#star wars and camelot are inherently antiparallel stories

[words-writ-in-starlight]

Star Wars Camelot AU Fucking Go

CLEARLY Finn is King of Camelot, destinedruler of all Albion, hero-king snatched from a training center designed to churn outdevoted soldiers for a dangerous faction rising in the wake of the previouswicked king’s demise (Palpatine, obvs)

Rey is his queen and court enchanter, andFinn met her after being separated from his guardsan attack by bandits—shewhomped him good with a staff and threw him into a lake with magic.  Naturally, he brought her back to his citadeland was like “This is our new court enchanter, she used to be a feral mountainchild” and within a few months everyone went “Hey Finn what if you got married”and he went “Sounds great, meet your new queen!”  And everyone was EITHER really delighted ORcompletely horrified.  They’re a kickasscouple and Rey is really good with seeing possible lines of influence and Finnis actually a killer diplomat and basically they rock.

With the help of their Most Loyal and TrustedKnight, who would DIE for his king, especially since Finn swooped in and savedhim when his quest went horribly awry in the process of booking it from theFirst Order.  Obviously this is the adoptedson of the Lady of the Lake, Sir Poe Dameron (du Lac)…  

You see where I’m going with this.

KyloRen is breathless when he dashes into the king’s study, the crash of the heavywood door drawing King Finn’s attention at once.  The strong lines of his face creases into abroad, friendly smile as he straightens up, setting aside his work andgesturing to a chair.

“SirBen,” the king says warmly.  “What can Ido for you?”

KyloRen keeps his face still at the old name and remains standing.  He tries to look anxious, even stricken,wringing his hands and glancing away from Finn’s gaze.  “Sire,” he says, and tries to make it soundlike the word is hard to get out because he’s stressed, rather than because theword is sour in his mouth—usurper, hesnarls in his mind.  “I don’t—I don’tquite know how to tell you this, but.”

Hestops.

Finnfrowns, folding both hands on his desk. “It’s all right, Ben,” Finn says, gentle.  “What’s wrong?”

“Oh,sire,” Kylo Ren says, plastering a look of dismay onto his face.  He quashes down the flicker of something likeguilt at throwing his foster brother to the wolves of fate, but needs must.  “I saw—I saw—I’m sorry, sire, I saw the queenand Sir Dameron kissing on the battlements.”

Theking’s face does something indefinable. Despite Finn’s talents as a diplomat and general, he never did quiteconquer the habits instilled by wearing a helm at all times before leaving theOrder.  Kylo Ren can usually read himperfectly, but now…  Finn could bethinking anything.

There’sa long beat of silence, the only sound the crackling of the fire, before Finnsays, “Thank you for telling me, Ben.  Pleasedon’t discuss this with anyone until I have the chance to sort things out.”

“Ofcourse, sire,” Kylo Ren says, bowing from the waist as Finn rises and stridestoward the door.  He lets himself grin,wild and triumphant, as the door closes behind Finn.  His master’s plan is working beautifully.

KyloRen remains under this impression for three days, during which Sir Poe isnowhere to be found and the king and queen spend the vast majority of theirtime having conversations in low tones, conversations that come to abrupt andawkward ends whenever someone comes close enough to overhear.

Andthen on the third evening Sir Poe is back and Kylo Ren sits back comfortably towait for the fallout.

He’sutterly confused when, the next morning, breakfast is a positively jubilantaffair presided over by a beaming king, with Queen Rey giggling at his lefthand and Sir Poe smiling almost shyly on his right.  

In which the plans of Kylo Ren Mordredare thwarted by convenient threesomes. So instead of a lot of catastrophe and death and Camlann, the Camelotarmy survives Camlann and so do Finn and Rey and Poe, and they go to war with theFirst Order and Kylo Ren, foster brother of Sir Poe Lancelot, revealshimself as a sneaky-ass traitor and thus we preserve a lot of the knife-twistybetrayal aspect that makes Le Morte D’Arthur so tragic.

Other highlights include:

Luke is the ex-court enchanter who wasrunning a small school for magic users before every student was murderedfifteen years ago by a knight in strange black armor, with a sword limned inred fire—Luke went into hiding in a forest afterward, and no one ever found outwho the killer was.

LEIA THE LADY OF THE LAKE, KINGMAKER ANDARMY-RAISER AND STRONG IN THE MAGIC OF THE WORLD—in this universe, theslaughter of the village of Alderaan was the last desperate ploy of KingPalpatine, who had been bled badly by the rebellion led by Leia, lady of thenoble house Organa and adopted daughter of Alderaan’s magistrate.  After being mortally wounded defending herpeople, Leia’s comrade and lover, the sellsword Han, brought her to the edge ofthe lake of Avalon on her command, and her lost twin brother met them there.  Leia’s blood spilled into the lake and shewas bound to it, body and soul—immortal and unaging, a servant of the deepmagics.  Despite her somewhat…nontraditionalcircumstances, Leia helps raise, arm, and empower the army that Finn leads ontothe field of Camlann, and he wields the sword Excalibur that she gave him.  She’s his most trusted advisor on militarymatters.

Poe was a foundling, but Ben is Leia’s son,blood and bone, a gift from the power of the lake when Leia wished for achild.  His betrayal, believing that hehas been cheated of the magic that should have been his, is a bitter thing.

The fighter pilots are the Knights of theRound Table.

Poe’s horse is a chestnut named Beebee.

No member of Rogue One was a knight duringtheir life—two monks, a desperate escaped message rider from Palpatine’s army,a spy for the Rebellion and his ill-tempered manservant, and a criminal wantedin half a dozen cities under half a dozen names.  They weren’t knighted after their deaths, either,after their suicide mission into the heart of enemy territory to send word ofthe terrible squadron of mercenaries known as the Star—the message rider makesit out of the citadel of Scarif, bleeding down his horse’s flank, and liveslong enough to tell Leia in person before he dies.  But nonetheless they are remembered as thebest of the Rebellion’s loyal knights.

IDK Anakin is still a fuckup but he’s notForce Jesus, he’s just stupidly powerful in terms of magic with critically poorjudgement, and the Jedi were an order of enchanters who were still reallyunhelpful with the whole ‘emotion’ and ‘attachment’ thing so basically thatwent about the same, Padme is dead and Anakin stomps around in black armor that’sbeen bonded to his severed limbs by Super Dark Magic.

Poe takes that entire three days to go to theedge of the lake of Avalon and panic in full Technicolor at Leia, who puts upwith it for about a day and a half before she points at him and goes “Listencarefully while I impart the wisdom of the ages to you.”  And he listens and then he’s taken very abackwhen she says, slow and articulate as if she thinks he’s taken one too manyblows to the head, “Fuck them both.”  Heblinks at her and she clarifies, like she thinks he might have misheard her, “Iam telling you to have sex with the king and his wife.”

Far be it from Poe of all people to disregardthe advice of the Lady of the Lake.