Third Floor Common Room, Thursday Afternoon

[bitchprince]

He'd dragged Merlin off to hunt early that morning. Even if the boy had absolutely no instincts or abilities that were helpful in any way, Arthur did need someone to carry what he killed. Because of his arm, he hadn't been able to do it the thrilling way, crossbows and all, but traps still worked just as well.

To shorten the tale, he was now seated in the common room. He'd granted the fireplace a passing glance that was rife with relief at the familiarity and seated himself.

He was roasting rabbit meat over the fire. Arthur was perfectly capable of taking care of himself when he didn't feel like having the servants deal with it. Or he was out in the wild. Or any other circumstance of its ilk. He'd be hard-pressed to survive if he didn't.

Roughing it held an odd twinge of relief, divorced from the local madness, and joined with his reality at home.

[[ open common room! ]]

Comments

[bitchprince]

"No leader who won't suffer the same as his people deserves his station," Arthur muttered. It was rather a tender spot, what with his enrollment here which was definitely favouritism if nothing else.

[momslilassassin]

"They tend to have different definitions of suffering," Ben said, then shrugged. "Or did. A lot of them have died in the last few months."

Not that he'd had anything to do with that.

[bitchprince]

"You'd be facing a war, then."

[momslilassassin]

"A civil one," Ben said, lips quirking up. "Not that it's been at all civilized."

[bitchprince]

"It's war," Arthur pointed out, "It's not going to be civilized if you're swinging swords at each other's heads."

[momslilassassin]

"Oh, we're mostly past that," Ben said. "We can destroy entire planets in an afternoon."

[bitchprince]

Arthur stared at him blankly.

"What?"

[momslilassassin]

"Too far out of your scope?" Ben asked, looking apologetic. "We've become a lot more efficient at warfare where I come from. Mostly because we keep having wars."