Rating: so far, PG

Summary: Leonardo wakes up on the outskirts of Camelot--but one entirely unlike its traditional counterpart. Peopled with mutants and destined to be ruled over by the heir to the throne, Prince Raphael, this is one medieval city you don't want to get stuck in! Unluckily for our hero, he has no idea how to get home...

Pairings: none yet, but will eventually be Leo+somebody else. Betcha can't guess whooooo!

Warnings: none yet that I can think of, but I'll letcha know when anything...objectionable...comes up. Meheheh.

Disclaimer: I never have, do not currently, and probably never will own the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That honor goes to Mirage and all those fine people. I do, however, own a lot of comic books, action figures, DVDs and a Raphael plushie...but that's it, really.

Notes: just a bit of humor to try to lift my recent depression. I've actually seen a lot of the cartoon and read many of the comics now, so I have a better idea of what's going on...and also a slightly better grasp on the guys' personalities and quirks and such. I feel a little ashamed of my April/Don fic (Chernobyl), now that I've read #22 (V4) and know her real backstory, which is much cooler (and weirder) than mine...so, in addition to cheering myself up, I'm making amends. Enjoy my suffering!

A Turtle in King Arthur's Court

by Becky Murakawa

Issue 1!

- or -

Where'd you get those clothes, Donny?

I swear I will never again eat M&M and shrimp pizza before bedtime.

My (occasionally questionable) eating habits must be to blame for this; it's the only logical explanation. Good grief, I'm starting to sound like Donatello.

This place, frankly, defies all the...the rules of the Universe, or something along those lines. My current location, by the way, is in a shadowy corner of a tavern--melodramatic, I know, but I'm just not used to being able to wander about in the open unheeded by area humans. The fact is, the inhabitants of this place aren't human. My closest "neighbor" is a six foot tall badger, downing a pint of some alcoholic beverage and bantering lightly with his companion, a slender red salamander. I sip at my cider and observe, like a good little ninja. I didn't actually wake up in this place--

I can see I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me just start at the beginning.

My name is Leonardo. I am fourteen years old. I began life as a common pet shop turtle--

Oh, you already know that bit. Okay, then, fast forward a little.

Master Splinter has never been a stickler for bedtimes. So long as we aren't too noisy, he allows us pretty much free reign after hours--with the understanding that he won't go easy on us the next morning if we can barely stumble into the dojo due to lack of sleep. My usual nightly routine involves meditation until around eleven or so, after which I typically brush my teeth, say goodnight to Donny if he's still up (Michaelangelo almost without fail falls asleep in front of the television, and Donny, who stays up the latest next to Raphael, puts him in his own bed before retiring for the evening himself), and hit the hay. Friday nights, however, are an entirely different story. Friday nights are our Mikey-designated Horrifically Bloodcurdling Terror Movie Nights of DOOM! Don't be too put off by the long-winded, fanciful name; Mikey can't stand anything scarier than 'Frankenstein' without hiding behind the sofa. We generally just watch old black-and-white movies and gorge on pizza and pop. I think I fell asleep half way through 'The House on Haunted Hill,' a half-eaten slice of M&M and shrimp pizza on the coffee table in front of me, Mikey pressed as close as mutantly possible on one side, and Raph laughing sadistically and slapping my arm on the other.

'Yeah, fascinating,' I'm sure you're thinking. Just wait. It gets better.

I woke up to sunlight on my face and something itchy against my calves. We don't wear our masks or protective gear in the Lair, nor our weapons. Still, I reached for my katana instinctively. Of course, they weren't there. I got into a defensive crouch, ready to pounce.

The air was so clean and fresh it sort of hurt to breathe. All around me, rather than an endless maze of buildings and alleyways, were only recently plowed fields, as far as I could see. The stuff that had been tickling my legs was grass--a few tufts that had apparently managed to survive the plow. And the sky--it was the first time I had ever seen it unobstructed by the urban sprawl. So big! I stared up into it and it was like I was staring down into a bottomless bowl of almost painful BLUE. By now I had realized that nothing in the near vicinity was going to jump out and attack me--there was simply nowhere to hide in all that space!

"Where the shell am I?" I asked no one in particular.

"Camelot," replied Donatello matter-of-factually.

I whirled around, madly relieved to hear my younger brother's voice--so relieved that I'm afraid I completely lost my cool. I enveloped him in what must have been a shell-bruising hug. He quickly pushed me away and began efficiently brushing off his robes.

Robes?

Yeah, robes.

They were royal purple, obviously expensive, and obviously not ours. The chances of Master Splinter having found four meters of soft, silver embroidered velvet with amethysts lining its hem in our typical supplies-base--the garbage of NYC--without telling any of us, were very slim. Still, it was unmistakably Donny, with his raised eye-ridge and that insufferable expression that just screamed 'I know something you don't know!'

"Where'd you get those clothes, Donny?"

He blinked. He was acting strangely cold, considering the fact that we were standing in the middle of unfamiliar territory with no idea how we'd come to be there...or, at least, I had no idea. He had given the place a name.

"Camelot?" I said, before he could answer my first (actually, second) inquiry. "What d'you mean, 'Camelot'? Like, Knights of the Round Table-Camelot? Excalibur-Camelot?"

"Do you know of any other?" he replied quizzically.

