Rightwise
by K. Stonham
first released 23rd September, 2022

Douxie had been kicking back, scrolling through memes and flamewars on his tablet, when he saw the news.

He blinked twice, and opened tabs on a few of the more reputable news sites to double-check the veracity of the information. Because Tumblr was an excellent place to keep abreast of some things, but it was also full of shitposts that went viral.

...And, upon reading a few more things, it seemed that this was, indeed, legitimate news.

He sat upright. "Arch," he called, distracting his familiar from where he'd been crouched in front of a mousehole.

Archie looked up.

"Take a gander," Douxie said, flipping his screen around.

Archie read the headline, his eyes widening. "Oh my." He looked up, met Douxie's gaze. "Doux, is this...?"

"Yep." Douxie nodded. He took a deep breath and let it out. "I need to go find Jim."

Archie abandoned the mousehole, and his prey, and trotted along beside Douxie, down all the winding steps of the tower, across a courtyard where the apple trees were laden with almost-ripe fruit, and into the cool shade of Camelot's main hall.

They found Jim, in one of the empty rooms that Krel had converted into more-or-less holodecks. Blinky had cackled with glee upon being introduced to the technology, and had used it to recreate the Hero's Forge within the confines of Camelot.

"In fact," he'd said proudly, "I have improved upon it!"

The rest of them had been, and still remained, dubious about this claim of improvement.

"Made it even more homicidal, you mean," Toby had muttered. Which Douxie felt was fairly accurate.

Now, Jim was dodging scythes and flamethrowers, arrows and sawblades, while also dancing nimbly along the rotating floors, Excalibur in hand. Douxie watched for a minute. Seeing Jim in action was always a treat, his elegant economy of motion paired with absolute determination, but Douxie was usually in the thick of it next to him. Finally, though, he gave a sharp whistle to alert Jim, and moved to the control panel.

The OFF button was very big and very prominent. After the first time seeing Blinky's Improved Forge in action, Krel had made the failsafe even more obvious.

As the Forge shut down, tucking itself away before fading away into the magic-and-circuitry subspace pocket where it was stored, Jim dropped down to ground level and came jogging over to Douxie. His breathing was a little fast, but his hair wasn't even plastered to his head yet. "What's up, Doux."

"News from the world below," Douxie informed his liege, and handed over the tablet.

Jim looked at it.

Then he looked up at Douxie.

"Are we really doing this?" he asked.

Douxie shrugged.

"If you're going to," said Archie, "the time is now."

"And if we're not going to," Douxie said, "then we should send condolences. A fruit basket or something."

Jim breathed out a long, low sigh that was somewhere adjacent to unhappiness. "I hate politics," he complained.

"You, me, everyone sensible." Douxie shrugged in agreement. "What's that line-'We are men of action; lies do not become us'."

"Sounds good," Jim agreed. His eyes drifted back to the tablet; his mouth compressed into a line. "All right," he finally decided. "I'm not doing this without getting everyone's opinions first. Can you get everyone to the Round Table?"

"Of course," Douxie agreed, taking back his tablet with one hand, summoning his staff with the other.

"Great. Be there in ten." Jim jogged off, presumably to take a fast shower.

It was more like fifteen minutes before Jim came into the great room where the table was located, but his hair was still damp, so he probably hadn't lingered.

Krel was still trying to set up the connection to Akiridion-5, for the advice of the part of their contingent who dwelled there. "Of all the klebnathing mothers of-" he growled, glaring at his console. Finally he took a step back and kicked the unit.

The screen cleared instantly.

"Ah, percussive maintenance!" he said, clearly pleased, as an Akiridion palace operator came onto the viewscreen.

"Prince Krel!" she said.

"I need to be connected to my sister, the Pepperjack, Varvatos and Lady Nancy," he said. Rolling her eyes, Claire stepped forward and elbowed him in the side. "All right, all right, and the blond oaf," Krel amended.

"Of course, my prince. Just a moment," the operator said, bending over her console before disappearing. After a couple seconds, the viewscreen elongated and split: on one side, Varvatos Vex and Nancy Domzalski came into view.

"Nana!" Toby stepped forward and waved.

"Toby-Pie!" His grandmother leaned forward and reached out, seeming to try and pinch his cheeks. "Oh, you look so manly! Have you been eating right?"

"Yes, Nana." Toby's voice held a certain fond resignation. "You know Jim's a good cook, right?"

"Well, yes. But a grandmother worries, you know!"

The other side of the blue screen flickered to life, showing Aja and Steve cross-legged on the ground. Aja had one toddler stood on her shoulder, reaching for her hovering crown; her arms held two others. Steve had a fourth on his lap and one more tugging on his right ear. "Hello, little brother!" Aja said.

"Hello, Aja!" Krel replied. His gaze switched to Steve. "Hi, Steve."

"Hi-ouch!-Krel," Steve replied. "No, don't pull it off, Daddy needs that ear," he advised his offspring.

"Where is the Pepperjack?" Krel asked. "He should be on this call too."

"Oh, I'm right here!" Eli came into view, giving one more septuplet a piggyback ride, while the other swung in his arms. "What's up, guys?"

