Chapter 11: Five Times Lancelot (and his Lady) Got Advice, and One Time They Didn't Need It

1. Gwaine

When Lancelot first went to see Dauen, he didn't tell anyone.

Not because he was shy about it, but simply because he did it entirely on impulse – not something he usually did. He'd come home from a patrol the day before, slept in, and woke up feeling slightly disoriented from the physical feeling of being between blankets and looking up to see a roof overhead; there were still days he expected to be weightlessly floating around in a lake. Before he could start thinking about it too much, though, Gwaine's words floated through his head. Take Freya's second chance. Find a new girl to be happy with.

Dauen's face floated through his mind; she was a servant in the castle who cleaned the area of the knight's barracks fairly frequently, and he'd noticed her compassionately helping another servant out on several occasions.

Before he could stop himself, he flung himself out of bed, got dressed, and went in search of Dauen.

He found her a few hallways away, carrying a basket of red cloaks and undershirts.

"Are you going to laundry?" he asked her.

"Yes, sir," she said, and surrendered the basket to him with a smile when he reached for it. He'd carried baskets for her a few times before.

Lancelot walked by her side for a few minutes, mute; then he told himself he was a Knight of the Round Table, a Protector of Camelot, and there was no reason to be scared stiff.

"Would you do me the honor of joining me for dinner tonight?" he asked her.

He barely dared glance at her, but he noticed that she was blushing – it looked very pretty on her – and was she biting her lip to hide a smile?

"Yes, sir," she said with a small curtsey.

Lancelot had never felt more relieved in his life.

There was nothing official between them; he had asked no permission to court her; so he simply took her to the tavern where he ate most often in Camelot, because it was quiet and served good food and was run by sorcerers, and they had a quiet meal together.

He was going back toward his quarters that night, unable to keep from grinning, when Gwaine suddenly appeared out of nowhere by his side.

"So," he said cheerfully, swinging an arm around Lancelot's shoulder, "someone decided to take my advice about girls, did they?"

"I – I," Lancelot spluttered. He meant to say, "I don't know what you're talking about," but he had been in too much of a fantasy to find the words.

Gwaine chuckled. "Don't worry," he said, "your secret's safe with me."

"It's not a secret," Lancelot said indignantly, finding words at last. "There's nothing between us."

"Of course, Lance," Gwaine replied, grinning most infuriatingly.

Lancelot gritted his teeth. He hated his name being shortened, but Gwaine had begun the tradition in the lake and had never dropped the habit, and Lancelot saw no chance of protesting now.

"How did you even know?" he demanded.

"I was eating supper two tables over," Gwaine told him, with a wicked twinkle in his eye. "Shows how very large a nothing there is between you and Dauen if you didn't even notice me."

Lancelot shoved his arm off his shoulders. "Do go away, Gwaine," he snapped. "I'm not the only one who's oblivious. You nearly missed a spear coming toward your eye in sparring today! What, thoughts about Morwenna consuming you?"

"She asked me to court her, you know," Gwaine answered, with a dreamy expression.

Lancelot grunted in disgust as he reached the door of his quarters.. "Of course I know," he said. "You've only said it twenty times since she asked you. Good night."

"Lancelot," Gwaine said quietly, so quietly and sincerely that Lancelot stopped with his hand on the door handle and raised an eyebrow at Gwaine.

"I'm glad you went out with her," Gwaine said very seriously, meeting Lancelot's eyes. "She seems quiet and sweet – just your type."

Of course Gwaine would be observant enough to have noticed Dauen in their hallways and pick up something about her. And the genuine tone to his words melted Lancelot's annoyance.

"Perhaps," he admitted.

"Don't let her slip through your fingers," Gwaine told him. He grinned, and it took a second to shift from sincere back into roughish. "Of course, she's nothing to my lady Morwenna, but –"

"Good night, Gwaine," Lancelot said firmly, and slammed the door in the face of his friend's laughter.

But the next morning, for the first time in months, he didn't wake up feeling as if he was in the lake.

The first time Lancelot asked Dauen to do anything with him, she didn't tell anyone about it.

Not that it was some huge secret, but she was shy about it. She'd had a crush on him for months, but he was a knight, one of the Returned Knights of the Round Table no less, even if the rumors among the lords were that he was common-born, and she was simply the servant who scrubbed the knights' halls and took their dirty cloaks and sweaty underthings to the wash.

But out of all the knights, Sir Lancelot was by far the most likely to notice when a servant was a bit overwhelmed and step in to help. He'd carried heavy buckets up or down staircases countless times, chased off a knight or two who was getting a bit pushy, and carried burdens for her dozens of places, even though he really didn't need to. Out of all the knights, he was by far the most handsome and thoughtful. What could stop a girl from having a crush on him?

She knew it was extremely far-fetched, so she didn't really talk about it.

When he actually asked her to dine with him, she was so shocked she agreed.

And actually had a very nice time. Lancelot was as lovely in person as she had thought. She didn't know how she'd survive if he didn't ask to court her.

She still hadn't mentioned it to anyone, though, two days later when she went down to the marketplace for red cloth to trip some of the knights' cloaks that were getting very raggedy.

"Morning, Morwenna," she called out, coming up to the lady who had sold cloth for nearly as long as Dauen had worked at the palace.

"Morning, Dauen," Morwenna called back cheerfully. "I hear you've had dinner with a special someone lately!"

Dauen froze, gripping her basket tight in both hands. "What – why – I've told no one!" she gasped.

Morwenna laughed, but it was kindly. She came around the stall to grip Dauen's hands and pull her behind the stall where they could talk.

"As one lady currently being courted by a knight to another, few things stay secrets among the knights," she said, smiling.

Through her confusion, Dauen remembered dimly something about Sir Gwaine courting the cloth merchant. "Why am I not surprised that Sir Gwaine can't keep secrets," she said dryly – and then would have clapped her hands over her mouth if Morwenna hadn't been holding them.

But she didn't seem the least bit offended. "Of course," she said. "He's insufferable, and that's why I love him. And," she added, suddenly serious, "he really cares about Lancelot. He told me that he couldn't remember seeing Sir Lancelot happier than he was the night after you went out, and he was glad of it."

"Really?" Dauen asked, crimson.

"Really, really," Morwenna answered. "I'll let you in on a bit of a secret: it's not as easy coming back to life as you would think."

Dauen nodded; she'd thought that a bit herself. "I – I know I wasn't around when Lancelot had his first life," she faltered.

"And maybe he needs that," Morwenna said practically. "A tie to his new life that isn't all mixed up with the past. Who knows? If he's courting you, he sees something of the beauty in you that's well worth it."

Dauen flushed again at the compliment, but honesty made her protest, "We're not properly courting yet."

"Don't worry, he'll ask you," Morwenna told her, cutting to the heart of her fear. "Lancelot's far too noble a man not to do things properly. Besides," she added, with a dangerous twinkle in her eyes, "if he takes too long, ask him yourself. That's what I had to do."

"Morwenna!" Dauen gasped, shocked, and then they were laughing together. Morwenna pulled her in for a quick, tight hug.

"Good luck," she breathed in her ear. Then she stepped back and became the practical merchant again. "So what can I do for you today?"

