━━ ⦗the swan princess! ⦘
❝ you're beautiful!
thank you, but what else?
... what else is there? ... ❞
███████████ 𝙞𝙣 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝
the courageous odette teaches the
once and future king a less...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
chapter thirty-five! 035. le morte d'arthur
▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃▃
THESE DAYS,Odette has found herself spending more of her nights in the servants' quarters down the hall from Morgana's chambers. More often than not, she has swapped her night shifts in the antechamber with Guinevere. For while the orphaned blacksmith's daughter did not admit it, some days she was terrified to return home alone▬in the dark with only herself to light a candle in an empty house. Without the forge running, she was losing money to upkeep. Guinevere started to take on more jobs▬she worked more in the kitchens, dusted the floors of empty chambers and offered herself up to visiting lords and ladies for extra coin. Her home was hers for life, the Prince had made sure of it, but it was hard for a young woman to make enough income to keep it. To afford food, and clothes, and people to fix the growing hole in the roof as winter grew closer. On top of everything else, Guinevere was accepting more jobs as a seamstress. When she wasn't tending to Morgana, helping out in the kitchens, or following some other mistress around, she was tucked away somewhere, stitching until her fingers were stiff and sore.
She had gotten herself into a routine, and while Odette could see that routine was exhausting her▬she knew that as soon as she mentioned it, Guinevere might break down all over again. She supposed the best thing she could do was try and help, and so she did. When there were days in which Guinevere couldn't return home, Odette let her have the antechamber and she took upon the morning shift. She sometimes cleaned Guinevere's home for her when she had spare time. Merlin saved some pieces of his food from Gaius's table to pass over to Odette to give to their friend▬and it felt as if somehow, the roles had switched. Instead of Guinevere taking care of Odette, here she was, trying to do her best in order to take care of her.
As weeks passed on, work for either of them did not seem to stop whatsoever▬and perhaps that was some blessing for Gwen, to make her feel as if some part of her life was ongoing; moving and back to normal. With Morgana's growth in popularity after saving the King's life, they had more outings. The King's Ward was invited to luncheons with ladies of the court, she received gifts and the King celebrated her loyalty to the crown with a feast in her honour. When they wandered the markets, the people of Camelot stopped to thank the Lady Morgana and gush about her bravery. By the end of the day, sometimes, it was almost a blessing Odette did not need to spend a sleepless night in the antechamber and dropped to the bed in the servants' quarters she had found empty, fast asleep.
Until she grew too restless. Even without Morgana's night terrors to wake her, she was up anyway, not feeling quite right when she wasn't running in to calm her down. Odette ended up lying awake almost the entire night anyway, and was greeting by the morning sunrise with little change.
By the next month, they had managed to gather up enough coin to help Guinevere fix the hole in her roof. Together, she, Odette and Merlin decided to work on her home themselves to make her feel a little better. They removed her father's bed and sold it▬and while it was sad for her, the home seemed to lift some lingering weight. It was a new start. They draped some new curtains, hung some herbs and dried flowers▬they gave the home a breath of Guinevere, hoping that it would start to not feel so haunted.
