Unforeseen Consequences

He doesn’t smile, when the cloak is on.

It shows them off: little pointy teeth he can’t remember having, before. But then again he can’t remember anything from before, not really. He just…has this sense. That his teeth used to be flat. Pearly whites, the cook calls them. And he feels them go flat when he takes it off, but he won’t look in the mirror. He refuses to.

Edwyn’s always had the cloak (though it shifts sometimes, into a tunic to wear under his armor or a bracelet to tie around his wrist at night, when he sleeps shirtless.) Green, silky gossamer that flows like water. Rough sage that pebbles under his mail, thin thready rope worn down by hundreds of restless nights.

“Where did you come from?” He murmurs. It hangs on the hook next to his mirror. He only takes it off to bathe.

Edwyn fills his bath with milk and honey and turns the water opaque. Officially, he tells the maids milk and honey is good for the skin.

He feels his body change in its absence, but he won’t look at himself. Just like his teeth, he knows this body is from before—and he knows that seeing it will crack something open in his mind.

***

He wakes screaming in the night. When the guards barge in, searching for an intruder, Edwyn yanks up the blankets to cover his chest. He doesn’t know where the instinct comes from.

***

Their king finds a lake to refresh them after a long day’s hunt, hidden in a rich green valley. Mountains reflected in its crystal waters scrape the sky above and silt below. Edwyn peers into the waters and catches a glimpse of his own reflection: a naked girl with flowing dark hair and flat, pearly white teeth.

He screams and stumbles backward.

The knights laugh and pat him heartily on the back, stripping off their boots and helmets.

“It’s only the Lady of the Lake, Sir Edwyn,” they tease. “Worst she can do is send a pike to nip at your toes. Join us for a swim, then.”

“No,” he says, and pulls his cloak tighter around him: “I’m alright, thanks.”

They tease him some more— “don’t want the good Lady to see your bits, Sir Edwyn?”— but give it up in favour of splashing at each other and diving below the surface while he keeps watch from the pebbly shore.

***

He spars with his king in early October and feels himself harden beneath his mail. There’s a quick fumble in the armory. He thinks of it later, alone in the bath, and goes to grip himself, but his fist closes around nothing.

***

There’s a constant buzzing noise at his window, as of late. Edwyn asks the servants to check for a wasp’s nest, but they report none.

***

He takes his meals with the knights, if he can help it. The buzzing grows more and more intolerable with every passing day, and he has no desire to eat alone in his chambers with incessant noise for company.

It’s stew tonight, a steaming loch dotted by islands of lamb and beef. Edwyn takes a bite. His sharp teeth shred the meat to parchment-thin slices. By the light of the candles, the pork fat Cook fried onions and garlic in glimmers golden and bubbles at the rim of the bowl. He sees her in the shimmering fat, staring back at him. They have the same eyes.

Edwyn finishes his bowl before the men manage to make a dent in theirs.

***

His teeth are growing. They burst from his gums and push against his lips, lengthening like tusks and crowding against each other. He wakes up to blood dripping down his chin and pooling in the hollow of his neck. He calls for a physician, and the old man pronounces him to be in perfect health.

***

He can hear the buzzing down the hallway to his chambers, now, and he starts avoiding his room entirely during waking hours.

***

She’s in his wine next, beaming at him with perfect teeth. He gets drunk.

***

He stumbles over his words; he feels like he’s speaking through a mouthful of thorns. He apologises for his clumsy speech in a meeting. The knights stare at him, bewildered.

***

Nights are awful. He cannot sleep for all the buzzing, his teeth are down to his chin, and he has begun to cover up the mirror for fear of seeing her. He sleeps wrapped up in his cloak, hood pulled tight around his ears, pillow under his neck to keep his teeth from tearing his throat.

***

You would think someone would bother to mention the fangs. Much less the buzzing that follows Edwyn to the training yard.

“Have you,” he asks, fumbling around his teeth, “noticed anything…odd?”

The king frowns. “No. I don’t recall anything out of the ordinary, at least not for the past few weeks.”

If Edwyn were not a knight, he would scream at him. You’re lying. I know you can see me. Stop. Lying.

As it is, he clenches his fists and says,

“Well…if you do. You can tell me. I don’t mind.”

The king raises an eyebrow at him. “Thank you, Sir Edwyn.”

He sighs, breath whistling through his teeth. “Of course, sire.”

***

Five days before the Samhain feast, he knocks his king to the ground. He couldn’t fit the helmet over his head, over these gods-damned teeth, and the buzzing is a constant in his ears, rattling around his skull and thrumming in his veins, and he barely slept, and the sage tunic under his mail is scratching at his skin, leaving it rubbed red and raw, and when he sees the Lady in the glint of his king’s hauberk, he loses it.

“Leave me be!” rips from his throat. He’s scrabbling at the hauberk, trying to tear it off with clumsy fingers, screaming and sobbing as the Lady laughs at him, pearly whites shining, blue eyes gleaming, and he gets too close and rips the king’s throat open with his teeth.

He bursts like overripe fruit, golden ichor spilling forth and staining Edwyn’s hands. It streams down over his armor and blots the Lady from his view, and only then does he realise what he’s done.

“Oh gods,” he gasps as the knights tear him away. “No. No–”

Percival wrenches the helmet from his head. “Edwyn. Edwyn!”

He slaps him. Edwyn blinks, gaze caught on the golden corpse sprawled in the grass.

