A Week with a Prince

𝕬𝖚𝖙𝖍𝖔𝖗'𝖘 𝕹𝖔𝖙𝖊

Once again,

Now, the story is really complete, doubled in length from where I left off for the ONC.

HUGE thank you goes to you, who came back promptly with your great, invaluable comments the moment I was finally allowed to start publishing again after the ONC judging was over, your comments helped me to keep writing!

And here's the summary of the story, explaining my world a little better :)

𝕾𝖚𝖒𝖒𝖆𝖗𝖞:

This story, a romantic comedy- coming of age- medieval fantasy retelling of the Arthurian Legend, unfolds in an alternate, fantastical kingdom of Great Britain.

The British Isles are divided in three main realms-- Albion (England), where King Leodegrance rules, Caledonia (Scotland), belonging to Uther Pendragon and Combrogia (Wales), of King Gwynedd-- and many other, smaller and less important kingdoms.

King Gwynedd and Prince Arthur are two men competing for King Leodegrance daughter's hand, knowing that marrying Princess Guinevere (Ginny) and uniting two of the three major kingdoms would give them the chance to eventually unite the whole of Great Britain.

The only other option to do that, according to the old tales of the bards at least, would be to pull the legendary Excalibur from the stone where it waits in the ruined castle of Tintagel in Albion. However, many men have tried and none has ever succeeded...

Attempting to get the Sword is the excuse of Prince Arthur, disguised as his best friend and First Knight Sir Lancelot of the Lake (who accompanies him, pretending to be Prince Arthur), to come for a week-long trip to Albion-- a welcome break from the constant threat of the Saxon troops, who are gathering on the northern shores of his father's land, getting ready to invade the kingdom yet again.

The two travellers get themselves a guide and a bodyguard for the trip-- Sir Garreth of Warwick (who doesn't know yet that he is a son of a great wizard, and thus a wizard himself), and Sir Geoffrey of Avalon (Princess Guinevere in disguise).

The simple trip (staged by the future royal couple's fathers and Ginny's aunt Ealasaid, to give them a chance to meet before the wedding), becomes quickly a tangled adventure, a tale of a first, and forbidden love, in which the princess's disguise is discovered too soon, making her assume the identity of Lady Gwendolyn, who falls desperately in love with 'Sir Lancelot'.

Knowing that she is promised to marry Prince Arthur (who really is Sir Lancelot--she doesn't know about the exchange), who only has his eyes for her cousin Garreth, Ginny suffers greatly as her feelings for the 'wrong man' (who really is Prince Arthur) grow.

Everything gets even more complicated when it is Ginny who pulls the Excalibur from  the stone, and is left in Tintagel alone with her cousin (who is as ignorant about the real identities of their companions as herself), as Arthur and Lancelot dash off into a battle on dragonback...

Following her beloved 'Sir Lancelot's' plea, the princess returns to the safety of Windsor, her father's castle, but doesn't stay put for long. The news about her having the magical Sword spreads fast, and King Gwynedd decides to pursue her, and to force her to marry him, instead of joining the army in the battle against the Saxons in Celidon Wood.

With the help of the wizard Myrddin (Merlin)--her cousin's father-- she flees first to Warwick to her aunt, then to a convent on the Island of Glastonbury, and when King Gwynedd follows her there too, to the legendary Avalon, existing in a parallel world shrouded in the mists, in the same place as Glastonbury.

Here she is trained to become a worthy High Queen of Britain, persuaded to drop her dream of marrying 'Sir Lancelot' and accepting the unpleasant idea of becoming the wife of King Arthur, who, according to her, is in love with her cousin Garreth.

Everything changes again when Ginny finally returns to the world in which Arthur is waiting for her impatiently, and finally learns the truth, that she is destined to marry the only man she had ever loved.

She is also destined to follow her beloved king and husband into a battle with her Excalibur. It is Queen Guinevere whom their army follows against the Saxons in the Battle of Mount Badon.
She gets injured, but Arthur saves her life at the last moment.

Once she recovers, the Saxons are long gone, and peace reins throughout their great kingdom. The day they both dreaded the most comes-- they must part with the Excalibur they both got used to so much.

And thus, choosing the happy future promised to them by the High Priestess of Avalon for returning the Sword once they no longer need it, they throw it into the waters of the Lake surrounding the legendary island.

In the long years of peace that follow, the Knights of Arthur's Company scatter around the world in search of the Holy Grail, given to Ginny by Arthur's half-sister Morgaine (Morgan le Fay) as a wedding gift. It vanishes from Camelot's chapel the moment they return the Excalibur to Avalon, giving the Knights, becoming bored and restless in the times without wars, a new purpose.

The only two who never abandon their friends are Garreth and Lancelot, living happily ever after in Camelot, along with Ginny and Arthur.

*I do not own the pictures.