Britannia, NY

Ivy's been grateful for Karen's help with the office--having someone to take over some of the secretarial duties is a relief, partly because she adores company and having someone else there is fun, and partly because she's been so distracted by grief lately that she knows she'd be making mistakes if Karen weren't there to take charge of organisation.

It's the end of the week, and she knows Ken's sister is coming to visit soon, but she's in a fairly disastrous frame of mind. When she finally locks up the office and heads over to the bar for cocktails--which generally cheer her ups, so reliably in fact that she has it budgeted into her monthly expenses under Mental Health--she's dragging her feet a little, and even banter with the bartender and the Friday night regulars she's casual friends with doesn't help.

The result is that she goes over her usual limit; she doesn't really notice until the bartender ruffles her hair and says he's cutting her off, and Ivy grins her usual impish grin to see if it will change his mind, but it doesn't.

So she gets back home around 7.00, carrying her heels by the straps. She tries to unlock the front door for a few minutes before she remembers that Ken's home, and it won't be locked to begin with.

Ivy has never had bad dreams before. She's probably the only person in Britannia with these memories who hasn't, and it isn't that she doesn't dream about it, just that her dreams are usually quiet, almost insignificant; her husband and children, her forest, happy or mundane things. But this night is different.

What she dreams about is Gawain dying, and how it ran through her body like an electric shock, like a lightning bolt striking a tree into flames, like a shovel thrust into the earth, like an axe blade into a trunk. It hurts: she wasn't there for it, but she felt it anyway, and it hurt like nothing else she ever experienced, and it hurts now.

Ivy has had little shields up to hide her magical activity for ages now, ever since she realised she had it. She doesn't shield herself from other people's, as she's trying to monitor Britannia's magic content a bit, but she tries to hide what she's doing from the sort of magical party line. When that death strikes into her, though, she retaliates with a piece of magic that's stronger than anything she's ever done before. It's like a replica of the same feeling, the same fierce piercing hurt, and anyone in the town and its outskirts who doesn't have shields of their own is going to feel it. It isn't subtle, it isn't pleasant, and it pretty much blows any cover she had going.

It doesn't wake her up immediately, though. That comes a few minutes later, when she sits up in bed and reaches for Ken frantically, feeling feverish and empty and no idea why.

Ivy is just finishing up her real work for the day and getting ready for Karen; she has some forms that will need signing, particularly privacy forms. She also hasn't been sleeping too great lately, which she can't really explain, but it annoys her.

On the other hand, someone in the office will be nice, as will having papers that actually are in the files they're supposed to be.

It is Ivy's birthday, and she is not remotely ashamed of the fact that it is one of her very favourite holidays. It's also a Saturday, so she doesn't even have to give herself the day off work, and she woke up very early in the morning to go out and buy ridiculous baked goods (cannoli and chocolate croissants) in Old Forge, then came home to make an offering to Kuan-Yin as part of her new daily ritual (her mother's suggestion, but Ivy is open to almost any idea by now, and her mother sets a great store by Kuan-Yin).

After that she heads out again to one of the greenhouses to buy plants--only flowers, because Ken always gives her a tree as a special gift on her birthday. She unloads things, then stops in at Cup of Tom for coffee before she goes back home.

She knows Ken is busy even on the weekends, so she settles down in the garden under one of the trees from one of her past birthdays, with a romance novel she's read about three times before and one of the croissants. It's shaping up to be a beautiful day, and she doesn't have any real plans.

Karen is having one of those mornings where it seems that nothing will ever go right. She was late getting in to work (her sleep is so mucked up at this point, she may as well not even try anymore), she broke two mugs, and she scalded her hand making tea for someone who just didn't seem to have the common decency to order coffee.

She's just finished her shift, and can't think of any reason she ought to go home. So she's staked out at Habitat, with a red eye close at hand, pretending to do the New York Times crossword. Even a Monday puzzle is too much, but it really doesn't matter, either way.

Ken, while often annoyed, is seldom angry. It's only happened a handful of times since she met him. But this morning, angry is the only word for his expression, for all its coolness and control.

He needs to have a word with his wife.

Ivy is beginning to have her doubts about this whole thing, but she owes it to Arthur, and to Ken now too, she thinks, so she makes sure Arthur gets the invitation and on Friday evening she gets home early, does her best to clean the house (or at least the first floor) to something reasonably decent, and brings home rib steaks for Ken to deal with.

A tiny part of her, more Ivy than Ragnelle, wants to impress the King, the High King of Britain, just a little. The only outward result of this is the fact that she's wearing the nicest dress that she can get away with for the occasion, Ken's favourite green one that looks like summertime and greenery and a kind of sweet eternity, and has her hair done up much fancier than usual.

Apart from that she seems no different from usual, ridiculously exuberant as she tumbles down the stairs shoeless and starts setting the table for supper.

It's her lunch break, and Elaine is writing. Or attempting to do so, at least; her focus just isn't happening today.

That happens, when you're scared of sleeping.

