Note: GUEST reviewers, please have the courtesy to at least make up a name, will you? Just using "Guest" is lazy as fuck.

Note to Jane on Chapter 37: Of course kids will call him "jerk-majesty"! It's too good to pass up, right?

Note to Mir on Chapter 38: Glad you like the chapter titles. And Camelot. I had to force myself to write it. Hook probably will end up in therapy, though I couldn't possibly write that any better than eleven19 in "It's Always Sunny in Storybrooke" so I think I'll stick to the AA meeting.

PART II

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

BLACK MERLIN

It just wasn't Lancelot's day... for the past 11,000 days or so. Sitting in his dingy cell, the demoted and formerly exiled Knight of the Round Table lamented his unfortunate situation.

He never should have left the employ of Snow White and Prince Charming, but he had never stopped worrying about Guinevere, and though Arthur had told him that she would be safe so long as he left, could one really trust a psychopath?

Lancelot hadn't known what to make of his old friend's change in personality. Oh, he'd eventually chalked it up to Excalibur, but then that said something quite troubling about the sword that was in legend forged by Merlin from the Holy Grail to choose only the king a kingdom truly deserved.

So, then he'd wondered for awhile if the people of Camelot were so horrible, doing such despicable things in secret that they deserved King Arthur.

Then he'd fallen in love with Gwen and everything had gone to hell!

Or to the Vault of the Dark One, anyway.

Long story short, he'd been exiled, spent a few years observing the people and rulers of other kingdoms, then decided once there was peace in the Enchanted Forest to try returning to Camelot.

Well, okay, it was more than that.

He'd come across a sorceress who could turn into a dragon who'd relayed a rumor that Excalibur was actually demonic not angelic and tied to the Dark One in some fashion. And if that was the case, then if he destroyed it, he could save his friend and kingdom and possibly the people of the Enchanted Forest as well.

Upon returning to Camelot, he'd pretended to pledge allegiance back to Arthur, saying he was no longer in love with Gwen, that it was only ever an infatuation. During that time, he'd discovered the King's amassed library on the true nature of Excalibur, troubling correspondences with Merlin's former apprentice that suggested the old white wizard was a bigot and a traitor, and worst of all that Arthur wasn't even Arthur but that his friend had been murdered long ago by a bastard king from another magical universe who'd traveled here with an equally psychotic magical scribe who'd used his magic quill and ink to physically transform him into Arthur and get him an unlimited supply of what was supposed to be long-vanished Avalon sand to mind-trick everyone while they "enjoyed" temporal limbo.

Lancelot had been ready to try leaving Camelot to seek out help when the Outsiders appeared. He'd intended to warn them at the ball that Arthur was not as he appeared, but in abandoning his post, he'd proven that he was not under the King's mind control and he was found out and thrown in the dungeon before Princess Emma was even announced.

The poor princess. He'd left before her birth, but he'd heard about the Evil Queen's threat, and, in all honesty, he hadn't a great deal of faith in her parents to stop it. They were his friends, but they were not very intelligent individuals. Which had been all the more reason to destroy Excalibur. If it destroyed the Dark One, it would also destroy the Dark Curse created by the first Dark One and ipso facto... everyone who deserved it would get their a happy endings!

So much for that plan, though.

"Need a little help?"

Lancelot's head shot up and he narrowed his eyes at the stranger outside his cell. "Who are you?"

"Merlin."

"You're Merlin?" Lancelot sputtered. "I thought Merlin-"

"Would be a wrinkled old white dude, not a handsome brother, obviously," nodded Merlin. "This kingdom is very racist. Look at poor Violet, Guinevere's cousin? Her mother was killed for being too 'ethnic' and her father is both too mind-controlled to care and too stupid to imagine that bravery and importance can be found in intellectual pursuits. He would rather his daughter marry a man she did not love who was known for breaking men's skulls on the jousting track than one who could chart the night sky and discover its secrets."

