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Lancelot was wandering the halls of Chaldea. He had been on his way to see –
– Master, and Galahad, important important important, needed to see both of them –
– when he had heard a voice echoing down the hallways –
– ArthurArthurArthurArthur –
– and got lost. How long had he been wandering? What part of Chaldea was he in? He didn’t know, and he was in no state of mind to consider those questions.
He had come to a junction of hallways between different sections of the base. He registered the information, then immediately lost it in a haze of low-roiling anger and confusion. He looked from one direction to the other to the other, to the other, to the… other… in no time at all, he had forgotten where he had come from. He let out a growl, as if threatening the architecture would make it yield to him.
The hallways did not suddenly become easier to understand.
“Hrrrr.” Lancelot held back a roar. He leaned against the wall and sank down to the ground with a thud. He would wait -- there were enough Servants at Chaldea who would lead him, or who he could stalk, back onto the beaten path. And in the meantime --
Arthur?
He looked down one of the hallways when he thought he heard footsteps coming towards him. They were distant, though, and faded away quickly.
He faced forward again and relaxed as much as he was able. He let his loud memories distract him from the instinct to be active: fighting, prowling, hurting something.
That was unimportant. As his time with Master had instilled in him, it was useful to be still. Be still. Be still. Do not move; let others find you. Please stay still or you'll hurt yourself, Lancelot. Stay still --
“Berserker?”
He whipped his head to the side. Somebody was standing next to him, a hand on his shoulder. An armored hand, belonging to a knight. He snarled instinctively, his Madness Enhancement pounding in his head.
The stranger immediately recoiled but was quick to give him a friendly, disarming smile. “Sorry to disturb you! I just noticed you sitting here and thought I’d say something! Are, um… are you okay?”
He tightened his hand into a fist and forced himself to calm down. He remained perfectly still and brought down his breathing. “Arrr… thuuuuur.”
The stranger didn’t know how to respond, obviously. Hardly anyone but Master and Mash ever did. “W-well… good! I think? Um… say something if you do need help?”
“Aaaaaar.” He nodded his head and stumbled to his feet. He pointed down each one of the hallways and shrugged helplessly.
The knight – a woman, a young girl, so much like Arthur but not wearing her face – seemed dumbfounded. Eventually, she seemed to understand what he was trying to say. “Oh! You need to know the way to the cafeteria? Or maybe to Master?” He nodded. “Okay then! Follow me!”
A command he could follow. Good. Exactly what he needed.
Lancelot lurched to his feet unsteadily, propelling himself off the ground with too much force. The girl knight flinched, and Lancelot would have apologized to her if he knew how and if she would have understood him. Instead, he settled for gesturing for her to lead the way.
She plastered a smile over her face to try and hide the fact that she had broken out in a cold sweat. “A-alright, then! Let’s get going!”
She turned around and began marching confidently down one of the hallways. Frustratingly, she kept pausing, peeking back over her shoulder and slowing down to walk
beside
Lancelot rather than in front of him. Lancelot tried to force her to lead by using his much longer stride to make her walk more quickly, but she never quite seemed to want to turn her back on him.
Understandable. He intimidated most Servants, and his strength was a good reason for them to stay away. She was smart not to turn her back on him.
She wouldn’t stop looking at him either. She kept trying to get a glimpse of his eyes under his visor (useless: his eyes burned red, like angry coals shoved in his sockets). So – maybe it wasn’t fear making her act so oddly. Curiosity?
That was a stupid, useless trait in a knight. Knights did what their kings commanded and nothing more. When they thought for themselves they got angry and violent and slept with married women and brought kingdoms to ruin, and Arthur should have killed him for it, he should have been killed and his bones left to bleach in the sun –
He tried to chastise the girl for being so naive. ‘Curiosity killed the cat,’ he might have said, when he was still a man. Now, he settled for growling and looming threateningly over her. “Ar- rrrr- thurrrr!”
Smartly, she took a step back and held up her empty hands. “Woah, sorry! I-I didn’t mean to upset you! It’s just… this is the first time I’ve seen you since coming to Chaldea. I mean, there’s a lot of Servants I haven’t met yet, but you’re… I-I mean, you were…” She trailed off, obviously reconsidering what she was about to say. “Nevermind. Sorry, again.”
