Musilver

Original Six Forever - (2026)

Lancelot, resigned: Again?

Arthur and the other knights overhearing from the next room:

'Merlin, my friend. What –?'

'I need your help hiding a body.'

Every man in the antechamber froze, the silence thick and breathless. No one so much as moved as they all stared at the threshold, where the door stood ajar only a fraction, blocking them from view.

Yet it was Lancelot's reply, carried on the edge of a weary sigh, that made disbelief stutter in Arthur's chest.

'Again?'

******

A fragment of overheard conversation leads Arthur and his knights deep into the Darkling Woods, where the truth about Merlin's magic finally comes out.

He did it.

24 hours. (28ish including the one shot)

$88,000 raised to fight cancer.

You are the earth that I will stand upon

Wild hearts can’t be broken

No grave can hold my body down, I’ll crawl home to her

Your hearts a bird without the wings to fly

So long we’d become the flowers

또 겨올이 와도, we are forever bulletproof

I also have a bookish tattoo that has ‘Between the pages of a book is a lovely place to be’ in it.

The whole team settles in with rapt attention, ready to roast the shit out of Roz over it via group chat, only to see. Well. It's a series of interview clips over the years. It's made up exclusively of three things. One, clips of Hollander "stealing" linguistically challenging questions that the whole team knows Rozanov hates. Two, clips of Rozanov derailing questions that are about Hollander's "representation of his community," which gossip on the street says makes Hollander uncomfortable. Three, Hollander and Rozanov commenting individually on the rivalry, with vicious comments such as. "He's of course a great player, but he'll find us difficult to beat." Such fire in Rozanov's comments are especially damning, given his whole chirp-king-schtick. The video editor, with all the obsession and perception of a true fangirl, makes sure to circle every instance where you can see the shadow of Hollander and Rozanov pressing their feet together - and in one instance holding hands - beneath the interview table. (You wouldn't see it unless you're looking for it - or unless someone circles it in red for you.)

The video finishes, and the team sits in a kind of shocked silence as the next video auto-plays. This one is a compilation of Rozanov chirping Hollander on the ice. Here, the editor has helpfully drawn an arrow to Hollander's face whenever he blushes. The editor has also inserted text overlays with comments like. "Look at how fiercely Rozanov insults his rival." And then puts smaller arrows pointing to Roz's body language, with helpful texts like "excited wiggle indicating absolute fury," and "besotted grin indicating deep hatred." The sarcasm is distressingly accurate in its point.

(Listen, the whole team knows what Roz looks like when he's chirping someone. This - this is not it. This is not it at all. This is him when he's being silly with people he really likes. What is going on.)

The video finishes, and this time someone has the presence of mind to stop the auto-play before another mind-breaking thing comes up.

Someone else, trying to lighten the silence with a joke, and maybe dismiss it all as a fever dream, says, "Montreal Jane? More like Montreal Shane, am I right?"

And. Well.

Once it's out there, there's no coming back from it.