An Elegant Weapon from a more Civilized Age (OPEN)

[Gaston Jr]

He was back in Tintagel and it was time for some guilty pleasures.

He took off the many blankets he had wrapped it in and held it in his hands lovingly.

Staring at in awe he whispered, “hello old friend.”

Back in Camelot and even in the Summer Country, he had to keep things like this super quiet, after all, people could be super jumpy about anything they didn’t understand and besides he did not want another stern look off of Merlin. That stare cut deep. But here, in Tintagel, all the rules were different.

He flicked the switch, and the light came on with a ‘sssssshhhhhhhhhup’.

Then there was nothing but the gentle humming.

Closing his eyes, he started to swing the lightsabre about.

Heaven. Bliss. Nirvana.

This was why he was here, this is why he came back, this was why he put up with all the teasing and mocking from the rest of them (ok, mostly Mordred), for moments like this, where he could just kick back and swing the lightsabre about. After a while he found that he was even practicing some of the sword drills that Sir Lancelot had been trying to teach him. He was a great guy, a lot of patience, and didn’t seem to mind taking the extra five minutes to teach him how to fight…after all…his dad had all but given up on him in that respect, and Gaston Junior couldn’t really blame him. He was a disappointment. A massive disappointment.

His mum told him not to let it get to him, that he was brilliant at other things, like making people laugh and making other people feel good about themselves…but it still would be nice to swing a sword properly and not have his dad look at him with that disappointed grimace.

But there was no room for those thoughts here, right now, it was just him, the lightsabre and…

…was that footsteps?

[Nancy Panic]

It was a beautiful autumn day, the kind that begged you to take in the cool air and the periwinkle skies and bronze and gold trees, and Nancy wasn't exactly the type to ignore Nature's call. In fact, she took that call and raised them a squirrel. Right now she was climbing all over the trees, just to get a better look at the leaves, and...sometimes it was just nice to be smaller. Plus if she practiced now when there was no danger, HOPEFULLY she wouldn't turn smaller when something went wrong, like her father used to do, according to her mother.

Plus, another positive to being smaller was that squirrels were used to keeping a sharp ear out for strange noises, and that meant the hum that had literally nothing to do with Mother Nature practically struck her to the bones. She lifted her little head with a start, making sure she was hearing that right...but really, with a mother like hers, she'd know that sound anywhere.

She scurried down the tree so she wouldn't have to leap out as a person (she had done THAT before and wasn't about to do that again), and shifted back into a human, following the sound of the lightsaber...and sure enough, she caught sight of a young man, swinging one around.

With a very literal gasp, she blurted out, "Ohhh, I wish I had brought mine! Gods, I don't think I've touched it in years, what is WRONG with me?"

Unfortunately she only realized just how startling that probably was. Her eyes widened and she held up her hands. "I hope I didn't scare you, didn't mean to do that...I just really love Star Wars...I mean, I guess you do too, otherwise you wouldn't have one, right?" Annnnnnnnd it was then she realized she was babbling...great. Suddenly she VERY much wanted to turn into a squirrel again, but that wasn't going to solve matters, was it?

[Gaston Jr]

Gaston Jr had been lost in his own little world, filled with starships and jedi’s and perhaps one particularly scantily clad space princess when a voice from behind him made him jump. He yelped and nearly dropped the lightsabre causing him to comically throw it from hand to hand for a moment before eventually grabbing hold of it again with both. He then swung it round in the direction of the voice as if the plastic weapon would actually protect him from whatever it was that was sneaking up on him.

What was sneaking up on him, and ok sneaking maybe wasn’t the right word on account of she had sort of announced herself, was a young blonde girl, babbling about how much she loved Star Wars.

It took him a moment to realise that she wasn’t just mocking him and genuinely meant what she said, at which point he relaxed completely and grinned just as widely.

“Love Star wars?” he said and shook his head, “I don’t love star wars…I really love star wars!”

He was one step away from jumping up and down and squealing, “it’ sooooo good isn’t it! What did you think of the new one? And Rogue One! OH! So amazing!”

He held out his hand, “I’m Gaston, Gaston Jr.”

[Nancy Panic]

Honestly, while he was trying to stop himself from dropping the lightsaber, she was just standing there barely containing a pretty comical "YIKES!" expression...she did NOT mean to cause that. This sort of thing was why she was usually so shy, she really didn't mean to SCARE him. Was this sort of thing why her father was convinced he was just a horrible demon? Did he used to scare people like this?

...but before she could fall down too deep of an anxiety spiral, she realized that the boy was smiling, and agreeing with her...she almost had to giggle at how he had put it. She certainly knew THAT feeling, and while the boy wasn't jumping around, she could see just how much enthusiasm there was there, and she felt a LOT better about her own.

