#agravine

Characters

Arthur

Morgause

Gawain

Gaheris

Agravine

Gareth

Pellinore

The Questing Beast

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Summary

Arthur heads back to Carlion from Cameliard after parting ways with Ban, Bors and Leodegrance. Once back, he meets Morgause, who is married to King Lot of Lothian and Orkney. She's accompanied by her four sons who are important later but mostly just get passing mention now (doing my boy Gawain dirty).

Morgause was ostensibly sent to deliver a message to Arthur, but actually is there as a spy. Arthur, being literally a teenager, sees a hot woman in her 20s who seems really interested in him. He propositions her, not knowing she is his half-sister by Ygraine. The resulting incest leads to the birth of Mordred, certified eventual Arthur-killer. Bummer, dude. Morgause sticks around for about a month before heading back to Orkney with her kids.

Arthur has a hard time sleeping. He dreams that serpents and griffons raze his kingdom, burning everything before he finally manages to slay them.

In the morning, he needs to shake off his bad dream so he takes some knights on a hunting trip.

On this hunt, he sees a marvelous deer and sets off after it.

The deer is so fast and runs so long that Arthur's horse collapses, exhausted.

He rests by a spring, when he hears a bizarre sound (the book describes it as the sound of 30 hounds at once, but I'm taking artistic license. I think the point is it's a weird sound)

Across the water, he sees a strange creature - the questing beast! A Bizarre creature with the head of a snake, the body of a leopard, the front legs of a hart and the back legs of a deer.

After drinking some water, the beast lets out its strange cry again before sprinting off into the brush. Not long after, a burly man erupts from the brush on foot. He says he's pursuing a strange beast and describes it to Arthur, who points him in the direction of his quarry. The man laments that his horse died of exhaustion during the hunt before crashing through the brush after it. This guy, King Pellinore, would spend his entire life chasing the questing beast without catching it.