Everything was eerily quiet as they drew close to the great hall.There was water everywhere, but it was still now, something water should never be.
As they stepped into the hall, the first thing he saw were bodies.Everyone was lying in the water, thankfully face up or at an awkward angle that kept their face out of it somehow, still as death.Heart in his throat, Lancelot went to each of them in turn to check for signs of life.
Arthur, Morgan, Gawain—all fine.
Guinevere, Merlin, Percival—all fine.
Dred, Elaine, Galahad – all fine.
Galehaut, Bran, Bertilak…missing.Damn it.He'd known that was how it would go, but…
Shoving away the pain and fear, he got his comrades on their feet, standing with Arthur as he said, "What happened?"
"You got Tristan and Iseult, good.That's probably what caused the others to break long enough we managed to get Percival back too, before Ethelfleda showed up out of nowhere and knocked us on our asses.She could have killed us, at least a few of us, I don't fucking know why she didn't."Arthur looked pained and humiliated by the decision."They had us.I have no idea why she just left us to rot."
Morgan and Merlin joined them, the others forming a circle more slowly, helping each other as they limped over from all parts of the enormous hall.Merlin said, "It could be something to do with his own magic price.Remember, he used black magic once to seize victory at Camlann.The magic I used thwarted that.So he sacrificed everything for a victory he didn't get, and he still had to pay the price, as it wasn't the magic's fault that his victory was denied at the last moment.He isn't guaranteed it again, either, as my request was essentially for a second chance at a fair fight.So whatever price he is paying must be dictating certain things.That is the only reason I can imagine that he would not take a chance to kill us all."
"Or he's biding his time and needs us for something," Morgan said."Perhaps right here, right now, was the moment he intended to use us for whatever he's planning, but something we did or didn't do thwarted it, so he called it off until he could rearrange it.We just don't fucking know!We've been playing defense and catch up since waking."
"Yes, always several steps behind," Arthur said."It's time to go on the offensive.I want Ethelfleda.She's our ticket to knowledge.First order of business, though, is our home."
Guinevere said, "Elaine, Galahad, and I will work on food for us right now.Unless we're able to leave?"
Lancelot called up his menu and tried to log out."No.I don't know what's tipped, but I think we're going to be here in the pocket universe for a long time, unless we can figure out what controls that."
"Add it to the list," Arthur said."Tomorrow, we start planning.Tonight, we need to rest.Dred, you and I are the most upright at the moment.We'll run perimeter.The rest of you know what you're about."
"Yes, Your Majesty," they chorused.
Arthur looked at Lancelot."Go swimming.I don't want to see you again before sunrise.I'm sorry we could not get Galehaut back for you, god knows we tried.He seems more deeply bespelled than the others.When you stopped the music, they all seemed to break somehow except Galehaut.He didn't even slow his movements.Whooped my fucking ass, threw me right into a goddamn wall, cracked it and me."He lifted a hand before Lancelot could ask the obvious question."Guinevere fixed me up."He sighed."I was never a great king, but I like to think I was better than whatever the hell I'm managing now."
"We started on our back foot, Your Majesty.We died the losers in a bitter feud we should have won, and woke up while the redo was into the second half—and a third of our team was stolen.All told, we're doing rather well."
Arthur smiled briefly, then threw his thumb over his shoulder."Get lost, fish boy."
Lancelot slapped his hand to his chest and bowed."Your Majesty."Though he had questions, a need for all the details of the fight, he was far too close to passing out again and didn't want to collapse at anyone's feet for the hundredth time.His soul ached for water, and so to the water he would go.On royal order, even.
He stood on the bank simply taking in the splendor of the beautiful, enormous lake that had not existed alongside the real Camelot.Well, original Camelot.This one was very real, in its own, strange way.
He waded into the water until he could dive, then swam down, down, down, body shifting and changing to something more suited to dark, frigid depths.
The game or universe or whatever had been meticulous here too, revealing the ruins of an ancient castle or temple, broken statues and lost paths, crumbling rooms filled with fish and plant life.A lost, forgotten kingdom that had ruled before Maleagant had come along and rebuilt Camelot in its place.
He swam through the ruins, until he reached what seemed to have once been the great hall, and in amusement, settled on the throne that had somehow, magically and conveniently, survived perfectly intact—
And jerked up and away in alarm when it lit up with shimmery blue light.It faded again, clearly requiring touch to activate.Well, he wasn't inviting anymore trouble tonight, thanks.He'd had more than enough of that, from the moment he'd ceased to be Lance Waters and had woken fully as Lancelot du Lac.
That was not his name in the land of his mother, of course, but that name wasn't translatable to any human language, meant to be spoken in ways humans could not, in places humans could not live.Whenever his mother visited him on the surface, even she called him Lancelot, though most often she didn't use his name at all, but various endearments like—
My son
Lancelot froze.Was he losing his mind?
Beloved.Sit.
Well, if he was going insane, at least insanity took the form of his mother's warm, musical voice.He'd tried hard in all of this not to think of her too much.She was Queen of the Waters, a demi-god of life, and she could not and would not interfere in such matters.It wasn't safe for her, those she protected, or the world at large.Water could not and did not pick favorites.
Except for the one time she had broken every single one of her rules to turn an abandoned human child into her very own.Except for a second time, when she'd granted a powerful sword to a young king to help restore a balance wrongfully set awry, because that king was her son's friend.
