Page 120 of Long Live the King

They said, “Ash.”

And I gave up. I pulled out the chair, slammed the spike onto the table, and exhaled.

The young women began bustling around the room, building my fire, taking away my piss pot, while I chewed a piece of bread, staring at the wall. There was some cheese, a bit of fruit preserves, the bread was good and warm. My mug had some milk in it, warm, odd, not to my liking, but the bread was sticking in a lump in my throat, I needed the milk to wash it down.

The lump was threatening a long cry.

I pushed the food away, pulled up the spike and went over to the bed, placing it beside my pillow. I climbed into the old bed and pulled the fur and wool and heavy linen blankets over me. Fully dressed, I lay on my side, focused on my hands.

The young women left the room quietly.

It was mid morning and I was done with this, all done.

What was I going to do?

I needed to gather my thoughts, come up with a plan… but first I needed to figure this out. Did time travel exist?

He said I had time traveled. I didn’t know how, but let’s just say I had.

This dude, the king, Asgall… absolute stupid name… had seemed to know Lochie.

Lochinvar.

Was he a time traveler?

…

…

…

That would explain a lot, actually.

Lochie’s description of his life in Scotland had seemed kind of suspect.

His brothers all sounded like this king-dude.

Lochie’s uniform had a sword, he said he regularly fought, he wouldn’t say if he killed anyone… if I thought about his conversation from this perspective, a time traveler, his answers, his inability to answer, his mannerisms,oh my goodness, I remembered the poem. He had recited a poem for the whole bar.

I hadn’t been able to put my finger on the novelty of it, but that was… odd. It was the move of a guy who ‘didn’t grow up around here’ as my uncle used to say.

Around here.

So if I was in the past, in the year 1296, holy cheese and crackers, how would I get home?

Was I just waiting for king creep to impregnate me, bear him a son, and then he would let me go? What a nightmare.

Or was Lochie going to come rescue me?

His sister-in-law had said, “…call if anything weird…”

I had called — maybe she knew. This for sure had been what she meant, right?

‘Weird’ was equal to time travel...

They weren’t in the mob, they were time-traveling.

And I was seriously delusional, had read too many dystopian stories, had lost my mind.

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