Disclaimer: Don't own King Arthur but the original characters - themz be mine

"We are almost there! Hadrian's Wall should be just over the next hill," claimed Ysmay excitedly to the back of the wagon as she bounced on the tops of her toes, leaning over her father and brother, causing the entire wagon to jostle at her energetic movements.

"Hush child, I think we can see that for ourselves," the girl's mother Rhiannon chided good naturedly at her daughter's enthusiasm, "and you should have no fear my dear," she continued, but her voice hushed, as she wrapped her left arm around the other young woman sitting tensely next to her, "no one will notice you and you shall fit in seamlessly…that is unless of course you don't want them to," she added quietly with a fond smile.

Willow turned and gave the woman an incredulous look, "what's that supposed to mean?" she asked raising an eyebrow to the women she considered to be like a second mother.

"Well, just that you are always tense when we move on to a new town, always worried that you will be noticed as different and odd and yet every time you also always enjoy the crowd's attention and applause," Rhiannon answered.

"Wh-"

"I'm not saying that you deliberately seek it, but rather that you can't help but be noticed once you begin to play," she added hastily before Willow managed a reply.

"She speaks the truth, my dear, I'm sorry but you should remember that there is nothing to be worried about. We all love it when you become comfortable enough to engage with the audience," Aiden agreed from the front of the wagon.

"Yeah, we love it when you play and dance at the same time," Rowan commented as well, not wanting to be left out of the conversation between his parents and Willow.

She watched the travelling family pensively for a while; fourteen year old Ysmay as she vigorous searched over the shoulders of her father and younger brother as she tried to be the first to glimpse their destination, Rhiannon who sat beside her quietly; repairing one of the many holes that littered Rowan's clothing. Aiden as he patiently drove on the two horses with his daughter practically hanging over him and finally the loveable nine year old Rowan who was, in turn, looking back at Willow with the same warm smile he had given her since she has met them all a year and a half ago on the bleak dales of Yorkshire. She smiled to herself, thinking of the looks they must have had on their faces as they came across an unconscious girl in strange men's clothing and carrying a strange bright red and black satchel on her back in the middle of nowhere. She patted her trusty hiking backpack and thanked her lucky stars again that it had been Aiden and Rhiannon who had found her alone and unconscious in the mysterious fog and not some ruthless people who would have taken advantage over her in an instant.

It was that strange fog which had not only made her trip and fall; hitting her head on a rock, but had also managed to transport her to the Dark Ages from the 21st Century. Before then, Willow had merely been trying to do the right thing in attempting to find and comfort her housemate Becky, who had managed to argue with her boyfriend Mike over nothing and storm off into the bleak night alone. In Becky's usual style, this happened to be at the most inconvenient time when all of them, including Mike's friend Dylan, had had to share a tent for the night during their camping trip across the Dales. Willow had not even initially wanted to go on the proposed camping trip; she had never considered herself close to her housemate enough to go on holiday with her. But after having worked as a waitress with Becky for six months solidly at the same small and shitty restaurant, where she had initially been promised the position of sous-chef after two, she felt she had deserved a break. Plus the added bonus of Mike's cute friend Dylan had only increased Willow's resolve to get out of the city and enjoy herself. After four years at university studying the culinary arts, as her professors had elaborately called learning fancy cooking, and a substantial student debt, indulgences were a rare occurrence for Willow. Meditating on that thought longer, Willow considered that her life had been, for a long time, one scarce of luxury. The only time she could recall having some idea of happiness had been the short years she had lived with her elderly grandfather after her parents had died in a car accident. Between the ages of seven and thirteen, Willow could recall some, if not all, of her happiest memories being due to her grandfather, such as his tutelage with his old Irish tin whistle and horse riding lessons he had gotten for her after seeing her awe of the creatures when out walking his dogs through the nearby fields during her first summer living with him.

However like most good things she had come to realise, this too came to an end when her grandfather had died unexpectedly of cancer when she was thirteen. She, with no known family, was shipped off to a children's home and it marked an abrupt end to her happiness and miserable beginning to what followed. The events that happened during her time at the children's home still caused her some nightmares and her scar to prickle uncomfortably if remembered. But Willow fervently tried to forget those memories and recall her time with her grandfather. She fought hard to repress the pain and suffering of the years that had followed his death, though she did remember some nicer memories of the other children at the home and tried to recollect them in addition to her earlier ones.

"I see it! I can see the fort, the wall - everything!" Ysmay cried.

The young girl's excited yell brought back Willow from her reverie of her life before the fog. She looked around and found that even the normally quiet and refined Rhiannon had gotten up to catch a glimpse of the famed Hadrian's Wall. She, on the other hand, fought the urge to also look over Aiden and Rowan's shoulders. Although she did have her usual worries of her difference being noticed, another thought made herself hold back. Hadrian's Wall was the base of the newly crowned King Arthur and his infamous Sarmatian Knights. Willow had to admit that she wanted to take in everything and experience everything that history had held in mystery for thousands of years but the logical side of her brain had alerted her to a very important fact: she was in the past and she had the problem and potential of unwittingly changing the future and Hadrian's Wall and King Arthur, to her, was a big messy future-altering area of disaster just waiting to happen. However the recent marriage of Arthur to Guinevere and the prospect of work and money for the family had been too important to miss out on. As Troubadours, or as Willow understood them to be - travelling musicians, the streets of rejoicing people would have the ability to potentially pay for the family's livelihood until next year.