“Aart.” He brought his jaws together with a clack, definitively ending the conversation.
They walked in silence for a little while longer. The young knight kept fidgeting, though, unused to the quiet that Lancelot needed to avoid flying into a rage. Every time it seemed like her chatty nature would get the better of her, Lancelot just scraped his claws against his armor or snarled and she would shut up. But it kept happening, and it was more annoying than just having her talk would be.
He sighed, defeated, and tilted his head at her.
“It’s just,” she let out an impatient huff, words spilling out of her mouth like a barrel uncorked, “we’ve never met, but I’ve wanted to, but I think the others don’t want me to know about you? And now that we have met, I don’t know where to even start! I mean – I mean…” She reached out tentatively to touch his shoulder.
“It’s you under there, isn’t it?” Her voice dropped to the barest whisper, completely inaudible over the blood pounding in his ears. He had to read her lips to understand what she was saying.
“...Sir Lancelot.”
“...Ar…thur?”
“No, no, I’m not Arthur. It’s –it’s me.” She put a hand over her heart. There was a pained expression on her face. Even in simple conversation, he couldn’t stop hurting people. “It’s Gareth. Don’t you remember me?”
Gareth? That wasn’t a name he knew. That wasn’t Arthur. That wasn’t Galahad. It was a little familiar, but he didn’t know why. She wasn’t –
“Aarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!” He screamed and doubled over with pain. It felt like someone had split his head open with an axe. His head was pounding in agony, the kind specific to Madness Enhancement attacking his mind. He could feel it on the inside of his skull, rummaging through what little he had of his thoughts, memories, damaging his Spirit Origin in the reckless effort to place this all-too-familiar girl knight.
The same knight fell to her knees along with him, leaning against his side to offer support.
“S–Sir Lancelot! What’s wrong?!”
Her words echoed in his head. Over and over and over again, until Lancelot found himself sinking into another time and place, half memory, half real. It was no longer the smooth, sterile flooring of Chaldea under his feet, but the bumpy stone of Camelot…
Lancelot was sprinting through the halls at a dangerous speed. One misstep would send him hurtling to the ground, the armor he had hastily put on enough to make his fall all the more certain without being enough to absorb the force of the impact. He was wearing only his chestplate and greaves. His head, the entirety of his arms, and his hands were unarmored.
Those parts of his body were covered in blood.
He had been unarmed when Aggravain and the others had burst into the queen’s chambers to catch him lying there with her. He never carried his sword in Camelot, and he always doffed his armor as quickly as he could. He had been naked and without a weapon.
He had killed four men with his bare hands. It had been messy.
He swallowed hard and pushed those thoughts from his mind. Consequences for his terrible actions tonight could come later. What mattered now was making sure the queen escaped – they could do whatever they wanted when they caught him. He would subject himself to any punishment the king desired, but they could never be allowed to harm Guinevere.
He turned back to look at the queen. Her long silver hair was disheveled, fluttering wildly where it wasn’t stuck to her brow with sweat, and her angelic face was twisted with fear and concern. Concern for herself, for Lancelot… even for Arthur. Her small, dainty hand was dwarfed by his grip as he led the way out of the castle.
(As his hands were slick with blood, so too were hers now stained. The symbolism was not lost on him, much as he tried to ignore it.)
“Lancelot,” she began to say.
“Don’t worry, my queen,” he said, flashing her the most confident smile he could manage. “Once we get out of the castle, we’re home free. Too many knights are in Rome, helping the king fight back the invaders. None remaining could catch up to me on horseback. Finding a boat might be a little trickier, but I could probably swim across the English Channel if it came to that.”
“Lancelot, we can’t keep running –”
“We just have to get out of the castle. I can carry you if it’s too difficult for you to keep up.”
“No. Lancelot, I meant – running like this is wrong. We should – we should try to explain things, shouldn’t we? We should go to the king.”
He stopped dead in his tracks. Guinevere’s momentum had her stumbling towards him; he held her firmly by the shoulders to keep them from crashing into each other.
“Guinevere,” he said slowly, “our only chance of living to see tomorrow is if we run. If we go to the king –”
“If we go to Arthur, we can explain things! If we just run away in the middle of the night, leaving d-dead bodies in our wake… what does that look like?”
