Despite the exhaustion that had plagued him all day, Lancelot couldn't sleep.Something picked at him, gnawed at him like a bone, teased at the hairs at the back of his neck.Sighing softly, he sat up and pulled his boots back on, grabbing his sword and buckling it into place as he stepped outside the safety of the torch-marked wards.
He looked in the direction of the castle, entirely invisible in the dead of night, but whatever was bugging him wasn't coming from there.Instead, he turned south, following the sensation by way of a frustrating game of hot and cold.
As the wind changed direction to blow in his face, it brought a sharp chill and the scent of bergamot.
The memory came, sharp and piercing.Another night when he'd been lost in the cold and dark, seeking shelter from the storm on the horizon, distant thunder already making the world shiver.He'd resigned himself to huddling in the roots of an enormous tree when the scent of bergamot had drawn him, strange and out of place in the wilds of the British Isles.
He'd come upon a modest keep, not even enough to really be called a castle, the crumbling wall around it more suggestion than curtain.Inside, an exhausted and terrified maiden tending her wounded, dying father.Lancelot was no healer, but water could have purifications of its own, and he knew enough herbal lore from Guinevere and Iseult to draw the man away from the door to death.
In gratitude, the man who'd styled himself the Fisher King had insisted Lancelot take his daughter as wife.Shamefaced, she'd told him later, after her father had fallen asleep, that she was in fact a widow with a son already grown, and of course he could leave in the night—she would cover for him in the morning.
Lancelot scoffed to treat a maiden so poorly, even if in the eyes of most she was maiden no more.Her father might be old and increasingly feeble, but his land was valuable, and he had friends who would rise to his defense should Lancelot act dishonorably.They would pose no significant threat, but it was an unnecessary fight.
More than any of that, though, he had seen a woman in distress whom he had the power to help.
So with the understanding that his true love was Galehaut, and that she had always been averse to lying with anyone, though she'd done her marital duties, he agreed to the marriage.In the end, the marriage had proven a great boon to Camelot, and Elaine had found her true love in the Queen of Camelot herself.
He wondered how they would have managed to marry, he and Galehaut, when so many obstacles stood between that happy occasion.Not that it mattered anymore.The obstacles keeping them apart now were so much greater, he almost longed for those simpler problems of the past.
With the memories now bright at the forefront of his mind, he followed the winding path he'd been chasing before, through the mist that parted for him, until he at last came to what he'd sought: a crumbling excuse of a castle, shrouded in darkness and neglect.
He passed through the archway that had once been a gate, down a barely-there dirt path that had once been properly paved and lit by ornate stone lamps, and pushed open one creaking door.
Inside, just like all those years ago, Elaine was dressed little better than a chamber maid, grimy and exhausted as she bent over a figure in the bed, struggling not to cry.She had withered here, stuck in soil too dry and old to nurture, but she'd held fast, determined not to give up.And when offered her escape, she'd instead told Lancelot to leave her because he could do so much better than an old widow forgotten by the world.
"Mistress," Lancelot said softly.
She jerked up and back, the bowl in her hands crashing to the floor and splashing water everywhere."Sir knight!My apologies, I did not hear you arrive."She gathered her skirts and bustled across the room to him."We have little, but I will offer you what I can, of course.I am Lady Elaine Amite, widow of Lord Amite, daughter of Lord Pelles Corbenic, who commands the lands of the same name.You are?"She bustled over to the fire in the middle of the room and swung a beaten up old kettle over it.
"Sir Lancelot du Lac of Camelot," he replied, worry knotting his stomach.
Elaine acted as though they were back in that very day so long ago.She gasped as his words registered."Camelot?The Sir Lancelot du Lac?"
"Unless there's more than one running around," he said, pleased when that earned a laugh.Small and weak, underscored with exhaustion and some fear, but a laugh all the same."What do you here all alone, fair lady?"
"All others left long ago, leaving me here alone with naught but my son for company, and once he is well, I will encourage him too in departing from this place."
That wasn't right.She'd lamented everyone was gone except her beloved son, off hunting, and her father, who was slowly dying from being wounded by a wild boar who'd surprised them in the garden a few days past.
Lancelot approached the bed and sure enough, there in the bed was Galahad.What in the fuck was going on?"What misfortune has befallen him?"
"I don't know," she said tearfully."I woke up yesterday, and he was not well.Would not wake, mutters strange words in his sleep as though possessed by a devil, and grows weaker by the day.If I cannot wake him soon, I fear he'll not see another sunrise."
Sitting on the edge of the bed, Lancelot pressed a hand to his forehead, where sure enough, he was burning up, the kind of fever that would cook someone from the inside out if it went on too long.She'd probably been using the water to keep him cool as best she could, not strong enough to carry him to the pond he could sense near by.
Discarding his outer layers so he wasn't encumbered by them, Lancelot tore the blankets away, heaved Galahad up in a fireman's carry, and strode off as quickly as he could, bound for the pond he could feel east of the keep.
As he walked, Galahad muttered in his ear."Disconnected.Some…fritz…jolt…can't…stuck…help…"
Lancelot's blood turned to ice.
As they reached the water, a pond exactly as he'd thought, he kept going, plunging straight into it, until only Galahad's head was above water.Bringing up the comm window, he selected Merlin from his friend list.Merlin, wake up!Wake up!
I'm up, I'm up.
I need you here yesterday.For the love of god, don't bring Dred with you.
On my way.
