![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
King Arthur X-Mas Ficlet (Resurrection AU)
Since I’ve been so very slow with the next chapter, here’s a little present in the spirit of the holiday season. Set somewhere toward the beginning, but AU in the timeline, since it wouldn’t have been December.
Lancelot had stopped before a glass window display, ignoring the crowds surging around them.
“Arthur,” Lancelot said. He sounded mildly bemused.
Arthur rubbed at his forehead and ventured a strained smile at a large woman who had to sidestep around them. She glared and made a point of whacking him in the back with one of her shopping bags as she passed. Arthur wondered if she had been buying large rocks as presents.
“You once explained about how it was just a coincidence that your Christ’s birthday was the same day as the festival of Sol Invictus.”
“Yes.” Arthur refused to react as he was jostled by another passing shopper.
“And how the date had nothing to do with Saturnalia, either, which everyone knows has been, or, I suppose, had been outlawed for years anyway.”
“Yes.” Arthur risked a glance at the object in the window and then winced and looked away, his actions only partially related to the baby carriage wheel that had just struck the back of his foot. He should have known that it was a bad idea to bring Lancelot shopping with him.
“Although I believe I did tell you that I found it fitting that the birth of your savior was celebrated in Rome, by what was it again? Oh yes, drunkenness, orgies, and naked singing.” For all his purported hatred of the legionaries, Lancelot had always spent entirely too much time gossiping with them. “Which, also strangely enough, was just how Saturnalia was celebrated.”
Lancelot appeared to be unaware of the dirty looks they were getting for blocking the sidewalk, but Arthur noted that somehow no one was bumping into him or hitting him with their overstuffed shopping bags.
“And in the last weeks you’ve explained about this ‘Santa Claus’ who was, in reality, a bishop who would—suspiciously, to my mind—leave treats for children in their shoes (and I do wonder at his choice of location—I hope those children had very clean feet, because otherwise those treats would have hardly stayed treats), and I can understand that this has become a tradition of gift giving that has escalated in a way that you find deplorable. You’ve also explained about the Saxon ‘Christmas trees’—”
Arthur winced. Lancelot had been highly amused by what he called the shameless hypocrisy, but luckily Lancelot did not now linger on the subject.
“—and I can even understand why you feel it’s a good idea to have a party for the knights tomorrow, although it’s not as if it’s any of our saviors’ birthdays. But this I don’t understand.”
Arthur sighed.
“What is this ‘Santa’ doing?”
Arthur looked at the small, brightly lit, moving atrocity of red plastic.
“It’s dancing.”
~
Arthur rested his head in his hands. Although he had had only two cups of eggnog, he was pretty sure he was about halfway to being drunk. He had meant to be an example of temperance, but he had not reckoned on Bors’s “secret ingredient.” And now he was wondering if being wholly drunk would not be better after all.
The party was a disaster. Despite Arthur’s protests that he would hire a caterer, Bruenor had insisted on cooking, and looked ready to burst into tears if Arthur denied him. Arthur had caved, and, since had never lost his suspicion of Bruenor’s cooking, he had not been able to bring himself to eat much. A great deal of it was scorched anyway. Arthur had come home from mass to find black smoke pouring out of the kitchen, an event that repeated itself twice more in the afternoon. They would need to do some repainting.
But that was hardly the worst of it.
“—and then the talking animals led Christ Jesus’ mother to the stables—“
He was contemplating another cup of the eggnog—and damn his role as the setter of examples—when Lancelot dropped into the chair next to his. Lancelot did not seem particularly the worse for wear, although Arthur knew he had looked disgusted at the idea of the eggnog and had been drinking Bors’s secret ingredient undiluted.
Still, maybe he was drunker than Arthur thought, since he was smiling. Everyone seemed to have misjudged the strength of Bors’s concoction, and normally fairly dignified knights appeared to be . . . influenced. Arthur continued not to look in the direction of the sofa on his left. Lancelot kept smiling.
“What?” Arthur demanded, belligerently.
“—and then the Three Stooges brought presents—”
Lancelot raised an eyebrow at him, but then went back to smiling. “This is perfect.”
Arthur snorted. He ventured a circumspect sweep of the mass chaos, skirting both a certain sofa and Mador explaining the origin of Christmas to a rapt audience, and then buried his face in his hands again. “Shut up.” He had planned a nice dinner, a formal, dignified, occasion.