“You need sleep, Edwyn.” Percival grabs him by the shoulders and shakes him. “Do you hear me?”

“I’m perfectly alright, Sir Edwyn,” the corpse says. He spits out a glob of ichor. It sizzles when it hits the dirt. “No harm done.”

Edwyn pushes desperately at his teeth, trying to shove them back into his mouth and puncturing his palms in the process. “I killed you.”

The knights murmur behind him.

“Last I checked, dead men don’t speak,” the corpse assures him. He gets to his feet with a grunt and takes Edwyn by the hands, gold mixing with red.

“Get some sleep, my friend. The guards tell me you’ve had…trouble, recently.”

Tears prick at his eyes. His stomach rolls.

“Forgive me,” Edwyn begs.

“There’s nothing to forgive,” the corpse says softly. “Go and rest. Put this from your mind.”

The buzzing splits in hundreds, voices chirping go and rest, Sir Edwyn. Get some sleep, Sir Edwyn. Can’t you see they think you’re going mad?

“Perhaps I am going mad,” Edwyn murmurs.

There’s a weighty pause. Beneath the voices, Edwyn hears the knights fall silent.

“Nonsense,” his corpse, his king, says eventually. “Samhain makes strangers of us all. The veil is lifting, and what with all you’ve been through–we found you in the forest nearly a year ago, now. It is no wonder you’ve been so affected.”

Edwyn falls back into soft, wet earth. He pulls the moss up over his chest.

“Goodnight.”

***

He shatters the window with the pommel of his sword and grabs the buzzing in his fist. He squeezes until crack and squelch and screech, until the bones splinter in his grasp and hot, sticky blood coats his fingers.

***

Gourds grin at him with gaping maws. The blazing bonfire casts menacing shadows against the edge of the forest. Maidens and men run about wearing bears’ faces, hair woven with rowan berries and merlin feathers.

Edwyn is in his cloak. His skin is sickly green in the firelight; he steps carefully to keep from cutting his thighs on his teeth.

The handsome corpse wears buck antlers and a crown of hawthorn flowers, draped in deerskin dyed bloodred. His knights juggle flaming logs, and his servants whoop and shout. Edwyn feels monstrous.

A maid wearing the face of a doe offers him a cup of sweet honey wine. He doesn’t take it. Drinking is a humiliating, private procedure these days.

She pushes it into his hand. “Deals are not to be taken lightly, Sir Knight.”

Her voice is familiar. It sticks to the roof of his mouth and sits on the tip of his tongue.

“What?”

“You make a good one, I must admit. I had my doubts. Wasn’t sure you’d be quick enough in battle.”

He can’t see her eyes, cast in shadow by the doe’s dark sockets, but something glints out at him.

“Do I know you?” He asks.

“And you let your new king name you. It pleases me. You gave up your last. Very wise not to own another.”

She grasps his hand and unfurls his fingers. It’s stained a rich, verdant green.

The doe’s expression is unimpressed. “You killed a member of my court.”

He watches, entranced, as she brings his hand to her mouth and licks it clean. He can taste the blood on his own lips.

“I…” Edwyn murmurs despite himself, “I’m sorry.”

“You’re not. And you shouldn’t be. If you had done it sooner, perhaps your king’s hauberk would have been left unscathed.” When she touches his teeth, sparks dance along his gums. “No matter. You’ll be ready next year.”

Edwyn runs his tongue along his teeth, small and pearly in his mouth. He groans.

“Thank you. Did the king–did he send you to fix me?”

“No, my darling. I’ve done that already.” The doe loosens the clasp of his cloak.

Panic jolts through him. “Don’t–!”

“Shhhh. Just think of this as upkeep.” The doe draws the cloak around herself. “Take off the mask.”

Edwyn shivers. His body curves and fills out underneath his mail. He feels naked without the cloak. “Will you give it back to me?”

“That was the deal.” She takes his hands and places them under the doe’s snout. “Go on, Sir Knight.”

He shoves it off in one smooth motion and sends the head toppling to the ground. It rolls and rolls until finally it comes to a stop, tongue lolling. Edwyn fights a wave of nausea.

When he turns back, she’s wearing his face. Her long, dark hair glows in the firelight. Thick black eyelashes flutter against her cheeks. Little blue crystals peer at him.

He’s the Lady of the Lake.

She claps a hand over his mouth before he can scream. He struggles, but her other hand has a vice grip around his waist, talons somehow piercing past the mail and digging into his skin in five bloody points.

“Relax,” she whispers. His vision blurs. “I’m only trying on what’s mine.”

She drags him in and presses his forehead to hers. He stares into his own eyes.

“It’s always frightening, the first time round,” she soothes, nails scraping down his side. But don’t worry. You’ll grow accustomed to it.”

She kisses him soundly, eyes wide open and mouth tasting of blood. He tastes himself. Chills scamper down his spine. Flowing green gossamer settles around his shoulders.

“The veil thins once a year,” she says with his throat. “Keep your teeth clean.”

“Apologies, my lord.” He kneels before his king. “Nearly slept through it entirely; the servants had to wake me up.”

“No matter, Sir Edwyn,” Arthur says fondly. He extends his hand, and Edwyn takes it, letting Arthur pull him to his feet. He stands to embrace him, and his lips brush Edwyn’s cheek. “Have some food. Enjoy the wine. Samhain only comes once a year.”