"Well, no. Look, Donny, we have to return those clothes wherever you got 'em--I'm not mad, honest--"

"I should hope not," he said indignantly. He evaded my hands neatly. "Imagine, a lowly farmhand having the nerve to even propose becoming angry with me." He said 'me' like it deserved to be in capitals. Like it was a title created especially for him. He was really starting to get on my nerves.

"Donatello," I said sharply, losing patience. "Explain yourself."

He immediately crumpled. "Look, I'm sorry. The arrogance is part of the job description. I'm really trying here! Oh no!" He sighed hopelessly. "Now I'm feeling sorry! If my superiors find out, I'll be demoted! Please--please, let me do my thing, and don't interrupt!"

Feeling that I was unlikely to get any information out of him any other way, as he was on the verge of shorting out some internal wires or something, I cautiously nodded my go-ahead.

"Thankyouthankyouthankyou!" He coughed once. "Where was I, exactly?"

"My nerve in having proposed becoming angry with you," I said dryly.

"Ah, yes." He swept his extravagant robes around him. It reminded me a little of Batman. Or Dracula. "...With me, the great Magician Donatello."

"Do tell," I said.

"Oh, you're really interested?" he said eagerly. "Honestly, farmboy, I wasn't being entirely truthful when I said we were in Camelot--technically, we are only on the outskirts. I am heading there, myself, to train under the great Merlin! My superiors sent me forth from the township of Chell last spring!"

"Ah," I said, head spinning. I was obviously dreaming. "Is Chell very far away? You've been on the road quite a while, Don."

"Um...actually. No. It's not...far, exactly. Quite close, really." My brother shifted nervously under all those robes which, now that I thought of it, he must have been very uncomfortable in. It was a warm day. "I--the truth is, I have a terrible sense of direction, and I've been hopelessly lost." He paused to reflect on his last statement. "Of course, being the wise Magician that I am, I was intentionally hopelessly lost. And, before I forget--I have an awful memory, too, though it's awful on purpose, you know--"

"Of course..." This Donatello had the same habit as my Donatello of rambling all around the point he was trying to make.

"--how do you know my name, farmboy? I mean, how did you know it before I said it? Are you--" He gasped. "Could it be that you possess latent magical talents as of yet untapped!" His eyes went wide with excitement. "Statistically, it is unlikely, but I have to say, if I were to discover raw Magician material here in the boonies--or perhaps you are the last descendant of the extinct Atlantians! Oh, what a find!"

I grabbed him firmly. He was too lost in Donny World to complain. "Donny. Calm down, okay? I am, in fact, not a 'farmboy', as you keep assuming. I am..." I hesitated. What if I ripped a hole in, like, the Space-Time Continuum or something?

"Atlantis..." Donny said dreamily.

"I am dreaming all of this," I said coolly. "You are a figment of my imagination. A product of M&M and shrimp pizza and 'The House on Haunted Hill'."

"Dwah?" said Donny intelligently.

"In the real world, you are my little brother. We are training in the art of ninjitsu under our sensei, Splinter. At this very moment, if the movie we were watching is, as I suspect, over, you are in your workroom tinkering with an old telescope you found in the junkyard last week with Master Splinter. You do not wear royal purple, silver embroidered, amethyst hemmed robes. And you do not even believe in magic."

"It's all right, farmboy," said Donny after a moment's silence. "You are obviously quite mad. Possibly, you have dreams of grandeur. You probably think you are Prince Raphael, am I right?"

My heart skipped a beat. "P-prince? Prince? Raphael is--is--!"

"Oh, don't tell me he's one of your 'brothers', too," Donny said disbelievingly.

"He--he is!" I frowned. This was my dream, after all. Why didn't I get to be prince? Not that, I had to admit, Raphael wouldn't make a great prince. He had the imperious, I-know-better-than-thou-so-shut-the-hell-up attitude down pat. Third-in-command. My second. My brother. Just thinking of him made me break out in warm fuzzies, which had never happened before. It was probably the damned wierdness of this entire dream. I knew I had to see him, and now.

"Listen," I said to Donny, who was staring at me, fascinated. "Take me with you to Camelot. That's where Ra--er, Prince Raphael lives, right?"

"Yes!" said Donny cheerfully.

"Can you get me into the castle?"

"No!" he said, just as cheerfully. "I think," he explained, "that you might try to assassinate the Prince. You're mentally unstable."

"No, I--" I rubbed my forehead. The sun was high in the sky now, and the heat was giving me a headache. Donny was sweating under those heavy robes. "I was...testing you. You see, I am actually...er..." I thought back to all the Medieval-period books I had read, mostly for the chivalry, which reminded me of bushido. "...I am of a noble but poor family. My father, Splinter, sent me to Camelot to train under a real knight." I racked my brain. "And, um, I heard along the way fantastic tales of a great Magician called Donatello, who has enough power in one finger to blot out the sun! I recognized you as soon as I saw you," I said to Donny, who flushed with pleasure. "But of course, in these times of great tribulation, I had to be sure that you were no mere impostor in the guise of the mighty Donatello. Thus all my misleading words. However! Now I am sure of your identity, and mine has been revealed to you...so, er, to Camelot?"

Donny shrugged, hoisting up his robes. He's actually a little shorter than I am, and they drug the ground. "To Camelot, then!" He paused. "What's your name, by the way?"

Weird as shell, coming from the brother I've known all my life. "Leonardo," I said awkwardly.

"Hm. Leonardo. Leonardo." He said my name like he was tasting it. Apparently, it passed muster. "All right then, soon-to-be Squire Leonardo! As they say, onward ho!"