“It looks awful,” Lancelot admitted. “But the reality is even worse. I did kill my fellow knights, and we did commit adultery. The facts of the matter aren’t on our side.”
“But Arthur is! She will be! If we go to her, if we just explain things… she could… w-we might…”
She trailed off, unable to look Lancelot in the eyes. She began to tear up and shoved her head into her hands as her breathing became labored and choked.
Lancelot just stood there. His still-bloody hands hovered awkwardly over her shoulders.
“I can’t –” She cut herself off with a stifled sob. “I can’t leave her alone with these – these vultures. They’ll eat her alive.”
“Guinevere,” he said as gently as he could manage, “they’ll do so much worse to us.”
“...” Her mouth formed soundless words as she struggled to speak.
“If we leave, the king will be free to enact whatever punishment the court demands upon her return from Rome. She will have some clout returning victorious from battle, with all the knights by her side to protect her and reign her in. She will be safe. You will be safe. And I think if the two of us are here… all of us will be in danger.”
Guinevere stared into his eyes. As terrible as it was, the only thing he could think to comfort her was to kiss her on the lips.
He held her there as long as was appropriate – as long as would have been appropriate if he were courting her and she were not a married woman. She leaned into his touch just before he pulled himself away.
He stared at her for a long moment. “One day, when it’s safe,” he whispered, “we’ll come back. We’ll apologize. Whether the king forgives us or not will be up to her. Whether we take her out of this castle when we leave will be up to you. But here, today, we have to leave without her.”
“...okay. Then… we’ll leave. I… I trust you, Lance.”
She leaned her head against his shoulder. He would have stroked her head, but his hands were still slick with blood.
“...we should move now, my lady.” He entwined his fingers with hers and then they were running again.
He had barely finished turning around when he bumped into somebody.
“Oof! Hey, watch where – Sir Lancelot?”
Lancelot and Guinevere turned to face the speaker at the same time.
Standing in full armor, ever so slightly too large for her, carrying her massive shield around like she always did… was Gareth.
Gareth, who was so loyal, friendly, and trusting.
Gareth, who tried so hard to get the respect of the other knights.
Gareth, who fought every battle by planting her feet and waving her shield and shouting “come and get me!” to distract the enemies by making herself the most obvious target.
Gareth, who looked up to him.
Gareth, who looked up to Gawain.
Gareth, who loved and respected every member of her family –
– including Agravain.
Whose blood was still dripping from his hands
She stared at Lancelot, waiting for him to say something, anything. When the words didn’t come, her eyes drifted to Guinevere.
“Your – Your Majesty! What, erm… wh-what are the two of you… doing?” She didn’t have her lance, but there was a dagger on her belt – a dagger that looked exactly like the one Agravain had tried to kill Guinivere with, and Gareth’s hand was drifting towards it –
“Is that blood?” She looked him in the eyes again. “Sir Lancelot? What’s wrong?”
Lancelot reached out with the hand not holding Guinevere’s and slammed her visor shut, and then, without the slightest bit of effort or even a second thought, he lifted Gareth off the floor by her head and smashed against the stone wall.
Guinevere gasped in shock, but Lancelot was already running away with her in tow.
“Lance –”
“She’ll be fine,” he said, thinking back to all the times he or Gawain or Bors or Mordred or Percival or so many of the others had knocked her flat on her back. She had always gotten back on her feet and shouted for more. “She’s tough, and I couldn’t let her drag me into a long fight. We need to leave, now.”
He glanced over his shoulder at Gareth, slumped against the wall in an unconscious heap. His grip had been strong enough to damage the visor. He couldn’t see her face.
He forced himself to look away. “Hopefully, she won’t wake up until we’ve gotten to the stables. Let’s hurry!”
And that was the last time he saw her.
The last time he saw her. The last time he saw her. The last time he saw her.
Until now.
He snapped out of the flashback that might as well have belonged to a different man as quickly as he had entered it. His gaze slithered up off the floor to the girl at his side.
She was holding him. He blinked as he realized what she was doing. One of her small arms was draped around his broad shoulders, the other stroking and patting the cheek of his helmet as she blathered on incessantly.
