[fic] [Tales of Arcadia] Your Future Hasn't Been Written Yet 161/?
Your Future Hasn’t Been Written Yet
by K. Stonham
released 5th January, 2024
The golden wave of energy hit the glowing crystal; the crystal vibrated like a struck tuning fork.
Then it cracked.
As a hatching egg's might, the line grew from one end of the golden prison to another.
For a heartbeat, all was still.
Then the crystal, like another not so very far away, shattered.
Red and gold like a phoenix chick emerging from its fiery shell, a woman fell to the floor.
"Well done, noble guests," Sir Lancelot complimented them all as they sat ringed around the training yard, nursing flagons of ale.
(Hey, Steve had been to the RenFaire, he knew what they were called! ...Though he was pretty sure that his mom would not be cool with him drinking ale, so he was never going to tell her.)
(He wondered if Coach would be okay with it. I mean, sneaking your underage stepson a light drink now and again was supposed to be a thing stepdads-to-be did, right?)
(Okay, he wasn't sure about that at all.)
"Huzzah!" Steve cried, because that was what you said when a knight said something cool at the Faire.
"I hurt all over," Pepperjack whimpered from next to him.
"Ah, training sores will soon fall away," Sir Lancelot assured him. The rest of the knights of Camelot nodded, so his words must be true. "What's important for a knight, young squire, is heart."
"Determination," another knight spoke, nodding.
"Doing the will of the king," a third added.
"God save the king," all the other Camelot knights chorused, raising their flagons in a toast.
"God save the king," Steve echoed, because that was another RenFaire thing he knew. Then he realized that him saying that meant 'God save Jim Lake Jr.,' and for a split second he had a doubt about that, because Jim was still kind of a dweeb....
But then he thought more about it, and, yeah, he really was okay with that. Because Jim had come through in a pinch more than once, and he'd made Steve a knight, which totally had to count for something. So, hey, god save the king of Arcadia Oaks High or whatever.
(Even though Steve was totally Spring Fling King, and Lake hadn't been, so there, nyeah!)
"Tell me, young squires," invited Lancelot, "do you know the first duty of a knight?"
"Ooh! Ooh!" Steve raised his hand in the air, because he totally knew that one.
Lancelot looked like he didn't know why Steve was waving. "Yes... Squire Steve."
"The first duty of a knight," Steve said, proud, "is the defense of the people."
There was an instant of silence.
Then the Camelot knights broke the silence with raucous laughter. Many slapped their hands on their knees. A couple giggled into their ale.
"What? What?" Steve looked around blankly.
"Squire Steve, who knew you had such a sense of humor?" Lancelot asked, laughing.
"What sense of humor?" Steve asked. He hadn't been trying to make a joke, but they were all acting like he had.
"The first duty of a knight," Lancelot said, clearly forcing himself to a straight face, "is subservience to his king."
Now it was their group's turn to be silent as they absorbed this.
Finally it was Toby who spoke out.
"Bushigal," he said.
The knights tensed.
Jim's head raised from his solitary contemplation of the back of his hands (because, hey, there was that saying about knowing something like the back of your hand, and how well did he really know his half-troll hands, anyway?) when feet came clumping down the aisle.
"Chow time," the knight said, glowering right and left. He held a bucket in one hand and a stack of battered wooden bowls in the other. He glared at Jim. "Eat the bowl and you don't get another, newbie."
Jim nodded. He could see where that might have been a problem in the past. Wood wasn't the tastiest, but a troll, unlike a human, could survive on it.
"What's the special occasion?" Callista asked, never rising. Her question didn't hold the tone of one expecting an answer, but the knight provided anyway.
"King's got guests," he said with a snort.
"Ahhh." Her reply was drawled as he ladled slop into a bowl and kicked it into her cage. Her eyes met Jim's. "I'm guessing that's where you come in, Skinnylegs."
"Sort of," Jim admitted, as the knight doled out some foamy grit for him too. From where he was sat, it looked extremely unappetizing, with bits and suspicious lumps sticking out of the surface. Certainly nothing identifiable. The smell wasn't appetizing either. "Glad to see you serve only the best," he couldn't keep himself from snarking.