"I know, right?? And I ADORE the new one, I'm probably going to dress up as Rey sooner or later, and I've watched Rogue One about five times and I still cry at the end!"

Beaming, she accepted his hand and...there was something familiar about his name...had he been in one of her mother's stories? Well no, not him, she didn't remember a junior...oh well, she'd think of it eventually, she was sure...though why did she get this strange feeling her mother would be twitching if she knew the boy's name?

She shook his hand, ignoring that instinct, and answered, "Nancy Panic. And seriously, I'm gonna have to get a hold of my old lightsaber, you reminded me of how much fun they are..."

[Gaston Jr]

This was great, another person that liked Star Wars! So now there was him, Eddie, Meredith, Gwyn (sort of, he wasn't sure if she actually liked it.) and this person, who turned out was Nancy. She seemed super excited about it which was great, and infectious. It was just as well there was no one else around otherwise he was going to start losing some serious man points here.

Aw who was he kidding, he was on minus man points already.

"You cosplay?! That's amazing! So do I! And you should totally do Rey, you'd make a great Rey," he said motioning to her and smiling delightedly, "aw man! Maybe we could get a group of us! That would be really awesome. I mean Solo is my jam but I could branch out a bit."

A thought struck him and he said excitedly (and this time he did jump up and down), "you should totally go get your lightsabre now and we can have a duel!!"

[Nancy Panic]

"Oh yeah...it's actually pretty easy for me, I..." Then she thought for a moment, SHOULD she spring the shapeshifting on him? Well...this WAS Tintagel, and they WERE talking about a world where certain people could move objects with their mind and they were also in space...yeah, she was probably okay. Within moments, her hair turned a chestnut color similar to Rey's. She probably would have gone all the way, but that would be a LITTLE much. "I can do that. No wigs required...and thank you, that means a lot! And I'd LOVE to do this as a group, you kidding? And I can totally see you as Han Solo, you've got the right look for it, definitely."

Her eyes widened at the prospect of a full on lightsaber duel...oh but she was pretty sure it was back at home. "I would LOVE to, but I'd have to go through the portal and grab it, would you mind? I promise I'll be right back!"

[Gaston Jr]

Her hair just changed. Just like that. This would have been somewhat shocking for Gaston if he hadn't spent most of last month keeping Meredith company whilst she practiced her magic attempting something fairly similar.

"Awesome," he says cheerfully, "I have a friend that does magic, and an uncle, and...whatever Mordred is to me...a tormentor."

He shook his head, chasing away the images of what Mordred would do to him for even mentioning his name and let his easy going smile return. Besides, she was complimenting him now, "thanks, he's my favourite. You should totally come to the next convention with us! It's great, there's even these three girls that always dress up as leia. It's so cool. Meredith hates them...I don't know why."

He nodded and said, "yeah I'll wait! Or if it's too much trouble you could just have a shot of mine."

[Nancy Panic]

She lit up when it was pretty clear that he had no issues with her shapeshifting. "Oh awesome. Wait 'til you see what else I can do then..." Although she frowned a little bit at the mention of someone named Mordred who enjoyed tormenting him. "...well that's not nice of him..." Her concern didn't really go away, but he seemed to have cheered himself up, and she had to say, the convention sounded fantastic, and she HAD always wanted to go to one of them...

"Well I'd love to go, thank you for the invite! And oh no, I don't want to deprive you of this, I'll be right back..."

...and well...it'd be a LOT quicker to fly towards the portals, wouldn't it? A surprisingly devilish grin for her appeared on her face as she shifted into an eagle, and took off, actually saluting with one of her wings as she took off towards the portals.

Fortunately her VERY brief trip back home went without incident ("Hi Mom, just here to get something real quick!"), and fortunately her room was neat enough that it didn't take terribly long for her to find her old blue lightsaber and to get VERY giddy about it, and then it was just a kiss on her mother's cheek and a running take off towards the portal, and this time her eagle form came back with the lightsaber between her talons.

She kicked it out of them just before she landed, shifting into a human JUST in time to catch it....although it almost slipped out of her hands due to her not having perfect reflexes, I mean, come on.

After she managed to catch it, however, she beamed towards Gaston Jr., and switched it on, going into a defensive stance that she HOPED looked as epic as anyone's in the movies.

"So, you ready?"

[Gaston Jr]

It was nice to be around someone that was as excitable as him. Eddie was probably the closest he got to it, although there was always a little bit of a delay with him. Meredith could get this hyped up as well, but he had not seen as much of her as he usually did. However before he could tell Nancy that she really did not need too, she was gone.