“No. Really. Drunken revelry everywhere you look.” As if to confirm this, there was a loud crash as Urré fell off the chandelier, momentarily drowning out Mador’s storytelling and Yvain and Owein howling along with some song about a grandmother getting run over by northern herd animals. The disc of religious hymns that Arthur had put into the stereo had disappeared hours ago.
Lancelot pointed toward the sofa on the left. “And then there are the—well, maybe not orgies, but sexual indulgence, anyway.” Arthur involuntarily looked in the direction and then squeezed his eyes shut. But it was too late. There were certain things he knew about his knights, but that did not mean he needed personally to see them.
“I have to say, I didn’t know that Kay was quite that flexible, and Dag, who would have thought—“
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” Arthur covered his ears with his hands. Unfortunately, that did not muffle the sound of the conversation in which Bedivere was, with grave seriousness, wondering why it was that “these people” weren’t worried that their Jesus’ toy factory might have already sunk into the sea because of global warming.
“There’s only one thing missing to make this truly traditional,” Lancelot continued.
Arthur lowered his hands and opened his eyes, careful to keep them on Lancelot.
“—but then the Grinch stole the gifts the Three Stooges had brought—“ Mador apparently watched entirely too much telly.
“What?” Arthur asked warily.
“The naked singing. I could probably convince Yvain and Owein to take their clothes off,” Lancelot mused, “but I’ve seen them naked, and I don’t really feel in need of a refresher. Well, I guess I’ll just have to do that part myself.”
“What?”
“But perhaps upstairs.” Lancelot stood up, gave Arthur a look, and then moved off, already humming to himself.
Arthur stared after him for a long moment before his mind made sense of it. Arthur was torn. Whatever Lancelot thought—and whatever practices they had tolerated in Rome—this was supposed to be a solemn occasion. He had spent the night at mass, and he should—
“—so then Rudolph and the Dentist went after the Grinch with the Heat Miser—“
There was a sound of screeching wheels against wood from the hallway and then a thumping crash. Gawain’s voice called, “I win!” followed by Agravaine, yelling, “You cheated!” Arthur winced on behalf of his desk chair and the hallway walls.
Then, he looked around just in time to see the struggling forms of Tor and Percival crash into the Christmas tree. The tree fell, ornaments and lights smashing, and Lavaine getting taken down in the collapse. Arthur stared, dumbfounded, as sparks flew and the pine needles caught fire. Confusion reigned, and drunken knights stumbled about, the fire only growing as Bors helpfully emptied the contents of his bottle on the struggling mess.
Arthur stood, mouth open to take charge. Then he paused. These modern people viewed Christmas as a time of gifts. Perhaps they had something there.
Paying no mind to Galahad’s screeching as Gaheris stripped him of his coat and used it to try to beat out the flames, Arthur forced himself out of the room and into the hallway. He ignored how he was nearly rundown by Tristan on a careening chair and refused to look back to see if the fire had spread to the drapes.
The Lord would provide. He had a gift waiting for him upstairs, and it would not do, today of all days, to seem ungrateful.
Endnotes: I’m serious about the naked singing. It’s speculated to be an origin of caroling. According to one line of thought, Christmas was used to co-opt the Roman festival of Saturnalia, but, while the name changed, the attendant pre-Christian practices went on.
Whether this isn’t your holiday, like Lancelot, or you’re a believer, like Arthur, or you’re somewhere in between, hope you all have days off and friends and family to enjoy them with!
Lancelot had stopped before a glass window display, ignoring the crowds surging around them.
“Arthur,” Lancelot said. He sounded mildly bemused.
Arthur rubbed at his forehead and ventured a strained smile at a large woman who had to sidestep around them. She glared and made a point of whacking him in the back with one of her shopping bags as she passed. Arthur wondered if she had been buying large rocks as presents.
“You once explained about how it was just a coincidence that your Christ’s birthday was the same day as the festival of Sol Invictus.”
“Yes.” Arthur refused to react as he was jostled by another passing shopper.
“And how the date had nothing to do with Saturnalia, either, which everyone knows has been, or, I suppose, had been outlawed for years anyway.”