The knight's glower intensified. "If it wasn't for the king's orders," he warned, brandishing his ladle, "I'd be of a mind to let you starve, troll." Then he shoved the bowl into Jim's cell and moved on to the next.
"Charming," Jim commented, picking up the bowl in both hands.
Upon closer inspection, it became even less appealing. And the scent wafting off it.... "Ugh."
"Says the one who thinks baskets are a delicacy," said Callista. She was picking bits out of the bowl, examining them in the dim light, then popping them into her mouth. "Ooh, crunchies."
"I can't believe you're eating this," Jim told her.
She shrugged. "Stay in here long enough, you'll get hungry enough to eat anything."
And Jim remembered... well, he remembered long daysweeksmonths in the Darklands, stretches of time when his stomach had been so hollow that it felt like it had been scooped out of him. He'd learned to hunt then, though not as easily or elegantly as Douxie did. He'd made himself eat what he'd caught because he needed the food.
He'd also learned not to regurgitate it after, no matter how much he wanted to. Because while the armor kept him alive, he needed energy, calories, to keep moving.
(He suspected that without the armor, he probably would have died within the first few days. That most of what lived and grew in the Darklands was poisonous to humans. He didn't want to think about that too closely.)
Douxie thought Jim didn't understand hunger and the way you had to keep moving, keep doing things even as your action drained everything out of you.
Jim did.
You ate to survive, when you could, what you could.
And if a Nougat Nummy with a message scribbled on it in Sharpie seemed like manna from heaven, not only to the soul but also to the body....
He wondered idly how many Nummies Toby had with him now, in his backpack.
Jim might be begging one or two off him, after he got out of this dungeon.
"Bon appetit," Jim said, raising his bowl to eat.
"So, like, what does a handmaiden do?" Mary asked as she and Claire trailed Morgana down the fifty bazillion steps of Merlin's tower.
The woman in question turned her head to face them, never stopping her smooth stride. "Are there no handmaidens in your time?"
"Uh, not really?" Claire asked, glancing at Mary. "I mean, there's that book, but it's dystopian...."
"Book?" Mary asked.
"Dystopian?" Morgana asked.
Claire grimaced. "I'll loan it to you when we get home," she told Mary. "And, um." She looked torn about how to describe modern literature to an Arthurian noblewoman.
Morgana waved a dismissive hand. "How wonderful it must be, to come from a time that tells tales of dystopias rather than utopias."
Claire clearly bit her lip on that one.
"In answer to your question," Morgana continued, "a handmaiden does her lady's bidding: runs errands, carries messages, helps her organize her household and assists with her personal grooming."
Mary eyed Morgana's long, long braid. "Yeah, I can see where doing all that might cut into your free time."
"In return for which, the handmaidens are under a lady's direct protection. You are to inform me at once if any of the knights or lords approaches you in a fashion you do not fancy. I am the king's sister; they dare not cross me." Her face darkened a shade. "Even Arthur dares not cross me in the matter of my ladies."
"And if someone approaches us in a way we do 'fancy'?" asked Mary, daringly.
Morgana's smile was small and smug. "So long as your reputation remains intact, you are free to allow whomever you might like to court you. I have, in the past, been known to arrange matches for my handmaidens."
Mary zeroed in on that. "What about Sir Lancelot?"
Morgana stuttered to a halt on the steps and stared, wide-eyed, at Mary for a second. Then her laughter broke out in great peals. "Oh, child, if you can crack that nut," she said, "you are a cleverer lass than many I've seen in this court. Save for his devotion to the late queen, Sir Lancelot might as well be one of those men who are dedicated to their god, and none other."
Mary's eyes narrowed. Her fist clenched. She felt a deep core of stubbornness well up in her. She was Social Media Queen Mary of Arcadia Oaks High. And if Lancelot wanted to try to play harder to get than Tight Jeans Hank? She was willing to rise to the challenge.
If he'd loved one queen, he could love another.
"Tell me," Mary said, "about Queen Guinevere."
Krel noticed a familiar figure crossing one of the courtyards. "Ah!" he said, catching Varvatos' attention.
The warrior's eyes narrowed. "It is the wizard," he said. "What on this planet is he doing?"
"I do not know," Krel replied. "But whatever it is, he does not look happy about it." Douxie's posture was decidedly reluctant.
