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[Takes place a few days after this]

It had been a few days after the night that his sudden dizzy spell on the way back from picking up take out and Marlin was once again out on the later side of the evening.

He’d gone to visit his mother earlier and it was only when he got back to the flat that he remembered that he’d promised Lisa that he’d drop the library books on gardening that she’d borrowed off at the library drop box for her. If it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d promised to drop by a friend’s place when he closed up the shop, Marlin probably would have waited until tomorrow, but had figured he’d better do it while it was topmost in his mind.

The books had been safely dropped off in the drop box and Marlin had started to make the walk back home when he thought he heard snarling. He’d looked back and seen nothing. So Marlin had continued on and told himself to ignore it, although he’d lengthened his pace just a little bit to walk just a tad more briskly, wishing that he’d opted to take the car out – he’d hadn’t forgotten the floating slug thing that may or may not have been a figment of his imagination.

Marlin thought he heard another snarl, closer this time, but once again he’d seen nothing when he’d turned around to look.

He lengthened his stride a little more, his pace almost a little too fast to be called a walk – but not quite a run, wondering if this was his mind’s way of telling him that he’d been working a little too hard lately – that he needed to take a break.

He didn’t notice the pair ink coloured hounds flowing in the shadows behind him, eyes red in the darkness – at least not at first.

Not until the snarling noise was its closest yet, the noise sounding almost on top of him, the sound causing goose bumps to break out across his skin. As he turned round Marlin wondered if he was going crazy, expecting once again to see nothing – only to see red eyes bearing down in his direction, the light glinting off a set of teeth with serrated edges.

Not waiting to see if they were real or not, Marlin spun round with a yelp and tried to run.

And yes he had gone crazy, because a Knight, a honest-to-goodness King Arthur type Knight – armour, chainmail and all – had appeared seemingly out of nowhere and flung something at one of the hounds, the thing (whatever it was) colliding with the thing with a loud metallic clatter.

And the Knight was yelling at him to run, not that Marlin needed telling twice – figments or not – he wasn’t too keen on finding out if those teeth were real.

The only problem was, figment or not the one chasing after him still seemed to run like any other hound, the distance between them seeming to shorten, the snarls getting closer. King Arthur Knight was yelling something, but Marlin couldn’t make out the words over the pounding of his heartbeat.

And then he tripped, an uneven paving stone tripping him up and causing Marlin to tumble onto the side walk.

It probably saved his life as at that moment the hound chasing him (and which had been closer than he realised) – leapt for him – and overshot. Claws skittering across the paving as it skidded across the stone.

Breathing heavily from the side walk – partly from the tumble which had been quite the tumble and partly because that had been close – too close, Marlin dimly saw King Arthur Knight leaping after the hound, part of him knowing that he couldn’t stay where he was

There was a sound from the Knight and snarls from the hound, Marlin not sure who was winning. Then King Arthur Knight was asking him if he was okay and Marlin thought that maybe it meant that the knight was winning.

He’d managed to regain his feet and was about to answer when he heard another snarl. Not as close, but still too close for comfort and heading in their direction.

It was the other hound; the one that Marlin had somehow been hoping was dead. It seemed that he wasn’t so lucky. But what to do? Where to go? King Arthur Knight and the hound were behind him, the other hound running towards him.

I don’t want to die the thought was a panicked chant in his mind. I don’t want to die! It was hard to know who he was directing it toward, uppermost in his mind being the fact that he was too young to die.

Unbeknownst to the strawberry blonde haired young man, something heard his desperate silent plea – knew that the time was right – that something coalescing into a ribbon wound round a glowing sprig of mistletoe that floating in front of the startled Marlin.

He couldn't help but reach for it and as his hand made contact with the ribbon it was no longer the terrified Marlin Joanson standing on the side walk.



Falias Page had awakened.

Fight it? With what? The newly awoken Page of Earth stared at the King Arthur Knight and then down at the mistletoe that he was still holding onto. Surely the Knight wasn’t implying that he try to fight the hound off with the mistletoe.

King Arthur Knight had moved off somewhere so maybe he did expect him to fight that thing with the piece of mistletoe.

And the whole thing was so confusing – one minute he had been pleading that he didn’t want to die, the next he was in this strange get up, piece of mistletoe to hand and he was being told to fight some hound figment that looked like it came out of someone’s nightmare.

Still maybe the mistletoe would exhibit some sort of magical power – it had appeared in mid-air after all.

Falias (and how the heck did he know that that name was him) swung the mistletoe in the direction of the hound.

The two small bells that Falias suddenly noticed was attached to the ribbon wound round the mistletoe chimed. Nothing else happened.

He swung the mistletoe again – still nothing except the bells tinkled again.

Falias didn’t bother trying to swing the mistletoe again – twice was more than enough and the hound was pretty much upon him – instead the page dashed further up the sidewalk, the hound thing close on his heels. He needed something better than mistletoe.

He found it in a nearby bin, snatching the lid up and trying frantically to ‘smack’ the hound with it as it leapt at him with a snarl.

The lid had collided with the hound with a thwack. Unfortunately smacking the hound had seemed to do little more than make the thing angry.

It had also put the bin lid within reach of the hound’s teeth and the thing promptly got a grip on it and started thrashing with it. Falias clung on to the bin lid with the stubbornness of someone who realised that the bin lid – rubbish as it was (pun not intended) – was a heck of a lot better than the mistletoe branch. He hadn’t been sure how long he could hang on though and the hound’s movements were getting quite frenzied.

And then King Arther Knight was there, bearing down on the hound with what looked like a shield, the weight on the other side of the bin lid falling away as the Knight managed to somehow pin the thing.

King Arthur Knight was telling him to kick the thing – actually King Arthur Knight was saying quite a few things, a lot of which made no sense such as monster of chaos – and the whole monster turning to dust thing sounded pretty fantastical too.

Nonetheless Falias had managed an “Uh? I can kick it” in agreement, then suited actions to words by kicking out at the thing as hard as he could. He just hoped that trying to kick the thing would work better than trying to swing the mistletoe had.

“I’m Falias” Falias said. “Although I have no idea how I know that.” The name felt right though… Seemed to fit somehow. “What the heck were those things?” His voice sounded shaken, probably matched the somewhat shell-shocked expression on his face. “And what do you mean by I'm like you?” The words Page of Earth and Knight of Earth didn't make sense to Falias.

Then the words that the other said finally filtered through. “Wait Camelot? As in King Arthur’s Camelot – the sword in the stone and all that? That Camelot?!” So okay he had privately dubbed the other King Arthur Knight, but that was because of the costume – not because that he really thought that the other was a real Knight.

Camelot was too late – Falias was already feeling overwhelmed – after all it wasn't every day that one was chased by a pair of hound monsters that were, according to Camelot, apparently chaos monsters.

“It doesn’t make much sense” he said at last. “It sounds like something out of a video – one of those fantasy one like one of those final fantasy series one – they have crystals and monsters in them.”

To be honest if not for those hound monsters that Camelot had called youma, he would probably have thought the other crazy – after all the whole thing sounded pretty whacked out. Falias had seen the hound monsters however and they were kind of hard to argue with.

“Those youma things are you saying there’s more of them out there?”