King Arthur of Camelot blinks his eyes open. His head feels thick and fuzzy. He raises up slightly and stares, puzzled, into three unfamiliar faces.
The girl speaks first. She has brown hair and brown eyes. “Hello.”
Then the first boy, who looks remarkably like the girl says, “Welcome to Kansas, Sire. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe and you’ll be back in Camelot before you know it.” He has an accent Arthur has never heard before.
The other boy has slightly darker skin and black hair and dark brown eyes. “How’s your head?”
“Um…” is all that Arthur can manage. He looks around. It appears that he’s in some sort of bedchamber, but apart from the actual bed (that he’s laying on), very little looks familiar. “Kansas?”
“You won’t know it,” the first boy waves his hand. “I’m Artie. This is my twin sister Gwen.”
“Hi.”
“What?”
“We were named after you and your wife. This is our cousin, Francisco.”
“Hola,” Francisco waves, and Gwen shoots him a dirty look.
“Don’t confuse him any further, Cisco!”
“That’s an unusual name,” Arthur says, trying to sit up further.
“My mother is Mexican,” Francisco states plainly.
“What-i-can?”
“Another place you won’t know, Sire. Don’t worry about it,” Artie says, shoving his cousin.
“How did I get here? Where’s Guinevere?”
“Um, safe in Camelot. I guess. We only summoned you,” Artie answers.
“Oh. I see,” Arthur sits up fully now. Luckily his years of dealing with Merlin have trained him to never be completely surprised about anything.
“You do?” Francisco asks.
“Yes. You summoned me. I understand that. My best friend is a wizard, you know,” Arthur says. “Can I have something to drink?”
Gwen hands him a plastic cup with water in. “I thought you might be thirsty,” she says.
Arthur studies the cup a moment. It is red with little white hearts all over it. He sniffs the contents.
“It’s just water, I promise,” she says. “Here.” She takes the cup from his hand and takes a sip. “See? Good.”
“Sorry,” Arthur apologizes, and takes the cup back, downing the rest of the contents.
“Can we ask you some questions?” Artie asks. “It’s kind of why we summoned you here.”
“How old are you? You seem… young… to be sorcerers.”
“Twelve. Francisco’s thirteen,” Gwen answers, watching as Arthur ponders the now-empty cup, squeezing it lightly in his hand, watching as it squishes slightly and springs back. “That’s called plastic.”
“Oh.” He sets the cup down.
“And we’re not sorcerers, exactly, though, Francisco’s mom…” Artie starts, then hesitates.
“Tía Bruja,” Gwen giggles.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s Spanish for ‘Auntie Witch,’” Francisco explains. “My mom’s a little… special. I stole a couple of her books.”
“I see. So you said you had questions. About?” Arthur answers.
“Camelot. We’ve been doing research, wanting to find out more about you. All these books,” Artie waves his hand in the direction of a desk laden with books, “have different information. No one can agree on what the truth is.”
“It seems some things never change,” Arthur mutters. “So those books there are all about me?”
“You, Queen Guinevere, Merlin, Camelot,” Gwen answers. “And that’s not even all. The internet is filled-”
“Gwen, he’s not going to know what the internet is,” Francisco rolls his eyes.
“It’s like a magic place full of information,” Gwen says. “Except it’s not magic, and half the information is probably lies. Anyway. I want to know about Queen Guinevere.”
“What would you like to know?” Arthur says, smiling as he thinks of his wife.
“Was she really unable to have children? ‘Cause that’s so sad if she was.”
Arthur tries not to be shocked by the intimate nature of the question. This is obviously the future, somewhere, and probably things are very different now. “We have children,” he says. “Four sons, actually, and one more on the way. Guinevere’s hoping for a girl this time.”
“Wow,” she says. “That’s a lot.”
“Not really. Some other kings have more. But we’re young still,” he shrugs. “The queen is actually quite fertile,” he chuckles. “I swear all I have to do is touch her hand, and-” he stops suddenly, his face flushing red for a moment, obviously forgetting that he’s talking to children.
Gwen giggles nevertheless, and blushes in her own right. “Is she as beautiful as they say? With reddish-gold hair and alabaster skin?”
“What?” Arthur seems very confused by this.
Gwen picks up an item. It looks like a small tray, black on one side and silver on the other. She pokes it and the black side changes, an image appearing on its surface. She swipes her finger around on it, and Arthur leans in close, watching, amazed as the images keep changing.