“You’re okay, sir. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll get you to Master just as soon as I can and they can take care of you, alright? But you have to stop screaming. I can’t – I can’t help you when you’re like this, sir. I’m just – not – strong enough. Please, stop screaming and I’ll do everything I can to help.”
Lancelot realized that his throat was raw, and that he was indeed screaming. He had been screaming since falling to the ground, most likely.
He stopped. He stared back at Gareth.
“S-Sir Lancelot?” She swallowed anxiously. “Are you alright? Or… better, at least?”
He didn’t say anything. He lifted one of his hands – which was trembling – and pointed it at her.
“G– Ar– ‘rrth…?”
“Did you just…?” Her eyes widened in surprise. She cupped his helmet in her hands with a desperate need. “Lancelot! Sir Lancelot, say that again, please! Say – say my name! Say “Gareth”!”
“G–Ar’rrth.”
She giggled. “No, not “Garth”, silly, Gareth! You’re so close, sir, I know you can get it.”
“G-Ar’rth.” The name was a growl as he forced it out of his ragged throat.
Gareth got that pained expression on her face again. When she was this close, Lancelot could literally smell the fear coming off of her, smell the adrenaline and the cortisol in the sweat and all the other things he knew the names for but couldn’t possibly explain even in his right mind, but which all added up to terror.
She swallowed. “That’s – that’s close enough, I guess, haha! Honestly, it… it means a lot that you even tried.” She wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug. “I’m sorry that you’re in so much pain. Now that I know you remember me, hopefully we can –”
TIGHT.
Too close too tight too strong: trapped: animals in cages with scars where the manacles stayed locked around their limbs with ribs poking through their skin: let him go let him out let him OUT: leave Camelot and never return –
He shoved Gareth off of him. Then – fed by the scent of her fear, fed by the rush of his own adrenaline – he grabbed her by the throat and lifted her up until she had to stand on the very tips of her toes to touch the ground.
“Sir – Lance –” The words came out choked and strained, barely supported by air. “Lancelot. Ple – please.”
He growled. He gave her throat a brief squeeze. She had never understood the weight he had carried. The weight of being the best knight. Of protecting the queen. Of serving the king. Of being crushed between the two people he loved and hated more than anything in the world. What did she know of that weight, free and unburdened as she was? What did a child like her know about that kind of pressure?
He should show her, he thought, his heavy breaths turning into snarls. He should squeeze tighter, and tighter, and tighter around her throat, until she knew EXACTLY what it was like to have all the life SQUEEZED out of her by a cruel and uncaring force, except he would kill her in a matter of minutes rather than the way his own death was prolonged over the best years of his life –
Gareth let out a choked sob. “Pl– please don’t – k-kill me again.”
Lancelot froze.
He dropped her immediately, and she swayed on her feet unsteadily.
How could he?
How dare he?
After killing her so thoughtlessly, so off-handedly, so unintentionally – no better than a wild beast even before he became a Berserker – had he really been about to kill her yet again?
Had he not changed at all?
He dropped to his knees and buried his head in his hands.
The tears ran down his face and pooled where the metal of the gorget coiled around his own throat.
There was no redemption. He could never become a better version of himself. There was nothing he could do to make it up to ARTHUR, nothing he could do to make it up to Guinivere, and absolutely nothing he could do for poor little Gareth.
Gareth.
The girl in question was holding her hand out in front of his face, as though he were a frightened animal who needed to smell her first to know she was safe. Not inaccurate, as assumptions went.
“...Lancelot?”
He held her wrist – gently, as lightly as he could while still actually holding her – and guided her hand to his helmet’s forehead.
She let out the breath she had been holding. “Are you better now?”
He shook his head no. He was not. He never would be.
She paused. “...are you… going to hurt me again?”
He jerked his head up, looking in her eyes. They were ever so slightly bloodshot, and yet, somehow, impossibly, still filled with concern for him.
He shook his head violently. No, he would not. He would die before he would hurt her again – but then again, he wanted to die so badly that it wasn’t a good measure of anything.