He laughed a little to himself and shrugged. Girls were crazy, but they were fun.

In her absence he did a few more practice swings with his own lightsabre, only this time he decided to throw in a few pretend ‘force’ uses with his other hand. If only he had some magical ability, like Meredith or Merlin, then maybe he could do the whole force thing for real. Maybe he would look into it whilst he was here, perhaps it was possible to learn magic even if you did not have magical parents. It had to be possible…either that or he was going to have to find some radioactive spider or a vat of toxic waste…there had to be some of that round here too right.

He was getting lost in his thoughts again when suddenly from out of nowhere there was this eagle…holding a lightsabre…that then changed into the pretty girl again just in time to catch the lightsabre. Gaston Jr was taken aback this time, but quickly rallied and cheered, “Nice!”

Of course then she did what he had done earlier and fumbled with it a bit before getting a stronger grip. He grinned and gave her a look of ‘yeah, that happens.’ However then she was taking her position.

Gaston Jr swung his lightsabre the same way he had seen King Arthur swing his sword in the tournaments…he just about managed to pull it off.

“I was born ready,” he said with a grin.

Now, Gaston Jr had grown up in a Matriarch society meaning that when it came to women and fighting, he knew, you better fight hard or they were gonna put you on your ass. However this was just a friendly lightsabre battle.

He swung to the left in an obvious way, hoping that Nancy would pick it up and bring her lightsabre round to meet his own.

[Nancy Panic]

Her grin broadened when he cheered over her shifting. Now see, this was why she liked Tintagel. Sure, there was always crazy stuff going on, but it was also a place where she didn't have to, pardon the pun, clip her wings in order to fit in. Plus, as she kept pointing out to her mother, she was already probably better prepared than even she was when she first came, because she had powers, and could easily turn into literally anything to defend herself. Heck, she could turn into a unicorn and be better prepared (those horns were surprisingly sharp, after all). And she had a feeling that now it had the added bonus of entertaining her new friend. She could be down for that.

She offered a sheepish smile when Gaston clearly recognized her issues here, but who cared so much about that when they had some battling to do? Taking his cue, she swung hers to the right, and as soon as their sabers collided, she couldn't hold back on a rather childish giggle. "Oh my gods, I don't know WHY I ever stopped doing this..."

She then swung her saber away, aiming to collide again.

[Gaston Jr]

Gaston Jr could not help the giggle as the two sabres connected, the two of them making the ‘kish’ sound on impact.

“Not bad,” he said to her, before swinging them around again to meet hers.

There was a part of him that was thinking it was perhaps a little silly for two teenagers their age to be playing around with toys like this, however there was a much greater part of him that was loving every second of it and told the first part to shut the hell up and just enjoy the moment. It had been a long time since he had got into a lightsabre battle. The last one he had had been with the Meredith and she had thoroughly and royally (ha) put him on his ass. She was amazing that way. She was amazing at everything.

He was losing himself in his little Meredith day dream (which always, for some reason, had her wearing a Leia outfit, yes that one) and not paying attention to the battle, meaning he almost dropped his lightsabre at one point, his attention snapping back to Nancy.

Nancy was nice, he liked her. She was funny, and clearly smart if she could do all that shapeshifting stuff and she liked Star Wars. Sure they had only spoken a short time but Gaston Jr was usually an excellent judge of character and Nancy, she seemed like a good egg. Which got the wheels in his head turning. Which was always dangerous.

As they continued to fight he said, “So…other than lightsabre battles what else do you like to do? Jogging? Dancing? Going out on dates with your boyfriend?”

[Nancy Panic]

She couldn’t resist just the slightest bit of snark when he seemed to lose focus. “Easy there, you’re lucky that can’t actually chop your hand off!” This was the sort of thing she and her mother always did whenever they went into battle, and Mom always mentioned how Uncle Westley never seemed able to go through a swordfight without any banter, so why NOT emulate that?

In spite of herself, Nancy blushed at the last comment. She thought to do a little twirl before hitting his lightsaber again, partially because it’d look cool and partially to give herself time to NOT stammer out her answer. “Mostly reading, and, well, practicing my shapeshifting…and I don’t have a boyfriend.” She shot him a sheepish smile just to assure him that she wasn’t offended by the question or anything. “I’m not seeing anyone, really.”

Huh, not bad Nance. You managed to say all of that without nervous giggling or anything! Small victories! Although the thought occurred to her…that was a strange thing to say unless…maybe? She didn’t want to assume and make things awkward, but was this a lead in to something…? She certainly wouldn’t mind that at all, but again, she didn’t want to assume and…and this could turn into a spiral REALLY quickly.