2. Percival

Lancelot was almost sure he wanted to court Dauen.

He thought she was the loveliest girl he had ever known, and he wanted to get to know her properly instead of during stolen moments when they ran into each other in the hallway or when he could get her to spend an hour or two with him. He knew she probably expected him to court her, and he certainly wanted to do the right thing by her.

Somewhere underneath, though, there was lurking the old memory of Gwen turning to Arthur with her eyes filled with hope in Hengist's castle, Gwen kissing Arthur on the morning of his first day as a knight, when they took Camelot back. There was none of the faint, bitter longing those images had once pulled up, but the sting of rejection made him slightly hesitant.

He went to Percival's house one evening when he was thinking about this, because Percival was one of his oldest friends, and he was married, and more than anything the advice he gave was always straight and true. Lancelot had a standing invitation to visit Percival, so when he arrived, Edalene simply greeted him with a smile and set him a place at the table. Their children chattered with him the most over dinner, with a few words from their parents, and afterwards he and Percival retired to their seats before the fire. After the children were in bed, Edalene came over, put her arms around her husband's neck from behind, and dropped a light kiss into his hair. "Come soon," she whispered.

Percival put one large hand over both his wife's small ones and squeezed gently. "Certainly," he said.

The little domestic scene made Lancelot's heart squeeze with longing, and Dauen's face floated through his mind. When he looked up, he saw Percival watching him with a gently knowing look that said he had caught Lancelot's expression at their little domestic moment and understood. Percival was always wonderful at understanding.

Then Edalene left the room, and it was just Percival and Lancelot silent before the fire, as it had been countless times since they first met, years ago.

They watched the flames in comfortable contentment for a while, but it was Percival who first broke the silence.

"You're thinking of courting Dauen, aren't you?" he asked quietly.

"Y-yes," Lancelot faltered. "I mean, I want to ask her to court me. Officially." He couldn't figure out why he was stammering.

Percival gave one slow nod, and didn't ask why Lancelot was hesitating; he had probably figured it all out from Lancelot's one stammered sentence.

"You like her, don't you?" he asked.

"Of course," Lancelot answered, almost cutting him off with his quick answer.

"And she likes you?"

"I—I think so," Lancelot replied. The stammering was back.

"Then ask," Percival said, with steady, solid conviction in his tone.

Even for him, it was one of the shortest pieces of advice Percival had given, but it somehow made Lancelot feel as though a tremendous weight had fallen off his shoulders.

"Thank you, Percival," he said, standing up to go.

Percival stood up too, gave him a broad smile and a clap on the shoulder, and went to join his wife.

Lancelot asked the next day.

Dauen was almost sure she wanted to be courted by Lancelot.

She had been expecting him to ask almost every day since that first day he had taken her to the tavern for dinner; she had been wanting him to ask, wanting to know for certain that what they had between them was real and true and would last. When he didn't ask, she had unburdened herself to her mother at home more nights than she wanted to remember, demanding why he hadn't come to the point yet.

Yet when he did come to the point, somehow she faltered and asked for a few days to think about it.

Lancelot agreed with no hesitation, yet somehow she thought she had hurt him by the look in his eyes, and she hated herself for it.

There was no help for it, though. Years before, before she had started working at the palace, her neighbor boy had asked to court her. She had been all in a flutter over him, and there had only been a matter of weeks left until the wedding when he suddenly fled Camelot.

She got a letter from him not long afterwards, saying that their relationship had been a mere flirtation for him and in the end he didn't want to go through with it, and the letter had somehow crushed her more than his disappearance had. When he had vanished, there had always been the chance he could return; when his letter came, it put an end to all doubt and broke her heart.

Dauen knew Lancelot was cut from a different cloth than her neighbor boy, but somehow in the moment when he asked all her fears rose up and choked her.

The following day, Dauen was down by the sparring grounds, bringing down water, and ran into Lady Edalene. Sir Percival's wife always came up at the end of sparring sessions to walk home with her husband, her baby tied on her back. Dauen didn't know her well, but Lady Edalene always had a smile and a perceptive word for her, and Dauen counted her a friend despite everything.

"You seem rather troubled," she said today to Dauen, coming over to stand by her.

Dauen gave a short laugh and shook her hair out of her face, wondering how Lady Edalene always knew her better than she knew herself.

"Lancelot asked me to court him," she said, and without meaning it to happen her eyes flicked to where he was fighting Sir Gwaine with graceful sweeps of his sword.

"And you didn't say yes?" Lady Edalene asked. Dauen thought there was a hint of surprise under her level voice.

"I—I want to," Dauen faltered. "I just don't know if I can trust him."

Edalene nodded, and Dauen felt as though she understood enough in those moments to know how Dauen felt.

"Do you like him?" Edalene asked.

"Of course," Dauen said quickly. "More than anyone else I've ever known."

"And I know he likes you," Edalene said, and smiled at Dauen's surprise.

"Then you think I can say yes?" Dauen asked.

The sparring session was coming to a close, and Sir Percival, coming toward them, exchanged a tender smile with his wife. Edalene turned back to Dauen.

"Say yes," she advised gently; then she took her husband's arm and headed back toward their home in the lower town.

Lancelot was coming off the field too, and Dauen knew it was now or never; she turned and hurried over to him, skipping over piles of weapons the knights had used and cast aside.

"Lancelot!" she called. "Lancelot!"

He turned toward her, his eyes widening, and Dauen hurried up to him, breathing a bit quickly.

"Yes," she said hastily, before her courage failed her. "My answer is yes."

He knew what she meant instantly, and the smile that spread across his face was the most beautiful one she'd seen.

"I'm glad," he said, and kissed her hand, in an earnest, sincere way.

Dauen couldn't stop smiling the rest of the day.

3. Merlin

Since Lancelot had asked Dauen to court him, life had been beautiful. They'd eaten a meal together almost every day, and Lancelot thought that Dauen was rearranging her routes through the castle to ensure she ran into him as much as possible. He was certainly arranging his routes to try running into her. He kept trying to plan a really romantic date in his mind, but he was struggling to bring it all together.

There was a day when he was sitting in his quarters, daydreaming about Dauen, when the thought occurred to him that this was not much different from how he had once sat daydreaming about Gwen when he had been alone on the road before he met Percival.

The thought shook him deeply, and for a moment all he could think of was the similarities between Gwen and Dauen. They had both started as serving maids; they both had long black wavy hair; he had started thinking about them both at a moment when he was particularly lonely; they had both given him hope when he was struggling to have hope for himself.

Lancelot shuddered with the horror of that thought. What if he was simply treating Dauen as a stand-in for Gwen? It couldn't be – he'd made his decision to step out of Gwen's life long ago, and he hadn't thought about her in any way other than as his queen in years. But once the thought had gripped him, he couldn't shake it off.

The bell sounded out the hour, shaking Lancelot from his dark thoughts, and he realized that the time for training had come. With a sigh, he heaved himself off his bed and grabbed up his swordbelt.

He was halfway to the practice fields when he ran into Merlin – nearly literally.

"Woah!" Merlin exclaimed, taking a step back so as not to be run over. "I know you've got your head in the clouds – I know what that feels like – but—" He paused and cut himself off, then grabbed Lancelot's arm and tugged him sideways into an alcove.

