BONUS ROUND 1: THROWBACK PROMPTS

[a1c0bb]

In this round, we'll be using prompts from last year's bonus rounds! You can either come up with a prompt based on the previous themes, fill a prompt from previous bonus rounds, or fill a prompt that's been posted this year!

Here is the tag with all the previous bonus rounds!

Fills can be in any format, and you can fill your teammates prompts, but you cannot fill your own prompt.

You can post as many fills and as many prompts as you want!

for your prompt post title, please use the following format:

PROMPT: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

for your fill post title, please use the following format:

FILL: TEAM [TEAM NAME]

If you're filling from a 2023/2024 prompt, please link to their prompt in your post!

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FILL: Team Magical Girls

[thestoryeater]

SHIP: Lancelot x Guinevere from my Sword In the Stone sequel

"Sir Knight?"

Lancelot looked up from the dish at Guinevere. As usual, the queen did not meet her gaze. Rather, her eyes were fixed on a goblet, mostly emptied but still with enough for Her Majesty to slosh about lazily with a rhythmic turn of her wrist.

"Yes?" Lancelot had to hold back the usual "majesty" that would accompany such a direct address. It was their habit to only use such terms in public, discard them when alone. The queen insisted on it. They had endured too much together for Lancelot to even pretend to disagree.

But something was different tonight. There was an oddness in the air, one which only intensified when Guinevere had opened her mouth.

"Say that my husband and I were both in peril," Guinevere spoke slowly. "An immediate threat, and you were the only one there to assist us. Who would you choose to save?"

"Have you had enough drink tonight?" Lancelot reached for the queen's goblet. Alcohol, one of the strangest of human inventions, had always seemed to her like it was more trouble than it was worth. Most of her companions politely disagreed, so often it fell to her to make certain that they did not totally succumb to the drink when they chose to partake.

"I've had no more than I can handle!" Guinevere snapped. She pulled back. "Answer me."

"Is that a command?" Lancelot asked.

Guinevere softened. She glanced briefly at Lancelot, then shook her head and took another drink from her goblet. "No."

There fell a quiet between them. That oddness in the air remained, thicker than ever now. It was frightening. Almost exciting. How Lancelot yearned to put a name to it.

A name could be used to ask questions, find a solution. But just as often, she had learned, it was only a disguise. A lie. In the human world, husband was meant to mean lover, yet it was often a way of saying jailer or highest bidder. Was this strangeness in the air between them like a husband, something whose name captured more than people admitted?

"I would save whoever Arthur told me to save," Lancelot told Guinevere.

"Suppose he could not speak, then," said Guinevere impatiently. "Suppose it was an ambush and you had been given no mission by him earlier."

"Whoever was nearest."

"Suppose we were both an equal distance from you."

"You ask that I suppose many things."

Guinevere chuckled, surprisingly. She gave a mirthful smile. "Indeed. Perhaps a rather roundabout method when I only wished to ask you one thing."

"And that is?"

"Never mind."

A door in their conversation closing. Guinevere took another drink from her goblet, clearly ready to remain silent.

No. Even if she could not fully understand this, Lancelot knew it had to mean something important. She rose from her chair, then knelt before Guinevere.

"Sir Knight?" the queen asked. Another name that did not capture its subject at all.

"My lady," said Lancelot. "It is asked of me that I be loyal to your husband, my lord, above all else. But know that there is nothing that you could ask for which I would not provide without a second thought."

Nothing. That almost sounded like a challenge. Lancelot remained kneeling, not allowing herself to look upwards, beholding only what part of Guinevere she would show most of the world.

"I am your sword, and you are my life," she continued. "No matter what lies ahead, know that I am yours."

Gradually, Guinevere's free hand moved in front of Lancelot's face. An unspoken question hung between them. Lancelot held Guinevere's soft palm with her own callused fingers, and she answered it in the form of a kiss on her knuckles.