"Political bullpuckey," Toby told him.

"Language, Toby-Pie!"

"Sorry, Nana!"

Claire laughed. "The long and short of it is," she informed the Akiridion contingent, "is that Queen Elizabeth just died, so we need to decide if we're taking over the UK."

"She did?" Eli made as if to push up the glasses he no longer wore. "Wow, I thought she was like a vampire or something. You know, immortal."

"Apparently, nope," Jim told him.

Aja looked confused. "Why would you be taking over a you-kay?"

"It is a kingdom on Earth, my Queen," Varvatos informed her. "Ruled over by an elderly and fearsome monarch."

"Yeah, not so much that anymore," Toby told him.

"Why would you be taking it over?" Aja asked. "Does she not have a successor?"

"She does." Jim sighed. "But the thing is..." He made a face and turned to Douxie, gesturing: you take over and explain this to the -aliens- Akiridions.

Douxie smiled and nodded. "The thing is, there's a prophecy. It more or less states that whoever pulls Excalibur out of its stone is the rightful ruler of England."

Illumination spilled across Aja's face. "Ah! And you wield Excalibur."

"Exactly," said Jim, his expression stormy. Conflicted. "But I don't know if I want to be King of England."

"Ahh," the Queen of Akiridion-5 said, with perfect understanding. She looked sidelong at Krel. "Speaking as the one who did not abandon their duty to their people-"

"Hey!" Krel objected.

Aja smiled. "I am kidding, little brother. But," she said, returning her attention to Jim, "it is a weight. You are correct in that. But which would be worse of you? To take the throne of this nation and lead and protect it? Or to leave it to the one who claims it now?"

Jim frowned. "I don't know. I have the right... but do I have the obligation?"

Eli hummed. "There's a saying: 'You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it'."

"Neat," Steve said, twisting to look at him. "Is that Akiridion?"

"Judaism, actually," Eli replied.

"Gesundheit."

"It's a religion, Steve," Claire told him impatiently.

"So, what advice do you need?" Varvatos asked. He pounded one fist into another. "Or is it reinforcements for the coming battle you require? If so, Varvatos is willing and ready to aid!"

"If Jim should choose to challenge Charles for the throne, there should theoretically be little bloodshed involved," Archie put in. "Though I can't say how much of the kingdom would react to having an American teenager for a monarch."

"Hi, sorry we're late, there was a lot of traffic on the way back from the hospital when we got your call-" Barbara Lake hurried into the room, followed by her husband.

"What's the emergency?" Stricklander asked.

"Queen Elizabeth died," Claire informed him.

You could practically see the ex-changeling work through the implications as his eyes widened and darted to his stepson. "...My word."

"What? What's wrong?" Barbara asked.

Jim sighed, and summoned his blade to his hand. "Because of this," he told his mother, "I have a legitimate claim to the throne of England."

She stopped. Her eyes went wide and her jaw dropped. After a minute her mouth shut. She swallowed. "Well," she said. "Well." A small laugh. "Being the queen mother was never on my to-do list, but if this is what you want to do, Jim... go for it."

"I don't know if I want to do it," he told her. "That's the problem."

Stricklander coughed. "If I may?"

"Go ahead." Jim gestured with an open hand.

"England has colonized and subjugated numerous other nations. Many within Elizabeth's lifetime. The Crown itself is worth billions... while a portion of its people starve." A thunderous expression crossed the green face. "I would not envy you the task of dismantling the oppressive systems of a more terrestrial kingdom," Stricklander said, with a gesture around Camelot, "but it would be a task worth doing."

Jim sighed, his eyes downcast and his expression mulish. He was silent for a long moment.

When he looked back up, it was at Claire, and Claire alone. "Would you like to be Queen of England?" he asked her.

She smiled gently and crossed the room, linking her arm in his. "Only if you'll be my king."

"Uh, hey?" Toby waved his hand in the air. "Can I get a dukedom or something, while we're at it?"

Jim smiled. "Sure, Tobes."

"So we're doing this?" Douxie asked, to confirm.

Jim nodded. "Yeah. Let's go take Camelot home."

"All right! I will set the course," Krel said, turning back to the computers.

On Akiridion-5, Steve saluted. "Good luck, King Jim!"

"Do not hesitate to call if you need any advice," Aja told him.

"Bye, Jim!" Eli waved from the background.

"You should call Blinky, let him know what's going on," Douxie told Jim.

"I'll just pop out and rally Dad, shall I?" Archie asked.

Jim nodded. "You do that. England's big on dragons, right?"

"Sort of," Douxie said. "Meantime, I'll go put in a call to Nari. And..." He let out a sigh. "One to Lady Nimue as well. I suspect we may need her."

Author's Note: We had joked several months ago, in the Discord server, about how how pulling Excalibur from the stone made Jim technically the rightwise king of all England. Then the queen actually died (I was surprised; I expected her to live to at least a hundred, like her mother), and... well. This story happened. I sort of know what happens next, but I'm not sure I'll actually be able to write it. But, yes, Jim becomes King of England.