Chapter Text
It was barely past dawn when Morgana began to hear nervous shuffling in her chambers. After a few long minutes, Gwen finally peaked through the witches curtains, looking apologetic.“Morgana,” she whispered, looking to see that the witch was fully awake and staring at the canopy. “Morgana, what are you doing?”
“Trying to remember when I first lost the will to live.” The noblewoman looked over at her… lover . The word was still fresh, filling her with something exciting that she hadn’t felt in years. In fact, she hadn’t felt anything like it since the first day she had met Gwen. Pulling herself from her thoughts, Morgana sat up. “Why are you here so early, anyways?”
The maidservant looked away guiltily. “I know it’s early, I hope I’m not bothering you or anything.”
Morgana tried to swallow down her excitement. As ready as she was to jump into this courtship, Gwen was shy and had been dragging her feet. Morgana respected her— she really did— so she didn’t question the other woman’s boundaries. Until now, they had only kissed (exactly 11 times since they had returned from the expedition— 6 days ago…not that Morgana had been counting or anything…) and cuddled once. Is this her way of trying to ask for something more?
“Of course you’re not bothering me,” she managed, scooting aside on the bed that now felt uncomfortably soft after living in hovels for so long. “Come, sit.”
Still not making eye-contact, the brunette scooted into the bed, letting the bed curtains fall shut behind her, twisting her bronze fingers in her skirt. “I wanted to talk about something,” she said finally.
“Yes?” Morgana watched Gwen’s face unblinkingly, leaning in the slightest bit to convey her obvious reciprocated interest. Gods above, she’s pretty.
“This morning,” the maidservant began, apparently oblivious to the ravenette’s advances. “I…”
“...you?” Morgana’s voice had already dipped lower, imagining all the possibilities. Perhaps she had a dream about me? Or even better, fantasized about me while awake in bed? Let her vivid imagination run away with her and—
“I found this under my door.”
“What.”
Gwen reached into the pocket of her apron, pulling out a wrinkled sheet of paper, smoothing it on her lap. On it was handwriting that could be best described as “chicken scratch”. SUPER SECRET MEETING OF WING(WO)MEN!!! The scrawl across the top declared. Underneath was a mess of smeared ink that seemed to say “for your eyes only”, “destroy this message after memorizing it”, and “convene in the chambers of our resident witch”. Well, at least, that’s what Morgana thought it said. There were so many misspelled words and stains that stunk suspiciously of mead that she was nearly worried for the writer of the dismal note. Nearly.
“What is it supposed to be?” The witch asked, trying to keep her voice even against the crushing disappointment of having hyped herself up for a steamy makeout session and the urge to roll her eyes at the “meeting” she had just read of.
“I think it’s from Gwaine,” Gwen supplied.
“ Ob viously,” Morgana laughed. “Smells just like him. Alcohol, loneliness, and disappointment.”
The maid hid a smile at that. “Oh, come on, dear.” She said. “Be nice.”
Dear. The word made the former ward’s heart flip. Fighting her own grin, she sighed. “If you insist, I’ll consider it,” she replied.
Gwen laughed. “I suppose that’s the best I can expect for now,” she said, fingers returning to fidget with the paper as she avoided eye contact. “Ahem. Anyways…” she looked back up. “I found a similar note. On your floor as well, when I walked in.” She drew out the other note, handing it to Morgana.
The ravenette looked over it, considering what it entailed. “Resident witch, huh?” She mused. “I suppose they mean me.”
“That’s what I assumed,” Gwen shrugged. “I think we can both guess what this meeting is supposed to be about.”
Morgana let herself fall back against the pillows. “Unfortunately. Can’t they just snog and figure out their issues?”
“Looks like they’re going to need our help,” the brunette shrugged good-naturedly. “You’re alright with Gwaine holding this convention in your chambers without asking?”
“If ‘alright’ means planning a slow and painful murder, then yes, Gwen. I’m alright.”
