fall for a charmers words? Perhaps he was just unlucky, that was always a possibility and it made him feel better as it meant that he wasn’t losing his touch, he would just have to change his tactics. The woman was even requesting him to stop bowing at her; he knew people would stare, they had stared last time he had used this little trick.

However, he released this woman of her embarrassment prematurely, he wanted to get her name by using a different way, plus if she proved to be more headstrong than Gwen then his back would start to hurt. “My apologies, I just thought I should treat you with the respect you deserve.” Now surely she couldn’t take offense at that as well? All women should be treated with respect by men, no matter what their rank was.

The woman’s words were true, Gwaine knew of how cruel life could be and he faltered slightly. Perhaps this woman knew something of life’s troubles, but he could not comment on that just yet, after all he didn’t even know her name yet. Gwaine himself had known of many of life’s more crueller aspects, for example he had had no home to call his own for many years now, and had therefore not been attached to anyone for just as long. The first people he had been able to call true friends in quite a number of years had been Merlin and Arthur. He gave a small grin at her and shrugged, “There are much crueller things in the world, but it would not do to concern ourselves with them all day now. Not when there is such a beautiful woman standing before my anyway.” He winked at her and rolled his tongue about in his mouth, falling back on his confidence as always.

He began to half run after her, managing to get in front of her and held his hands up, as though protesting some innocence in this situation. “My apologies if I have offended you.” He resisted the urge to say ‘my lady’ at the end of his little speech as it was on the tip of his tongue, but it was an urge which was put to rest. “Perhaps we can start over? My name is Gwaine, and what may I call you?” He was sorry in some way, he had of course not meant to offend her. Everything about her stature said that he had perhaps acted in a way she was unfamiliar with, but whether she disliked this totally or not was yet to be seen.

This was one of those rare days in Gwaine’s calendar when he had woken up without a hangover. The main reason for this had been because he hadn’t been drinking these past days as he had been in training for most of his waking hours. It had been all well and good saving Camelot the once from Morgana, but Camelot was still under threat from one thing or another, so Gwaine had had to ensure that his sword fighting was kept at top form. He had often been told he had a unique way of fighting and he aimed to keep it that way. It had been one of the things he had actually bothered to keep up with when he had taken up his wandering lifestyle.

Now however was one of his days off from training, or at least it was his day off so far. One of the knights had challenged him to some duelling practise later on and he could hardly refuse could he? To kill the time until he took up his sword again, Gwaine was looking around the markets of Camelot. It was eerie how quickly life had resumed to its normal functions after Morgana had fallen, or at least Gwaine presumed this was Camelot on its normal day to day running; he had only ever stayed here for a few days before now. That part of his life seemed like a lifetime away now.

The markets certainly had their selection, not only of different goods that the stall owners were preaching were from different lands, but there was also a good selection of women about. The last time he had been anywhere near these markets he had chosen to work his charms on Gwen. If he hadn’t known it was a mistake at the time, he certainly did now. There was no bad blood between them, and he saw himself as a good friend so there was no harm done really was there?

As Gwaine had been training for the last few days he could see no reason why he should not kick start the charming side of his personality. After all, the knights he trained with were good friends, but they were no substitute for a beautiful woman. He looked over the markets, spotting a few pretty brunettes; that could work. As he walked forwards he was so preoccupied in his thoughts he half walked into a young blonde woman. He stopped straight away and turned on his heels to face the young woman. He was taken aback for a moment by her beauty and cocked a grin straight away, taking her hand from her side and placing a small kiss upon it. “Apologises for my rude entrance my Lady.” He said softly, excusing the fact he had practically walked into her, “But now I can only hope you will grace me with the pleasure of your name.” He was still holding her hand so he rubbed his thumb over where he had placed a kiss on her skin then released her hand. Today he just felt like normal Gwaine, without any of his knightly trimmings; he even had donned his ordinary clothing and had left his knight’s clothing up at the castle to change into before training this afternoon.

It was probably starting to become too difficult to completely focus on Merlin. That should be a sign to stop drinking but Gwaine still had half a tankard of ale left. However for the moment he did not take a swig, although he vowed to himself he would polish the drink off once he could completely focus his vision on his friend. Gwaine let out a sharp laugh at Merlins words and ran a hand through his hair, probably making it more scruffy than it usually looked. “The maces were out in force today.” He gestured to a nasty bruise on his arm, “And I prefer not to mix work and pleasure, if I brought a mace in here I might cause a panic.” He chuckled to himself again and looked across at his friend. “And as for the arrogance, well,” He leaned in closer to Merlin and cocked a grin, “I leave Arthur to that.” He clapped Merlin on the shoulder as he chuckled to himself once more, he knew that one of Merlins many taglines for Arthur was that he was arrogant, but just because one knight was arrogant it didn’t mean they all had to be did it?

As Merlin pushed the coins back to Gwaine he was a little put out. He had never encountered Merlin drinking before and perhaps the reason was because Merlin did not take well to drink. He could only guess of course, but it occurred to him he had never seen Merlin drinking before, well this had to be changed in his company of course. He pushed the coins back towards Merlin in a stubborn sort of way so that Merlin knew he was serious about asking him to join him for a drink. “Come on, call it a social drink.” Now that was surely a good enough excuse?

Gwaine managed a satisfied grin as Merlin said he would stay for one drink. Gwaine raised his tankard to his friend and as he could now focus on Merlin he took a swig of ale and winked at him, “Thats the spirit Merlin.” Well this could only go well in Gwaine’s learned opinion and he settled back in his seat. He had been in this tavern quite a few nights since he took up permanent residence in Camelot and it still felt odd seeing the same faces night on night. As Gwaine had moved from place to place so much he never became that well acquainted with people to know them by face or name, but he was starting to now in Camelot and it felt odd, but he supposed he would have to get used to it now.

Gwaine shook his head at Merlin’s question as he returned to sit beside him. Some of the other knights had insisted on getting an early night in and had therefore turned down his offer of a drink. “Well they aren’t seasoned drinkers like myself.” He winked at Merlin and set his tankard down again. He knew he’d regret this drink in the morning, but now he had an excuse to be drinking at least. Well, he had an excuse, he was celebrating becoming a knight, but now the drink felt more sociable. “Arthur still got you running round after him at this hour?” Gwaine asked, he knew Merlin and Arthur were close, but surely he couldn’t still have him running errands at this time?