I wrote this about a year ago with an entirely different starting intent — I keep trying to write a librarian story, and the idea in my head keeps morphing into something else the moment I start typing.  This time it turned into an insane fantasy/chick lit/Arthurian pastiche that was so far from the rather dark, serious, non-Arthurian idealet I started with, I have no idea how this even happened.

But I think it’s kind of fun.  Happy Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.  I hope you enjoy.

The Faire, Ophelia, and Ranulf
By Jenna Waterford

As she glared at the gap in the shelves, Ophelia knew she could not allow this to stand. The request list for the missing book kept growing every day. She couldn’t understand how such a rare book had come to be checked out in the first place.

Tasha trailed after her, still trying to distract her friend and get her to take a break so they could gossip about the new security guard. “It’s just an overdue book, Lia.”

Ophelia turned on Tasha, drawing herself up to her full 5-foot one-inches—plus three more inches of high-heel—to glare at her friend through her side-swept bangs. “In all my years as Librarian in Charge of the Special Collection, we have never had an overdue book!”

Tasha coughed into her fist, “Drama witch.”

“What,” Ophelia demanded, “did you call me?”

“What’s she upset about now?” Ranulf asked. He appeared between them, leaning against the shelf. His pointy ears stuck out through his mussed, dark hair.

“Stop it!” Ophelia slapped at his arm. “You’re messing up the books.”

“Bloody hell,” the elf mumbled. “What’s the matter this time? ”

“Missing book,” Tasha informed him.

Ranulf’s eyebrows rose, disappearing beneath his mop of hair. “Well, that’s a new one, isn’t it?”

Ophelia shoved past her friends and stomped back to the reference desk. Without a word to the pixie waiting there, she conjured a scroll from its place in the sub-basement archives and into the girl’s hands, then spun back to the terminal and attacked the keyboard. The pixie hesitated, her mouth half-open around her request, then she glanced at the scroll, shrugged, and returned to her study table.

“Here he is, the bastard!” Ophelia exclaimed. Ranulf shushed her but moved to where he could look over her shoulder at the information.

“Oh, Lia, my dear.” He shook his head. “You aren’t getting that book back.”

“I will,” Ophelia insisted, but her confidence and fury had already faded in the face of this revelation.

“Well, my break’s over now.” Ophelia gave Tasha a guilty look, but her friend only asked, “So who has the book?”

Ophelia wilted a bit more, her expression going from guilty to mournful kicked-puppy.

Ranulf answered with her, his own expression a bit more nervous than Ophelia’s. “Merlin.”

#

“We have to try,” Ophelia insisted hours later as she and Ranulf finished closing the department for the night.

“You can try,” the elf retorted. “But I don’t fancy being locked up in a tree.”

Ophelia finished activating the security spell on the western stacks and turned her certified, scare-the-teenagers look at him, hands on hips and a stormy wind blowing around her.

“Please.” Ranulf waved his hand as if brushing away a fly and Ophelia’s theatrics faded. “As if that’s going to work on me.”

Ophelia shrugged and tried another tactic: big sad eyes.

A disgusted sound rumbled from the elf. “Stop that.”

“It just isn’t fair,” she sighed. “He thinks he can get away with anything—”

“Because he can!” Ranulf agreed. “He’s bloody Merlin, all right? He’ll bring the book back when he’s good and ready and not before. We’ll just have to wait.”

“You think he will bring it back?” Ophelia looked suddenly hopeful.

Ranulf’s resistance faded a little. “No,” he admitted. “Merlin wouldn’t bother.”

Ophelia shook her. “He’ll just toss it aside, and no one will ever be able to read it again. The only copy—”

“I get it, Lia,” Ranulf grumbled.

“In the whole world—”

“You’ve made your point.”

“Parallel worlds included!”

“Okay! All right! Fine!” Ranulf grabbed his coat from the back of a chair and yanked it on with intent. “Let’s go.”

Ophelia hurried away to retrieve her own coat, bright mango-yellow bag, and trailing scarf which Ranulf suspected he’d get yelled at for stepping on at some point during their quest. When she reappeared, she had her cellphone to her ear and was nodding distractedly while flailing to try to get an arm into her elusive coat sleeve. With a resigned sigh, Ranulf helped her into it as she kept on talking.

