What happened next is a rather simple story to tell. We ran. Like our lives depended on it. Because they probably did. That's it, the end, have a nice day.

No but seriously, the next few minutes of my life consisted of running, checking to see Flare was still with me, more running, making sure I didn't miss Lancelot, more running, praying that I didn't die, and did I mention more running? Because there was a lot of running.

We somehow found ourselves in one of the watchtowers, and it was only then that we stopped to take a breath. Or a lot of breaths, considering how much running we had been doing. Yeah, I already mentioned there was a lot of running, right? Because the castle was big. Okay? Who gave medieval castles the right to be so fucking massive?

But that's beside the point, we needed to figure out how to find Lancelot. I wracked my brain for anything I could remember about Lancelot. Most of my knowledge came from movies and TV, and the only useful information I could come up with was that Guinevere cheated on Arthur with Lancelot, and something about Nimue and him bonding in some way. I couldn't remember exactly what, but I knew they had some type of non-romantic relationship.

"Is it possible he was executed for his relationship with Guinevere?" I asked.

Flare looked in thought and shook her head. "No, I'm positive he only faced banishment. I don't remember ever hearing stories about him or Guinevere being executed. I don't think the crime was great enough."

I sighed in annoyance. How the Hell were we supposed to find Lancelot, when we had no idea how he died!? If he was simply banished, then he either lived a full life, or he was killed by something outside of Camelot. I was hoping for lived a full life, because we seemed to be safe within the walls of the castle.

I looked over and saw Flare was breathing heavily. Maybe she wasn't as much of a fighter as me because it didn't seem like she was used to that much physical exhortation. Her sword laid at her side, unused and clearly not the right weapon choice for her.

I couldn't tell what type of weapon would fit her though because she hadn't fought yet. I couldn't tell if she had a fighting style developed yet or not, mine being developed from years of getting into fights at school. I'd thought about it, and when I fought, I used a lot of kicking and swinging, and the sports I did well enough in had usually contained some form of swinging. I couldn't draw on her experience in fighting for a style, but maybe I could ask her about what sort of sports she was good at.

"So," I started, "what kind of classes at school are you good at?"

Flare raised an eyebrow, but then shrugged. "I was good at physics, math, economics, and I was decent enough at chemistry."

"Maths is like another language to me," I admitted. "Some guy just decided to invent it and some people decided to force us to learn it, despite never needing it."

Flare snorted. "I was that weird kid at school who wanted to do engineering," she said. "Problem was, I lived in Yallingup. Not much opportunity in bush schools."

I frowned at that. I'd never thought about what kind of things schools in the middle of the bush had to deal with. I was just shocked that public schools offered basically the exact same opportunities as private schools. God, does that make me sound privileged?

"What about sports?" I asked, hoping to scope out on what physical skills she had. "Were there any sports you were good at?"

"I was bad at all the ones we did," Flare flushed in embarrassment at her admission. "We pretty much only did footy, basketball, netball, and soccer. In all honesty, I used to just stand in the middle of the field or court, talking to my friends."

"Oh, you're one of those kinds of people," I said. "The ones that don't try and ruin the game for others."

Flare shrugged. "I didn't figure anyone would want someone as unskilled as me to detriment the team."

I was about to see something when I heard a scraping sound, reminding me of two stones knocking together. I grabbed my axe and scanned the room. I noticed basil growing out of the cracks in the walls. A symbol of peace, often used to ward off evil spirits. Hopefully, that meant we weren't facing off with a zombie clapping rocks together.

The reality was much different to what I'd expected, which was the Lancelot had found us. Out of the darkness, a humanoid figure staggered towards us, it's stone knees knocking together as it stumbled. It was an androgynous figure, making it difficult to tell who this was, but they had stone limbs, and eyes burning hot like coals. It was nightmarish, but it reminded me of a story I must have heard at some point in Primary School.