Gareth smiled sadly, appeased by the gesture nonetheless. “Okay. Sorry, I… know that wasn’t exactly a fair question to ask. You just…” She choked there and coughed, her throat raw and bruised from what he, a monster, had done to her. “...you scared me, sir. Promise not to do that again, okay?”
She tried to inject some levity into her voice and playfully tapped him on the nose – where his nose would have been if he were not sealed into a coffin of steel armor.
He nodded this time. He would do anything to keep her safe –
– but how could a promise from an insane man be worth anything?
It couldn’t be trusted. He couldn’t be trusted. There was only one thing that could keep Gareth safe.
“G-Ar’rth.”
She blinked, obviously startled. “Y-yes, sir Lancelot?”
Her hand was still on his forehead. He tugged it down. Past his temple. Past his cheek. Past his jaw.
Down to his throat.
He reached for her other hand and brought it up to his throat too.
“...Lancelot?”
Her hands were pressed against his throat, but she wasn’t squeezing. He moved his palms over hers and pressed down, hard. Then harder. Hard enough for him to feel her pulse through her fingers – and to feel the way it quickened with sudden realization.
“No!” She tried to pull away, but Lancelot was holding her tight now, keeping the pressure steady as black crept in around the edges of his vision. “Lancelot, please! It’s okay! You don’t have to do this!”
He let out a raspy breath and continued to hold her in place. “Arrrrrrthur.”
“I’m not upset about you choking me,” she said. Her struggles against his grip paused. “Well – I’m not that upset, I mean. It’d be pretty silly to be mad at you for trying to kill me considering you already killed me.” She blinked, then cursed under her breath. “I mean – n-not that I’m upset with you for that either!”
“Ar-thaa!” he shouted, as accusatory as he could manage with four hands forcing his windpipe closed.
“I’m not! I’m not mad that you tried to strangle me. I’m not mad that you murdered me when we were alive.” She stopped trying to pull away as she spoke,gradually tightening her grip. The pressure on his throat was considerable.
“I’m not mad that you had an affair with the queen.”
“I’m not mad that you lied about it, to our faces, for years.”
“I’m not mad that you ran away from the consequences – even though you should have known better,” her knuckles actually popped, and Lancelot could no longer get any air at all, “even though you, personally, have told me over and over again that a knight should always accept the outcomes of his actions. Every time a knight swings his sword, he does so with full knowledge and intent: that’s what you said. That’s what you said! And you still ran away.”
Lancelot tried to speak – he couldn’t. The air wouldn’t move past the barricade of Gareth’s hands. He was suffocating.
Finally.
This was exactly what he deserved.
Gareth continued to ramble – as she always did – apparently unaware that she had been actively choking Lancelot to death as she spoke.
“I’m not even mad that you killed Agravain. I really, really should be! I know he was going to kill the queen and I’m glad you saved her life, but the two of you were in the wrong, and he was my brother, and you killed him.”
None of what Gareth was saying mattered. He didn’t remember Agravain’s face. He barely remembered the queen’s. Even if his brain wasn’t being starved of oxygen, he wouldn’t be able to keep Gareth’s face in his mind, because none of it mattered. None of them were real people. The only thing that really mattered in the end was what Arthur had done next.
ARTHUR was the only one who mattered, and Lancelot could only be free if he KILLED her – or if she killed him.
But Gareth was her cousin. So if she ended up strangling him, he supposed that was good enough.
Water fell through the slit of his visor directly onto his baleful, burning eyes. He was startled out of the unfocused slurry of his dying thoughts to recognize that Gareth was crying.
“I’m not mad about any of that.” Her voice was little more than a whisper. Lancelot wasn’t sure whether or not he was imagining it altogether. “I wish I was, sometimes, but I’m not. I can forgive you for anything – not just you, everybody, all of the people from Camelot – except for one little problem.”
He had just enough presence of mind to shake his head, even as the feeling slowly drained out of his body.
“You haven’t asked me to.” She broke into a sob. “You – you keep avoiding me, Lancelot. Not you, the Saber-you. Any time I walk into a room, you find a reason to walk right out. You do the same thing with the king, and that woman who looks like Guinivere. Why?”
He didn’t have an answer.
