I learned long ago that one of the tedious truths of first person is that the narrator inevitably goes into the story of his or her life in brief at the beginning. For a number of reasons, I’m going to tell as little as possible. Frankly, my existence of Mordred of Orkney ensures that people who have read Le Morte de Arthur or Idylls of the King think they already know the story of my life.

Of course, these are they same people who think that I have a black heart that is no longer beating, which is only the most obvious of the many things they have wrong.

The reason that heart is still beating is Merlin’s prophecy. The man’s magic ensures that he will never give a false prophecy, even if he predicts that the Sahara Desert will get snow this year. One of his more famous prophecies says that King Arthur’s son will kill him, and I’m Arthur’s only child. I can’t just go to Avalon and drive a sword through his heart— I couldn’t find the courage to kill him on the battlefield, where at least the odds were in his favor. The legend lies: it was a flying rock that cracked his skull while I stood there frozen, wondering if Dad would kill me if I didn’t attack. So to at least play fair, I need to wait for the Once and Future King to come back to England.

In an effort to keep me occupied until that day comes, Nimue decided to make me a muse— which wasn’t that difficult, because I’d inherited my sorceress mother’s magic in the raw form, though I’d rejected the thought of using it until I was faced with an unknown number of years waiting for a chance to murder a man I had no desire to kill. Since Dad was half fae and Morgause (my mother) was completely fae, I was semi-immortal and my aunt had found me at least half-alive after Arthur’s last battle, so I would have no trouble waiting out those years. Nimue and Morgan would never have let me stay in Avalon, so I agreed to become a muse.

With continued contact with the world, of course, I had to change with the times. At first I refused utterly to give up my image as a knight, but by the time the Renaissance came along I had given in, although I still wear far too much black for Morgan and Nimue’s fashion ideals. They know this because I still spend a lot of time in Avalon, which is the home of the only people I’ve known all my life.

“Mordred? What on earth are you doing here?” Morgan demanded of me on one such visit.

“I quit,” I told her simply, shrugging.

My aunt looked unsatisfied and dragged me by the elbow towards the garden. I allowed her to do so, mostly because I liked my arm and had no desire for her to pull it off, which she would have done had I refused to move. “So why did you quit?” she wanted to know.

“I’m not going to be a muse to someone who won’t do a damn thing,” I replied, pulling away from her. I would rather walk than be dragged.

“You’re too demanding,” Morgan informed me.

“Good.”

“Good?” She stared at me for a few moments. “Mordred, I don’t understand you. Most muses would love to have your resume, and Nimue goes to a damn lot of trouble to find people that you might actually be able to get along with. Why do you keep quitting?” She pulled up the skirts of her gown so as not to soil them as we crossed a particularly muddy patch of garden. She was wearing hiking boots under the silks, which said everything about Morgan.

“Well, I didn’t quit on Jason, it was the other way around,” I admitted, stopping at the fish pond to examine the colossal goldfish Nimue kept there. Or really, to reduce the risks of running into one of the Lady of the Lake’s handmaidens— Vivian had gotten interested in me about the time Merlin got interested in her. This was the precursor to the most embarrassing conversation ever with my father, excepting the one we never had. “And sometimes I think I spend more time regretting giving in that I do actually working.”

“That’s idiotic,” Morgan answered. “You’re just like your father— you spend too much time working and still don’t think it’s enough.” The cleanliness of her skirts forgotten, she knelt down to run her fingers through the water on top of the fish. The catfish rose to the surface to be stroked.

“Did you mean that as a compliment?” I asked softly.

“Warning, actually,” Morgan answered. She was stroking the catfish as she might an old friend, and I wondered absently if she’d turned one of her numerous boyfriends into it. I wouldn’t have put it past her. “But you did come at the right time. Nimue wants to talk to you.”

“Oh.” My shoulders slumped. Nimue never asked to see me specifically unless she had another charge for me— and she knew me well enough to know within a few days when I would leave. I stuck my hands in my jean pockets and leaned against a trellis of ivy. “I had hoped to stay here a few days.”