"Lancelot, what's the matter?" he asked, earnest and utterly sincere. "I haven't seen you this miserable in weeks."

Lancelot frowned and took a deep breath. He didn't particularly like the idea of giving his thought the dignity of speech, but there was the fact that it was Merlin who was asking, Merlin who was still one of the friends he treasured most in the world. And Merlin had been there through everything with Gwen; if anyone would understand, it was him.

"I can't help wondering if I'm just making Dauen a stand-in for Gwen," he admitted. "They're similar in some ways, and Dauen deserves so much more than being a second choice to fill an empty place."

Merlin nodded slowly, bracing an arm against the wall to lean against it. The fact that he didn't immediately dispute the idea terrified Lancelot.

"Do you think that's really the case?" he demanded.

"No!" Merlin retorted quickly, startling and straightening up. "No, Lancelot, I don't think that at all. I was just remembering – there was a time, a very long time ago, when I had a little bit of a crush on Morgana. And there was a piece of me after Freya died, when I was wallowing in bitterness, that wondered if I had loved her just because she was a girl with magic that I hadn't actually betrayed, a girl I thought I could save."

"But you don't still think so," Lancelot said, and it was almost not a question.

Merlin beamed suddenly. "Of course not," he said. "I didn't think it for more than two seconds, and I was thinking it because I was bitter and trying to distance myself from the pain of knowing I had loved Freya. I don't think it's the case for you either," he added, shaking off his past. "I think it's thanks to your chivalry and your sense of honor more than the truth that you're worried about this now. It does you credit, but you don't need to worry."

"How do you know?" Lancelot pressed him.

"You see Dauen as her own person, don't you?" Merlin asked him. "You're not thinking of Gwen every time you look at her?"

"Of course not," Lancelot said indignantly. "When I look at her, all I can see is her grace, her gentle spirit, her beauty, her –"

"Go sing her praises to her face instead of to me," Merlin cut him off, laughing. "Trust me, you're in no danger of seeing her as a substitute at all."

"Thanks, Merlin," Lancelot said, smiling and holding out his arm.

"Of course," Merlin answered cheerfully, clasping it. "What are friends for?"

"By the way," he added as they stepped out of the alcove, "if you ever need an escort for running away into the woods for a day, I chaperoned (or didn't chaperone) Arthur and Gwen more times than I care to count."

Lancelot looked quickly sideways at him. He didn't know how much Dauen liked the woods, but images of getting to spend a whole day with her, taking a picnic lunch and going for long walks just the two of them, was incredibly inviting. That might give him the chance to do something very romantic for the date he had been planning.

He couldn't tell if Merlin was entirely serious, but in that moment it didn't matter.

"Thanks," he said. "I just might do that."

And then he fled to the practice field before Merlin could take the offer back.

Not long after she and Lancelot officially began courting, Dauen's assignment in the palace was changed. Instead of being a sort of maid-of-all-work in the area of the knights, she was now to be the lady's maid for the Lady Freya.

She knew this was a great honor and she should be happy about it, but she had a good number of reservations. For one thing, it would be harder to organize her routes through the palace to coincide with Lancelot's routes, and she doubted he would be able to do little kind gestures like carrying the laundry to the wash for her anymore.

There was also the fact that the Lady Freya was by far the quietest lady in court, and there were whispers that she was completely withdrawn, even that she wasn't entirely human but was part naiad, or worse. Not that Dauen believed the rumors, but working with a silent mistress would be a bit difficult.

She vented about the situation to Lancelot one night over dinner. He listened gravely as always, but when she had finished, he shook his head.

"She's one of the sweetest people in the world, if you give her the time to get to know you a bit," he said.

"How would you know?" Dauen demanded.

Lancelot's lips twitched. "We were both at the bottom of the lake for a long time," he said. "And we were the only ones for a while. If we hadn't learned to talk to each other, we'd have been even more bored."

Dauen had somehow forgotten that Lancelot had been at the bottom of a magic lake, alone with Freya, for years. Since Freya was clearly happily married to Merlin (which was the only fact that the whole court agreed on) and Lancelot was courting her, Dauen really didn't need to worry about it. But the memory of seeing the young man who had once been engaged to her parading the streets of Camelot after his return with a new girl flashed into her mind and wouldn't go away.

"I don't think you need to worry too much about Freya," Lancelot was saying. "The part that I will regret is the fact that I won't be able to carry the knights' laundry to the wash with you anymore."

He was smiling but also clearly serious, and that sentence banished any worry from Dauen's mind for the time being.

The first day Dauen was to serve the Lady Freya, she made her way to the chambers Freya shared with Merlin and knocked shyly on the door of Freya's side of the apartment. When there was no response, she let herself in and waited for the lady to wake up.

The door dividing Freya's living room from the bedroom suddenly swung open, and Dauen could hear the last remnants of voices whispering sweet nothings before Freya came into the room, a small smile on her lips. She froze when she saw Dauen.

Dauen swept into a low curtsey. "Good morning, my lady," she said. "I'm Dauen, and the steward has assigned me to be your new lady's maid."

Freya nodded slowly, fiddling with her sleeves. "Good morning," she said softly.

And that was all she said.

Dauen swallowed. "What do you want me to do, my lady?" she asked. "I could help you dress or bring you breakfast."

Freya gave her a quick glance and a shake of her head. "Please stop calling me 'my lady,'" she requested. "I much prefer Freya."

Dauen nodded quickly. "Yes, Freya," she said, stumbling over the name a bit and thinking that she still didn't know what to do.

Freya crossed to her closet and pulled out a dress. "I'm going to go change," she said. "I suppose you could get me breakfast if you want, and then you could help me lace myself up, if you like."

Dauen drew a breath of relief. "Yes, my lady – Freya," she said quickly, and fled to get the breakfast, thinking that those who said Freya was very quiet weren't wrong.

Things stayed awkward and distant between them for the next few days, especially because Freya was a very independent lady and didn't give Dauen much to do. Not used to this much inactivity, Dauen took to helping out the maids around the knights' quarters as much as possible and got in a few moments with Lancelot. She took the laundry to the wash a couple of times, and he always showed up to carry it for her.

About their fifth day together, though, Dauen was helping Freya lace up her dress when Freya said suddenly, "I'm sorry, Dauen, but I've very little need for a maid and even less desire to have one. I – I'd rather we could be friends."

Not what Dauen had exactly expected, but much more welcome. She smiled and slipped the last clasp together.

"Certainly, Freya," she said, and the name slipped off her tongue much easier this time.

Freya nodded but didn't say anything more until Dauen was deftly putting up her hair. Then – "You're the lady Lancelot is courting, right?" Freya asked.

Dauen smiled in spite of herself. "Yes," she said cheerfully.

Freya nodded. "You're very lucky," she said, smiling. "He's the most chivalrous man I've ever met."

Dauen's hands slipped in Freya's hair, and she bit her lip to keep her thoughts to herself. One of them complimenting the other was one thing, but both of them . . . !

Freya must have caught her look in the mirror, because she swiveled suddenly on her stool and stood up, taking her hair out of Dauen's reach.

"Dauen," she said quietly, "he has told you that there was absolutely nothing between us in the lake, hasn't he?"