"Perhaps," advised Varvatos, "we should go see what has the wizard distressed."
"I would think this whole time travel trip," said Krel, but started down the steps from the castle wall to its enclosed area. Varvatos followed, cursing and grumbling under his breath with each cane placement. Krel couldn't entirely blame him; the steps were neither smooth, nor even, and the transduction Mother had chosen for Varvatos, while definitely effective in keeping him unnoticed, was not exactly as stable or limber as his guardian would have liked.
(Nothing short of perhaps Godzilla would have satisfied Varvatos' desires in a transduction, Krel thought.)
When at last they reached ground level, Krel trotted off in the direction Douxie had vanished toward, trusting Varvatos to keep up despite his "creakiness." He checked his mental map of the Camelot he had rebuilt against this one that was still terrestrial, and was pleased to find that so far they matched up.
He found Douxie, or at least Archie, sitting outside a ground-level room that Douxie had once told him was part of the stables. A bellowed roar that certainly did not emanate from the wizard's throat sounded from within, accompanied by panicked scufflings and incoherent pleadings.
"Is he in there?" Krel asked, approaching the dragon.
Who hissed, whipping around to glare at him.
"Archie...?" Krel asked, blinking. He couldn't be mistaken. He had never seen another Earth cat wearing glasses, and Archie had his unmistakable white mark in the shape of the letter "Q" on his chest.
The cat-dragon paused, but his hackles did not lower. "And just who might you be?" he asked tightly.
It took a second but then the creston dropped. They had left Archie behind in Trollmarket, back in their own time. This, therefore, must be the Archie of this time. "Oh," Krel said. "Um."
"He is Prince Krel of Akiridion-5!" said Varvatos, who had caught up with him finally. "And you, sir," he said, poking his cane in the direction of the dragon, "are playing a most dangerous game!"
"Varvatos." Krel put a hand in the cane, forcing it back to the ground. "I think this is not the Archie we know."
"No excuse!" Varvatos continued glaring at the dragon.
"In any case," Krel said, turning back to Archie, "we are looking for Douxie. Ah. Hisirdoux Casperan?" he tried. "The one with blue hair." Because he remembered what he'd been told about this time travel trip the first time it had happened, and how apparently there had been two Douxies running around, and how the best way Steve had found to tell them apart was that the one from their time had his obvious hair dye.
(That had been the first inkling Krel had had that Douxie's hair color was not natural. So sue him; what did he know about what colors humans came in?)
Archie's glare widened to a stare and then he sat up properly. "Ah, so you're some of his companions from the future, then."
"He told you about that?" asked Krel.
"Of course he did." Archie sniffed. "He may be from the future, but he's still my familiar. He tells me everything."
"Fair enough," said Krel. "so where is he?"
Archie grimaced and gestured at the open stable door. "Milking the slorr."
That... didn't sound good. Curious, Krel walked up to the entrance and poked his head in, wanting to see what was what. Varvatos followed.
Krel blinked. Douxie was doing his best dodge-and-weave around the many, many attacking tentacles of a beast that... well, Krel wasn't sure just what it reminded him of. A little bit like a Cesthunian tramdox, he supposed. But not very. Though its continued bellows and shrieks were certainly impressive enough to belong to that species.
"Oh, come on!" Douxie snapped, fending off yet another tentacle, even as others scrabbled at his armored shins. There were scraping sounds that indicated the tentacles had hidden claws. "I just need a little milk, all right? One bottleful! I don't care that you already got milked once today. You've got plenty!"
Beside Krel, Varvatos was still, his eyes wide as he beheld the slorr. From his expression, he might have found religion, as the humans said. Rapturous.
Krel sighed. "Varvatos."
The man looked at him.
Krel waved an open hand. "If you would."
"Glorious," Varvatos breathed. He bowed deeply. "Thank you, my king."
Then, with a war cry, he dropped his transduction and leapt at the beast, diving into the fray with all relish.
Douxie startled as Varvatos appeared, then caught sight of Krel at the doorway. After a second his tense shoulders relaxed; a smile teased at the corners of his mouth. There might even have been a breath of laughter. "I just need one tentacle free," he called, turning to Varvatos. "Maybe two."
