The crash is loud, particularly for 6am. Loud noises should be banned before 9am, Mo thinks. 8:30am at a push. Bleary-eyed, she pulls back the duvet and stumbles into the next room.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
From where he’s standing, baseball bat in hand above a pile of what looks like it may have once been an alarm clock but is now mostly a mess, King Arthur blinks at her. “I am vanquishing the beast,” he says.
“That’s an alarm clock,” says Mo.
“I know not what that be,” Arthur replies, and prods the heap gingerly with the end of the baseball bat. “All I know is that it did shriek at me at an ungodly hour, foul thing, and I did see fit to ruin it. I thought mayhap it were a banshee of some kind.”
Mo holds the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, and exhales very deeply. “Well,” she says, “I’m going to put the coffee on, if you want any. Unless you want to beat that machine into a pulp, too?”
“I approve of the coffee wizard,” says Arthur. “That noble thing may remain.”
It’s only when Arthur has ‘vanquished’ the toilet flush, Mo’s mobile phone, her laptop, the television, and - bizarrely - her mother’s best shoes that Mo realises that there may, in fact, be a problem.
“So what you are saying,” says Arthur, looking rather ill at ease in his borrowed Big Bang Theory sweater and peering at the screen, “is that I may not vanquish this terrible beast, either.”
Mo sighs, and changes the channel. Procuring a new TV set had been a right pain, but luckily her pay is pretty good. For some reason, not many people had been willing to babysit the recently resurrected King of legend.
“No, Arthur,” she states mildly. “That’s Iggy Azalea.”
Mo drops the bags of Tesco shopping and drags Arthur away from the child.
Arthur protests loudly. “I would not have vanquished the beast which did plague him without first asking - ”
“He wasn’t being plagued by any beast,” says Mo, teeth gritted. “He was wearing Heelies. Now pick up the shopping.”
Arthur peers at the television, eyes narrowed, and Mo tries her best to ignore him. She has a rather large expenses claim to fill out to the council, after all.
“I must ask something of you,” says Arthur, quietly. “I have questions about the beasts which roam this land.”
Mo sets down her notepad and pen, and prepares herself emotionally. “Go ahead.”
Arthur shifts in his chair. “I wonder - when did it happen that goodness was brought here?” he asks. “The prophecy foretold that I would return when goodness was needed, and yet I am faced at every turn by an image of what appears to be evil, but is goodness in disguise. I cannot vanquish it, for it needs not vanquishing. Why am I here?”
Mo looks down at her expenses claim. At the top, the words All expenses will be paid in full, provided that the claimant is able to keep the subject from inflicting further damages on goods which are not their own. Otherwise, these costs will be deducted from their expense claim.
Sighing, she changes the channel. Arthur recoils. “Vile!” he cries, and attempts to shield his eyes from the screen. “Luminous orange; what manner of beast is this? What gives him cause to spew such bile? Such filth that pours from his maw! Be he some form of serpent in the almost passable guise of a man?”
“That’s Donald Trump,” Mo says flatly.
Arthur looks excited. “I shall vanquish him!” he states. “I shall not rest until his blood - ”
“Maybe you could start with a rousing speech,” Mo suggests, thinking of her expenses.
Mo’s expenses are paid in full that month, minus the cost of a pair of Heelies.
Arthur’s TV publicist, on the other hand, is not quite as lucky.