“You don’t talk to me. You don’t talk to the king, the king doesn’t talk to Mordred, Mordred barely talks to anybody from Camelot at all, and Merlin – I honestly think he’s hiding from us on purpose! Everybody’s so – so – scared to show that they care about each other, and I’m sick of it! It’s like Camelot all over again!”
“It’s all just – so stupid and pointless! What do we gain by pretending we don’t love each other?! If we don’t admit our mistakes, we can’t grow, we can’t change, and we’re all going to end up in exactly the same spot again, where everybody winds up hurting each oth– ”
She stopped. Abruptly, her hands ripped themselves away from Lancelot’s throat, and he instinctively gulped down several breaths of air.
In the time it took his thoroughly, now doubly-brain-damaged mind to process what had happened, he had already recovered from the strangulation attempt. His throat would be bruised and raw for a while, but it wasn’t like that was unusual for him.
He was going to live.
He slammed his fists on the ground and screamed.
The ragged scream quickly died out. He slammed his face against the ground as well, exacerbating the hairline cracks that had already formed, covered his head with his hands, and began to sob.
He felt arms wrapping around him again, and a voice, also sobbing. “I’m sorry. Lancelot, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean – no. That’s no excuse. I’m just sorry.”
He looked up to see Gareth kneeling beside him. Her eyes were red and rife with tears.
He dug his claws into the side to avoid grabbing her, or himself, or doing any more damage than he had already done. A desperate growl escaped his throat. “Arrrrthrurrrrr….”
Gareth’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong with you?”
Lancelot flinched.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Gareth said plaintively. “But… Lancelot, it hurts to see you like this. What happened to you?”
The question was so absurd that it made Lancelot laugh.
He had lied. He had sinned. He had gone to war. He had killed, he had killed, he had killed.
There were too many answers to that question.
There was only one that mattered.
“Arthur,” he said, and he made sure to enunciate the name with perfect precision even as it dripped from his mouth like poison.
Gareth stared at him for a moment, on the verge of understanding, then shook her head sadly. “Is there… is there anything I can do to help?”
He shook his head. He gestured vaguely to her hands, then to his throat. He might have forced her to choke him again, but his arms were so heavy that he let them fall down against his sides without further action.
“...I don’t think I can do that, Lancelot.”
He shrugged. He hadn’t really been asking her to; it was obvious that he wasn’t going to die today.
Unfortunately.
He sank against the floor and allowed himself to drift, exhausted. Like a drowning man battered by the unrelenting tides, Lancelot…
Sank.
The air was crisp and cool. Autumn had unmistakably arrived in France.
Lancelot and Guinevere had arrived just a few weeks earlier. He had not, in fact, needed to swim across the Channel; they had chartered a small skiff minutes before riders from Camelot came to announce that all ports were closed. They had made it safely to France without pursuit. And from there, they had made it to Lancelot’s castle, Joyeuse Gard.
With Guinevere there, it lived up to his name. She had instantly endeared herself to all the members of his staff and household guard. His vassals had come to pay tribute (and to evaluate the danger that he had put them in by breaking away from Camelot so boldly), and his new lady had charmed them with a few kind words and a smile. He could never remember a time when everyone in his little corner of France had been so happy.
Today, Lancelot was enjoying that happiness himself. He had resolved to spend an entire day with his beloved, openly enjoying their relationship together. They walked through the garden as the leaves fell and the flowers struggled to hold on to their colors. They held hands and openly kissed each others’ knuckles. They did it all in the open air, without having to hide how much they loved and how happy they made each other.
It was perfect.
Guinevere gave him a funny look. “What are you thinking about, Lancelot?”
“You,” he said. He pulled her in for a quick, chaste peck on the lips. He could have kissed her all day, and was sorely tempted to. “Have I told you how perfect you are?”
Guinevere laughed – not a giggle that she tried to stifle, not a chuckle that she hid behind her hand – she laughed, open and free. “Not today, my lord. But I never get tired of hearing you say it.”
“You’re perfect. I love you.”
Her breath caught in her throat. A smile crept tentatively across her face, and she kissed Lancelot.
“I love you, too.”
He kissed her back, with no plans to stop.
They were interrupted by a messenger running around the corner. “Lord Lancelot! Lord Lancelot!”
