We did the Once. Is this the Future?

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

Characters: Arthur, Nimue, (Soon Gawain, Asclepius, and Ariadne)
Date: Wednesday
Location: Seattle
Rating: PG, probably
Warnings: /Maybe/ Language
Summary: Arthur arrives in Seattle, ready to talk business with his associates.


Adam Parry touched down at the airport in Seattle. When he got his bag and went outside, he assessed the situation. Still Wet. Not nearly as hot. Much more familiar. He scans around, looking for Nina, whom he'd sent the number and time of his flight. It was going to be so good to see Nimue again. And Gawain... goodness, Gawain. He'd better get here quick. It was still so hard to believe they wouldn't just slip away.

Comments

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

"Is everything all right? Nothing new has happened? You've been taking care of yourself?"

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

She chuckled as she let her liege lord have his personal space back. "Yes. Not that I'm aware of. And as if I have a choice with you giving Galen orders."

The expression on her face said she didn't really mind though and she started leading him towards the baggage claim. "Did you have a nice flight?"

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

"Good!"

"It was all right. Shorter than the Transatlantic one, at least, although American planes seem smaller somehow."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

"Having no experience with anything but, I'll take your word for it." Her Brooklyn accent is even more obvious in person.

"You are welcome to stay at my place. It's small and there's Pendragon, but I do have a fold out couch." She waits for the inevitable argument to this.

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

American Nimue is still a lot to take in.

"I'm hardly above foldout couches, but ---" he cuts himself off from the argument. "Pendragon? You named something Pendragon?"

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

She chuckled with a sly smirk on her face. "My cat." She grinned impishly and led him towards the baggage claim. "Come on."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

His suitcase, which has his initials on it in red, eventually comes around, and Adam swings it over his shoulder.

"The cat," he mutters good-naturedly.

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

She giggled as she caught that, smiling at him then started for the exits where the taxis were waiting for their fares.

"Yes, my cat." She shot a smirk over her shoulder. "I've had that cat since college. Since I've known who I am for as long as I can remember I thought it appropriate."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

He follows her. "Is it your first time back around. For so long, I thought it was just me, stuck doing it over adn over again."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

"It is." She signaled a driver who immediately opened his trunk for Arthur's luggage. "More and more have been popping up, and with the current ah...contest, as it were...it worries me."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

He puts it away. "How worrying is it?" He's listening. Nimue's the smartest woman he knows; she'll have a better handle on this than he.

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

The driver opens the door for her and she slides in waiting until Arthur has joined her before continuing.

"The stakes will raise I believe with more and more revealing themselves. None of this will be easy. I can only assume tasks and quests will be presented before long."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

He smiles wryly. "Just like old times."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

"Worse, I fear." She gave him a sober look before leaning forward to give her address in the University District to the driver. She sat back again as the taxi got going.

"Think of it this way. There will be what, four or five round tables of knights going after the same prize."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

"And they're bigger than us, older than us, and in many cases, fight dirtier than us."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

"Yes." That sober expression was back as she looked at him somewhat askance. She had no problem pushing the boundries of those moral codes the knights and Arthur held to. Getting them to do so was another thing entirely.

"You may be tested more than ever before."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

"Oh, lovely, because that went so well the first time."

He sighs, then meets her eyes. "I just want to say, before we're in the thick of it, that if the universe had been so kind as to warn me that I'd have to fight the good fight with limited resources, and gave me any choices in the matter... you and he would both have been on my shortlist."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

Her brows lifted and she faced him more. "What about Merlin?" That bastard of a mystic had been at Arthur's side from the very beginning. Arthur had trusted him perhaps more than he had trusted Lancelot. At least in Nimue's mind.

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

"Oh, he'd be on the shortlist too, I'll admit. But there is something you always had that he never did."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

"Breasts?" she offered with a small smirk, trying to break the tension a little.

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

He chuckles. "That, too. But when it comes to being tested, you've never made me feel like the exam proctor watching my every move. You were the kid who had to take the bloody thing too, and helped me study. And occasionally tried to get me to crib off you when I wasn't supposed to."

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

She chuckled along with him, inclining her head towards him conspiratorily. "Yes, well Merlin was an overbearing git so is it any wonder I came off seeming better than him?"

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

Adam just smiles.

[nina-drake.insanejournal.com]

Which tells her he wasn't willing to speak ill of Merlin. Part of her sends out a plea to the powers that the druid not show up, even if he would be invaluable for what might be coming their way.

"We can drop your luggage off at my home then we can go to my store. I thought we could all meet there."

[sitsatcircles.insanejournal.com]

He nods. "Sounds like a good idea."