The laughter in the hall rose and fell like waves on a shore, but beneath it all the steady clatter of knives and goblets remained constant. Trenchers emptied and refilled, the scent of roasted venison and honey-glazed bread mixing with the smoke of the hearth.
And, as always, I ate.
Where Mordred could devour a feast if left unchecked, I was worse. Meat vanished from my plate in steady rhythm, whole loaves of bread split and gone before squires even realized I'd reached for them. A servant set down a fresh platter of spiced pheasant, and by the time the boy turned back to the kitchens, I had stripped the bones clean.
I felt Stark's eyes on me long before he said anything.
And he wasn't the only one looking. Pepper was frozen as she stared at me in shock.
"How, how can you eat that much? And still look that slim?" she asked, clearly desperate to know my secret.
My knights all started to laugh, because this question wasn't new; the others had all asked that. The former widows had been just as curious.
"Back in my time, Lady Potts, food was not as abundant as today. Back then, it was important to eat when you could, and never to leave food behind, and well, I guess it made me have a healthy appetite." I explained.
"But still," she clearly wasn't satisfied. "Even so, how aren't you… getting bigger?"
"Wow, Pepper, to think you would ask a woman something like that." Tony said while whistling.
"That's not what I meant, Your Majesty. It's just… I've never seen anything like it."
"Magic!" I said with a smile.
Everyone but Tony and Pepper burst out laughing.
The answer was anything but satisfying, and they all knew it.
Yet, it was also the only answer I would give.
My Knights would all give other answers, each had their own. But they all boiled down to the same thing.
That's just the way things are.
The king is the king.
Father is Father.
Is it shocking? Well, the King is shocking, the King is special, so it's only reasonable that the King can do that, right?
It was at least reasonable to my Knights, even if others didn't always share their thoughts on the matter.
Pepper and Stark still had questions, but they lacked answers, and the more they asked, the more of the same answers they got; the greater the laughter was in response to their faces when they got unsatisfying answers.
Despite Stark being late, the dinner still passed without issue and with high moods, nothing like half a ton of perfectly cooked meat to make everyone happy.
The only thing that was left, mostly untouched, was a massive serving of mashed potatoes. The creation of Sir Gawain.
The time I was willing to use the grail to enchant potatoes just to ensure that any dish made with them would taste good was long passed, so now they had the authentic flavor.
A flavor that was on the less pleasant side back in our time, where even salt was not always easy to come by, so yeah, given that Tony and Pepper were used to good food, or at least food of today, the taste of true medieval food was shocking to them.
Pepper pushed her plate slightly away, the last of the untouched mashed potatoes still sitting there like an accusation. "I don't think I'll ever complain about takeout again," she muttered.
"Yeah, well, I'm not touching those," Stark said, pointing his knife at the heap. "Everything else, A+, but that? That's culinary war crime territory. Don't tell me you're feeding the troops this stuff."
The knights laughed harder, Mordred nearly choking on her ale.
"It's totally fine, nothing wrong with it." Gawain said and took a large spoonful of it as if to prove his words. "Could use a bit more salt, maybe." He mumbled, adding a huge amount of salt to the portion on his plate.
"More salt?" Both Tony and Pepper said at the same time, looking at him in shock.
Gawin had always salted his mash as well as he could, and now, with a practically unlimited amount of salt for his cooking, he used plenty.
"I'm sure this thing is already 50% salt." Tony muttered and stuck his knife into the mash on his plate, and the knife… didn't move once he let go, it just sat there, as if inserted into something solid.
Both he and Pepper stared at the knife for a few moments before shuffling back in their seats as if trying to get more distance from it.
Mordred howled, slapping the table with both hands. "By the gods, it's true! The mash has slain Stark's knife!"
"Not funny," Stark shot back, scowling at the offending lump. "That stuff belongs in a weapons program, not a kitchen."
Agravain sniffed, unimpressed. "If you cannot stomach a simple dish, Stark, then you are softer than I imagined."
Tony leaned across the table, grinning like a wolf. "Oh yeah? Then why don't you have some? Still plenty left."
Agravain suddenly suffered from acute deafness and didn't hear what he said, and ended up ignoring him, making Tony nod in satisfaction with himself. While drawing another round of laughter from everyone.
Pepper was still smiling faintly. "You have to admit, Tony, it's… authentic. It's part of why this place feels so different. Everything here is deliberate. Even the food."
"Yeah, about that," Stark said, eyes narrowing on me again. "That's the thing I don't get. You've got arc reactors powering Albion, cutting-edge infrastructure outside these walls… and then I walk in here and it's like stepping onto the set of a medieval drama. Torches, stone, and potatoes that could be used as siege ammo. Why?"
The knights bristled. Mordred tilted her head in interest, while Agravain's glare sharpened. Pepper only looked curious.
I set down my goblet, meeting Stark's gaze without flinching. "Because Camelot is not meant to be modern. It is not meant to blend into the world around it. Camelot is a symbol — eternal, unchanging. If I let it become another city of steel and glass, it would lose what makes it more than stone walls."