Lancelot sighed and reluctantly broke off the kiss. He no longer had to hide his relationship with Guinevere, but it was still not precisely appropriate to flaunt their relationship so openly. Even putting aside the massive insult of stealing the Queen of Camelot like Helen of Troy, Lancelot and Guinevere were not yet married. Even so, he remained at her side, a deliberate display of open affection, even as the messenger reached them.
“Good afternoon, Lionel. You bring word from Camelot.”
“Important – important news – My Lord – Camelot –”
“Yes, indeed.” Guinevere stiffened against his side, pressed closer to him; he had to force himself to ignore the fresh air and sunlight and her presence beside him for the sake of dire news. “Please, take a moment to catch your breath. We knew ill news would follow us across the Channel. All you must do is tell the form it has taken. Breathe deeply, stand up straight, and tell us in a clear voice what the king has decided.”
His messenger nodded. The young man took a few quick breaths that surely did nothing to help him recover, but at least he kept his voice stable when he spoke. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir. King Arthur has return and made a decree, my lord. My lady,” he added hastily, bowing belatedly to Guinevere. “The King has chosen not to hold either of you accountable for the violation of your marriage vows.”
Lancelot felt his eyes widen, seeming unable to blink of his own volition. “That is – well. That’s the last thing I would have ever expected.”
Guinevere spoke quickly, equally shocked. “Arthur cannot have possibly done such a thing! The court must be demanding justice! To oppose the will of so many people, the obvious punishment our actions demand – why would the king do something so – foolish!?”
“The king’s decree… said something about…” The messenger was hemming and hawing around the words.
“Please speak,” Lancelot said sharply.
“...King Arthur’s marriage vows included the promise to vouchsafe the happiness of the Queen of Camelot. If the queen was unhappy in her marriage, then… there was no dishonor in ending the marriage. So says the King.”
Guinevere stared agape. “The king… destroyed all of her political influence just so we could be – happy?’ Tears began to form in her eyes.
“Erm, yes, my lady,” the messenger continued. “However, the king may have tried to forgive the violation of marriage, but there was no mention in the decree of the knights that Sir Lancelot…” He trailed off.
“Of the knights that I killed in self-defense,” Lancelot said. His words felt petty & defensive even to his own ears.
Lionel nodded and kept his head bowed. He did not look Lancelot in the eyes again as he spoke. “Yes, sir. The word from is that all the knights are in an uproar. Sir Gawain publicly demanded revenge for the death of his family.”
Guinevere shook her head in obvious despair. “That’s it, then. Arthur cannot possibly pardon the slaying of a kinsman. Forgiving infidelity is already too much.” She swallowed audibly. Lancelot put a comforting hand on the small of her back. “It’s war, then.”
The messenger was silent. “Yes, Your Maj– My Lady. The king has sworn to give command of the army – the remaining army, after the campaign against the Romans – over to Gawain. Many knights died in battle, but certainly Sir Bedivere, Sir Lucan, and Sir Kay will be marching by the king’s side.”
“And Gareth, surely,” Guinevere said trepidatiously. “If Sir Gawain is leading the charge, surely Gareth cannot be far behind.”
The messenger continued to stare at the ground. “No. My – my apologies, Lady Guinevere. I assumed you both knew.”
Lancelot felt his tongue cleave to the roof of his mouth as he tried to speak. “...Knew what?”
“My lord…” There was a terrible moment of silence. “Sir Gareth was slain during your escape from the castle. Sir Gawain calls for revenge.”
Whatever words might have been said next were drowned out by the pounding of blood in his ears.
On the outside, Lancelot was saying something sensible about preparing for a siege, nodding and gesturing at the messenger appropriately.
He could see Guinevere in his peripheral vision. “We’ve made a mistake. A terrible mistake.” She clamped both hands over her mouth as she wept silently.
In his mind, Lancelot screamed.
He woke up, not screaming, though only because his throat was so worn and ragged that it gave up on him when he made the attempt. Gareth was still unbelievably by his side. He would have been touched by her concern if he didn’t want desperately for her to leave him to die.
“Sir Lancelot? Are you feeling better, or do you have more feelings that you need to get out of your head?”
There was a note of stern authority in her voice, like a reproachful parent, that reminded him of Master. Cowed, he shook his head.