Merlin suddenly grimaced, then amended, "Speaking of dumb crackers, it seems my compatriots finally recalled they can summon me with Excalibur. Shall we?" He waved his hand, vanishing the cell bars and as he laid a hand on Lancelot's arm they were transported to the forest where Emma was seething at Hook over the now tattered and burnt flower he'd offered as an apology for tricking her and Neal was threatening to cut the both of them with the sword if they didn't shut up before they attracted Farther's knights.

Merlin cleared his throat loudly and they all startled.

"I was beginning to think it hadn't worked," said Neal.

"It simply doesn't have the immediate pull of its twisted half."

"Yeah, what's with that, anyway? Who makes a sword like that? It's useless for fighting."

"It's Demonic. It's not like I had control over it," Merlin pointed out.

"Who the hell are you?" Hook addressed their newcomer. "Wizard Boy's brother?"

"Yes, because all black people look related," scoffed Lancelot.

"Settle down, mate, I'm not racist! I just didn't see any other people of your... particular skin tone at the ball."

"And I suppose you thought I was under a Sleeping Curse for centuries while he was trapped in a tree?"

"Okay, okay," Emma stepped in. "Look, Hook isn't racist, he's just a dumbass who's killed half of his brain cells with rum and the other half with syphilis."

"It's true," nodded Merlin. "And whatever was left he stunted huffing pixie dust in Neverland which doubled both his randiness and his neurosis... on top of the effects of the drinking homemade rum and the syphilis. Which doesn't discount his being a border-line psychopath regardless of subsequent substance abuse problems and sexually transmitted diseases. He was simply a high functioning - or at least somewhat functioning - psychopath until he destroyed the non-deviant portions of his brain, thus reducing his potential to that of a lecherous alcoholic with stalkerish perversions and Attention Deficit Disorder."

"Attention Deficit Disorder?" asked Lancelot while Hook glared at the Wizard.

Merlin replied, "You remember Sir Durnure. Poor bastard couldn't ever make it through a meeting and would get distracted five minutes into a quest... usually by some busty farmer's daughter. He probably had syphilis as well, now that I think about it..."

"Hey, mates," Hook growled, "I function perfectly well in all respects, thank you very much. And I have charmed many a lass without alcohol or any sort of 'perversions'. I happen to be quite charming and poetic when the mood strikes! And I lifted King Crazy's sword, didn't I? I think that was quite clever of me!"

"In my experience," Lancelot retorted, "eloquent men are right every bit as often as imbeciles."

"Got that right," muttered Emma.

"Anyway," continued Merlin, "we were discussing Guinevere."

"No, we weren't," said Hook.

"We were supposed to be, before your idiocy got us side-tracked away from the primary focus of our mission," Merlin shot back. "Now, the Queen. I was going to use magic to take Lancelot to her," he said, with a sour look now at Neal, "before you summoned me back here."

"Yeah, doofus," tutted Hook.

"Yeah, well," Neal accused Merlin, "you just poofed away without explanation."

"It's not as though any of you were interested in listening when preoccupied by your asinine romantic problems."

"Asinine!?" they all exclaimed.

"Yes. I have more important things to worry about than who shagged whose kin when and why or left which of you for dead due to various emotional and psychological complexes," sighed Merlin in exasperation. "I know it must come as a shock to you, but being racially and economically privileged individuals does not mean your adolescent romantic troubles are more important than preventing the unleashing of an allegorical Hell upon this allegorical Earth.

"So," Merlin amended, looking rather like a scolding parent, "are you all going to shut the fuck up and help me get my kingdom back?"

AN: Two unrelated black characters in one scene AND neither of them were murdered!? Did your brain explode? Lancelot's dig at Hook "In my experience, eloquent men are right every bit as often as imbeciles" is what Tyrion Lannister said to Hizdahr zo Loraq after complimenting his eloquence in calling out Daenerys' hypocrisy regarding Meereen's self-determination in Game of Thrones "The Dance of Dragons". ("Black Merlin" is a nod to the Adult Swim show Black Jesus.)

Next up: If you're wondering why Emma didn't meet Merlin in Purgatory, it's so they could have a real life chat.