"Of course," Dauen said a bit bitterly. "It's just a little bit hard to believe, with both of you clearly thinking so highly of each other and were alone together for so long."

She bit her lip harder immediately afterwards, because that was no way to talk to a lady, unconventional or not.

But Freya clasped her hands under her chin and looked thoughtful.

"Nothing ever happened," she said steadily. "I swear it to you, Dauen. I was connected to Merlin in a tangled magic far beyond simple love, and I wouldn't have had it any differently. And Lancelot and I were both too absorbed in the life we had had and lost and longed to return to for us to even think about each other in the meantime."

Dauen drew a deep breath and tried to let go of her anger. "Alright, alright," she said. "I believe you. Now will you let me do the rest of your hair?"

But Freya was still staring at her with keen brown eyes that saw far too much.

"You don't trust easily, do you?" she asked.

Dauen froze. "I don't know why you say that, my lady," she said coldly.

"You've been hurt in the past," Freya said intently, and Dauen began wondering if it was just the morning light or if her eyes were flickering the slightest bit gold. "So even if you long to trust, you daren't quite again."

"My lady," Dauen said, as firmly as she could with her voice shaking uncontrollably, "you have no right to pry into my private affairs."

Freya shook herself a bit and sat down, murmuring an apology, and Dauen went back to work on her hair with trembling fingers. But unfortunately for once Freya wasn't done talking.

"I couldn't trust Merlin for the longest time," she said quietly. "I'd been betrayed before, you know. I couldn't believe why he'd be so kind to me. I couldn't understand why he'd risk everything he'd built his life on to steal moments with me – a monster."

She looked up and met Dauen's eyes in the mirror.

"I had to learn to trust him," she said. "I had to trust that he had no ulterior motive, that he wasn't using me for anything, that he loved me for who I was. And until then, I could never open myself up to him."

She turned around again and took Dauen's hands in her slight ones. "You have to learn to trust Lancelot," she said, "or nothing will ever be able to happen."

Dauen collapsed suddenly to her knees. "There was a boy," she said, the words bursting out of her like they needed to escape, "a boy who was about to be engaged to me. And he fled rather than let it happen. He broke my heart."

She began crying quietly, unable to help it. Freya held her hands and rubbed her thumbs quietly over her knuckles.

"Lancelot is not that boy," she said at last, very quietly. "When once he makes a promise, he would rather die than break it. He's courting you now; he's given his heart to you and you to him. Trust me, he's trustworthy."

And somehow this time Dauen didn't mind Freya talking like she knew Lancelot very well. She felt a determination well up within her to open her heart, even if that let it be broken again. She pulled one hand out of Freya's to dry her eyes.

"Thank you, Freya," she whispered – and then shook herself. "And goodness, let me finish your hair!" she exclaimed, scrambling to her feet.

Freya smiled and turned around to let Dauen finish.

Dauen found Lancelot as soon as she was done with Freya though. "Lancelot," she said, with no warning, "I trust you."

He looked at her, a bit astonished. "I'm – glad?" he said, a bit uncertainly.

Dauen threw care to the winds. "I love you," she said boldly.

A slow smile crossed Lancelot's face, and he stepped forward to hug her. "I love you too," he murmured.

Dauen had given him her heart, had trusted him with it. Only time would tell if that had been the right choice.

4. Leon

Lancelot had finally managed to do something suitably romantic. He'd taken Dauen on a date to the woods for a whole day. He and Merlin had gone the day before and scouted out the best places – a meadow covered in flowers for a picnic, a picturesque stream filled with small waterfalls to wander alongside, old trees covered in moss to ride through. Merlin had come along as chaperone and dragged Freya, who had given Dauen the day off, with him; he claimed it was so that there was a lady present to keep an eye on Dauen, but Lancelot accused him of simply wanting to go on a date with his wife, and Merlin grinned and said nothing else. It was certainly true that Merlin and Freya did very little chaperoning, clearly lost in their own world.

It was equally clear that Dauen had thoroughly enjoyed her day; she'd barely stopped smiling since they left Camelot. They'd had their picnic in the meadow; Lancelot had gathered a bouquet and presented it to Dauen, and she had braided the flowers into her hair. They kept falling out as the two of them walked upstream arm in arm, and Lancelot gathered them on the way back down, adding the flowers that loved water growing alongside the stream, and presented the new bouquet with a grand flourish when they reached the meadow again. Dauen had laughed as she accepted it, a happy laugh, Lancelot thought, and promised to hang it upside down in her room to dry and treasure the dried flowers forever. And they'd chattered all the day long.

Lancelot himself was still smiling as he went back to his quarters after escorting Dauen back to her room, thinking of her windblown, hair and hands filled with flowers, and absolutely beautiful.

He ran into Leon coming down from his office; something must have kept him in his office past normal hours, because on an ordinary night he was long gone home to his wife and children by now. Lancelot envied him that with an envy that had a hope of becoming reality very soon.

Leon greeted him, and then to Lancelot's surprise fell in step with him as he headed toward the knights' quarters.

"You look happy," Leon observed, smiling just a bit.

"Of course," Lancelot answered, too happy to hide what he felt. "I've just come back with Dauen."

"Right," Leon answered, his lips twitching. He paused suddenly and turned to face Lancelot. "Listen, I hate to bring you out of your happy fog, but there's one question I want to ask you."

Lancelot stopped at once and turned to look at him. "What's wrong?" he demanded, wondering if this was what had kept Leon up at the castle. "Do we have to ride out?"

"No, no, nothing's wrong," Leon said quickly. "I just need to ask you a question about your plans, and there's no need for you to answer tonight."

"What is it?" Lancelot demanded, heart pounding.

"Do you intend to continue being a knight after you marry?" Leon asked him.

The question was so unexpected, both in the implication that he would be married and that he might withdraw from the knights, that for a moment Lancelot's breath was taken away and he couldn't answer.

"I ask," Leon told him, "because I've had dozens of knights resign once they married. Our job is dangerous, I won't try to mask that and you know it too well, and some knights prefer stability once they marry."

His voice was grave, and he was clearly serious. As Lancelot got over his shock, however, he realized that Leon was also grave because he wasn't all that happy about the prospect of Lancelot withdrawing.

"You and Percival didn't withdraw when you married," he pointed out.

"We were essential to the Queen," Leon told him. "Our wives married us, knowing the risks and accepting them. I don't think there's any danger of Camelot crumbling if you withdraw."

He was clearly teasing in his last sentence, and yet there was truth underlying his words as well. Camelot had never been as precarious as it had been in the early days of Gwen's reign, filled with threats within and without, although Lancelot only knew that secondhand from Freya's images.

There was a moment where he was disoriented, as he often was when he remembered the days in the lake, and not entirely sure where he was.

Leon's hand, warm and heavy on his shoulder, grounded him. "You don't need to make the decision now," Leon was saying, obviously thinking that had been what overwhelmed him. "You definitely should talk to Dauen about it. And be assured I won't think any differently of you, whatever you decide."

Lancelot swallowed at the certainty in his voice. On the one hand, Lancelot had wanted to be a knight so long, and had had such a short tenure as knight both times, that to leave his post would seem like the reckless abandonment of a dream. On the other hand, there had been days where that dream had felt like a chain, holding him to one course he could not turn from. On the other hand, the fulfillment of that dream had been a joy beyond what he had ever known (until he started to court Dauen), and even knowing that he could withdraw loosened the chain.

