milliways_bar | (no subject)

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So, Mordred never actually got to be king. Well, he never wanted to be king, not exactly. He just wanted to kill Arthur, which is what he did.

Anyway.

There is a dead king in the bar, so it seems only fitting that the number of dead royalty should go up by one.

Mordred. At the Bar. Carving something. Have at.

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"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.

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