“Sire, I can’t see, your head’s in the way,” she says gently.
“It’s called an iPad. And it’s not magic, it’s called technology.”
“Eye pad?” he points to his eye. “It doesn’t look padded.”
Francisco chokes back his laughter, clamping his hands over his mouth.
“Here,” Gwen says, glaring at her cousin. She shows Arthur an image, a painting of what Guinevere was supposed to have looked like. She sweeps her finger across the screen to another. And another.
“Oh, no, these are all wrong,” Arthur says. “My Guinevere looks nothing like this at all. I mean, this woman is lovely, but that is not my wife.”
“Really? That’s like the one thing that all the books seem to agree on. She was a strawberry blonde princess.”
“She is a dark-skinned beauty with ebony curls, and she was a servant in the castle before she was my wife. A blacksmith’s daughter.”
“No!”
Arthur nods. “Best thing I ever did was marry her. Everyone called me a fool, told me that she was a witch who enchanted me into thinking I loved her. Trust me, she needed no magic.”
“Did she cheat on you?” Artie asks.
“Cheat? I do not do battle with my wife…”
“He means did she, um… dally with another man? Sir Lancelot.”
Arthur laughs now. “Lancelot? Oh, goodness, no. Lancelot is a fine knight and a good friend, but he and Guinevere would never…”
“What’s so funny about that? It’s in a lot of these books,” Francisco points to the books again.
“Well, obviously someone felt the need to drag my wife’s good name through the mud. Lancelot, well… he um, prefers the company of… men.”
He is met with three wide-eyed stares.
“Well, specifically Merlin.”
“Shut. Up!” Gwen exclaims, causing Arthur’s brow to furrow again.
“Sorry. I don’t mean shut up literally… it’s just an expression…” she backpedals, recovering from her own shock. “It’s like, ‘I can’t believe what you just said.’”
“So you’re a happily married father of four and a half kids and Guinevere has been faithful the whole time,” Artie muses. “So then if she didn’t cheat on you, then I guess she won’t be responsible for Camelot’s downfall.”
“I should hardly think so!” Arthur exclaims. “She’s the reason we’re prospering so! She’s the wisest person in Camelot, and the people love her! Everyone loves her! She is known far and wide for her wisdom, kindness, and grace. You need to summon up whoever it is that wrote these slanderous lies about my wife and set them straight!”
“Almost out of time…” Francisco mutters, looking at a small hourglass sitting nearby.
“Did you really pull a sword out of a stone?” Artie asks hurriedly.
“Yes, but that’s probably all wrong, too,” Arthur mutters. “You know, you children are lucky you caught me in a nap and not in the middle of a battle. I could have killed you all without even realizing it.”
“Or at another inopportune time,” Francisco mutters, remembering the look that was on Arthur’s face when he was talking about his queen.
“What?” Artie asks.
“Nothing. Look, he’s going back now,” he points. Arthur is fading.
“Thank you, my lord,” Artie says.
“Yes, thank you!” Gwen calls. She watches as King Arthur’s hand reaches out and grabs the red plastic cup just before he fades completely away.
“Arthur? Arthur, wake up!” Guinevere is shaking him, her face a mask of worry.
“Guinevere?” he asks, blinking awake again, his brain once again thick and fuzzy.
“Something was very strange. I’ve summoned Merlin, but… you were… flickering.”
“Oh. Some young sorcerers summoned me into the future,” he says, casually, rubbing his forehead. “Wanted to ask me questions.”
“What?”
“Look,” he holds up the cup. “It’s called plastic.”
“What is it?”
“A drinking vessel, obviously.” He sets it down.
“So what happened?”
He tells her. Everything. About the children being named for them, the books, the eye-pad. She finds the fact that they got her physical appearance so completely wrong highly amusing.
She is less amused at his description of her as fertile.
“Well, it’s the truth. The only safe time to have marital relations with you is when you’re already with child, Guinevere,” he smirks at her.
“You know, there is something that can be done about that,” she threatens, arching an eyebrow at him.
“You wouldn’t dare!” he exclaims, grabbing her by the waist now and pulling her over him, her swollen belly pressing into his stomach.
“Then do not speak of me as though I am some farm field,” she says haughtily.
“Mmm, really? ‘Cause at the moment I feel like doing some plowing…”
“Wow, he’s really cute.”