Not wanting to get too lost in thought, especially that one, she asked, “What about you?”

[Gaston Jr]

Gaston Jr laughed when she mentioned hands being chopped off and said, “Aww…classic.”

Oh he had not anticipated her being embarrassed by his question, he had just tried to pass it off as casually as possible but clearly he should have tried to have been a bit more subtle. His mother would be so disappointed in him, he really ought to get better at it if what he was intending to do was going to succeed.

“Reading is the best, nothing like a good book before bed,” said Gaston Jr has he dodged one of Nancy’s swing in what he hoped was a cool ‘jedi-like’ manner, “and you must have been doing a lot of practicing because that shapeshifting stuff is neat!”

Aha! She did not have a boyfriend.

Gaston Jr grinned happily.

He was lost in his own plans for a moment when she asked her question, “huh? Hmm? What? Oh! No, no I’m not seeing anyone either.”

As he swung the lightsabre around again he said, “So uh…would you uh…like…to…date…someone?”

[Nancy Panic]

“That’s one way of looking at it. Thirteen hands later, I guess that is a classic Star Wars move!” And no, she hadn’t literally counted how many lost hands there were in this franchise out of curiosity, she found out by…okay yes she had, but you look for random facts like that after you watch the movies so often.

“Oh absolutely. If I’m sleeping in bed without a book, assume I’m dead,” she quipped. “Oh, nice move!” she commented on his attempts at dodging her swing. “And oh thanks…I mean, I don’t really need to practice, it just comes kind of naturally. My dad does it too. I just figure I could experiment with what I can do, and speed up my shifting time. If anything my mom’s said about this place is true, I’m going to need all the time I can get to shift into something that can battle a monster or two…”

And then he said he was single. This was lending credence to her suspicions, but still she kept her mouth shut about it. A bolder woman would have flat out asked if this was an invitation already, but no. She was no Victoria Heart, and probably never would be…

And if she hadn’t been halfway anticipating his question, she likely would have spun around and missed his saber and nearly fallen over…oh wait, she almost did. Fortunately she caught herself and spun the other way, hitting his saber, but focusing a lot more on his face.

“I certainly wouldn’t mind…” Again, she wanted to be bolder, wanted to ask if he meant what she thought, but the words died in her throat. Because if he was asking, he really couldn’t believe her luck, how often could you say you just happened to stumble upon someone that handsome that just happened to share one of your biggest interests…well okay, Tori probably did all the time, but she wasn’t like that, usually. She didn’t usually have that kind of luck.

[Gaston Jr]

She knew! She knew it was thirteen hands! Gaston Jr thought that only he and Eddie had spent the entire time counting but no! Here was someone else that had counted and new the secret that George Lucas clearly hated hands! Or just really loved robot ones…it could go either way really. He grinned happily at her and said, “That could be an interesting cosplay, someone comes as all the hands that have been chopped off in star wars…actually…no…on second thoughts, that’s just creepy, pretend I didn’t say that.”

He couldn’t help but look a little pleased when she complimented his dodge. Gaston Jr was not good with a sword so such compliments were never really swung his way. However with a lightsabre…that he understood perfectly.

“Thanks,” he said bringing his own around again, “you’re pretty good yourself!”

She talked about the shifting and the monsters and he nodded, “I know what you mean, the stories my mum and dad used to tell us about this place, it’s a miracle they let us come! Then again, my dad is probably just hoping it will help me ‘man up’.”

Then she said she wouldn’t mind dating.

“Great,” he said excitedly and then attempted to calm himself down, “I mean, that’s good, that you don’t mind dating, because I mean you seem like a really nice person, and you like star wars and you’re funny, I mean…I’m sure there’s a line of guys waiting to date someone like you, and there’s lots of places to go on dates here…it’s not like home where a date is ‘do you want to move slightly further away from the rest of the feast for a few minutes before a chaperone comes and spoils the moment’.”

Ok, now he knew she wanted to date, in fact that she was open to dating he had to test to the waters, “so…I have this mate, Eddie Locksley, you’ve probably heard of him, he’s Robin Hood’s son, like the Robin Hood. He’s a real stand up guy, he’s funny, he’s loyal, he’s…funny. I…I think the two of you would really get along…you should totally ask him out.”

Gaston Jr, had two problems.

One; he could never quite believe that any girl would be interested in him so assumed that no girl was.

Two; he grew up in the Summer Country which as a Matriarch Society the gender norms were somewhat flipped a bit, meaning that where he was from more often than not (but like in other societies it wasn’t a set rule) the girls asked to court the boys, and so far here in Tintagel…no girl had asked to court him.