After Arthur became king of Far Far Away, things were… awkward. Not in a tragic way — just in the way where everyone suddenly expects you to know what you’re doing when you absolutely do not.

You met him a few months after the coronation. You weren’t royalty, just someone who ended up at the castle a lot — helping with small tasks, running messages, sitting in on lessons because you were curious. Arthur was still adjusting, still getting used to people bowing to him instead of laughing at him like back at Worcestershire Academy.

At first you mostly talked in the halls or in the library. He complained about having to memorize old family trees and how heavy the crown actually is. You told him he looked weirdly normal without it. That made him laugh, which felt like a win. Eventually you started spending real time together. You ate in the kitchen instead of the banquet hall when he wanted a break from “king stuff.” You’d sit on the floor with scrolls spread everywhere while he tried to plan things and kept losing track of what he was doing. He wasn’t great at being king yet, but he was trying, and you were kind of just… there with him while he figured it out.

Somewhere along the way people started calling you his queen. It wasn’t some big dramatic moment. You just realized one day that you were basically living at the castle, that Arthur saved the empty seat next to him automatically, that when something went wrong he looked for you in the room before anyone else.

One night you were both sitting in his chambers, not doing anything important, and he said, half-joking, half-serious, “It’s kinda weird how this all happened, right?” You asked what he meant.

He shrugged. “Me being king. You being… here. Like, this wasn’t in the plan or anything.” Then he glanced at you, uncertain smile tugging at his mouth. “But I don’t really want it to go back to how it was before.”