“I got a sample at Sephora last week, too! Thanks, sweetie. I’ll call you if we run into trouble.” She snapped the phone shut and dropped it into her bag then turned a bright smile on her friend.

“Tasha suggested I call in a favor, so now we have a back-up plan.”

Ranulf didn’t feel as relieved as he knew she’d intended. Ophelia’s plans were often of the sitcom-disaster variety, but it was too late to back out now.

But not too late to try and mitigate the looming disaster. “Involving Sephora?” Ranulf asked as they emerged from the fluorescent-lit library into crisp autumn night.

Ignoring him, Ophelia held up her compact mirror to catch the moonlight. “Hold on.” She waved her hand at him as if he’d been about to wander off. “I think I have him.”

Ranulf huddled beside her and peered into the tiny mirror. “What the—”

“See that?” Ophelia pointed at something off to one side of the reflection. She snapped the compact closed triumphantly. “I know where he is!”

“It looked like a hovel to me.”

“Yes!” Ophelia agreed. “But what kind of hovel? A semi-permanent structure with convenient concession stands and an adjacent string of port-a-potties, perchance?” She grabbed the elf’s hand and marched away across the lawn, the stiletto heels of her Italian shoes sinking into the dirt with each step.

“Is this all just an elaborate scheme to get me to take you to the faire?”

Ophelia didn’t answer or even slow down.

Ranulf tried again. “I keep telling you, once you’ve lived through the Renaissance, a faire just doesn’t have the same attraction–” But then understanding caught up with him.

He zipped through reality to stand in front of Ophelia, forcing her to stop. “You mean he’s here? In Ash Harbor?”

Ophelia seemed surprised by his question. “Of course. He’s a visiting lecturer at the university.” She took off across the lawn again, scarf fluttering after her like a royal banner. “You know only residents can check books out, silly.”

“I thought he just came to town for Tasha’s party! He always says we live in the ass-crack of beyond!”

Ophelia’s lacquered nails flailed in the air. “He’s also always looking for ‘the once and future king.’ At Tasha’s party, he kept telling Nimue and me about this idea he has that Arthur’s returned again—I guess she’s a lit major this time.”

Ranulf stopped walking long enough to sputter out, “She?” before another, more worrisome question occurred to him.

He ran to catch up with her again, flitting past the last few yards so that he could appear in front of her once more. He caught her shoulders, and she stumbled to a stop, obviously irritated.

“Lia? What’s the name of the overdue book?” He felt as if he must have gone quite pale.

She arched a well-shaped eyebrow at him. “The Arcane Rituals of Global Investiture by Ambrosius Aurelianus.”

“Damn it!” Now it was Ranulf’s turn to stomp away. “You never paid attention in our Inter-textual Analysis and Safety class, and now look what you’ve done! You’ve loaned that book to bloody Merlin!”

Ophelia stiffened with outrage. “I object to the insinuation that we should deny any patron access to whatever materials he or she reques—”

“Stop it!” Ranulf barked. “Service is one thing, but he wants to bring back Arthur and rule the world again.”

“He didn’t rule the world before—” Ophelia protested.

“Damn right, he didn’t, but it was a lot of hard work to stop him, and I don’t want to go through that again.”

Ophelia blinked at the elf. “How old are you?”

“Never mind,” Ranulf mumbled. He caught her arm, and they headed off across the lawn once more. “Let’s go get that book back.”

#

“These places always look so creepy after dark,” Ophelia complained. Ranulf hunched his shoulders, trying to disappear inside his coat.

They’d been waved through the turnstile without having to pay the entrance fee, but it was late and almost no one else was around aside from the employees and hucksters.

As they passed beneath the welcome arch, Ranulf felt the cloth beneath his fingers change, and he looked down, resigned, to see his elegant warm coat and wool suit changed into…

“Jester jerkin! Oh, that’s great, Ran,” Ophelia enthused. She looked down at her own colorful ensemble and made an attempt at stomping her foot which was thwarted by the intersection of stiletto heel and straw-strewn dirt path. “Why don’t I get an outfit?” she grumbled as she tried to pry her heel free.

“Apparently, it’s already suitably…” Ranulf’s voice trailed off as he noticed the single change the costuming spell had made to Ophelia’s ensemble. “Were you wearing a tiara already?”

She reached up to check and smiled in delight. “I hope I get to keep it.”