Morgan let the catfish get on with its business and stood up to shake her skirts out. “I wouldn’t allow that. If you stay here for more than a few hours you get depressed, and then you’re impossible.” She looked disgustedly at the soggy and brownish part of her skirt that had strayed to close to the water.

“Why don’t you become sensible and wear jeans?” I demanded.

“I do wear jeans,” Morgan told me. “Just not in Avalon, it ruins the mood. No one wears Renaissance gowns in London anymore, though.”

“Oh, yeah. Last time I saw you outside Avalon you and Aurelia had gone shopping in London. I’m sure you maxed out several credit cards,” I recalled, running my fingers through my hair. “Let’s go talk to Nimue. Get me out of here before I start to act ‘depressed,’ shall we?”

“Yes, let’s,” my aunt answered, ignoring my sarcasm and grabbing me by the elbow again. “I think she’s in the kitchens.”

Nimue was not in the kitchens. Nor was she in the mews. Finally I took over and dragged Morgan up the spiral flight of steps towards Dad’s room. Nimue met us down halfway, a tall, blonde vision in white. I’ve only met two males not infatuated with Nimue, and they— Lancelot and my father— were too busy being in love with Guenevere. “Oh, Mordred,” she said when she saw me. Then she turned to my aunt. “Morgan, you could have given me a little more warning.”

“Except I was giving it to him,” Morgan snapped. “You did want to see him.”

Before I saw Morgan and Nimue fall into one of their famous arguments, I interrupted with the first question that came to mind. “How’s Dad?”

“The same as ever, I’m afraid,” Nimue told me. “He’s still alive, although Aurelia wanted to throttle him for snoring last week. Why don’t we get down?”

For minute there, I thought about telling her I wanted to see my father, but instead I let the Lady of the Lake and my aunt lead me down the stairs again and into the parlor, where Nimue called for refreshments and one of the army of servants immediately came out with goblets and a bottle of wine.

I always hesitated to sit down in the parlor, since everything in it, from the furniture to the wall hangings to even the carpet, was a work of art. But Morgan sat on the couch in her muddy skirts without any hesitation whatsoever, so I joined her there. Nimue poured drinks and took her place in the throne-like chair I’d never seen anyone else sit in. “So what brought you to Avalon, Mordred?”

“I quit.” With that announcement, I felt as if everything had been said, and with Nimue it had. It was Morgan that haggled over little details.

Nimue simply sighed. “I thought it might be that. So I have already arranged another assignment for you.”

“Are you sure that’s the wisest idea?” I asked her. She knew what I was like, and why I’d quit so often. I had too many frustrations myself to help someone get over theirs.

“Positive,” she answered. “If only because you’ll be happier arguing with your charges than you will be hanging around here and trying to work up the courage to go and visit Arthur. I don’t know what you think you’re going to do if I don’t ind you another charge. None of us really know how to get by in the rest of the world anymore.”

This, I had to admit, was true. Nimue rarely left Avalon anymore; she claimed the world had changed too much for her and Merlin was no longer around to consult. Morgan had adjusted to the markets of the world as they came, but she hadn’t mastered the art of working back when Dad was conscious. I . . . well a number of my more recent charged had convinced themselves I was just a figment of their overactive imaginations, and I knew more about writer’s studies than I did anything else. “So who is this latest charge?” I asked, resigned.

Nimue smiled in the self-satisfied way that the women I’m surrounded by tend to smile. “Her name is Amanda Ferris. After all, in my experience you tend to get along better with women than you do with men. She’s an American, lives in Pennsylvania.”

“That tells me a lot,” I grumbled. “What’s she write?”

“She’s still trying to answer that question for herself,” Nimue admitted. “You’ve said yourself that new writers need muses more than the ones who are used to coming up with ideas themselves.”

“All right, I’ll admit to that. And I’ll admit that the last thing I want to do is spend a couple of hundred years with your ladies in waiting,” I confessed. “I’ll see what I can do to help this Amanda Ferris.”

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Author's Note: Sorry to anyone who noticed my long fictionpress absence; I've been writing offline mostly, I'm afriad. This story is one that I classify as "just for fun" but as I'm in a position where I feel like I need a little more fun, it'll hopefully be updated once a week or so. So, until next update, Cheers! -- Loki