“Good.” Gareth sighed. “I’m not going to leave you, but if you ever attack me or try to get yourself – killed –” she halted, her voice breaking, “then I’m going to talk to Ritsuka and ground you, or something. Do you understand?”
He nodded. It was all he could do.
“Good.” Gareth held her chin high for a moment, then let all the tension out of her body in an aggrieved slump. “God, This was not how I was expecting the day to go. I wish I could hug you without making things worse.”
“...arr.” Lancelot tried to agree, pushing past the rawness in his throat.
Gareth was silent for a long time, watching him carefully. “I’m glad I found you. I wish –” she chuckled to herself. “I wish things had been a little less dramatic, but it’s nice to see you. Any version of you. Even… even a suicidal berserker.”
The echo of Lancelot’s breathing filled his armor. It was the only sound in the labyrinthine hallway when Gareth was not speaking.
“I forgive you.” Gareth tried to look him in the eyes when he spoke; it was simple enough to turn his visor to face her, even if he could not quite meet her gaze. “It’s the first chance I’ve had to tell you that. I forgive you, for everything. Everything I can forgive you for, anyway.”
Lancelot turned away from her, but suddenly, her hand touched his chin, making contact for just long enough to tilt his head back to her.
“Do you accept?”
“...arr?”
“Do you accept my forgiveness? Do you accept that there’s at least one person from Camelot who forgives you, and who doesn’t want to see you kill yourself? Can you try to find a reason to live, for – just for me?”
Lancelot was forced to stare at her. Even if he were articulate, there was only one answer he could give. He shook his head in a slow, regretful “no”.
Gareth’s eyes widened with rage – enough to belong to a Berserker – and screamed “What the hell is WRONG with you!?”
Lancelot instinctively recoiled, too weak and exhausted to respond with action. He curled up into himself as a defensive reflex.
“Oh, don’t be so scared, I'm not going to hurt you.” Gareth huffed. “Obviously I’m not going to hurt you; I don’t want you to kill yourself! But god damn it all, what is going to take for any of us to accept forgiveness!?”
Gareth took a deep breath and let her temper cool before speaking again.
“It’s all just so…” She paused for a moment. “God grants us absolution. Unconditional forgiveness. But you have to ask for absolution. You have to want to be saved. I know you can’t talk, but you could at least ask. If you wanted forgiveness”
Lancelot growled in vague agreement.
She sighed. “It doesn’t always feel like the other knights want to be saved. Sometimes it feels like they’d rather carry any burden rather than just admit that they – fucked up.”
He growled at her and wagged his finger playfully.
Gareth giggled. “Sorry, but I don’t know how else to put it! We all fucked up, big-time, in maybe the most spectacular way any group of people have ever fucked up!”
Lancelot nodded. “Arr.”
“It would’ve been one thing if we were actively trying to destroy Camelot, or something, but we weren’t. We just… we just cared about each other, and we didn’t know what to do with it.”
Gareth looked up at him. “You… you still care about Arthur too, don’t you?”
A shock of rage and hatred seized his body. At the mention of Arthur’s name, at the sight of Arthur’s face, his body longed for death the way a fish longed for the sea. He would never be able to resist himself.
Even so… an emotion that strong was still a kind of love. It was a love in the way that a fire loved firewood as it cracked open and threw ash and smoke into the air. It was love in the way that the mongoose loved a snake. Wasn’t love supposed to be complete and fulfilling? Wasn’t it something people should be willing to kill for?
He had killed people for Guinevere. He knew he had loved her, and she him. Now, he wanted to kill for Arthur with the same intensity. The people he wanted to kill were Lancelot himself and Arthur – but surely that was just a sign of the depth of his devotion.
He was completely insane, he knew. No rational person had these kinds of thoughts.
But as his Master had shown over and over again, love was never a rational thing.
Gareth stood up, taking his contemplative silence as some kind of answer. Whether good or bad, Lancelot would never know.
She smiled down at him and outstretched her hand. “Well, it was nice talking with you, Lancelot, but I’m still pretty hungry. Let’s go get something to eat.”
He stared at her hand for a moment. Then he reached up and gently grasped it.
He managed not to hurt her at all.