“Shut up, Gwen!”
“Well, he is. Wait, I think he’s waking up!”
King Arthur of Camelot blinks his eyes open. His head feels thick and fuzzy. He raises up slightly and stares, puzzled, into three unfamiliar faces.
The girl speaks first. She has brown hair and brown eyes. “Hello.”
Then the first boy, who looks remarkably like the girl says, “Welcome to Kansas, Sire. Don’t worry, you’re perfectly safe and you’ll be back in Camelot before you know it.” He has an accent Arthur has never heard before.
The other boy has slightly darker skin and black hair and dark brown eyes. “How’s your head?”
“Um…” is all that Arthur can manage. He looks around. It appears that he’s in some sort of bedchamber, but apart from the actual bed (that he’s laying on), very little looks familiar. “Kansas?”
“You won’t know it,” the first boy waves his hand. “I’m Artie. This is my twin sister Gwen.”
“Hi.”
“What?”
“We were named after you and your wife. This is our cousin, Francisco.”
“Hola,” Francisco waves, and Gwen shoots him a dirty look.
“Don’t confuse him any further, Cisco!”
“That’s an unusual name,” Arthur says, trying to sit up further.
“My mother is Mexican,” Francisco states plainly.
“What-i-can?”
“Another place you won’t know, Sire. Don’t worry about it,” Artie says, shoving his cousin.
“How did I get here? Where’s Guinevere?”
“Um, safe in Camelot. I guess. We only summoned you,” Artie answers.
“Oh. I see,” Arthur sits up fully now. Luckily his years of dealing with Merlin have trained him to never be completely surprised about anything.
“You do?” Francisco asks.
“Yes. You summoned me. I understand that. My best friend is a wizard, you know,” Arthur says. “Can I have something to drink?”
Gwen hands him a plastic cup with water in. “I thought you might be thirsty,” she says.
Arthur studies the cup a moment. It is red with little white hearts all over it. He sniffs the contents.
“It’s just water, I promise,” she says. “Here.” She takes the cup from his hand and takes a sip. “See? Good.”
“Sorry,” Arthur apologizes, and takes the cup back, downing the rest of the contents.
Reply
“How old are you? You seem… young… to be sorcerers.”
“Twelve. Francisco’s thirteen,” Gwen answers, watching as Arthur ponders the now-empty cup, squeezing it lightly in his hand, watching as it squishes slightly and springs back. “That’s called plastic.”
“Oh.” He sets the cup down.
“And we’re not sorcerers, exactly, though, Francisco’s mom…” Artie starts, then hesitates.
“Tía Bruja,” Gwen giggles.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s Spanish for ‘Auntie Witch,’” Francisco explains. “My mom’s a little… special. I stole a couple of her books.”
“I see. So you said you had questions. About?” Arthur answers.
“Camelot. We’ve been doing research, wanting to find out more about you. All these books,” Artie waves his hand in the direction of a desk laden with books, “have different information. No one can agree on what the truth is.”
“It seems some things never change,” Arthur mutters. “So those books there are all about me?”
“You, Queen Guinevere, Merlin, Camelot,” Gwen answers. “And that’s not even all. The internet is filled-”
“Gwen, he’s not going to know what the internet is,” Francisco rolls his eyes.
“It’s like a magic place full of information,” Gwen says. “Except it’s not magic, and half the information is probably lies. Anyway. I want to know about Queen Guinevere.”
“What would you like to know?” Arthur says, smiling as he thinks of his wife.
“Was she really unable to have children? ‘Cause that’s so sad if she was.”
Arthur tries not to be shocked by the intimate nature of the question. This is obviously the future, somewhere, and probably things are very different now. “We have children,” he says. “Four sons, actually, and one more on the way. Guinevere’s hoping for a girl this time.”
“Wow,” she says. “That’s a lot.”
“Not really. Some other kings have more. But we’re young still,” he shrugs. “The queen is actually quite fertile,” he chuckles. “I swear all I have to do is touch her hand, and-” he stops suddenly, his face flushing red for a moment, obviously forgetting that he’s talking to children.
Gwen giggles nevertheless, and blushes in her own right. “Is she as beautiful as they say? With reddish-gold hair and alabaster skin?”
“What?” Arthur seems very confused by this.
Gwen picks up an item. It looks like a small tray, black on one side and silver on the other. She pokes it and the black side changes, an image appearing on its surface. She swipes her finger around on it, and Arthur leans in close, watching, amazed as the images keep changing.
