Written for QLFC Round 10
Team: Wigtown Wanderers
Position: Beater 2
Prompt: Sir Cadogan
Additional Prompts: 4. (word) confined, 6. (dialogue) "Please tell me you're being ironic.", 11. (dialogue) "I'm still here."
Words: 1069
Thank you to the Wanderers for helping, and Emily, Liza, and Rachel for betaing!
Sir Cadogan woke up to the sound of chirping birds. They were loud, obnoxious, and they weren't even in his painting! No, Dame in a Field of Flowers had enough birds for the entire hallway, and they never failed at their self-appointed wakeup call.
He always complained about them to anyone that would listen; but the birds didn't deserve the courtesy and should have taken up less than a sentence. If it were up to Sir Cadogan, he would have done his neighbors a favor and silencio'd the birds. Alas, his wand had not been painted in with him, and he only had his sword and pony.
Speaking of the pony, Bartholomew hated the birds just as much as his owner did. Most mornings, Bartholomew was prancing around Sir Cadogan until he woke up, waiting for adventures and treats. Now, however, Sir Cadogan noticed that he was completely alone in the painting.
He hadn't woken up completely alone since the Panic of '57. 1757, that was, when Dilys Derwent, who had then been Headmistress, had lost her hat and gloves. The entire castle, portraits included, had searched high and low for them, only to find them in the owlery, courtesy of Peeves.
"Bartholomew?" he called, looking around. The field in which they lived was completely empty, even beyond the edges of the frame. "Bartholomew? Where are you, for Merlin's sake? Bartholomew!"
An "I don't know!" from a nearby painting was joined by a "Pipe down!", a "We're trying to sleep here!", and a "Search, don't yell!"
Sir Cadogan, being the noble and eloquent knight that he was, made a face at his neighbors and fetched his sword. Too large to fit in a scabbard and to be carried around, it was mostly for show. It had actually taken him three years to free the sword from the scabbard it had been confined to. But he was no mere knight—no, he was a Knight of the Round Table—and he never went without his sword.
Heaving it up, Sir Cadogan looked around for any trace of his errant pony. After about five minutes of turning in place, he saw several tracks heading left out of the painting.
"Aha!" He pointed at them triumphantly and, raising the sword again, began to follow them.
The painting on his immediate left side was Lady and Infant. It was usually empty, with both the Lady and the Infant visiting Lady and Infants on the main staircase. The painting was that of a small room, the only window leading out to a meadow. Since there was no door, the meadow couldn't be accessed. And since there was no sign of Bartholomew other than several hoofprints leading to the next painting, Sir Cadogan didn't stick around.
He passed Morris Tuttle as Painted by Morris Tuttle, A Clear Day at the Beach, Prof. Binns' Classroom Circa 1865, and Magician without incident.
After the fourth painting, his sword arm tired. But Sir Cadogan was a valiant knight and pursued onward, leaving a bewildered magician in his wake.
It was only three minutes and seven paintings later that Sir Cadogan caught up to his pony.
Bartholomew, the hair in his mane and tail tangled, was standing on a table, a bowl filled with alcohol of questionable origin in front of him. Sir Cadogan looked around, wondering what painting he was in. When he heard the music, he realized: New Year's Eve, 1459, The Three Broomsticks.
The music never stopped playing, the people never stopped dancing, the ale didn't stop pouring, and . . . his pony was drunk.
Bartholomew sloppily whinnied and attempted to turn around, only to get confused and start chasing after his own tail.
Sir Cadogan remembered his times in the tavern many, many years ago. About five hundred years before 1459, as a matter of fact. Bartholomew started galloping on the table, and its wooden legs creaked.
The knight groaned. Was this the karma that the witch from Our Overseas Friends was talking about?
"Yer 'orse!" A portly man next to him laughed, clapping him on the shoulder before dissolving into more giggles. "'E's the best at-at'action we got!"
"Please tell me you're being ironic," Sir Cadogan moaned; he didn't want to lose Bartholomew to a bunch of drunkards. "You can't take care of yourselves, let alone a noble steed such as this! You don't 'got' him at all!"
The man simply grinned at him, before joining the crowd around them in a slurred rendition of 'Odo the Hero'.
"Fools and drunkards," Sir Cadogan muttered under his breath. He leaned his sword against a wall—and, oh, Merlin, that felt amazing!—and walked towards Bartholomew.
The pony recognized him with a large smile, baring his teeth and snorting into his face. Sir Cadogan swatted the pony's face out of the way and reached for the reins. Trustingly, Bartholomew stepped closer to him, almost falling off the table in the process.
"Just stay there, alright?" Sir Cadogan motioned for the pony to not move, which, even in his inebriated state, Bartholomew understood. Muttering to himself, the knight dragged over a bench. "Just . . . just step off onto here, Bartholomew, that's right. Just right there."
He didn't know how Bartholomew had ended up in the painting, nor did he particularly want to know. He knew, for a fact, that he would be dealing with a hungover horse sometime in the next few hours.
The men around them changed from 'Odo the Hero' to a sea shanty which even he didn't know the name of.
"Imbeciles," Sir Cadogan muttered. Still holding on firmly to Bartholomew's reins, he made to retrieve his sword. "Uncultured swine, thinking to steal such a—"
"'M still 'ere," the man who'd spoken to him previously slurred, bumping against him in a gesture that was meant to be affectionate. "We all're. Y'know . . . I'm still . . ."
Sir Cadogan looked on in disgust as the man staggered and collapsed, face-first, onto the floor.
"Come on," he grunted, beginning to pull Bartholomew away. "Come on."
Sloppily coordinating himself into something resembling a walk, Bartholomew slowly began to follow. Sir Cadogan, starting to sweat from the exertion, made up his mind that while the morning hadn't started off pleasantly, it had started off with an adventure.
When they got gotten to Magician, Sir Cadogan realized that he'd forgotten his sword.