“Yes.” Arthur risked a glance at the object in the window and then winced and looked away, his actions only partially related to the baby carriage wheel that had just struck the back of his foot. He should have known that it was a bad idea to bring Lancelot shopping with him.
“Although I believe I did tell you that I found it fitting that the birth of your savior was celebrated in Rome, by what was it again? Oh yes, drunkenness, orgies, and naked singing.” For all his purported hatred of the legionaries, Lancelot had always spent entirely too much time gossiping with them. “Which, also strangely enough, was just how Saturnalia was celebrated.”
Lancelot appeared to be unaware of the dirty looks they were getting for blocking the sidewalk, but Arthur noted that somehow no one was bumping into him or hitting him with their overstuffed shopping bags.
“And in the last weeks you’ve explained about this ‘Santa Claus’ who was, in reality, a bishop who would—suspiciously, to my mind—leave treats for children in their shoes (and I do wonder at his choice of location—I hope those children had very clean feet, because otherwise those treats would have hardly stayed treats), and I can understand that this has become a tradition of gift giving that has escalated in a way that you find deplorable. You’ve also explained about the Saxon ‘Christmas trees’—”
Arthur winced. Lancelot had been highly amused by what he called the shameless hypocrisy, but luckily Lancelot did not now linger on the subject.
“—and I can even understand why you feel it’s a good idea to have a party for the knights tomorrow, although it’s not as if it’s any of our saviors’ birthdays. But this I don’t understand.”
Arthur sighed.
“What is this ‘Santa’ doing?”
Arthur looked at the small, brightly lit, moving atrocity of red plastic.
“It’s dancing.”
Arthur rested his head in his hands. Although he had had only two cups of eggnog, he was pretty sure he was about halfway to being drunk. He had meant to be an example of temperance, but he had not reckoned on Bors’s “secret ingredient.” And now he was wondering if being wholly drunk would not be better after all.
The party was a disaster. Despite Arthur’s protests that he would hire a caterer, Bruenor had insisted on cooking, and looked ready to burst into tears if Arthur denied him. Arthur had caved, and, since had never lost his suspicion of Bruenor’s cooking, he had not been able to bring himself to eat much. A great deal of it was scorched anyway. Arthur had come home from mass to find black smoke pouring out of the kitchen, an event that repeated itself twice more in the afternoon. They would need to do some repainting.
But that was hardly the worst of it.
“—and then the talking animals led Christ Jesus’ mother to the stables—“
He was contemplating another cup of the eggnog—and damn his role as the setter of examples—when Lancelot dropped into the chair next to his. Lancelot did not seem particularly the worse for wear, although Arthur knew he had looked disgusted at the idea of the eggnog and had been drinking Bors’s secret ingredient undiluted.
Still, maybe he was drunker than Arthur thought, since he was smiling. Everyone seemed to have misjudged the strength of Bors’s concoction, and normally fairly dignified knights appeared to be . . . influenced. Arthur continued not to look in the direction of the sofa on his left. Lancelot kept smiling.
“What?” Arthur demanded, belligerently.
“—and then the Three Stooges brought presents—”
Lancelot raised an eyebrow at him, but then went back to smiling. “This is perfect.”
Arthur snorted. He ventured a circumspect sweep of the mass chaos, skirting both a certain sofa and Mador explaining the origin of Christmas to a rapt audience, and then buried his face in his hands again. “Shut up.” He had planned a nice dinner, a formal, dignified, occasion.
“No. Really. Drunken revelry everywhere you look.” As if to confirm this, there was a loud crash as Urré fell off the chandelier, momentarily drowning out Mador’s storytelling and Yvain and Owein howling along with some song about a grandmother getting run over by northern herd animals. The disc of religious hymns that Arthur had put into the stereo had disappeared hours ago.
Lancelot pointed toward the sofa on the left. “And then there are the—well, maybe not orgies, but sexual indulgence, anyway.” Arthur involuntarily looked in the direction and then squeezed his eyes shut. But it was too late. There were certain things he knew about his knights, but that did not mean he needed personally to see them.
“I have to say, I didn’t know that Kay was quite that flexible, and Dag, who would have thought—“
“Shut up, shut up, shut up.” Arthur covered his ears with his hands. Unfortunately, that did not muffle the sound of the conversation in which Bedivere was, with grave seriousness, wondering why it was that “these people” weren’t worried that their Jesus’ toy factory might have already sunk into the sea because of global warming.