“Sire, I can’t see, your head’s in the way,” she says gently.
Reply
“It’s called an iPad. And it’s not magic, it’s called technology.”
“Eye pad?” he points to his eye. “It doesn’t look padded.”
Francisco chokes back his laughter, clamping his hands over his mouth.
“Here,” Gwen says, glaring at her cousin. She shows Arthur an image, a painting of what Guinevere was supposed to have looked like. She sweeps her finger across the screen to another. And another.
“Oh, no, these are all wrong,” Arthur says. “My Guinevere looks nothing like this at all. I mean, this woman is lovely, but that is not my wife.”
“Really? That’s like the one thing that all the books seem to agree on. She was a strawberry blonde princess.”
“She is a dark-skinned beauty with ebony curls, and she was a servant in the castle before she was my wife. A blacksmith’s daughter.”
“No!”
Arthur nods. “Best thing I ever did was marry her. Everyone called me a fool, told me that she was a witch who enchanted me into thinking I loved her. Trust me, she needed no magic.”
“Did she cheat on you?” Artie asks.
“Cheat? I do not do battle with my wife…”
“He means did she, um… dally with another man? Sir Lancelot.”
Arthur laughs now. “Lancelot? Oh, goodness, no. Lancelot is a fine knight and a good friend, but he and Guinevere would never…”
“What’s so funny about that? It’s in a lot of these books,” Francisco points to the books again.
“Well, obviously someone felt the need to drag my wife’s good name through the mud. Lancelot, well… he um, prefers the company of… men.”
He is met with three wide-eyed stares.
“Well, specifically Merlin.”
“Shut. Up!” Gwen exclaims, causing Arthur’s brow to furrow again.
“Sorry. I don’t mean shut up literally… it’s just an expression…” she backpedals, recovering from her own shock. “It’s like, ‘I can’t believe what you just said.’”
“So you’re a happily married father of four and a half kids and Guinevere has been faithful the whole time,” Artie muses. “So then if she didn’t cheat on you, then I guess she won’t be responsible for Camelot’s downfall.”
“I should hardly think so!” Arthur exclaims. “She’s the reason we’re prospering so! She’s the wisest person in Camelot, and the people love her! Everyone loves her! She is known far and wide for her wisdom, kindness, and grace. You need to summon up whoever it is that wrote these slanderous lies about my wife and set them straight!”
“Almost out of time…” Francisco mutters, looking at a small hourglass sitting nearby.
“Did you really pull a sword out of a stone?” Artie asks hurriedly.
“Yes, but that’s probably all wrong, too,” Arthur mutters. “You know, you children are lucky you caught me in a nap and not in the middle of a battle. I could have killed you all without even realizing it.”
“Or at another inopportune time,” Francisco mutters, remembering the look that was on Arthur’s face when he was talking about his queen.
“What?” Artie asks.
“Nothing. Look, he’s going back now,” he points. Arthur is fading.
“Thank you, my lord,” Artie says.
“Yes, thank you!” Gwen calls. She watches as King Arthur’s hand reaches out and grabs the red plastic cup just before he fades completely away.
“Must have wanted a souvenir,” she says, smiling.
Reply
“Guinevere?” he asks, blinking awake again, his brain once again thick and fuzzy.
“Something was very strange. I’ve summoned Merlin, but… you were… flickering.”
“Oh. Some young sorcerers summoned me into the future,” he says, casually, rubbing his forehead. “Wanted to ask me questions.”
“What?”
“Look,” he holds up the cup. “It’s called plastic.”
“What is it?”
“A drinking vessel, obviously.” He sets it down.
“So what happened?”
He tells her. Everything. About the children being named for them, the books, the eye-pad. She finds the fact that they got her physical appearance so completely wrong highly amusing.
She is less amused at his description of her as fertile.
“Well, it’s the truth. The only safe time to have marital relations with you is when you’re already with child, Guinevere,” he smirks at her.
“You know, there is something that can be done about that,” she threatens, arching an eyebrow at him.
“You wouldn’t dare!” he exclaims, grabbing her by the waist now and pulling her over him, her swollen belly pressing into his stomach.
“Then do not speak of me as though I am some farm field,” she says haughtily.
“Mmm, really? ‘Cause at the moment I feel like doing some plowing…”
Reply
Leave a comment