Flare gasped. "Flora, that's a Malingee," she slowly got to her feet. "Whatever you do, don't—"

"The Malingee's kinda ugly," I said, getting to my feet and holding the axe over my shoulder.

"—provoke them."

The Malingee's head snapped towards me with the sound of cracking rocks. Shit, I thought. I should probably work on my niceness skills. It pulled a stone dagger from somewhere, don't ask me, I was too busy trembling in fear. The basil morphed into geranium, and I sighed. Foolishness and stupidity. I was curious to know if Flare saw the flowers, but she hadn't mentioned whether she knew anything about biology. My guess was that she didn't see flowers like I had.

The Malingee lunged at me, and Flare grabbed onto my arm, pulling me out of its way. Guess it's her turn to drag me around aimlessly. I suppose I had been doing a lot of that and seeing as she actually knew what this thing was, I was going to trust her with this task.

She pulled me to the stairs, and we ran all the way down to the ground floor, the sound of scraping stone right behind us. Man, that thing was almost as temperamental as me.

"Flora, you idiot!" Flare exclaimed. "The Malingee is a spirit in Aboriginal folklore! Didn't you pay attention in Primary School!?"

"I did!" I exclaimed. "But at my school, we only briefly talked about Aboriginal legends as juniors!"

Flare groaned. "Well, congratulations!" She shouted. "The Malingee are peaceful, but when provoked they get angry and start attacking the offender! Thank you for angering it! Real helpful of you!"

I narrowed my eyes at her but didn't say anything. She was right after all. I had been the one to anger it, and now we were both in danger. If we died here, we were done, and I was not keen on dying just yet despite what my experiments may have led you to believe.

I chanced a look behind me and was startled by the sight. In spite of the Malingee's knocking knees and general clumsiness, it was moving fast, it's eyes blazing, and stone knife raised. I did not scream at the sight of it, I made a loud sound of bravery. It just sounded a lot like a scream. But it wasn't!

"How do we kill it!?" I shouted.

"Kill them!?" Flare sounded flabbergasted. "You want us to fight the Malingee!? No way! They're terrifying! I used to have nightmares about them!"

"Good to know you're a wuss!" I complained. "But we can't run from it forever!"

"Maybe they'll calm down?" Flare offered.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed. "Once we're dead! We need to fight it!"

"Absolutely not!" Flare sounded as afraid as I felt. "I refuse to get myself killed!"

"News flash, you're gonna have to get used to it!" I shouted. "If you won't fight it, I will! It's angry with me!"

"Calling the Malingee an 'it' doesn't help with that!" Flare warned.

I rolled my eyes and pulled free from Flare's grip. I pivoted on my foot and saw the Malingee was a lot closer than I'd thought it would be. It had a malicious grimace on its face, eyes glowing red with anger and joy as it finally got to have its revenge. I lifted the axe, and only managed to cut its stone leg when it knocked the axe out of my hand and pinned me to the wall, stone knife raised.

My knees would hate me for this later, but in a reckless and stupid moment of fear, I kneed it in the gut and kicked it's feet out from under it. I limped away, leg aching. Note to self; don't kick Malingee's. It'll hurt you more than them, as it immediately stumbled to its feet, knees clacking together, and lunged at me.

This time, the self-luminous red blade of a sword got in its way but didn't hit anywhere fatal. The Malingee grabbed the blade and threw it to the side, glaring at Flare, who was now shaking on the spot.

"Thanks for angering it she said," I mocked. "Real helpful she said."

"I-I um...," Flare looked terrified, facing off with the Malingee. "Nice Malingee. I'm sorry, okay? Sorry."

I don't think the Malingee understood English because it lunged at her with its stone dagger. I wrapped my arms around it's waist and tackled it. It managed to stab me in the shoulder, and I wailed out in pain as the stone cut through my humerus. I can assure you; it was not funny.

