#cavallon

‘What Arthur did,’ she said after a while, ‘is marry a rival instead of a companion.’

‘A rival?’

  This wasn’t the first time Xena   was brought before royalty for   one reason or another. However,   the way she was being escorted   into the main hall, she knew this   was one of the cases in which   she was in TROUBLE. 

  At least she figured as much.

  Once she was before their leader --   their king she presumed -- she was   forced onto her knees, resulting in   a deep GROWL from her throat. She   did not speak, simply glared at the   man before her.

       Molly Grue wondered what the high king must think of her. Haggard hadn’t thought very kindly of her; he’d set her to work nonstop, always washing and cooking and essentially being the one the entire castle balanced upon. He was her only experience with kings, really, and so she was unsure what Arthur saw when she stood before the throne in an awkward curtsy. Perhaps just the body of an uneducated peasant woman, filthy even in her nicest clothing, too tough around the edges, barefoot and thinner than a twig. All empty vessel and crooked teeth. 

        It wasn’t wildly unusual that Schmendrick would be summoned by important people. They had the gold to demand the services of an extremely powerful sorcerer like he was, though he preferred to quietly aid the poor with nothing in return. The good sort of magician, Molly’d found, for she’d met magicians that weren’t quite as kind. But sometimes he were summoned by equally important people who really just were curious if the rumors were true about the Irishman’s vast magic, and that was the case today. 

       Molly Grue had not expected to be summoned to the throne room. Schmendrick wasn’t there at the minute, and there was no need for her, the magician’s wife, to see the king. But a servant had come with the message that the king wished to meet her. 

       The woman wasn’t afraid often, but she was scared now, standing alone before the king on his throne. Perhaps he had heard of her as Molly Grue of the outlaws, part of a long-time gang in the forests. She tried to hide her quivering, but she kept shaking like a leaf. Molly was an alien in this place, this grand structure filled with rich art and architecture-- she was not of this place; she had been raised in the cold earthy forests and the hard land of the serfs. Molly felt like she might wither under the king’s eyes if he knew who she was, knew her past. Being a criminal for that many years was probably punishable by death, wasn’t it? 

I think Carrie Fisher in general was just a gay awakening

“It’s not like that, Lance.” Her tone is exasperated, like she’s had this same exact conversation with him a hundred times. In reality it had only been twice, but she felt like she didn’t have to explain it even that many times.

“Then what’s it like, Bobbi?”

She presses a hand to her face, rubbing her eyes in frustration, as if the pressure there would somehow relieve the pressure building behind her eyes, a sigh on her lips. She’s not actively listening to him, and if she’s being honest has no idea what he was saying, other than ‘whatever problem he had could wait until she was done with what she was doing’.

      The old gods were probably supposed to be dead. 

      It seemed that many were Christian these days, with their hands clasped together tightly in prayer towards the one that decorated their stained-glass windows and church relics. In many lands, one could easily be burned or otherwise killed for believing in old gods. 

      But they did not so easily die, not the ancients. Loki still crept from shadows, scarred lips grinning like a bat, and it was still Zeus who shook his lightning bolts in the sky. The old pantheons simply weren’t worshipped or honored for it. But Iris, who had never been quite worshipped in the first place-- no temples, scarce art, no epic poems-- continued on her steady message-sending. But her interaction with mortals slowed to near stop, especially interaction where she displayed her ichor-veined self. 

       She arrived at the castle, wrapped in a cloak of bright blue. Wherever she went, it seemed that birds followed, their high chirps and chatters echoing after her. She nodded, as if understanding. A roll of parchment hung from one hand and an ancient messenger’s staff, a pole with two circles atop, was held upright from the other. 

     The goddess appeared to be nothing more than an bizarre child. Her face was not usual for this region, her hair was cut short in a strange fashion, and she wore a hunting tunic beneath the cloak. Her usual cheerful humor was masked beneath a serious expression.