"It would be Varvatos' pleasure!" Varvatos replied over the thrashing and squealing of the beast.
"My word," said Archie from by Krel's ankles, watching Varvatos wrestle the slorr into submission. "He is... certainly enthusiastic."
"He is that," Krel agreed even as Varvatos bellowed in triumph and Douxie managed to catch hold of one flailing tentacle, easily milking a blue liquid from its tip into the transparent bottle he held.
"Kings are... um." Eli tried to marshal his thoughts. Because saying kings were outdated wasn't quite accurate because (a) monarchies persisted in the modern day, and (b) they were surrounded by Arthurian knights and he wasn't stupid, and (c) Jim was a king and Aja and Krel were a princess and a prince. "Do you really think kings are given their rights by God?" he asked instead.
To a one, the Camelot knights all nodded. "But of course!" Lancelot agreed. "He who sets a man above others, ordaining their role and rights in His judgment."
Toby raised a hand. "Uh, question. I thought Arthur was your king because his dad was your king before him. So, like, inheriting the job."
"This too is true," one of the knights agreed.
"So it was the whole family who was chosen by this god?" Aja asked, clearly interested.
"But of course!" Lancelot tilted his head to one side. "Is that not how it works in your kingdom, your highness?"
Aja laughed, and it was like a trilling of birds mixed with a little bit of an ugly snort at the end. "Of course not! There were many families on Akiridion-5 who had the right to rule. The dual monarchs chose their heirs from among that pool, with an eye toward those with differing values, so as to best represent many aspects of ruling, but that would also work well together." A curious look crossed her face. "It did not always work smoothly, of course," she admitted. "There were many assassination attempts in intra-house wars, as well as in inter-house wars."
"Also many adoptions into the great houses," Zadra interjected.
Aja nodded. "Also true!"
"Wait a second," Steve butted in. "I thought you said there were only two houses left."
Aja nodded. "At the end, yes, only House Akram and House Ventis remained standing. And my parents combined those to create House Tarron."
"Ah, so now yours is a true monarchy," said Lancelot.
Aja shrugged. "By your standards, I suppose so. One day, hopefully many keltons from now, when our parents pass away, my brother and I shall rule together. But none of us were chosen by gods. I do not think," she added thoughtfully, "that there are any gods left on Akiridion-5."
There was a funny look on Lancelot's face, Eli noticed. Like the knight was filing information away for future use.
Aja turned a sunny smile on Lancelot. "As I know your gods are quite active on this planet, I am curious as to which of them has chosen your king to rule."
Eli winced. The knights looked uncomfortable.
"Ah, Aja?" Toby asked. "Did we ever go over Christianity with you guys...?"
She shook her head. "I do not think so."
"Oops."
"Major miss there, TP," Darci murmured. "Monotheism," she then told Aja and Zadra, whose eyes widened.
"Do you mean to say," one of the knights demanded, "that yours is not a Christian kingdom?"
Oh shit, thought Eli. This was it, this was going to end with all of them killed or martyred or burned at the stake--
"Do you mean to tell me yours is?" Toby shot back, giving as good as he got.
"Surely," said Zadra, unusually hesitant. "Surely, on a world filled with many gods, it is not wise to respect only one?" Her gaze sought Lancelot's.
For a moment everything seemed to stand perfectly still.
Then Lancelot barked a laugh and slapped his hand to his thigh, in a clang of armor. "Well spoken!" he said. "There are indeed many powers in this world, that a man ignores only foolishly - and at his own peril. The lady Nimue, she who forged Excalibur, is indeed the patron of our king. He rules with her blessing as well as that of God." He looked toward his fellow Camelot knights. "And, as one would not expect the dishes of a foreign land to be the same as those at home, so too it behooves us to not expect the ways or beliefs of foreigners to be the same as our own."
It felt like their group from Arcadia gave a silent sigh of relief. Well, Eli, Toby, and Darci, anyway. Eli wasn't sure Steve had even picked up on the tension.
Jim sniffed at the bowl's contents and tried not to gag. "Ugh."
Then he glanced at Callista, chowing down on her meal, and sighed.
"Keep up your strength," he murmured to himself. Because who knew when the prisoner block would get fed again? Probably not soon, if Callista was right. "Bottoms up," Jim said, and tilted the bowl, beginning to drink.
