milliways_bar | (no subject)

Why look, here's another one!

They've never met.

Probably this should be rectified, in hopes that someday the relatively cracktastic idea of the King's Table might actually be an accomplishment, instead of a mere idea in potentia, as it were.

Edmund comes up to the bar, to get tea, and peers curiously at the carving.

A wood panel, still in the process of the rough hacking part, really.

At some point, it will be of two small boys. At some point. He glances up, golden eyes sharp, and then smiles. A little.

"Mornin'."

Golden eyes?

Interesting.

"Good morning," Edmund replies cheerfully.

Not just two dead kings. Two dead semi-British kings!

Considering that neither of them were actually kings of Britain...

"Might I ask what project you're working on, milord?"

There's never a reason not to be polite with strangers, after all. Especially not here, where the majority of people could probably squish him like a bug.

"Something I shouldn't." No, Mordred, that wasn't the most useful thing ever to say. He shakes his head, flashes a brief grin that actually makes him look nineteen.

"Just a carving, wooden panel."

See, they've got surprisingly much in common.

Dead! British. Not-a-British-king. Nineteen, and also a lot older than that.

Edmund grins back. And also, not surprisingly, looks about nineteen.

"Have you a purpose for it, once it's finished? Or is it for practice?"

He's curious.

"Possibly give it to my not'wife...possibly keep it. Depends how it turns out, really. I'm sorry...Mordred Ambrosius," and he offers his hand.

"Not-wife?"

Edmund blinks, as he reaches to shake Mordred's hand.

Mordred is an interesting sort of name, really. Historical, you might say.

"Edmund Pevensie," he replies, automatically.

"Older brother called Peter? Talked to him a few times." Another similarity - both Edmund and Mordred know how to use a sword.

"And, yes. Not'wife...in her version of the world, we married. In mine, we did not. It's...fucked up, really."

"Yes," he replies, in response to the vague question about Peter.

Also obviously they both know Adam, since Mordred's narrative had to go bring up swords. Possibly this should not be mentioned outside of narrative, however.

"That's... It sounds it, yes," he agrees.

And carefully does not think about the thousands of versions of the world where Kitty marries Peter, because... no.

"I take it you're something of friends, here? Despite the confusion?"

"Something of friends explains it well...sometimes we act like we are married, after all."

Edmund blinks, twice.

Poor repressed sensibilities. Somewhat old-fashioned, yes.

Amusingly so, considering that by all rights Mordred should be more old-fashioned. He was not, however, raised with leftover Victorian morality remnants.

"I'm glad to hear you're friends," he says, instead of attempting to understand precisely what Mordred means by that. "Might I ask where you're from, then, in addition...?"

Oddly enough, Edmund seems to have gotten the wrong end of the stick - they argue like they are married, she fusses and he hovers like they are married, but no sex.

"Died year of Our Lord 517." He pauses for a moment. "Battle of Camlann."

Admittedly he does hope so.

However, he's also currently avoiding learning that his little sister has had sex, so perhaps there's something in the air to suggest he worry Mordred means that instead.

"Ah," Edmund says, thoughtfully. "I take it the name, then, is more unique in your case than it would be in many others."

"And no, I don't sleep with Wytha...that'd be cheating for both us. Just to clear that up," he adds. Well, he is a witch's son - sometimes he does that. It's not mind-reading, but it's a little more definite then a hunch.

"Well...only if you know your legends, boyo."

Edmund's... probably not blushing? At least mostly not.

Even if he does have a very finely-toned blush reflex.

"You could say I do," Edmund replies, answering the answer instead of the extra answer. "You could also say I'm not exactly 'boyo' any more than you appear to be, milord."

"Habit," he says with a quick grin. "Would it help if I said dear old Dad's name was Arthur?"

The 'dear old Dad' is very, very sarcastic.

A rueful smile.

"It's all right," he says, and adds "it's only helpful in making certain I don't attempt to pretend I don't know stories of a man who thought a round table would be enough to assure equality."

It might be argued, perhaps, that Mordred was a traitor, killing his fatheruncle and causing general mayhem, etc.

It might also be noted that one of Edmund's best friends helped cause a massive attempted coup and was killed during the fighting. Or perhaps it would be useful to note that Edmund carries the stigma of traitor himself, for all that by most arguments he did little enough, compared to some.

Also, while we're busy noting things in narrative, we may as well note that apparently Edmund, who helped rule a land for fifteen years and lost it simply because it was time to return to England, who returned centuries later to find that his kingdom had held itself together... well, perhaps he spent enough time researching King Arthur's legends to feel that England's Golden Age was rather limited, compared to Narnia's.

"Apparently he was idealistic when he was younger." Mordred's tone is sardonic. "Although I never could work out if that was before or after the ordered infanticide. And the legends aren't illuminating on that score..."

He pauses.

"Well, you aren't glaring at me, so that's a good thing."

"It's easy to be idealistic when young," Edmund points out. "Well, for most people, unless it's taken away quite young. Harder to find it again once it's been lost; hard to keep it, when older." He shrugs. "And why should I glare at you? I've heard stories of you, but I've no way of knowing whether or not they're true, and even if they are... I wasn't there, I can't say I wouldn't have done the same necessarily, and it's hardly as though I'm in any position to claim the moral high ground."