"Did you ask Gwaine this?" he asked suddenly. Gwaine and Morwenna were planning to marry in a few weeks. Their courtship had been almost scandalously short, but then when you were both utterly certain this was what you wanted to do, there was no point in waiting. At least that was what Gwaine said.

"Of course," Leon told him. "Gwaine says he intends to stay with the knights. But then, Morwenna's not the type of person to try avoiding risks, I think – and neither is Gwaine."

"You're certainly right there," Lancelot said, chuckling just a little. He looked up and met Leon's eyes. "I don't want to leave the knights. The group of us that everyone calls the Round Table Knights – we haven't had much time together, and being one of you means the world to me."

Leon squeezed his shoulder with the hand he hadn't taken off it. "It would mean a lot to me if you stayed with us too," he admitted. "But at least talk to Dauen before you give me a final answer, alright?"

"Alright," Lancelot answered, feeling a peace come with the thought of talking to her first. "I'll talk to Dauen."

Leon nodded and smiled, and moved off in the corridor to go home. Two steps down, though, he paused and turned back.

"A word of advice from someone who's been married and a knight," he said. "Tell her everything. Don't try hiding anything from your wife; if you let her carry your burdens with you, they become lighter. And ask her about hers, and carry them for her to. And she – she has to be your highest loyalty. Your loyalty to being a knight and to Camelot is admirable, but sometimes there have to be people who matter more."

In the dim torchlight, Leon's eyes shone as he made his almost treasonous confession.

"Thanks, Leon," Lancelot said quietly, feeling priorities he hadn't given words to shift and reassign themselves – and feeling with that, peace.

"Of course," Leon told him. "Have a good night, Lancelot."

He swept off down the hallway, and Lancelot, envying him his home and hearthfire and wife, unlocked his door and went slowly into his own room.

Lancelot hadn't had a home to go back to since the raiders destroyed his home in his childhood. To have a home, a safe place of his own with his family, to go back to at the end of the day – the idea nearly took his breath away now that he let himself think of it.

To have that, Lancelot thought, he would be willing even to leave the knights if Dauen asked him to.

Dauen walked up to Freya's room, more slowly than she usually would have. Lancelot had asked her over their shared lunch if she would prefer he withdraw from the knights.

"Of course not!" was her first reaction. "Lancelot, that's who you are – a knight in shining armor. I would never ask you to withdraw."

But Lancelot met her eyes with the quiet, steady gaze she loved so much. "Leon asked me last night if I wanted to withdraw," he said. "It's an honorable option; many knights do withdraw when they marry. And being a knight is a dangerous job, Dauen; out of those of us who stood at the round table, only two haven't died and come back. And there's no coming back again if I die another time."

He reached across the table and took her hand very gently. "I want you to think about this, Dauen," he said quietly, "and tell me what you honestly prefer."

"But you love being a knight," Dauen protested. "It's what you always dreamed." And trying to imagine him as anything else was hurting her mind.

"I love you more," Lancelot told her very gently, his eyes fixed on hers. "I want to make a home with you. I haven't had a home since I was a child."

"You – haven't?" Dauen choked.

She had known that by his teenage years, he'd been on his own, learning to fight wherever he could pick up the skill and making his own way, but she hadn't known that began when he was a child.

Lancelot told her a little then, in disjointed sentences, of the day the northern raiders had swept through and he alone of his village had survived.

Dauen folded him into a hug the moment he was finished speaking and didn't let go for a very long time.

But the main question she had to face now was what she wanted him to do about being a knight. The underlying implication to his words was that he would abide by her decision in the matter, which meant she had to consider what he felt about it in making her decision. That was how love was meant to work, Dauen thought. And she was pretty sure he wanted to stay a knight.

Still, it was a question very worthy of consideration, because she knew quite well that if she gave him permission now to stay with the knights, she would feel horribly guilty if she ever started complaining about his work in the future.

Freya didn't need much done when Dauen finally reached her chambers, but Dauen straightened the bed and the chairs, and wiped the table and the dresser, and looked at the hearth.

"I should get a brush and water and scrub that down," she said to herself. "It's filthy."

"Dauen, what's on your mind?" Freya asked, from where she was sitting curled up in the window seat reading. She'd been utterly silent since greeting Dauen so far, and her words made Dauen jump.

"What do you mean?" she demanded, whirling to face Freya and pleading with her heart to stop racing.

"The room is fundamentally clean, and so is the hearth," Freya said quietly. "You've been doing busy work for the last half-hour, and that's not like you. You're trying not to think about something."

Ever since she'd actually gotten to know Freya, Dauen had liked her. But there were times when she wished fiercely that Freya wasn't almost supernaturally perceptive.

She sighed and sank down on the foot of the bed. "Lancelot asked me if I want him to stop being a knight," she said.

Freya met her eyes. "And do you want him to?" she asked.

"I don't know!" Dauen exclaimed. "It would be easier if I could talk to someone who's been a knight's wife, who knows what it's like to deal with it all." She could talk to the Lady Edalene, she supposed, but she didn't know exactly when the lady would be at the castle next or when she might run into her, and she didn't feel she knew her well enough to seek her out, nor did she know where in the lower town to find her.

"You could talk to the Lady Matilde," Freya suggested. "She's been a knight's wife for years now."

"I barely know her, though," Dauen protested.

Freya tucked her feet back up on the window seat and opened her book. "I'm giving you the afternoon off, Dauen," she said, smiling a sort of secret smile. "Except for one thing: go talk to Lady Matilde. I think she has a recipe for burn salve requiring magic that I'd like to try."

Dauen stared at Freya hard for a moment and shook her head; Freya had a dry sense of humor that showed up at the worst possible times.

"Yes, my lady," she said very stiffly, and marched from the room.

Lady Matilde, in all honesty, intimidated her. She was the wife of the First Knight of Camelot, one of the first people with magic to be accepted into Camelot proper, and the mother of several very well-behaved children. Next to Lord Merlin, she was one of the chief advisors on magic in the kingdom, and some of her magical experiments were legendary. Apart from the Queen herself, she was one of the most regal people in the castle, and Dauen would be lying to say she wasn't a bit scared of her.

But at least Freya had given her a good excuse to approach the Lady, and this was one of the days when the Lady was up in the castle. Feeling perhaps more nervous than she had any right to, given that the Queen had shown that a maid may even become a queen, Dauen made her way down to Lady Matilde's office, which was directly next to her husband's, and knocked.

"Come in!" the Lady called.

Dauen nudged the door open and came in. The great Lady Matilde was sitting on the ground, her skirts in a wide circle on the floor around her, playing happily with the toddler on her lap. Magic figurines that Daen couldn't quite see were flashing between her hands.

She looked up as Dauen entered. "Hello," she said cheerfully as her toddler babbled. "What can I do for you?"

More at ease, somehow, Dauen managed to speak without stammering. "The Lady Freya requests your recipe for burn salve requiring magic."

