Title: Pain
Author: Caroline Fale/Sear
Rating: PG-13-ish
Pairing: Tristan/Lancelot
Disclaimer: I do not own King Arthur the movie nor it's characters.
Beta: Er- no? (That doesn't equal "Don't want one"…)
Reviews: Yes please!
Archiving: Just ask first.
A/N: Well, yeah, angsting over dead characters… Boromir, sure I knew he would die, but it was another matter seeing him being shot full of arrows… Maximus, even if it was fitting… