The Lord of Shalott, or Loki and Natasha Win the Bet, an avengers fanfic

It was quite pretty.

On every side of the island, there were fields stretching out to the sky, or in some cases the forest that was nearby. And the mountains. But generally, there were a lot of fields, right out to the horizon. Most of them were planted with barley, since nothing much else grew in a wet country with a short summer.

The island itself had willows growing all down its banks, trailing their leaves in the rippling water. There were wild roses crawling all over the stonework and anything else they could hook their claws into and try to get out of the shade of the infernal willows that kept taking their sun. They were tough little weeds and had blunted many a pruning shear. They did smell very nice. If one was desperate enough, they could be fermented. The willows were only good for cold medicine.

Take that, willows.

There were some aspens on the other bank. It was nice to see something that wasn't a willow, but they were such bendy trees. If there was the slightest breeze, they looked like they were about to fall over.

There were some waterlilies in the sheltered parts of the banks (both sides) and occasionally a daffodil would lurk on the edge of a barley field. But as far as scenery went, it was mostly barley, willows, roses, and water. It got old fast.

On the vegetation-infested island there was a castle-like building. It had four towers connected by walls. It was grey. It was solid. It was cold and damp, since it was so close to the water. The architect must have been on something that day.

The available lawn on the island was covered in flowers (not roses). It was very quiet. There was nothing to hear but the frantic quivering of the aspens, the running water, and the distant swearing of the workers in the barley fields.

And the singing.

"Ninety-nine bottles of mead on the wall, ninety-nine bottles of mead on the wall . . ."

This was the fabled Lady of Shalott.

Every barley farmer knew the story, and told it indiscriminately to everyone they met down in the pub Thursday nights. They heard her singing and chanting as they worked late at night or early in the morning, under the light of the moon. She was a fairy. She was an angel. She was . . . something. Gorgeous, dressed in velvet and pearls and whatnot, especially the whatnot.

He couldn't help being a countertenor.

II.

Tortoise brooch. Penannular brooch. Tortoise brooch. Penannular brooch. Sometimes he'd throw in a pot hook or a ladle or a trivet for variety or to use up an odd bit of stock.

Still, it did get old. Waking up on an island one day with nothing except the certainty that one had better keep one's head down and forge trinkets of gold and silver and jewels to keep one's hands busy unless one wanted one's life to come to an abrupt and probably messy end because of some curse did get a bit boring after a few years. At least the failed projects made solid missiles. He'd beaned several farmers. They had apparently attributed it to the gods.

That gave him a laugh, though he couldn't remember why.

And really, there was nothing else to worry about. Presumably he'd had a childhood, and parents, and friends, and at the very least someone had taught him how to work the forge, but it was a hazy blank, so he just stayed tucked up in his cozy space on the island in the river and made bits and pieces of metalwork to pass the time.

And he watched his mirror. Oh yes. The mirror always showed him all the hot (ha, a forge pun! He carefully made a tick on the wall) news. Mostly it was sheep, and barley farmers, and people going to market in red cloaks. But it was still interesting.

The red cloaks in particular struck a chord in him, but he didn't know why.

But on some days there were lots of different people going by on the river road, reflected in the mirror. Villagers, girls, clerics, shepherds, pages in crimson and gold. They all passed by, going down to the towers of Camelot. He knew Camelot was down that way, and sometimes he could make out a hazy turret or two on exceptionally clear days, but it always made him feel funny so he didn't bother to look anymore.

And sometimes the knights came past. Beautiful, shining, free knights.

He had no knight. They never came for him.

He'd lost count of the times he had made pins for each knight that regularly came past. The blond one that led, his long-haired friend, the quiet one that hung back but had single-handedly killed fifteen bandits in one go on the riverbank to protect some shepherds once, the one that always seemed to be losing his sword but was constantly fondling his bow, and the two that rode together with sparks jumping from their hair.

After a while, he'd wondered if those two were women. They were certainly more efficient at doing their jobs than the rest. As far as he could see, they didn't believe in asking questions first and hitting later, unlike the blond leader.

Then he wondered why all the knights weren't women, and why he'd expected them to be men, and then he got a headache so he stopped trying to remember Before.

And at nighttime, when it was utterly quiet, sometimes a funeral would come gliding down the water, sending the flickering torchlight everywhere on the smooth surface. Or a wedding celebration would slide past, leaving Camelot, sated and silent from the feasts.

He was so tired of shadows.

III.

And then, one day, something happened.

Someone had the utter cheek to ride through the barley. He nearly dropped his hammer on his foot in shock. That was one drawback to watching a magic mirror and forging pins at the same time.

Anyway, some bloke was riding through the barley and onto the strip of green grass beside the river. If he'd had a bow, he could have shot him, but he'd never tried to forge a bow. Damn it all. He opted to observe the bastard very closely instead, to make sure he'd know him if he saw him again. Maybe report him to . . . someone. He could wrap a note around the next botched experiment when he flung it at a barley farmer.

The knight's armor was polished so brightly it was painful to look at. Even his greaves shone like they were on fire. The next thing to draw the eye was the shield. It had a knight on it (some recreational recursion, anyone?) on it, kneeling in front of a lady.

Even the bridle of his horse sparkled. It appeared to be set with gems, glittering like stars on a clear night. A faint tinkling of bridle bells came blowing over the water, and if the knight so wanted, he could make even more noise, since some kind of silvery trumpet was slung over his shoulder.

Gorgeous piece of metalwork there, he'd have been proud to forge it.

Anyway. The saddle and bridle twinkled in the cloudless sunlight, the helmet and the plume on it looked like a pillar of flame. The knight advanced like a comet across the dark night sky, trailing light and music behind him.

Even the hooves of his horse were polished.

He finally got around to looking at his face, in case the bugger tried to be inconspicuous in black next time. He . . . looked a little like a horse. A well-bred horse, but there was something equine about his face. His hair was black and long, flowing out from under the helmet. His skin was alarmingly pale, as though this was the first time he had ever been in the sun. Perhaps he lived in a mine somewhere and that was why he wanted so many reflective surfaces on his person; he was used to ekeing out light like a precious metal.

And the bastard was singing. Singing. While he decimated the barley field and cut up that nice bit of lawn he liked to stare at. It wasn't even a good song, like 'Bottles of Mead' was.

"Tirra lirra, tirra lirra," the barley destroyer was singing.

Ugh.

He abandoned his forge and ran to the roof to get a look in person at this Knight. He made a mental note of the heraldry and the helmet, two features that could be distinguished from a distance.

Perhaps a slingshot?

The need to pursue this Knight and show him a thing or two in defense of honest barley-farmers and people who lived in towers and didn't get out much so liked their scenery to be unmolested rose up in him like lava from a smoking mountain.

He stopped pacing. The mirror shattered. The forge split apart.

"Well, crap. The curse was real," he said.

IV.

A storm was blowing in from the east, and the leaves on both the willows and the aspens were rattling ominously. The river was higher than usual, threatening to overflow the banks.

He decided it was a lovely day to set out on his Epic and Tragic Quest of Vengeance.

There was a boat tied to a willow. He stood above it for a while, arms folded, glowering down at it, listening to the bedsheet he had dyed red and pinned around his neck flap in the wind. It was actually doing a pretty good job as an impromptu cloak. Then he picked up a chisel and began to carve careful letters on the prow.

'The Lord of Shalott'. That should do it. After all, who was going to argue with him? The swallows? The rabbits? The clumps of dust? The infernal roses?

He got into the boat and sat there for a while, staring down the river, wondering what was out there in the world besides barley and roses and willows and the occasional tower. Then he let the chain go and the boat began to move. It was getting dark, and the waves rocked the boat nicely, and he was tired. He lay down and let the current take him.

He looked impressive, six feet of muscle in black lying on a red cloth, blond hair spread out around in a halo. Some autumn leaves had landed on him for strategic aesthetics. He floated down through the night.

After a while, he got bored. And his remedy for being bored had always been to forge. Well, there was no forge here, but there was always the singing that accompanied it.

'Bottles of Mead' boomed out over the countryside as the boat drifted past.

Startled barley-farmers awoke from sleep, their hands twitching. After all, they had been conditioned to work to that tune for years. They wondered what the hell was going on. Some of them had the bright idea to complain to the King.