"Right," Stark muttered, sitting back in his chair. "So you're not running a city, you're running a story."
"You are wrong," I simply stated. "I am neither running a city nor a story, but a kingdom, I have piles of unfinished work to prove it." I wasn't going to allow him to diminish the work I did.
Stark tilted his head, lips twitching as though he wanted to quip but thought better of it. "Fair. You've got paperwork, I've got shareholders. Guess kings and CEOs aren't so different after all."
"You've never had to settle a land dispute between three farmers and a knight's horse," Mordred muttered into her cup.
That earned another round of laughter, but Stark only smirked, eyes glittering. "No, but I've had to stop Congress from turning my tech into war machines. Pretty sure that's in the same league."
Pepper leaned forward, her tone softer, more thoughtful. "I think what Tony's trying to say—badly—is that Camelot feels like it's holding two worlds at once. Albion outside these walls is modern, thriving. But here, inside, it's… timeless. A story. And both matter."
I inclined my head to her. She understood more than Stark let himself admit.
But Stark wasn't finished. "So let me ask you this," he said, jabbing his fork toward me, "what about the hammer? The big one sitting out there like a tourist attraction. You said anyone who lifts it gets the power of a god. I've looked at it. I've run the math. That's not metallurgy, that's not physics. So what's the deal? Some alien lock? Hidden tech? Don't tell me it's just magic again."
The table quieted. Mordred leaned forward, grin spreading. Agravain's scowl deepened, and Pepper blinked in surprise.
I set down my goblet and folded my hands. "I trust you tried it?"
"Tried it?" Pepper scuffed, "He went out in full suit and tried it, and it didn't shift at all."
"I tried everything, because there is no way any object that size would be unmovable, so yeah, I scanned it to make sure it wasn't secretly attached or anything." Tony said without hesitation.
"I would say magic, but the reason you can't move it is two-fold: one, you aren't worthy, so no magical help, which means to move it, you need to move its entire weight." I explained.
"Please, while I couldn't properly scan it, I'm sure it shouldn't be so heavy that my suit can't lift it; I can lift a tank, much less a small hammer." Tony clearly wasn't satisfied with my answer.
"That just depends on material, that's science and math, your domain, not mine." I smiled knowingly.
"Right, so what material are we dealing with there? Some magic stuff?" he pressed.
"Oh no, nothing like that, just the heart of a dying star… I'm sure you have a name for such things." My smile grew wider still as I fed him more information.
Tony blinked, his smirk faltering for the first time. "Wait. Back up. Did you just say dying star? As in stellar core density, gravitational mass, nuclear collapse levels of heavy?"
"Yes," I said simply.
He leaned back in his chair, hands spreading wide as though he were presenting the world's biggest punchline. "And you said that wasn't magic. Lady, that's exactly magic. You can't just drop a neutron star in the middle of a city and not call it magic."
Pepper pinched the bridge of her nose. "Tony, please don't start calculating the density of a hammer at the dinner table."
"I already am," he shot back, tapping his temple. "Do you realize the tensile strength needed just to shape that kind of material? It should collapse in on itself! It should be a black hole! Which, by the way, would ruin the tourism business real fast."
Mordred was grinning ear to ear. "Go ahead and lift it again, Stark. See if your numbers help you now."
"Lift it again? If you are right about the material, we are likely talking about 1.36 times 10 to the power of 15 kilograms." He paused as he realized everyone was looking at him as if he were talking to an alien.
"That's 1.36 quadrillion kilograms!!! That's like… two hundred times the weight of Mount Everest! Lift it? I don't want to be on the same planet as it!"
Mordred slammed her fist on the table, wheezing with laughter. "Two hundred Everests! You're telling me that tiny hammer is heavier than every mountain I've ever seen? Oh, this is rich! Try again, Stark, I dare you!"
"No!" Tony said immediately, waving his hands like a man warding off fire. "That thing's a planetary hazard. It could, no, it should have long destroyed this city and caused immense damage to the crust, and even the core itself."
Mordred just snorted. "Oh, people, so what if it's heavy? I'm sure if not for Father forbidding it, I could lift it just fine."
The other knights were quick to join in, most not really realizing just how heavy it was.
Tony ignored them and looked at me. "Let me guess, the reason that hammer isn't on its way to the Earth's core is magic."
"Correct."
"I need to learn magic!" Tony exclaimed.
"No, Tony, no magic, I don't want you to start breaking the laws of physics just because you can." Pepper was quick to shoot him down.
"Come on, Pepper, just imagine what I could do if I could apparently turn a star into a hammer. Which, by the way, is a complete waste of effort and material." He said, shooting me a look of disapproval as if I made Mjolnir.
I just smiled at him and looked into his eyes from across the table. "Tell me that after someone slams a star into your face."
The hall roared with laughter again, the sound echoing against stone and banners. Even those who didn't understand Stark's numbers enjoyed the show of his exasperation.
Tony only pointed at me, still half-smiling, half-scowling. "Fine, fine, I concede on that point."
(end of chapter)
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