She almost feels like it's a Jekyll and Hyde sort of deal, these days. For all Cecilia says she shouldn't fight it, she hates not knowing what she's done, or what she's capable of doing. At least Lexi's gone away; a small part of her is hurt, but most of her is relieved, because Lexi made it worse. (And, of course, Lexi had hurt her, here-and-now her, but that wasn't really something she wanted to be thinking about either.)

She'd thought by now she'd be long gone. But she can't quite seem to go. Instead, she's sitting on a bench about a half block away from the store, with a notebook open in her lap, blank.

Ivy is tired, but on the plus side it's also getting nice, the weather turning warm and windy, and the trees putting out green shoots. That's enough to be getting her blood warm and swift-flowing, turning over in her body, and it makes her feel energetic and cheerful and ardent.

The latter of which Ken's been feeling the results of, but the rest of it is more than shared with the rest of the community; her clients are seeing even better results than usual, and she has a lot more patience with people being stupid.

She's on her way home from work. The fact that the sun is still out at five-thirty is thrilling, and she's swinging her tote bag of files cheerfully, her long hair blown out of her professional ponytail, and she looks beautiful in the yelloworange sundress under her working blazer.

The dreams have always come and gone, ever since he was young. Ken is used to that. He's accepted it, the way you accept you need glasses. As long as he gets enough sleep, he's never thought it mattered to his life. Of course, recently, he's worried about Ivy, about what it means that she dreams too, about her talk about magic.

Still. None of that braced him for this.

The dream tonight is more solid and real than any of the others have been. More solid and real than life is when he's awake. It's snowing, lightly, and he's waiting, cross and nervous, for his fool of a little brother to get back with his sword. It's his first big tournament, his first chance to test his skill against real knights. And his bloody squire couldn't be bothered to hold on to a sword. His father puts a hand on his arm for a moment.

"He'll be back in a minute," he says. "Just keep your mind on what you'll have to do when he does."

Wart comes running up, breathless, as if he's run all the way. He's still awkward angles, though he's sprung up to be just under Kay's own height in the last few months. "Here." He presents a sword that's not Kay's, which triggers more frustration. He reaches to take - probably wouldn't even be balanced right.

It's perfect. Elegant, much finer than any sword he's ever held. It seems to hum in his hand.

It's the only time he'll hold Excalibur as if he might use it.

Ken wakes up shaking and feeling more like the man that grew out of that boy than he ever has. He tries to get up without waking Ivy. He needs a drink.

It takes a lot to make Ivy angry, although it's been done periodically by foolish clients or foolish members of the justice system, and the occasional infuriatingly misogynistic romantic comedy. The recent burst of magic, though, has succeeded where lesser offences have not.

For the sixth or seventh time since Elaine first lit her candle Ivy has been awakened in the night by the prickle of new magic. She doesn't wake Ken. Instead she gets out of bed, goes quietly downstairs, out into the yard, and sets her hands against one of their tall trees.

She's not good at magic that's any bigger than keeping a sense of warmth in the house in winter, or sharing some of her strength with someone else, but she's borrowing from the tree, from all the trees in their yard, which know each other beneath the earth, in the deepest tangles of their roots. What she takes is enough to send a jolt down the spine of any unsuspecting practitioner without some sort of ward set up. It feels like lightning splitting an oak, and the message it leaves in its wake feels like rapid scrawled handwriting against the inside of your skull: For God's sake can't you be discreet?

All the power it takes leaves both her and the trees looking somewhat the worse for wear. She stomps into the kitchen weakly and fumbles in the refrigerator, looking for something to restore her energy. Big magic feels like getting hit by a truck.

Arthur is not the one who dreams.

Not usually at least.

Of all the people in Britannia, of all the people looking for who they were, and what they'd felt, and what they'd done... he knew all those things. The past was the only thing he felt like he had a firm grip on, these days.

Arthur knew who he was. He'd been the King of all Britain. He'd been the son of Uther, who'd united a kingdom, then failed to keep it from cracking along its faultlines. He was a man who'd loved and fought and hated and tried to rule well. He was a man who sentenced the woman he loved to burn at the stake, who'd not know what to do with the only child he ever had, who'd never seen the mind of the man he'd thought was his closest friend.

He knew that.

But tonight? It was near midnight, in the middle of winter. He was a nameless, countryless gardener with no legitimate past, who was standing in the middle of the park, staring at the cool, crisp stars. He didn't know what he needed, or what was needed of him. Even if it was nothing... knowing it would be a relief. Anything. Any action. He didn't want to be told. He wanted to know.

Instead, he was here. Frozen.

Ivy hasn't felt right since her encounter with Elaine, and to top it off, yesterday she and Ken went to see a new gynecologist in Manhattan. This one has even better credentials than the last one, and he did lots of tests, and he's going to call them with the results by Monday but she hasn't got any more faith in him than she had for any of the ones before--he's going to call back and say that all of her tests came up perfectly fine and there's no reason she shouldn't be able to conceive. They all say that.

