#arthuria

YEE! An outline commission of Little A, @elishevart’s cute OC with her whale plushy.

Thank you, elish!

King stands in the convenience store deli aisle, frowning over two different sandwiches. They’re both good sandwiches. He continues to frown. Above him the fluorescent lights flicker, and the refrigerated cases give a quiet hum. In beat-up sneakers and a hoodie pulled down low over his eyes, and shooting furtive glances at the girl picking through the apple crate, he doesn’t exactly look the part. 

King woke up the night after a police officer shot his classmate point-blank in the back while the kid was running away. A wizard came to him in his dreams and told him that he had to do something about it. Yeah, seriously. (The man had a long, white beard and was wearing a star-patterned blue robe. That’s how he knew he was a wizard.)

He said, “Like what?” and the wizard said, “It’s almost time. Assemble the Round Table. Wake up.”

Before that, he was just Art. Now, he remembers bits and pieces of another life, an impossible life, memories that absolutely shouldn’t exist. He thinks he might be going crazy. Except that he recognizes them, the people from his dreams. His brother, Kay. His half-sister, Morgan. Gavin. Lance. And they seem to recognize him, too. Each time, he holds out a hand to them, and they take it, blinking, like his touch has reawakened something inside them.

They’ve been slowly filtering into his life again. (He recognizes them. He always recognizes them, even though they look different now. Their faces have changed, but the eyes are always the same.) 

Each time, he thinks about not doing it. About just turning around and walking out. Going it alone. He could leave his friends and family to live their ordinary lives in peace. But he doesn’t.

He’s gathered most of the Round Table now. He can see the ring of it, in his mind’s eye. Perce and Tristan, Lottie, Bev, Gareth, Pell, and Elaine. There are just a handful of empty spaces left. 

It’s almost time. He doesn’t need a wizard to tell him that. He can feel it. Whatever comes next—it’s about to begin.

The girl beside the apple crate is talking on her cellphone now. Her fluffy black hair piles softly over her shoulders. King lingers there, watching her. 

“Are you planning to buy that?”

Oh, great. He’s been standing here too long, and now the shopkeeper thinks he’s trying to steal something.

Lance gets up in the shopkeeper’s face. He always was Arthur’s most loyal defender. “He’s taking his time to think about it. What’s wrong? You got a problem?”

King pulls him back. “It’s fine. I’m getting this one.” Blindly he chooses the Italian sub and brings it up to the counter to pay.

Lance was the first to wake up. An accident. King saw his familiar face, that morning after, and booked it across a parking lot, a wire fence, and two busy streets to ask him what the fuck was going on.

Lance was playing basketball with some of his friends. He was the shortest among them, with gym shorts and a shaved head and shiny new Adidas. He got up in King’s face then, too, asking “Dude, what the fuck is your problem?” 

“Who are you?” King demanded, because he didn’t know, then, that the others wouldn’t remember him until he touched them. 

“Who the fuck are you?” Lance had countered. 

Acting on instinct, King grabbed his scrawny shoulders, and Lance’s face had gone slack with realization. He dropped to his knees right there in the middle of the basketball court. 

King doesn’t know if he’s ever done this before. He thinks he might have. Once, maybe twice, maybe dozens of times before. 

King pays for his sandwich, and he and Lance head out. As he’s pushing open the door—that’s when he sees it, glittering in the sun. The sword is sunk into the sidewalk, with the hilt sticking straight up out of the concrete. 

He doubles back. 

The girl is checking out behind him. As he approaches, she’s digging in her purse for change. 

The shopkeeper gives him a dirty look, but he ignores it. 

“Hey.”

She looks between him and Lance, a confused half-smile on her face. “Do I know you?”

“Not yet.” He holds out his hand. “I'm Arthur King.” 

“Uh, hi.” She giggles. “I’m Gwen.” 

He’d almost forgotten how young she used to be before she came to Camelot, how young they all used to be (he feels like he has lived a hundred lifetimes since then). She’s just an ordinary girl, for this brief moment, worried about boys and grades and getting into college and her mother.