"Because I'm a traitor. Regicide, patracide, murderer, although for the last...I'm just a soldier, really. Some people do. The ones who write the legends, the ones who read them and then argue then I was nothing more then...evil with a name. I snapped, plain and simple."

He ducks his head, and laughs softly.

"Sorry. Hits you harder some days then others, really."

"I admit you've got me, on the regicide and patricide," Edmund says, thoughtfully. "Peter was accused of regicide, briefly, but technically while he was duelling the man he didn't kill him, and it could be argued he wasn't a king to begin with. Traitor, though, and either murderer or soldier... Aye, that much I can understand, as well as some days being worse than others."

A faint smile, of the sort Mordred will most likely understand, and few enough others might.

"Luck of some sort, I suppose, that the history of Narnia seems to have favoured me more than that of England chose to favour you."

Oh, yes. Mordred knows that smile.

"I didn't have much of chance. Bastard son of a popular ruler, son of a witch who killed the Good King...ah, no. Besides," he adds with an odd grin,

"he cast the mortal wound first."

"Most cultures don't seem particularly predisposed to witches," he says thoughtfully, "although I allow as how often enough they might very well have reason."

He's still looking rather thoughtful, as he absently takes a seat next to Mordred, instead of still standing.

"One almost killed me, for instance," he offers. "Several times over, actually," he adds, looking more thoughtful again. Lots of thoughtful, yes. "At least three times. She nearly succeeded the third time, would have if not for a great deal of other magic, but I suppose she had more reason to hate me after I destroyed her power to turn others to stone."

Not exactly the same story, but not entirely dissimilar, really.

Left in the dirt to die, either way.

"Mam is a witch. Morgan le Fey. She's...insane, though she never tried to kill me. Wizards, though...Merlin did. So, yes. Culture - men with the robes and the stick and the pointy hat, oh yes, they are just find and can be ambiguous as anything. A woman, though, with powers?"

He shrugs, remembering all the fights he had had, defending his mother's honour as a boy.

Mordred glances up again, the look in his golden eyes knowing.

"She didn't leave me in the dirt, like the legends always say."

"... I think I don't mind insanity, so long as it's not the homicidal sort," he says, consideringly. Just as well, considering that of those he's met here at Milliways, one of his best friends is rather completely insane.

(Admittedly, one of his other best friends is a very powerful sorcerer, and the third is the Antichrist. He's got an interesting collection of friends.)

"And I am glad for you that she didn't," he says solemnly, although there's still a small sort of smile on his face. "It's... hardly pleasant."

"No. No, not really."

"But you're here, now," he points out. "I suppose I may as well assume you're as alive as I am, but here at least it's hardly a limiting factor."

"Nah, I'm a ghost. I'm dead-dead. Spent a while haunting my battlefield, got hit by a train, ended up here." He sounds...amused, really.

Edmund blinks again.

(Good show, Mordred!)

"How bemusing," he says. "How'd you manage to be hit by a train?"

"Well, I wasn't paying attention, and instead of just passing through me, it somehow knocked me here."

"... on the one hand, I suppose, it's a lesson in being perceptive. On the other... Was it painful?"

He sounds really rather curious.

Possibly because of that time that Kitty got shot and he almost turned into a ghost.

"Not really. It just feels strange." Mordred grins.

"Are you still a ghost, here?"

More with the curiosity. One trait he never quite managed to contain, perhaps.

He will probably keep asking questions unless Mordred distracts him by asking some of his own, it's worth noting.

Mordred, it should be noted, is trying to distract himself from thinking about his not'sons.

Maybe he'll ask some questions later.

"Yes, I am. Main differences are that people can see me, and I don't look quite so...dead."

"And yet apparently also concrete in form," Edmund says, not quite a question and not quite not, as he nods towards the start of the carving in Mordred's hands.

"Level of perception, boyo. I was concrete there, too. Just...not in quite the same plane of reality."

"Again with the 'boyo'," he says mildly, rather amused. "Depending on one's level of perception, I am thirty-five."

"Habit. And I'm...hell. I've been around since 497, and I dropped into Milliways sometime in the early twenty-first, so I think I'm older then you by a long shot."

"Certainly," he agrees. "I'm not saying you're not, merely that your habit is going to keep me perpetually amused, if you keep it up."

"I live to serve."

"Only not."

"We really ought to figure out a better way of making that phrase work," he says, thoughtfully.

"Oh, we do. Not much fun, otherwise."

"Admittedly, I've not got the slightest clue how, as of yet."

"We...just need to work on it, that's all."

"Oh, clearly," he agrees.

"Perhaps you can find me later this evening, when I'm on the other side of the bar, and we can see if we've figured something out?" he suggests.

"I'll see what I can do."

Edmund grins, and dips his head in a gesture that is not exactly an abbreviated bow, and is not quite a simple nod, but rather has a certain slight deliberation to it, marking it perhaps as the sort of farewell one king should give another.

Even if, perhaps, Mordred never quite became king. Hardly his fault.

"I look forward to it," Edmund says, standing again. He glances to Bar, about to ask her for a fresh cup of tea, and perhaps unsurprisingly is anticipated; he chuckles, quietly, taking the cup, raising it in a somewhat ironic salute.

"To our continued and precarious existence, I think," he says, taking a small sip before wandering off.

Mordred watches him go, an amused smile on his face before he bends over his work again.