Author: Triane
Disclaimer: Not. Mine. Except Iona. Everything else belongs to someone else.
Summary: Iona has a fireside chat with herself and makes up her mind.
It was dark when Iona woke up, and for one happy moment she thought she was in her own bed at home, and it had all been a strange, freaky, too-realistic dream. Then she realized she was outside, on the ground, by a crackling fire, with a searing pain in her shoulder, and her happy moment came crashing down around her.
"I can't seriously be in the Dark Ages with Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table!" There was a movement from across the fire, and one of the knights crouched beside her.
"Lady Iona?" Iona sighed and shook her head, pulling her mind out of English and into the Latin she never thought she'd have to use for real.
"I had hoped it was all a dream." The knight smiled slightly and helped her to sit up against a tree, handing her a water skin and solicitously rearranging the blanket around her so she stayed warm.
Iona winced as she stretched to test her muscles and gritted her teeth together.
"Are you in pain, lady?" Iona laughed, and then grimaced as she tried to lift her left arm.
"I am not accustomed to arrow wounds and falling out of trees." The knight chuckled.
"You soon get used to it in this land." Iona studied him for a moment in the firelight. He was darkly handsome, with curly black hair, strong features, and what seemed to be a permanent smirk affixed to his mouth.
"Fall out of many trees, do you?" His only response was to roll his eyes at her. She smiled.
"This is not your land?" He laughed again, harsh and bitter.
"No. The original inhabitants are the Woads – the people you saw fighting earlier. The Romans, Arthur's people, rule over it and keep the peace as best they can. We are Sarmatians, and our land is far to the east. We have been conscripted into the Roman cavalry for generations because of an ancient pact with our forefathers."
"How long must you serve?" His jaw clenched and he stared into the fire.
"Fifteen years. We have been here for almost twelve. Although I must say finding you has made it all worthwhile, lady." Iona could hear the bitterness underneath the smooth charm of his voice, and her lips quirked slightly into a smile. He'd charm the crown right off a queen.
"You are Lancelot?" He nodded, moved closer to her, and was about to say more when there was a movement beyond the fire. The knight who had pulled Iona from the forest stalked into view on silent feet and looked at Lancelot.
"Your watch." Without another word, he wrapped his cape around his body and threw himself down by the fire. Iona quirked her eyebrow at Lancelot as he rose, and he gave her a quick smile.
"Tristan." She nodded and watched until he was on the other side of the fire, about to walk into the darkness. He turned and bowed to her.
"I look forward to seeing you in the morning, my lady. Sleep well." Iona just rolled her eyes at him, and watched as he disappeared with a laugh.
Sleep didn't come, though, as Iona sat by the fire through the wee hours of the night. Not that she expected it. She was safe, as far as she could tell, and not alone to fend for herself in a…well, not a strange land, but strange enough. She wasn't dreaming, and she wasn't dead, so somehow she really had travelled back in time more than fifteen hundred years. The logic screamed at her, and she tried to reason her way out of and around her predicament, but always she came back to the beginning.
She was in Britain, around 464 c.e, and she was with Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.
Have to be careful, Ai. You don't know how much of the stories are true, or at what point these guys are at. You don't know if Guinevere is on the scene, or if Arthur has impregnated his sister, or if Tristan has found Isolde, or Lancelot found Elaine, or Gawain his Loathy Lady…or if any of what Malory and the other authors wrote is accurate.
She chuckled under her breath. Up until that point, she had immersed herself in the literature of the Dark Ages and medieval period like it was fiction, or based on a long forgotten or altered truth. Never in a million years did she think it was possible to see Arthur and his knights like they really were.
Well, no, because it isn't possible. How can it be possible? Iona rolled her eyes at herself and huffed under her breath.
You can chase the logic around and around, Iona. You can spend the rest of your life in disbelief. But that doesn't change the fact that you're in the past. So get over it, and move on.
The only thing she could think of, the only thing that remotely started to make sense, was that she had been hit by the truck, and that she had died. So this wasn't heaven, but it was a form of reincarnation.
So to get home, I have to die here? The logic was flawed, but then logic wasn't really logical right now. For instance, there was no guarantee she'd end up home again. She could end up surrounded by dinosaurs, or space ships, or something else entirely. Or she could just be dead.
So can I just get someone to kill me? Or does it have to be unexpected like the truck? She couldn't imagine that Arthur or any of his knights would be comfortable just hacking off her head if she asked, so she would have to die by accident.
Or I could kill myself. Well, she could keep that option open. Even uncertain about life like she was, she still clung to it enough to be put off by the thought of suicide.
Besides. I've wound up smack in the middle of what I teach. I'd be an idiot to not take advantage of it.
Finally, Iona's mind was settled, or as settled as it could be. So she wrapped the blanket tighter around herself and stared into the fire until she fell asleep.