Ranulf crossed his arms and tilted his head to one side in an attempt to be severe, but was forced to close his eyes for a moment to gather patience as the bells at the ends of various bits of his hat all jingled. “Are we here on business or not?”

“Fine.” Ophelia’s smile switched off. “Let’s go.”

Following in her subdued wake, Ranulf felt a little guilty, but he felt worse when they passed the pub, packed and noisy and as rowdy as a real medieval pub just before last call. It made Ranulf a bit homesick for distant times when an elf didn’t need a day job but could just be… an elf.

“Not there.” Ophelia flipped dismissive fingers at the building. “Not there, either,” she continued as they passed the empty archery range. “Not there— Ooo! Pretty!” And she was away.

Ranulf jingled after her and caught up at the kiosk. A young woman sat on a stool beside the cash box, her nose almost against the pages of a heavy-looking textbook. Ranulf wondered how she could read anything in the dim light.

He turned to see Ophelia darting around the various crafty bits hanging all over and around the kiosk, and he pointed to one dangling almost in his face. “Would you like this… thing?” It consisted of circles of colored glass all strung together on a long, randomly-twisted copper wire and demonstrated all the design intent of someone running over a shop-class project with a lawn mower.

“That’s a sun-catcher,” the student said without looking up. Though she had on full-wench garb, there was something not quite right about her look; possibly the blue-striped black hair.

“So, where’s Merlin?” Ophelia turned a bright, professional smile on the girl.

The girl looked up, her black-rimmed eyes already in mid-roll. Her nose-ring glinted in the ubiquitous twinkle-lighting. “That guy’s nuts. He keeps saying, ‘Don’t you want to rule the world?’ and I’m like, ‘No! I just want to pass bio.’” She rolled her eyes again. “Duh.”

Ranulf recognized Ophelia’s slow blink as an attempt to rein in her impatience. “That’s very… annoying of him, yes. So… Where is he?”

“‘But soft!’” a new voice called, and Merlin sparkled into existence in front of them. Ranulf felt an eye twitch as the sorcerer caught up Ophelia’s hand and tried to kiss it.

Ophelia snatched her hand away and swatted Merlin with her handbag. “You jackass! You never called after Tasha’s party! And now you’ve stolen my book.”

Merlin arched an eyebrow as if he’d been practicing all his life to perfect the expression. He ran long, elegant fingers through his rumpled, and professionally-streaked, dark hair. He wore torn-up jeans, a beaten-leather biker jacket, and dark sunglasses.

“Shit, man,” Ranulf said. “You look like Neil Gaiman.”

Merlin nodded as if he were high and smiled. “You like it?”

“Not particularly, no.”

“Shut up!” Ophelia interrupted. “Where. Is. My. Book?”

Merlin patted her hand “I’m not done with it yet, sweetheart. The king— Sorry, her majesty, Queen Arlen and I have need of it.”

The kiosk girl gave a disdainful snort and turned a page of her book, not bothering to look up. “I’m not yanking nothing out of a stone. That’s just stupid,” she said. “If I were Arthur, I’d be getting my sword from the Lady of the Lake. Or, maybe since I’m a girl, from the Lord of the Lake. Not from some big old rock or whatever.” She did look up then, her eyebrows raised in an unspoken request for validation.

Ophelia nodded at this and turned expectantly back to Merlin. “Arlen makes a valid point. The stone thing is really stupid. So he-man.” Her voice went sing-song. “‘Oh, look! I’m so strong! I can pull a big old knife out of hunk of rock. Ooo.’”

“That’s what I mean!” Arlen gave Ophelia her first genuine smile.

Merlin yanked off his sunglasses to better glare at Ophelia and the girl. “The entire point is that strength isn’t what makes him able to pull the sword out—”

“No, we get it,” Ophelia said.

“Right,” Arlen agreed. “It’s one of those Freudian slippy things.”

Merlin looked horrified. “No it isn’t! It’s just a sword!”

Arlen continued, clearly warming to the topic and enjoying having an audience. “The Lady of the Lake thing is a much more feminine metaphor—born of water and all that. I like it.” Merlin perked up a little, but her next words deflated him again. “And if I was even going to do it—which I am not—that would be the way to go. But nothing good ever happens to Arthur.”

“He gets to be king,” Ranulf pointed out.

