Persona: Excalibur!
Prologue:
Long ago the King of England died, with no known heirs the King's consular planted his sword in a stone. It was said whoever could remove the sword from the stone they would known as the true king of England. Tests of strength were called as great warriors and knights would hold jousts to see who was worthy to lift the stone, but none could. Until a young squire arrived with his Father, and that boy's name was...
"Arthur!" The man shouts over the sounds of the thunderous charging of horses and banging of metal suits of armour. The young boy Arthur runs with helmet in both hands towards his father Sir Ector. The man snatches his helmet away from his hands aggressively. "I thought I told you to have this polished boy!" He raises his hand as if he were going to smack him.
Arthur flinches, but his Father turns away as his other son carries his sword to Ector. "Sharpened and cleaned for you Father." He pats the boy on the shoulder.
He unsheathes the blade and inspects the shine. "Good work Kay. At least someone has their head on their shoulders. Speaking of which it's time to part some miserable oafs of theirs." He fits on his helmet and mounts on his horse preparing for the most important joust of his life, the winner may try to pull the sword of England from the stone. Arthur socks Kay on the shoulder playfully, and the two boys ran off playing tag.
They ran around the Stables, and under the bleachers of the Joust. Then Arthur followed Kay through the grounds and the market stalls until Arthur lost sight of him around a corner. He walked slowly down the alley looking back and forth as this game of tag became hide and seek.
He then looks toward a blue velvet curtain at the end of the alleyway and creeps toward it. He stands in front of the curtain preparing to pull them out and jump on his brother behind them, leaning forward with a sneaky grin he rushes through the curtain. "Surprise!" He leaps in the air hitting the floor inside the room behind the curtain. He raises his head up to look at the dim-light room in the same colour of blue velvet.
Arthur felt a touch on his shoulder thinking it was Kay sneaking up on him like he did. But when he turned around and looked at the hunchback with hideous bulging eyes and a long nose Arthur panicked.
"Help! Monster!"
"Igor!" A woman draped in a Blue dress and flowing bleach blonde hair shouts at the hunchback. "It's alright young man. Igor isn't going to hurt you, we've just waiting for our master's guest to arrive."
Arthur takes deep breaths and tries to calm down, he looks back at the hunchback Igor's disturbing appearance but tries to act normal. He turns back to the woman and asks "Guest? Who are you waiting for?"
"Why you of course Arthur. Philemon said to stay here until you would come and be our guest."
"But why me? And how do you know my name?" "Come this way." She takes his hand and walks him through another curtain to a smaller room with the walls lined with books, and scrolls. A man in white clothes and a half-mask shaped like a butterfly was down at the table just sitting, not reading just waiting for Arthur to arrive.
"Welcome to the Velvet Room. I sent Igor and Margaret to invite you inside but I see he frightened you, rest assured you are safe here. This is a place between mind and matter, a place where destiny is unfolded and potential revealed." Arthur just sat there confused at what was going on, he kept thinking that he was only a squire yet this man Philemon says he has been waiting for him as if he knew he would come here.
"Allow me to demonstrate my foresight." He flips over a tarot card the placed down. "The Emperor, it is a symbol of your future. You will control your surroundings Arthur. And I sense a title in your future that will ring the ages." Arthur gazes up in that thought, one day his father would make him a knight. Philemon smiles to himself then turns over the next card. "The Chariot. I see there will be a war, something to do with your rise in command and it will be long and hard-won. You will have to master your internal and external self to accomplish this. Now with the reading aside there is one last thing to give you."
Philemon reached out for Arthur's hand and grabbed hold. Arthur looked at their locked hands as they began to emit a faint glow. "Your inner potential has been opened. Thank you for staying as a guest in the Velvet room, while this is the last time we will meet if you follow your destiny we will be there watching." After Philemon told Arthur's fortune he stepped outside the curtains then walked out of the alleyway slowly and as he turned back to get a second glimpse of the Velvet room it was gone.
Arthur snapped himself out of what he thought only a daydream and made it back to the stables to see his brother Kay and Father Sir Ector. Kay was standing over the fence to look at his father in the joust, it was the last match of the games and Ector had just knocked off Sir Robin off his steed declaring him the victor.
Sir Ector rode his horse into the stable and lifted his faceguard. "Don't just stand there get me down!" His two sons helped him shift off his horse and peel off the pieces of bent steel that was his armour.
"Kay! Fetch some ale! And if I catch you with any in your breath!" Kay ran off swiftly away from his Father. Arthur was about to run in the same direction but Ector took a firm hold of his shoulder. "Help your father with something at the moment will you? I've seen that sword over there attempted to be pulled near a hundred times but not one could do it. I only have one chance at it, so I need you to go quick and grab hold of her, tell me just how hard it is. But do not pull out the sword! You understand?" Arthur nodded. Ector grabs his skull and begins to push in hard making the boy choke quite gasps of air in pain. "Do. Not. Remove. The Sword!" Arthur struggles more and more until his Father puts him down, and he rubs the red marks around his throat. "When I become King, I can leave you with the rest of the Bastards in the castle while you eat at my money until I die."