Flare grabbed my good arm and pulled me away, dashing down the corridor. We were both weaponless, and had no idea where we were going, but we needed to come up with a plan, and fast. I could almost see cogs turning in Flare's head as she thought of an idea, but she wasn't verbalising anything.

Think Flora, think! I screamed at myself. The Malingee's torso was made of flesh, so obviously that was where we needed to hit. Or the neck, we could go for decapitation. Well, if we had anything to decapitate it with. But – as you know – we left our weapons behind in a hurry to run away from the stone monstrosity. It couldn't read minds, could it?

My legs were beginning to tire as the adrenaline drained from my systems, but after weeks of running and doing all sorts of things to escape the red light, I was accustomed to running. I was considering the option of climbing onto the roof and spending the rest of our time there when suddenly we started to tumble towards the right of us.

"Do you feel that?" Flare asked, as she fell over and slid towards the wall. I soon followed.

"What the Hell?" I asked, getting to my feet. One slight problem, I was now standing on the wall. And my hair wasn't even acting crazy, it was like gravity had been shifted.

"Is this normal?" Flare asked.

"Nope," I replied.

Soon enough, the Malingee started to clumsily tumble over towards the wall. We began running again, like I said, the night consisted of a lot of running. The interesting thing was, we were running on a wall, and so everything got in our way. Coats of arms, weapons, windows, corridors, doorways. It was quite annoying really.

Somehow, we found ourselves at a pair of double doors. Large ones. Maybe we were back at the throne room? Or the dining hall, it could be either. Either way, there was no way around them without getting caught in some armour.

"How are we gonna get across now?" Flare asked.

"We jump," I claimed.

"What!?" Flare gave me an incredulous look.

"Just, hold on tight," I grabbed her hand, took a few steps back, and without warning her, jumped. She jumped behind me, and I grabbed the edge of the door. Flare held on as tight as she could and swung below me – or to the side of me? – as I struggled to pull us back onto the wall.

The Malingee staggered towards us but hesitated at the edge of the doorway.

"They're made of stone!" Flare exclaimed with way to much excitement.

"So?" I asked.

"So, they're not going to be able to jump across!" Flare said, apparently thinking it was a good enough explanation.

"Elaborate?" I asked.

"I take it you know nothing about physics?" Flare raised an eyebrow.

"Not really," I admitted.

"Well, they won't be able to launch themselves across, their made too densely," Flare explained. "Therefore, while we got most of the way across, the Malingee can't."

"Oh," I nodded, "that makes sense I guess."

I started trying to pull us up again, but it was a lot harder while trying not to drop Flare.

"Thou shall not harm two young maidens!" I heard a Welsh accent scream. And I may not understand maths or physics, but I was no idiot. Okay, maybe a little bit. That was Lancelot du Lac. Unless there were some other knights around here that I wasn't aware of.

A thirty-something-year-old man lunged at the doorway and threw himself over with little effort despite the heavy armour. He – surprisingly – wielded a self-luminous red blade. The handle was made of red jewels. Warping net shaped rubies, garnets shaped like hexagons, red beryl in circular shapes without a centre, and a ribbon of red spinel to hold it together.

I was surprised by this, but that could only mean one thing. He wasn't human. The only people I'd ever seen wielding such weapons hadn't been human, and so I doubted he was an exception. But I couldn't remember any stories about him being a wizard, but I knew he had some connection to the Lady of the Lake that I just couldn't remember.

He sliced the Malingee in half, and it let out a horrid scraping squeal as it disintegrated. I strained to pull myself and Flare up, and Lancelot noticed this. He leapt across the doorway and pulled us up. I rubbed my arm, having used a lot of energy to stop us from falling into the doorway.

"State thy name," Lancelot said.

I bowed my head. "Flora Fickle, sir."

Flare copied my actions. "Flare Worthe."

Lancelot nodded. "I am Sir Lancelot du Lac of Camelot," he proclaimed. "What is thou doing here?"