"Of course," the Lady said. She got easily to her feet, swinging her toddler to rest on her hip with the ease of years of practice. Going to the table in the back of the room, she flipped open the great book standing on it and pulled out a new piece of parchment. She stared at one page in the book; then she whispered some magical words, her eyes flashed gold, and the next instant the page was reproduced on the new parchment. Used to magic though she was, Dauen couldn't help but gasp a little.

Lady Matilde gave her a friendly smile and the parchment with the copy. "There you go," she said. "Was there anything else?"

It was now or never. Dauen drew in a deep breath. "Yes, actually there was," she said rapidly on the exhale. "I wanted to know what it's like being the wife of a knight?"

Lady Matilde's eyes sharpened and softened all at once. "Ah," she said. "Yes. Let me give Ailith to Leon, and then I'll answer your question."

She left the room through a side door that clearly connected her office to her husband's; Dauen could hear them talking, but nothing they said. When the Lady came back, she shut both the door between offices and the door Dauen had come through before moving to sit down on the couch in the room.

"Come sit with me," she said, "and let's talk."

Dauen perched herself on the couch and folded her fidgeting hands together.

"You're the one courting with Sir Lancelot, correct?" Lady Matilde asked.

"Yes, my lady," Dauen answered, smiling involuntarily at the thought of him.

Lady Matilde nodded. "You can dispense with the 'my lady's,'" she said. "I'd rather this be a talk one woman who loves a knight to another." She looked away thoughtfully for a moment, then met Dauen's eyes.

"It's not easy, being a knight's wife," she said. "There are days when your husband is away and you don't know if he'll ever come back to you or not. There are nights when the warning bells of Camelot start ringing and your husband throws himself out of bed beside you, grabs his sword and dashes out of the house while you're still trying to realize what woke you up."

She paused, folding her hands very neatly on her lap.

"There are nights," Lady Matilde went on, "when your husband wakes up beside you, covered in sweat and out of breath because he remembers a moment when he nearly lost his life, or one of his men lost his life, or he took the life of someone he didn't want to, and his mind has twisted them all up together and tormented him with all of it. And all you can do is take your husband in your arms and hold him as he cries and cry with him and pray to God to take away his pain."

She looked up suddenly, and reaching out took Dauen's hands in hers.

"But there are the good things too," she said, with sudden passion. "There is watching your husband go galloping out of Camelot with the other knights, cape flowing behind him, and knowing that no wife in the world can be prouder than you are in that moment. There is watching him come back, weary and dirty but beaming, and hearing the whole city cheer what he has accomplished. There is wrapping him in your arms and knowing he's alive because he fought to come home to you and whispering sweet nothings in his ear and knowing that of all the praise he heard riding home, your praise is by far the sweetest to him. There is knowing you are the safest woman in Camelot because when your husband says he will never let any harm come to you he has the skills to make sure it is true."

She smiled at Dauen, a small, sweet smile. "It's the hardest and the easiest thing in the world, being the wife of a knight," she said quietly.

There was a moment's silence, as Dauen absorbed all of that, staring at the fall of sunlight across Lady Matilde's skirt.

"I'm not going to tell you which way to choose," Lady Matilde said after a long moment. "That's your choice, and Lancelot's choice, and your choices together. It's not for everyone, certainly, being a knight and his wife, and I'll not think any the worse of you for choosing otherwise. But I wouldn't give up a day of it for anything."

Dauen looked up to meet her eyes and smiled. "Thank you so much," she said. "I – I needed to hear all you've said to me."

Lady Matilde smiled. "Of course," she said. She squeezed Dauen's hands. 'And I'll let you in on a little secret," she added. "Before her visions of the future faded away, Freya told Leon that all the Knights of the Round Table are very liable to live long and happy lives. Especially the ones she brought back from the lake, because she brought them back to live out their lives. So I don't think your beloved is in particularly acute danger of dying."

Dauen's eyes widened. "Well, that's very useful to know," she said.

Lady Matilde laughed. "Isn't it?" she said.

Shyly, Dauen moved to stand up. "I think – I think I should go talk to Lancelot now," she said.

"I think you should too," Lady Matilde answered. She stood up with Dauen, and to Dauen's surprise, pulled her into a warm hug. After a moment, Dauen returned it.

"I'm glad Freya sent you to me," Matilde told her, when they stepped back.

"What?" Dauen stammered. "How did you –"

"I know Freya," Matilde answered, laughing. "I've known her for a little while now, and I know she has a copy of that recipe already. I think you can wait until you've talked to Lancelot to take it to her."

Dauen had forgotten all about the recipe. She blushed, and Matilde laughed comfortably again.

"Go on, my lass," she said, and Dauen skipped from the room.

She knew where she would find Lancelot at this hour – sharpening his sword and cleaning his armor in the armory. When she slipped in, he was mercifully alone.

"Dauen!" he exclaimed, standing up.

She went over to him and took his hands.

"Lancelot," she said, "I want you to stay a knight."

He raised his eyebrows. "You haven't thought about it very long," he observed tentatively.

"Freya sent me to talk to Matilde – Lady Matilde," Dauen told him. "If anyone knows what it is to be a knight's wife, it's her. Lancelot, I want to be your wife, and I want you to stay a knight. I want to be the proudest wife in Camelot, and hold you close when you need it, and –"

Lancelot cut her off by pulling her into a tight hug. Dauen went willingly and clung to him.

Two days later, Dauen found the crumpled parchment with the recipe on it in the bottom of her apron pocket when she was preparing to wash it. Guiltily, she took it to Freya.

Freya pocketed it with an insufferably smug smile and said nothing whatsoever about the delay.

5. Elyan

Lancelot was whistling under his breath as he came back up into the palace. He'd purchased a small gold ring in the village that day. He knew that the meadow in the woods where he and Dauen had spent their first full day together was covered in pink flowers just now, and that Merlin and Freya were conveniently free the following day. Everything was ready for him to ask Dauen to be his wife.

Elyan was waiting for him when he came back up to the knight's quarters. Lancelot barely even noticed him until Elyan called his name.

"Oh, Elyan!" he said cheerfully. "Lovely evening, isn't it?"

"Um, yes," Elyan admitted. He drew a deep breath and plunged on. "Lancelot," he said, "when you first asked Dauen to go out, how did you do it?"

Lancelot drew up short and stared at Elyan, fingering the ring in his pocket. "Elyan," he said, his voice a bit high, "are you asking me for advice about a girl?"

Elyan shuffled his feet uncomfortably. "You're courting Dauen," he said. "And you're the only one I can reasonably ask. Gwen met Arthur when he decided to live as a commoner for a week. Merlin and Freya met goodness knows when or how. Percival and his wife smiled at each other in silence, or something. And I can't ask Gwaine."

"You could ask Leon," Lancelot suggested, trying to remember how he'd even gotten the impetus to act on his affection for Dauen in the first place.

"Yes," Elyan said hesitantly, "but you're the only one who knows what it's like to ask someone after being in the lake for years."

Lancelot felt as though his eyebrows might have parted ways with his forehead.

"You liked her before you went in the lake?" he demanded, shocked. He couldn't remember seeing Elyan courting anyone on the surface of the lake.

Elyan shrugged, looking very uncomfortable. "Maybe," he admitted. "I mean, we smiled at each other every time we saw each other. And I've talked to her since we came back, but I don't know how to move it any further."