Arthur makes his way towards the stone, walking behind stalls and bushes avoiding sight. As he feels the pain around his neck he thinks of his Father the king, how he would still be treated as the bastard. Ector always gave him and extra hard time. Insulting him, and hitting him for no good reason. If he had the crown then maybe he could be too bothered to hate him as much as usual. But he could never understand why he would be even more cruel to him than Kay.
Arthur steps up to the Sword in the Stone, looking at the old weathered blade that looked as though it really had not been moved since the year it was planted. He readied his arms and breathed deeply. He grabs the sword with one hand and pulls tightly but doesn't feel any movement. Then he takes both of his hands to the blade and lifts. With all his effort he strains his arms then begins to feel some shifting from the ground and with a second tug the sword was removed. Arthur loses his balance and falls backward, then realizing he had done it and pulled the king's sword from the stone!
"I got it... I got it out! Oh no!" As he raised his voice a nearby knight turns to the stone and Arthur holding the sword. "He has the Sword! The Sword! The Sword!"
"It was an accident! I'm sorry!" Arthur peddled back dropping the sword on the ground as it made a loud clang.
"He Pulled the Sword! The King of England!" Raved the knight.
"What's all this yelling about?" One voice said.
"It's the King! Just like Merlin said!" Said the second.
" 'E's not the king! 'E's a very naughty boy!" Squaked another.
"Long Live the King! Long Live the King!" They chanted and chanted. As the people of town, and the knights of the joust looked upon their new king, a young teenage boy who was dressed in brown linens. As the raving got louder it alerted the presence of his Father and Brother, Sir Ector and Kay.
"YOU STUPID BOY! I'll whip the sin out of you!" Just as he was about to strike him he grabbed by a large suited knight, who twisted his arm into extreme pain.
"Do not lay a hand on him." He looked to his liege. The large knight's face looked rather gruesome, and ravaged it was intimidating to look at. "What say you milord?"
Arthur looked at his father for the first time with the tables turned, with him in pain and in fear. Arthur wanted to have him in the gallows, but he could not dare to execute anyone even his spiteful abusive father.
"Take him away until I can judge him." The large knight nodded then two other knights took him away. As he started screaming and resisting his arrest they threatened to break his other arm.
The Large knight who defended Arthur kneeled down to him. "I am Gawain, my Uncle was the King Uther Pendragon. I had had come to this tournament thinking I would be the closest heir to my uncle but I see that one of his sons still lives. Know that I serve you humbly."
As the Crowd cheered for their new king they began to swarm around him not only singing their praises but also shoving in their requests to the boy.
"Please my lord, my daughter is ill and I don't have the money for herbs!"
"Rabbits have been gettin' in the carrot patch I own and eating all me' crops!"
"My king, I have this rash on my thigh and I want to know if that's the plague or just poor humors."
As the mass of people became too much a lone woman pulled away Arthur from behind pulling him away from the crowd. Rushing him away somewhere safe. Arthur pulled away from her "Let me go!"
The woman peered behind the corner of the swarming mob and saw them turn away from them. She then let down her hood and hair. "Margaret?" She shook her head. While she looked like Margaret with her light blonde hair and the way it furled, she had druidic tattoos peeking from her dress out of her shoulders. And her lips were glossier with a gold coloured makeup.
"You should be more careful, you may be the heir but your youth may be taken advantage of by those in your court."
"Who are you?"
"I am a Witch, The druids call me 'Merlin'."
"Witch? Get away!" Arthur took his sword up heavy it was to hold however.
"I am the Witch of your father and his father before him."
"My Father Sir Ector?"
"No Arthur, Your true Father King Uther. When he died Sir Ector took you as his own. And when he sent you to grab the sword he wanted your touch to break the seal I placed for the true heir to the throne." The young boy's eyes begin to water, and the Witch Merlin passed him her handkerchief.
"Come with me and I'll show you how to rule." And so the Young king was taken in by the Witch Merlin, the consular of the King. There he spent many years in her care and tutelage. And it was by seven years he would come to take his rightful place as King Arthur.
End Prologue.
Author's note: This was an idea I had coming up while writing the first few chapters of Persona Genji, which you should totally read by the way it has a new chapter out once I publish this. The whole brainstorming this was thinking of possible sequels to Genji which in hindsight seems absolutely stupid to think of a sequel without even finishing the main story. XD
So then I came up with ultimately 2 new ideas following the same idea as Genji ie taking Persona and combining it with historical people or tales. The two Ideas were Journey to the West, and King Arthur. In the end I chose this one because a Journey to the West story would too directly follow its already written story and I would just be working in persona to the story in the end.
But looking into King Arthur I realized it had more going into it and I could play around with it more because the whole King Arthur legend isn't one universal story, it have many different versions and a whole giant cast of characters (most won't be in the story at all just of the fact that I'm a crap writer really.)
So I need a beta for like my stuff that I do, and I'm getting really nervous that i still release chapters without a proper if you like this and wanna beta Pls tell me!