That night, at the strike of the tenth bell of the evening, Morgana sat in her favorite armchair as Gwen paced across the carpeted floor. A knock rung out against the thick wood of the witch’s door and the maidservant gave her lover a wide-eyed look before rushing over to open it.
“Gwaine,” the brunette said, smiling as if this was an entirely normal meeting and the knight wasn’t shrouded in a thick cloak that nearly obscured his face, attending a secret meeting that he was supposedly hosting in another’s chambers.
“Let’s get this party started,” the dark-haired man grinned, stepping in and planting his hands on his hips. “The others should be here soon. We have work to do.”
A few minutes later, it seemed that everyone had congregated. Morgana has migrated to perching on the edge of her bed, where she had convinced Gwen to accompany her. Spread in a circle across the floor to her right were Leon, Elyan, Percival, Gwaine, Lancelot, all huddled closer together. On her left sat Gaius in a chair, eyebrow perpetually raised as he looked about. Most curiously, to the other side of Gaius, sat the servant that Morgana had never been able to remember the name of. He had always done a good job of pretending to be furniture, and even now, everyone was having trouble remembering his presence.
Morgana wanted to question what he was doing here, seriously doubting whether he had been invited to this strange little gathering, but she didn’t know how to get his attention. Damnit, what was his name? All she could remember about him was his strange love of jokes concerning brass. James? Jonathan? Gerald?
“A hem ,” Gwaine cleared his throat. “It would be beneficial if we could get this meeting to order.” He was still wearing his cloak with the hood drawn over his head, as were many of the knights. In the darkness of the room and the secret nature of the meeting, Morgana thought that they made a stellar picture of a magical cult. Not that she would say that out loud.
“You could take that off now,” Gwen said though, Gods bless her heart. “If it’s too cold, I could—“
Gwaine waved off her concerns. “Don’t fret, I can't take it off anyways. It’s necessary to maintain the dark atmosphere.”
Leon barely kept himself from rolling his eyes, but Morgana had no such inhibitions. She let out an exaggerated groan, fixing the infiltrators of her chambers with her scariest glare. “Will you get on with it? Or I will seriously reconsider not enchanting each and every one of you to do things you will most definitely regret.”
“Did you just threaten us with sorcery ?” Elyan blanched, at the same time as his sister, who said, “Aw, Morgana, I’m so proud of you.”
He turned on her immediately. “Gwen! What is there to be proud of?!”
The maid cocked her head innocently. “It wasn’t a death threat,” she said simply. “Baby steps.”
“ Ideas, people! We need ideas!” Gwaine yelled, slapping a hand on the stone floor. “Arthur and Merlin aren’t just going to do this themselves.”
“Why can’t they just talk to each other?” Morgana sighed bitterly, leaning back onto her fluffed pillows.
Elyan snorted at that. “Says the person who raised a werewolf army and terrorized civilians in order to ask out my sister with a sad pickup line.”
Morgana’s eyes glowed dangerously before Gwen placed a hand on her shoulder to placate her. “Okay, listen here--” the former ward began anyways. Her lover gave her a pointed look, making her shut up.
“You’re being awfully bossy, Gwaine,” Leon mumbled under his breath. “It’s not like you’re bursting at the seams with ideas.”
“Ex cuse me, but I have a plan,” the dark-haired knight huffed defensively.
“Oh really,” Morgana drawled. “Care to enlighten us?”
Gwaine hesitated. “I’m still working on it.”
“You said you had a plan!” Elyan sighed, throwing his hands up in the air.
“I said a plan, not a finished plan.”
Lancelot face-palmed audibly and the others (save for the manservant whose name Morgana still couldn’t remember) let out frustrated sighs. It was going to be a long night.
By dawn, everyone was thoroughly exhausted, but very little progress had been made. “They just need to fuck it out,” Percival sighed, getting 'the eyebrow' from Gaius and a scandalized look from Leon. Morgana was busy covering Gwen’s ears. “Sorry,” he mumbled afterwards. “I’ve been spending too much time with Gwaine.”