She's just locking up the office, her tote bag of legal files under her arm as she turns the key. For someone who's usually a bundle of manic energy, it's hard to imagine her looking more subdued.

The encounter with Elaine has her jittery and displeased, and she spends the weekend fussing around the house uncomfortably, complaining about everything and rearranging all the furniture without warning Ken about it. By Sunday evening she's in front of the t.v. with her arms folded across her chest, staring at Sam Trammell on True Blood resentfully.

Elaine wasn't stupid enough to go to the Britannia library for information about magic. Nor was she going to trust anything she found on the internet. But her dreams, more and more vivid of late, had led her to two conclusions.

Firstly, that not everyone had the talent for magic, even back when Arthur ruled. If she hadn't had any natural ability, no matter how carefully she'd prepared the spell, no matter how powerful the charm, nothing would have happened. But clearly, it had worked, the magic if not the larger plan.

Secondly, she had no idea if magic would work at all anymore. But on the other hand... her past self and Lancelot were both apparently back from the dead, so her threshold for skepticism had changed quite a bit in the past year.

She'd not been dishonest - she had spent a lot of time writing, when she wasn't at work or at Gary's. But she'd also been ordering certain used books to be shipped to her home, studying and meditating and thinking a great deal. She'd made a plan, carefully. She knew that, if this worked at all, it wasn't something to be taken lightly.

It was a candle she'd start with. Lighting it without striking a match. That seemed both satisfyingly symbolic and of a modest enough scale. She waited until after sundown, though well before midnight, not wanting to tempt fate. Then she began to try.

For a long while, there was nothing much. Just enough to convince her to keep trying.

Then at about a quarter til midnight... the words seemed to turn to molten as she spoken them, pouring out between her lips in a heavy stream. The hair on the back of her arms stood up, and she felt an odd buzzing at her temples and in her fingertips. Then she finished the spell, and the candle lit, like a switch flicking on.

But Elaine didn't see that, because at the same moment, blinding pain knocked her to the floor and out of consciousness.

The candle burned down to a stub on the plate she'd luckily placed it on. All the other lights in the apartment being out, her landlord assumed she'd gone to sleep.

The candle guttered, and eventually went out a bit before the sun rose.

Open to concerned friends or those who may have felt a relatively small but noticable magical disturbance within the city limits. Her phone is on, or the landlord is available at the house itself.

The novel isn't going well. A week or two ago, sure, his agent had been ecstatic and he'd been all set to redefine the genre and make his millions and build a goddamned castle right here with the money...

… and then a week or two had gone, and he'd not sat down and put pen to paper or finger to keyboard. Probably because he'd been too busy stalking Lexi...

… and then it's today and said agent is hounding him for the first chapter and all he's got thus far is a sonnet about some guy in red armour and it doesn't even rhyme properly.

Shit.

Normally the best way to break writer's block is to get drunk and end up tangled up in the nearest amenable warm body, but knowing his luck they'd turn out to be Malehaut or Guinevere or something and he'd be even more screwed than he is now, and he doesn't need a new obsession (not, he thinks, that anything would measure up to Lexi-Lance-whoever, but he's not quite naïve enough to believe that finding her's undone the habits of this lifetime in one magic moment). Instead he's trying this 'going for a walk and clearing your head' thing, kicking his way through the first casualties of autumn – no, wait, they call it Fall here, right? Crazy damn yanks – like a little kid in wellies and a souwester except that he's a grown man in faded red knock-off Converse and a Prose before Hos t-shirt. The words probably aren't hiding under the fallen leaves, but they look pretty as they tumble around.

The brush with Nathan left him shaken, and Arthur had just left him plain angry. He'd never cared for being told what he should think, much less what he should want. And here were two... well, strangers in one sense, at least, presuming to know him better than he knew himself. He'd been in Britannia longer than either, been alive longer than either, for that matter.

But he realized he was too worked up over the whole thing. So he was cooking. Cooking usually helped, and even when it didn't, at least he and Ivy had dinner when he was finished. He was making lasagna, which was one he'd made so often it was nearly foolproof. Besides, he could use the opportunity to think of what he might do for their anniversary, which was much more pleasant than thinking about Arthur.

...a weekend trip away, perhaps.

It's five o'clock, and Ivy locks up her office on Sagamore Street and heads down the sidewalk towards Cup o' Tom, shouldering her tote bag full of legal work.

It's a windy day, the kind of day she loves, and she's humming to herself, her long blue skirt blowing around her ankles. It's nice to be able to get off work and go home without clocking out to anybody, nice to have picked her own hours, nice to have the kind of clients she has out here instead of the hectic inner-city cases. She likes feeling ordinary.

Maybe she'll run by the liquor store and get a bottle of wine to have with dinner. True, Ken is better at picking out wines than she is, but she knows enough, and it would be nice. Ivy taps her fingers with her pen and tries to decide whether it should be red wine or white wine, and then heads into the cafe instead.

Tiernay has settled in for the long haul at a little table by the window of the Round Table with her laptop and a legal pad.

She's working, but she's smiling, and glances up readily enough when someone comes near.