Arlen shook her head. “Not worth it. Everyone betrays Arthur, and he tries to do good, but they ruin it all. And his wife cheats on him with his best friend—”

“It’s the cycle!” Merlin protested. “The classic story of good and evil and love and betrayal, and this time, we’ll get it right—”

Arlen gave him a very dubious look. “Well, I’m not having a kid with my brother. Ew.”

Ophelia handed the girl a twenty dollar bill and took the wad of copper and glass from Ranulf. “You can keep the change,” she said, and the two women again shared pleased smiles.

“You’re welcome or whatever.” Arlen grinned. “Love your shoes.”

“Thanks!” Ophelia’s smile switched off the moment she turned back to Merlin, but she was already dragging him away from the kiosk and deeper into the Faire. Ranulf jingled after them.

“So you won’t be needing that book,” Ophelia told him once they were out of Arlen’s earshot. “And I want it returned. Now.”

“Lady of the Lake or whatever,” Merlin muttered. He put his sunglasses back on and gave Ophelia a snarling smile. “She isn’t the only Arthur out there. I just thought I had the best shot with her.” He threw his arms out, exasperated. “Kids!”

“You have got to stop this,” Ophelia said, hands on hips. “You’re wasting your life! Why don’t you just get tenure somewhere and write a book?”

Merlin fumbled in his pockets until he found his cigarettes. Ranulf knew even before he did it that the sorcerer would tear off the filter and light the end with his finger.

“Hack,” the elf mumbled.

Smoke streamed around them as Merlin’s waved his arm for emphasis. “What is so wrong with wanting to make the world a better place?”

Both Ophelia and Ranulf stared at him, eyebrows raised in dubious consideration of this question.

“By reinstating absolute monarchy?” Ophelia asked.

Ranulf added, “An historically-failed absolute monarchy?”

“I’ll get it right one of these times,” Merlin insisted and took a long drag on his cigarette.

“Okay. That’s it.” Ophelia began rummaging in her purse. “I didn’t want to have to do this, but you’ve forced my hand.”

Merlin blew out a mouthful of smoke, but it billowed over and around Ophelia without reaching her face. Lightning crackled in her hair as a sudden gale blew the smoke back into Merlin’s face. Ranulf wasn’t so lucky and dissolved into a paroxysm of coughing, the bells on his hat adding their cheerful chorus.

Merlin blinked and swallowed a small cough of his own. “It’s just an overdue book, Lia,” he said, scornful. “Lighten up.”

Ophelia held aloft a tiny glass vial which sparkled in the faint twinkle-and moon-lighting. She said aside to Ranulf, not seeming to notice he was still choking on the smoke, jingling all the way, “And to think when Tasha suggested I call Nimue before we left, I thought she was overreacting!”

Merlin’s cool melted. “Ni—Nimue?”

Ophelia smiled. “You didn’t call her after Tasha’s party, either.” She aimed the tiny vial at Merlin’s face and spritzed the air.

The sorcerer’s protective shield didn’t seem to work against this onslaught, and he backed away, hacking from the combined pollutants. “What—?”

“This?” Ophelia asked, all innocence. She held up the bottle again as if displaying it on QVC. “It’s Calvin Klein’s Beguilement for Sorcerers.”

Merlin fumbled inside his leather coat and pulled out a stained, battered volume which he held out to Ophelia beseechingly. “I’m done; take it!”

Ophelia ignored the wildly waving book, her foot tapping as she examined her nails. “There’s a fine.”

“Damn it!” More fumbling, then two dimes arced through the air. Ophelia caught them neatly and snatched the book from Merlin’s hand just before it slipped through his fingers. He’d already begun to fade.

“Thank you!” she sang as he disappeared completely. She turned her brightest of smiles on Ranulf whose eyes were still streaming from his coughing fit.

“That was your back-up plan?” the elf managed.

“I wasn’t sure it would work,” she admitted. “But I knew you’d think of something if it didn’t.”

He sighed, the bells on his hat jingling mournfully, and held out his arm for Ophelia. She accepted, and they turned back toward the entrance.

“This was fun!” She gave him a little hug with one arm while she held the recovered book to her with the other.

A smile turned up the corners of Ranulf’s mouth as they crossed the faire’s entrance portal and his own clothes returned, the jingling fading away as if in farewell. He met Ophelia’s happy gaze and returned her smile as he saw that she still wore her tiara.

“It was fun,” he agreed. “But next time, let’s just go to a movie.”

# # #

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