The serendipity of the situation of Aiden and Rhiannon's discovery of Willow, during their journey from Luguvallium to Ebroacum, or Carlisle and York as Willow worked out, had proved to be mutual. They had taken her with them and grown to love the strange girl who had told them that she was from over a thousand years in the future, which they had never truly believed. But the finding out that Willow could play a musical instrument; the whistle which she had had in her backpack as she never went anywhere without it as it was the only thing left of her grandfathers, had seemed fated. And as a sign of friendship from the family, they had given her the bone flute which their eldest daughter Josselyn had played with them before she had recently married and settled. Willow had quickly picked up the instrument as she had played a similar type during her time at school and found the mechanics very similar to her whistle. She added the flute and whistle to their already impressive musical act as they had travelled from Ebroacum to Lindum and then on to Ratae, or Lincoln and Leicester as Willow had identified them from their locations, before the family had decided to travel back to the north following the victorious outcome of the Battle of Badon Hill. But the road back to the north had not been without its perils. Through too many villages, in Willow's opinion, they had seen the gruesome result and aftermath of Saxon attacks to the extent where Aiden had begun to try and train both his children and Willow with the little he knew of fighting, but that had been limited at best. The sight of Hadrian's Wall was a relief to all of Willow's adopted family and even Willow herself, thought the rational part of her mind had yet to give up dominance of her thoughts.

"Aren't you forgetting something Willow?" Ysmay teased, "Your rag. I still don't get why you have to. You have the nicest hair I've ever seen and yet you always wear that horrible old thing," the tone was of a typically stroppy teenager when they did not like something.

"She does it to protect herself Ysmay, you know that," Rhiannon gently reminded her daughter, "Willow does have very lovely hair but it is because it is so noticeable that she needs to kept it covered and also cover her skin pictures."

Willow hastily placed the 'old rag', as Ysmay fondly referred to it as, over her head and positioned it under her chin, making sure to cover her shoulders so that only her face was displayed. Her hair was the one feature which Willow really liked about herself. Her eyes were a sea blue but Willow thought them to be dull and boring in comparison to the families' dark green eyes and her height at 5ft 3in, she was not, as her namesake would imply willowy in stature. Her hair was a golden honey colour, though it was only striking in the time she found herself in; in her own time her hair would have appeared standard and ordinary among the populace. It fell to the middle of her back in a side parting with her fringe now long enough to be tucked behind her right ear; apparently the native women rarely cut their hair and it had already long to begin with. Now it was kept in a tight bun under the head cloth to avoid any attention. Her colouring; light hair and blue eyes, were a clear sign of her modern-day Anglo-Saxon heritage, something which had yet to occur to the population of the current Britain she was in. Her 'skin pictures' were Rhiannon's name for the tattoos which Willow had on her back and neck. The one on the right of her neck was of a single Japanese cherry blossom. The Japanese idea of ephemeral life had appealed to Willow and had helped her to cope with both her parent's and grandfather's deaths. The other was three lines of text from a poem which had interested Willow the moment she had read it, and was written across her shoulder blades. Each tattoo held a specific meaning to Willow and additionally, the long scar which stretched from her left shoulder down the left side of her body to her hip, also served as a reminder of her life at the children's home.

"Am I covered? Is my necklace out of the way?" she asked Rhiannon.

The necklace, similar to the tin whistle of her grandfathers, was the only item remaining that Willow had of her mother's. It was a small metal ball called a bola on a long piece of chord, which hung down to her stomach. She could remember her mother wearing it when she was a toddler as it was made soothing chiming sounds when she had tried to play with it, her mother had said that she had wore it all through her pregnancy as well so that Willow would have heard it before she was even born. She had chosen to wear the necklace herself ever since she had been given it by her grandfather, adjusting the length of the chord as she had slowly grown taller. Occasionally, when she was younger and walking alone, Willow had closed her eyes and listened to the soft chimes and imagined that the sound was her mother walking alongside her, as she tried to remember what she had looked like.

"Your necklace is fine and your hair is covered, though it is a shame you are unable to show it with pride. Oh, all the lovely braids and designs I could do to it…" Rhiannon cooed. Willow and Ysmay both laughed at her mother and the constant wish she had to style Willow's hair.

"Perhaps one day Rhiannon," Willow offered to her.

"You do my hair mother!" Ysmay said, trying to placate her mother.

"Yes and I do so love to do it. You are a good and patient child for letting have my fun," said Rhiannon as she stroked her daughter's head.

"We are here. Where do you think would be the best place to park the wagon Rhiannon?" Aiden asked from the front, ending the conversation about hair between the women, much to Willow relief.

Willow couldn't believe that she was about to enter the place which later generations would call Camelot. Unable to stop herself she finally had a peek over Aiden's shoulders at the landscape around them. The Wall stretched out across the landscape like a huge stone snake with the fort appearing as a dark and imposing fortress amongst the sea of green grass and yellow fields of the surrounding area. The woodland was dense and ominous to the right of the fort, bathing the area in an early morning mist that could have come out straight out of a fairytale, and over the wall from their high up viewpoint; Willow could see a similar forest that carpeted, without obstruction, the further northern territory beyond the horizon. Even with the early hour, people were walking about and performing their everyday tasks in the constant shadow but security of the great stone keep. Yet still, after observing all this, Willow only hoped that the fort would benefit her family and serve as an interesting diversion for a short while before they eventually moved on; the future and the history of the land unaffected by her presence there. But what Willow did not know was that time, whether it was the past or the future, could be a fickle thing.

A/N: Hallo! So this is my first fan-fiction and I hope you enjoyed it. I've always been a lover of fan-fiction but I recently went through a phase of reading as many King Arthur fan-fictions as I could possibly manage without life getting in the way and the idea for this one came into my head and then refused to leave until I wrote it down. I know and I'm sorry that its the usual modern-girl-goes-back-in-time-yada-yada-yada but I don't care because I personally love them.

This will eventually be a Tristan/OC although it might take a while to get there but I hope you'll stick with it and enjoy the story's progression. Reviews would be appreciated.

Cheers

Pitta x