It had the consistency of cold, runny oatmeal. And the bitterness of bile, or overbrewed coffee.
And Jim, who knew he was just as prone to caffeine addiction as his mother, had had way too much overbrewed coffee in another lifetime.
"Ugh." He shuddered eloquently as he finished the bowlful, shoving the vessel back toward the door and trying not to heave it all back up.
The so-called food hit his stomach like sodium hitting water.
Jim curled over with a groan, hitting the floor.
"Jim?" Callista asked, but her panting growl was a thousand miles away.
It felt like agony. Like being burned from within. Pain licked up his spine and out through his nostrils. Jim gasped, trying to breathe.
In this back of his mind, this felt familiar. This felt familiar. This felt--
The thought dissolved with another groan. There was something in the food, he thought. Something foul. Something deliberate.
"Poison," he gasped.
And on the heels of that realization, the burning pain transmuted to fire and anger.
This was deliberate. Someone had tried to kill him.
The knight.
Arthur.
Wrath exploded.
She gasped for air in hoarse, sucking pants with lungs that had not known breath for nine centuries. Mixed in with her ugly breaths were tears pattering to the stone beneath her, marring the icy smoothness of her face.
At last her greedy gasps slowed; her body relaxed.
She collapsed flat to the stone, and rolled over. "Freedom," Morgana Le Fay said, and if her voice was as harsh as her breathing but a moment before... well, there was no one present to hear her.
She allowed herself the luxury of simple sensation for several minutes. Fingers stroked at the cool, rough stone beneath her. Her eyes marveled at the orange glow above her, and the shadows it cast. The air tasted dry and unfamiliar. She tried to parse out individual scents and tastes, but it had been so long since she'd known any; they were foreign to her now.
Eventually she levered herself up, wincing. The body didn't atrophy while one was sealed away, but neither did it get regular exercise. She felt stiff and sore. Though that latter, she admitted, might well have been attributable to her fall.
With her will of iron, she cast these issues away and forced herself to move.
She had no idea where she was, what had happened, nor where her allies were.
The Arcane Order hadn't come to save her.
And the whispers of her children had been cut off.
"Reconnaissance first," she whispered to herself. Something her brother had said a hundred times in her hearing.
Her brother, who was dead.
She laid one hand against the wall of glowing orange crystal, and cast her mind out, seeking information.
A Heartstone, obviously. A large one. Powerful!
And as was to be expected, one which housed a large nest of trolls.
Once Morgana would have counted them as her allies.
Now... who knew.
Discretion was obviously called for.
Her green eyes opened, and she walked forward, never taking her hand off the crystal, letting its ambient magic speak to her own. Letting it soothe her and fill her. It was not merely trolls who could utilize the ambient power of the Heartstones, after all. Not if you knew the trick to it.
A few twists in the path, and one stumble that almost cost her her footing, and she finally emerged into what must be the main part of the Trollmarket.
Her first impression was of chaos. Trolls ran this way and that, many screaming. It was reminiscent of a kicked-over anthill she had seen as a child.
It took a moment of staring, but then her mind kicked into order. Obviously whatever event had conspired to free her was what had so distressed these trolls.
"The Trollhunters!" one cried shrilly. "Where are they? They will know the meaning of this!"
Morgana blinked. "Trollhunters?" she asked, heard only by herself.
Something to do with Merlin's little amulet, clearly. But unless she had misheard - that had clearly been a plural.
Unbidden, her mouth drew into a sharp frown, irritated by the reminder of her former master. Of the man who had stood against her, caused Arthur's death on that battlefield, and cast her into an eternal prison from which only the mercy of fate had broken her free.
"Merlin," Morgana hissed, her teeth bared. She had, she now recalled, been draining his staff, bit by bit, attempting to garner enough resources to crack her prison from within. To no avail. And when his sleeping signature had disappeared, mere months before, her tenuous connection to the Staff of Avalon had shattered, taking all that stolen power with it.
Perhaps it was he who had broken her link to the Janus Order, the only lifeline she had within her cell. She certainly would not put it past him.
Merlin would pay, Morgana vowed, for all that he had done.
She turned away from the disorder before her, and went into the shadows, seeking another way.