The Sword of the Lake

Oleandra brandished the sword triumphantly, and the students in the stands cheered loudly for her. What a victory! It hadn't even been three seconds, and she had already won! Oleandra walked over to the judges' tables and presented the sword, taking a moment to admire its sharp beauty.

It was about one yard (a little under a meter) in length, including the hilt, which was adorned with a brilliant sapphire in its pommel. From what little Oleandra knew of weapons, it was a longsword; a type of double-edged sword.

"Er, Oleandra?" said Viviane sheepishly, floating at her side. "I don't believe this is what they were referring to when they said something you valued had been taken from you…"

Professor Dumbledore immediately confirmed Viviane's words.

"Miss Greengrass," he said slowly, peering at her over his half-moon glasses with an amused expression on his face. "Have you not noticed the absence of something— someone very close to you?"

"Oh."

So when Professor Snape had showed up last night, it had been to take away Daphne as her precious thing?

"May I suggest that you leave this here," said Professor Dumbledore, "so that you may retrieve what truly matters, before it is lost to you forever?"

Oleandra heeded his words and quickly ran back to the edge of the water, where Harry was standing in the water, apparently not doing much in particular. Fleur was nowhere to be seen, which meant that she already had a head start. As for Krum, he had his wand out, and his head was stretching out and squiggling grotesquely. Oleandra didn't even want to know what he was doing.

And it's upon seeing him that Oleandra remembered that she had left her wand in her pocket… in the robes she had been told to change out of. Whoops! For most Wizards, keeping their wand on them had almost become a conditioned reflex, but since Oleandra rarely used it outside of schoolwork…

The students in the stands were now laughing uproariously, though she didn't know which one of the three champions they were laughing at: Oleandra for bringing out a completely unrelated sword thinking it was her missing item; Harry for standing around knee-deep in the water, clutching his throat as though he was drowning on dry land; or Krum for his Transfiguration attempt which had obviously gone wrong.

Ignoring their laughter, Oleandra once again set foot in the lake, this time instantly sinking below the waves like a rock. The voices above drowned out by the water, Oleandra instantly calmed down and began thinking. Her best bet would be to return to the Merpeople village.

"You could have said something earlier, before I made a fool of myself," Oleandra growled at Viviane as she travelled ever downwards. "Does the sword I've pulled out of the Black Lake have anything to do with you?"

"Its name is Arondight; I made it for my son, Lancelot," Viviane freely admitted. "I based its design on Excalibur, though Arondight is nowhere near as powerful as the sword of the King of Knights."

Hang on— what had Viviane just said?

"You had a son?" said Oleandra in disbelief. "I'm sorry, you just don't seem the motherly type to me… So, you and Merlin…?"

"Adopted son," Viviane corrected her. "Lancelot was King Ban of Benoic's son, I took him in when he was a baby and trained him myself to become the perfect knight."

"So, you kidnapped someone's baby?" said Oleandra. "Now that sounds more like something a Fairy would do—stealing babies and replacing them with Changelings—"

"It's not stealing if the parents are dead," said Viviane, shrugging her shoulders. "What, don't look at me like that, I wasn't the one to kill them!"

Oleandra casually blasted a Kappa that was reaching for her backside with a jet of pressurized water, sending it tumbling away into the depths of the lake with a powerful underwater current. Professor Lupin's lessons had featured Kappas, but Oleandra had no need of his spells to fight them, as long as she was within the confines of a lake.

"Excalibur," Oleandra continued. "You told me you were the one to have brought it over from Avalon. Even Muggles known the legend, though the Lady of the Lake never appears in any of the stories, whether they be Muggles' or Wizards'; that's Merlin's curse at work, isn't it?"

Viviane nodded; everyone had heard of her sister Morgan le Fay, who had barely hidden her Fairy origins by adopting such a name, but on top of sealing her future incarnations' powers, Merlin's curse had also erased Viviane from people's memories and from all writings, causing her to fade into obscurity.

"As the Lady of the Lake, I'm Excalibur's custodian, yes?" asked Oleandra. "If it's so much better than Arondight, couldn't I use it for myself?"

"That you are," answered Viviane. "But Excalibur is special; each Fairy in Avalon poured their magic in it. It can only be wielded by those bearing extraordinary fates."

"So, I'm not special enough?" said Oleandra, raising an eyebrow.

"That's not what I meant," Viviane quickly corrected her. "We are Fairies from Avalon; we were purged from this world. As such, we're not even supposed to exist; we have no fates, as we are free from the web of the planet's Wyrd; which is both a good and a bad thing. We are free to choose our own futures, at the cost of being detested by the world itself. Have you ever wondered why we're so unlucky in our every endeavour?"

The other shadows of Oleandra's past lives quickly made it known through Viviane that such a subject was still up for debate. Were they or were they not subject to fate? Who really knew! But meanwhile, they were quickly approaching the Merpeople's village, and Oleandra had one last question for the Lady of the Lake before they reached their destination.

"So, what can Arondight do?" she asked. "And what makes Excalibur so much better?"

"Arondight's edge will never dull, nor will it ever rust," she answered. "It can cut through all defensive enchantments, and cannot be destroyed by ordinary means. As for Excalibur, it can set itself on fire and shoot magical beams, on top of all those other things. Not bad, as far as enchanted swords go. Much better than what those Goblins come up with, I'm sure."

And just as Oleandra heard those words, the Merpeople's village finally came into sight; she had made it to the bottom of the lake in record time.