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It wasn’t every day that O’Hare was called into a royal court personally by a king. That is to say – it wasn’t every day that he was on good terms with said royal court. Usually, it was to be tried for some brutal crime or another, but O’Hare was a slippery fellow indeed. All charges seemed to slide off of him like he was a greased-up pan.
Regardless, he stood passively, his eyes wandering the room he found himself situated in, pondering why they needed such a round table to be situated right in the middle of the room. Quite honestly, it was gaudy, and poor security at best. Sure, some of the people sat around it might see other people slip over the gates, but what about those with their backs to the door?
Reaching under his circular glasses to rub his weary eyes, he nearly jumped out of his skin when a booming voice sounded from… Well, somewhere, he supposed. He never did have a great liking of the magical arts, all its trickery aside. It simply didn’t feel as good to use as his trusty bow, and his instincts.
“Presenting to his Excellency King Arthur, Jackie O’Hare.” Came the voice once more, O’Hare now spotting its source – a tiny and frail looking wizard, dressed in garishly oversized blue robes. “Marlin? Marlon? Merlin?” he thought to himself, trying desperately to recall the wizard’s name. It had been his name on the correspondence he’d received to appear here.
He'd ignore the wizard calling him by his first name, for now. It wasn’t something he wanted to be referred to by outside of close friends.
At least he now knew who’s court he was in. He’d recalled overhearing some chatter about this particular king, how he wasn’t from this world, or something. How the former king of Kandarin had gifted him a sizable portion of his lands, for the time being. It caused quite the stir on the other side of White Wolf Mountain, quite honestly.
“Thank you, Merlin.” Came the strong voice of an equally strong-looking man, wearing a decadent crown upon his head. He had to be no more than mid-30s, which would make him quite young for a ruler. He must’ve been very powerful, indeed. Having entered from a hither-to unseen staircase, he took his seat at what must have been the “head” of the rounded table, and gestured to one directly across from him.
“Sir Jackie…” he began, though Jackie quickly cut him off.
“It’s just O’Hare, actually.” He corrected, crossing his arms over his chest.
The king looked puzzled for a second, but simply shrugged.
“Sir O’Hare, then. Please, sit."
O’Hare sucked on his teeth for a moment in frustration at the plodding pace of this conversation, trying his best to not sound disrespectful despite his trouble with social cues and customs.
“You’ll understand if I don’t? Sitting in the company of royals doesn’t typically bode well for me.” He said, inserting his hands into his vest pockets. “It usually starts with an accusation of a crime I definitely didn’t commit, then I’m put on trial, yadda yadda… It’s just not something I had on the itinerary today.”
King Arthur furrowed his eyebrows in a small bit of frustration. He wasn’t quite used to being defied, let alone denied, but he required O’Hare’s help all the same. He’d put up with it, for now.
“Fine. Let’s get down to brass tacks, then.” King Arthur replied, pushing back from the chair.
“We hear you have a certain… set of skills, shall we say, that we would consider most useful in dealing with a rather… delicate manner.” He continues. Snapping his fingers, a rather sickly-looking squire hurries out from a dark corner of the room, dropping a large stack of papers on the table, before scurrying back to his position.
“So, you want me to kill someone, aye?” O’Hare asked, rather crassly.
King Arthur shook his head solemnly.
“Not someone. Something.” He corrected in turn, sliding the stack towards O’Hare to peruse whilst he continued speaking. “I believe your kind typically refer to it as a contract? Perhaps a quest, even.” He says, gesturing for Merlin to leave the room and settling back down on his chair.
“Now, as you may or may not know, I, and my knights, are not – “
“Not from Gielinor, yeah. There’s a whole lot of chatter about you East of the mountain.” O’Hare said, jerking his thumb in the same direction as he read, only barely paying attention now.
“…Yes. Not from Gielinor. We hail from a place called Britain. Now, whilst thus far our time here has been rather peaceful, regretfully we’ve recently been informed that a quite vicious enemy of ours has found their way to this fair world.”
O’Hare simply arched his eyebrow.
“Yeah? Why should I care, or take on this ‘quest’, as you’ve so put it?”
Now, King Arthur smiled.
“Well, you see. Our enemy may be of great interest to you. They have many names.” He says, producing a small scroll to read off of.
“Killer of the Plains… Destroyer of Battalions… Annihilator of His Holy Forces… Nibbler of Rather Large Lettuce… But I prefer to call it by a different name.”
Pausing to take a breath, O’Hare looked onwards expectantly.
“The Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog.” He finished.
O’Hare didn’t even hesitate.
“I’ll take the quest.”