“There’s only one thing missing to make this truly traditional,” Lancelot continued.
Arthur lowered his hands and opened his eyes, careful to keep them on Lancelot.
“—but then the Grinch stole the gifts the Three Stooges had brought—“ Mador apparently watched entirely too much telly.
“What?” Arthur asked warily.
“The naked singing. I could probably convince Yvain and Owein to take their clothes off,” Lancelot mused, “but I’ve seen them naked, and I don’t really feel in need of a refresher. Well, I guess I’ll just have to do that part myself.”
“What?”
“But perhaps upstairs.” Lancelot stood up, gave Arthur a look, and then moved off, already humming to himself.
Arthur stared after him for a long moment before his mind made sense of it. Arthur was torn. Whatever Lancelot thought—and whatever practices they had tolerated in Rome—this was supposed to be a solemn occasion. He had spent the night at mass, and he should—
“—so then Rudolph and the Dentist went after the Grinch with the Heat Miser—“
There was a sound of screeching wheels against wood from the hallway and then a thumping crash. Gawain’s voice called, “I win!” followed by Agravaine, yelling, “You cheated!” Arthur winced on behalf of his desk chair and the hallway walls.
Then, he looked around just in time to see the struggling forms of Tor and Percival crash into the Christmas tree. The tree fell, ornaments and lights smashing, and Lavaine getting taken down in the collapse. Arthur stared, dumbfounded, as sparks flew and the pine needles caught fire. Confusion reigned, and drunken knights stumbled about, the fire only growing as Bors helpfully emptied the contents of his bottle on the struggling mess.
Arthur stood, mouth open to take charge. Then he paused. These modern people viewed Christmas as a time of gifts. Perhaps they had something there.
Paying no mind to Galahad’s screeching as Gaheris stripped him of his coat and used it to try to beat out the flames, Arthur forced himself out of the room and into the hallway. He ignored how he was nearly rundown by Tristan on a careening chair and refused to look back to see if the fire had spread to the drapes.
The Lord would provide. He had a gift waiting for him upstairs, and it would not do, today of all days, to seem ungrateful.
Endnotes: I’m serious about the naked singing. It’s speculated to be an origin of caroling. According to one line of thought, Christmas was used to co-opt the Roman festival of Saturnalia, but, while the name changed, the attendant pre-Christian practices went on.
Whether this isn’t your holiday, like Lancelot, or you’re a believer, like Arthur, or you’re somewhere in between, hope you all have days off and friends and family to enjoy them with!
no subject
no subject
no subject
Loved this piece, dear!
And a merry x-mas to you too!
no subject
no subject
Yvain and Owein howling along with some song about a grandmother getting run over by northern herd animals.
That had me giggling for sure. *laughs*
I hope you have a wonderful holiday, hon. Cheers!
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
Hope you're enjoying some time off!
no subject
I hope yours is a rockin' one too!
no subject
no subject
Thank you, for Resurrection fic in general, and this in particular. :D
Happy Holidays, Amari.
no subject
no subject
Thank you for a marvelous Yule present.
This story raises two questions for me: how does Arthur retain such naivete, err, optimism, regarding his knights?
And just what were Dag and Kay doing?
no subject
I'm not sure what Dag and Kay were doing, since Arthur refuses to discuss it (I think he might be scarred for life).
Hope you're having a good holiday!
no subject
Thanks for the gift!
Shelley
no subject
Hope you're enjoying some time off.
no subject
I hope you're taking some time to relax and have fun?
Shelley
no subject
I followed the call to the !Crack! and spot this! I'm sorry I couldn't comment before but...and I say but...
I LOVE IT!!! More..more more!!! Oh goddess of Cracknessicism!!! (...don't mind the word...please) Gods The Grinch, Rudolph and the dentist... I was laughing then...
Please, please please for more! I will be a good girl all year to read another chapter soon...ppppleasseeeeee *battling of eyelids*
no subject
Do you really want to promise to be a good girl, though? Not so fun, and Lancelot would be unlikely to approve.
I am working on it . . . .
no subject
(Anonymous) 2009-01-07 11:14 am (UTC)(link)no subject
And like I said before: u.u I'll be a good girl under Lance-rules, the book every good boy or girl have read once or twice in their life!
Happy new year
Livi