"She's still not married?" Lancelot asked. Elyan shook his head.

"Then trust me, friend," Lancelot told him, clapping a hand on his shoulder, "she probably still carries a flame for you. I talked to Dauen for the first time because Gwaine told me to take Freya's second chance and live, and I decided to. You should too, I think."

Elyan took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I think I will," he said firmly.

"Good chap," Lancelot told him, letting his arm fall. Then he laughed. "You're the first one to ask me for advice," he said. "Everyone else has just been dishing it out."

Elyan looked abruptly thoughtful. "I'm going to give you advice too," he said. "Don't banish your beloved the moment you propose to her."

He said it lightly, and Lancelot laughed, even if it was a bit uncomfortable, partly due to the fact that he had hoped he wasn't quite that transparent about his plans to propose. "Not planning on it," he said.

Elyan gave him a grin and a nod, and turned toward his own room. Lancelot walked down toward his own, turning the ring in his pocket and daydreaming of the day when he would have a home rather than a room.

He suddenly remembered waking up utterly disoriented the morning he had first gone to talk to Dauen, and how common that had been for him back in those days.

Since he'd started courting Dauen, he could count the days he'd woken up not knowing whether he was embodied or in the lake on one hand.

He was more grateful for that than he could properly express.

Lancelot hoped Elyan found a fraction of the peace he had found in Dauen when Elyan decided to court his lady.

Lancelot took Dauen to a field of pink flowers, in the meadow upstream from where Merlin and Freya were having a picnic of their own, and dropped to one knee.

Dauen gasped and covered her mouth with her hands. She had dreamed – she had hoped – but she hadn't known.

She couldn't have told you, afterwards, what he said, whether she managed to get her answer out or whether she just flung herself into his arms. But when they came back to Camelot that afternoon, she rode on his horse in front of him for a long ways, and they whispered sweet nothings in each other's ears, and there was a band of gold shining on her finger.

She went straight home and showed her parents first, and they held her and laughed and cried. But the next morning, when she went up to work, she detoured, knowing Freya wouldn't mind if she didn't show up early, and found Wren.

Wren was older than she was, and was one of the stewardesses who kept the castle running in smooth order. But ever since she had taken Dauen under her wing as a very new servant, the two had been close friends, and Dauen couldn't wait to show her the new gold band.

She knocked on Wren's door – and Wren cracked it open, saw Dauen, pulled her through it, and slammed it shut.

"Dauen," she gasped out, "he asked me to go to dinner with him!"

Wren was obviously thrilled with something, but Dauen felt completely lost. She'd never known Wren to like a guy in her life.

"Who asked you out?" she demanded.

"Elyan," Wren whispered. She was beaming all over her face. "Sir Elyan, I mean."

"I didn't know you even knew him!" Dauen exclaimed, scrambling to pair Wren, her flamboyant friend who wore pastel scarves around her head and full skirts with the brightest patterns Dauen had seen outside the nobility with quiet, noble Sir Elyan.

Wren smiled and ducked her head; unexpected tears had come into her eyes.

"We knew each other before," she admitted softly. "When we were both young and carefree. He'd told me he intended to court me once he got my father's permission. And then he died."

Dauen was putting things together rapidly. Wren had occasionally mentioned "the love of her life" in past tense, but she had always spoken lightly, and Dauen had never taken her seriously.

"And you never moved on," she said slowly, stunned.

"Darling, I couldn't," Wren protested, completely serious. "I've always believed true love only comes once, and he was the only man my beloved father ever came close to approving of. No, I could never move on."

"And then he came back," Dauen said, growing eager now. "And?"

"And we talked," Wren told her. "But he took so much time to ask me anything that I was on the verge of doing what Morwenna says she did and asking him to court me himself. But he asked me last night!" She gave a little hop and clutched Dauen's hands, looking at that moment like a much younger woman than she actually was. "Or, at least, he asked me out. The other should be coming."

"It came for me," Dauen said dreamily. She pulled her hand out of Wren's and twisted it to show the ring. "I have news, too."

Wren took one look at the ring, squealed, and flung herself at Dauen to hug her. "Oh, I'm so glad for you!" she cried, thrilled. "So glad."

She pulled back and cupped Dauen's face with her hands. "Any advice?" she demanded. "What do I do now that he's finally doing something?"

Dauen laughed, and tried to come up with good advice. "Be yourself, I guess," she said at last. "If he really loves you, that should be what he loves you for."

Wren smiled, a smaller, sweeter smile, and turned away, looking at something only she could see. "Oh, he does," she said. "That's what's so precious about it – he does."

She turned back to Dauen. "A bit of advice in exchange," she said. "Good men like Lancelot only come once in a lifetime. A love like that comes only once. Don't let it die."

Dauen looked at Wren, and could see under the bright eyes and the bright blue scarf the lines of years when she had nursed the flame of love she kept for Elyan and kept it alive through everything.

"I won't," she swore solemnly. "I tell you, I won't."

+1. Arthur

The night before Lancelot was set to marry Dauen, he was taken out to dinner on the town by Arthur, Merlin, Leon, Percival, Gwaine, and Elyan.

"It's traditional to spend the last night with the friends you will never see again," Arthur told him, grinning.

Lancelot knew he was exaggerating, because out of the group, only he and Elyan weren't married, but he wasn't going to protest. It was good, after all, to spend a night together with the brothers he was closest to. And they'd done it on the nights before Merlin's and Gwaine's weddings, so it was traditional for them by now.

Arthur had convinced the owners of the tavern they ate in (Lancelot's favorite tavern, the magical one) to close it to everyone but them that night, so they had it to themselves except for the owners. They reminisced and laughed and maybe even cried, and Lancelot enjoyed himself thoroughly.

Later in the evening, Arthur took him aside.

"So you're about to get married," Arthur said as they leaned against the counter together. "Well, let me see if you're ready for that step."

Lancelot braced himself for more advice, but instead Arthur unleashed the strangest series of questions he'd been subjected to yet.

"Have you invaded her home and her space and been made to realize how arrogant you are by her?" Arthur asked.

Lancelot blinked for a couple of moments at the extreme specificity of the question.

"Um, no?" he said at last, adding teasingly, "I don't think that's a required step in the process."

"Mm, perhaps not," Arthur agreed. "Oh, I forgot! You're the humblest man in all of Albion anyway, there's no way that would apply to you. How about this: have you kissed her in the dawn and known that you would give your life to be with her?"

Lancelot smiled to himself. "Everything about that, except it was at dusk not dawn," he admitted.

Arthur raised his eyebrows for a moment, then nodded and moved on. "Good," he said. "Have you tried cooking a chicken for her yet?"

Merlin, who wasn't supposed to be listening, gave a very undignified snort of laughter behind them. Arthur turned and shot him a glare over his shoulder, and Merlin took a sip of ale with a perfectly innocent expression on his face.

Arthur turned his gaze back to Lancelot. "Well?" he demanded. "Have you?"

Lancelot resigned himself to the fact that even if all the important secrets were open secrets now, there were some things that would never be known. "I have made her dinner," he said. "Successfully," he added, a bit pointedly, because there was clearly an unknown story about cooking that chicken, and he doubted Arthur had been particularly successful at it.