The other man looked quite delighted to hear the admission, lighting up with a bright smile. “Alright, men!” He said finally. “...and women. Here’s what I've decided: we just do everything we brainstormed.”
“All of it?” Gaius said. “How in the world would that work?”
“Well,” Lancelot shrugged. “Since we can’t agree on any single idea, I see how that would make sense.”
“But what if one of these plans screws up the others?” Leon asked, looking quite troubled at the prospect. “It might backfire entirely.”
“That’s assuming that the two of them will even take half of these things seriously,” Elyan pointed out. “They’re pretty dense.”
“They can’t be that dense,” Percival muttered under his breath.
“Oh, no, sire, I assure you. They are plenty unaware and will remain that way unless given quite the large push.”
Everyone turned to see the speaker, who to their surprise, was the manservant that nobody was quite sure what had been doing in the meeting to begin with. “George,” Gaius said, nodding at him as if noticing his presence for the first time. (So that's his name, Morgana realized.) “I would have to agree. As Merlin’s guardian, I have noticed nothing but stubborn obliviousness from either of them.”
“Well, now that that’s settled, let’s get going!” Gwaine declared in his best knight-voice, standing up. “Wingman of the century, here I come!”
“Wait just a moment,” Morgana said, launching up. “Who says you get to be the wingman of the century when all of us are helping you?”
The knight raised an eyebrow at her, as if thinking she was just joking. “Now, come on M’Lady. I called his meeting, and my skills at wingmanning are leagues above the rest of you--”
“You haven’t successfully wingmanned even once ,” Elyan interrupted bitterly. “You offered to talk to that girl at the tavern I was making eyes at and ended up going home with her instead.”
“Not to mention you said you would talk to that Lady Dianne for me and instead told her my height was compensation for something else,” Percival huffed.
“How was I supposed to know she would take it that way!” Gwaine sighed, throwing his hands up in the air. “I was talking about your dull personality, obviously --”
“How dare you--”
“Boys, boys, boys,” Morgana cut in, waving her hands about. “Enough with the childish horseplay.”
“ Thank you, Morgana--” Gwaine began before he was cut off.
“Not so fast,” the witch smirked. “I would like to compete with you for the title of Wingman of the Century.”
“Compete?!”
“Makes sense,” Percival shrugged, barely suppressing a grin at getting Gwaine back. “After all, most titles like these are fought for.”
“I’m in,” Elyan grinned. “There’s no way I’ll let you win, Gwaine.”
“All of you have another thing coming,” Morgana grinned. “There’s no way you can beat me.”
Lancelot raised an eyebrow. “We’ll see about that.”
“Is this really necessary--” Leon began, but nobody listened to him, of course. Mom friends are often ignored.
“You all seem to be deluded by the innocence of your youth,” Gaius cut in. “There is simply no way that any of you have enough experience for this sort of job.”
“If that was the case, why didn’t you do anything before now??” Gwaine yelled, outraged.
“Maybe we should calm down a little,” Gwen suggested, but much like Leon, nobody paid her any attention. The two of them shared an exasperated look.
“It’s on,” Morgana said again, hands on her hips. “Now, everyone get out of my lair. I won’t ask twice.”
Gwaine glared at her. "Alright. First one to get Merlin and Arthur to admit their feelings to each other is indisputably the Wingman of the Century." He turned on his heel and walked out, nose in the air. Some of the knights looked like they were going to argue, but with the new lack of unity (and the fear of Morgana) they shuffled out, all heading their separate ways.
Gwen sighed, looking at her lover. “Morgana, is this really necessary?”
“Of course!” the witch laughed. “With this mission in hand, I cannot rest. Not until they have fucked loud enough for the entire palace to hear.”
The maidservant turned a bright shade of red at that.