"Well, that's a good sign," Arthur agreed. "Have you ridden out to rescue her more times than you like to remember?"

"She hasn't been kidnapped yet!" Lancelot protested. "Don't wish that on us!"

They were both trying to be teasing, but there were remnants of old pain underneath that question, and Arthur moved on quickly.

"Has she told you that she believes in you, even when you think almost no one else does?" he asked.

"She's told me she believes in me," Lancelot answered dreamily, thinking about the day Dauen had told him to stay a knight.

"Better and better," Arthur said, stroking his chin with great pretensions of wisdom. "Let me see. Have you had to wait years, never knowing if you'll be able to marry?"

"Fortunately not," Lancelot answered quickly.

"Have you asked her to marry you in a house that Merlin warns you might burn down because you wanted the candlelight to be perfect and lit dozens of candles?" Arthur asked.

"I asked her in a meadow of flowers that had no chance of burning down," Lancelot told him. "I think that's even more perfect."

Arthur shrugged, unconcerned. "To each his own," he said. "Well, I think you pass with high enough marks that I can put my stamp of approval on your wedding."

He turned to face Lancelot and suddenly became deadly serious. "One last question," he said. "Do you know, for absolutely certain, that she will stand behind you no matter what comes and that you will be able to work through anything that comes up?"

"Yes," Lancelot said unhesitatingly. "I do."

Arthur clapped him on the shoulder. "Then I pronounce a long and happy marriage for you," he said – and turned to join the others. For once Lancelot had gotten away with not having to listen to advice.

He turned to join the others too, and met Merlin's eyes. Merlin was smiling wryly at him.

"He always does this," Merlin told Lancelot, when he came to sit by him. "When I got married, and he took me aside when we spent a night here? He grilled me on the template of his courtship of Gwen, which he thinks was perfect somehow. He did it to Gwaine too. I think he even grilled Leon and Percival about it, for the sake of the thing."

Lancelot laughed and settled comfortably in his chair. Being part of a tradition Arthur had started was a good, warm feeling, and he did remember Arthur taking Merlin and Gwaine aside on their nights on the town. The world was bright and golden and he loved everyone, and no one as much as Dauen.

"Your day is coming," he told Elyan, grinning.

Elyan's smile was small and shy. "I think I get brother-in-law privileges," he said. "No grilling for me."

"Oh no," Arthur put in. "That just means you get grilled the more. I have to make sure the girl is good enough to join the royal family!"

"Or the royal family is good enough for the girl," Gwaine remarked casually.

Lancelot smiled to himself as Arthur and Gwaine bickered light-heartedly. Dauen somehow thought he was good enough for her, and that was the only thing that really mattered.

The morning of Dauen's wedding, Queen Guinevere did her hair.

Since her engagement, she'd been spending more time with Lancelot's friends and their wives and getting to know the ones she didn't know; it didn't hurt that Wren was always with the group now, on Elyan's arm, and never minded helping Dauen get to know the others. So Queen Gwen doing Dauen's hair was less strange than it would once have been.

Still – "I wouldn't have thought you were an expert at doing hair," Dauen said shyly as Gwen worked.

"I was a lady's maid once," Gwen said, and Dauen could hear the smile in her voice. "I did complicated hairstyles every morning for years – the more complicated, the better. It's fun getting to do hairstyles for my friends at their weddings again."

Dauen blushed and smiled, pleased, and glad that Gwen couldn't see her blush at being called a friend of the Queen. "You were a lady's maid?" she asked, intensely curious. It was widely known that the Queen had once been a maid, but Dauen didn't remember hearing that Gwen had used to have a job similar to hers.

Well, to what hers had been. She was, at the very least, taking a very long vacation at Freya's insistence.

"Oh yes," Gwen answered. "To the Lady Morgana, when she was at Camelot."

Morgana was nothing more than a name to Dauen, a name of terror mostly, although she did remember hearing once that Morgana had been the old king's daughter. It would make sense she lived at the palace.

"Did you – like your job?" Dauen asked shyly, hesitant of opening old dark memories.

"For years I did," Gwen admitted. "There could have been no better friend than the young Lady Morgana. That's how I try to remember her now."

There was a brief pause, as Gwen's deft fingers moved through Dauen's hair.

"Just one question," Gwen said after a moment. "You love Lancelot, right?"

"Of course!" Dauen exclaimed, smiling involuntarily to herself.

"And you know he loves you," Gwen added.

"Definitely," Dauen answered. There was not a shred of doubt left about that in her mind anymore, that Lancelot loved her and only her.

"And you're prepared to stand at each other's side," Gwen said seriously, her hands stopping for a moment. "Through everything, for better or for worse, you're both prepared to stand by each other and never, never forsake the other. You're ready to be each other's for life."

Dauen drew a deep breath. "Yes," she answered steadily. She was, and he was, and they both knew it. Otherwise they wouldn't be here today.

"Then I wish you a long and happy marriage," Gwen said cheerfully. She went back to work, and finished in a remarkably short time.

"There you go," she said.

"Gwen, it looks beautiful!" Dauen exclaimed, running her hands over the intricate fall of her hair and twisting before the mirror to try to see better.

Gwen smiled at her and pulled her close for a quick hug. "You're beautiful," she said. "A most lovely bride. Now go marry your knight in shining armor!"

And Dauen did.

At the wedding between Sir Lancelot and Lady Dauen, Gwaine twirled around with Morwenna; Percival and Edalene danced the steps to an ancient dance that everyone else had forgotten; Merlin and Freya swayed quietly in each other's arms; Leon and Matilde waltzed together; Wren taught Elyan a completely new step; and Arthur and Gwen danced something of their own in perfect sync with each other.

But the bride and groom, dancing in each other's arms, had eyes only for each other and the new life dawning before them.

That night, they went home to their own hearthfire, their own home, their own place to build their life together. And Lancelot slept without dreams, and woke knowing exactly where he was.

There would be nights when he would wake crying out, or wondering if he was still in the lake, and on those nights Dauen would take him in her arms and kiss him until he came back to her. There would be days when Dauen wondered why Lancelot had chosen her out of all the girls he could have had, and he would take her in his arms and remind her again why she had chosen to trust him. There would be evenings when Lancelot couldn't believe that after so many years, after being alone and without a home, that a home was for him, and Dauen would cook him dinner and they would eat by candlelight, holding hands around the candles and the food, and he would think himself the luckiest man in the world.

And there would be days when Lancelot would ride back home triumphant and Dauen would be the proudest wife in Camelot. There would be days when Dauen would embroider beautiful designs on their shirts and Lancelot would kiss her and know he had the best wife.

For better or for worse, so they had said and so they lived. And they loved their life together.

(Even if all their friends still thought themselves called upon to give heaps of advice every step of the way.)

A/N: Dauen is apparently the Old English spelling of Dawn, and since I'm trying to be somewhat period correct with all the names I use, it's the spelling I chose to use here. :)

Sooo, I'm still not marking this story complete because there are more tales I want to tell, but next week the first chapter of "The Lady of the Lake," a new story, should be going up. Hopefully I'll get back to this story again before college starts (praying I get to go back!), but I really want to tell Freya's story this summer. See you all there!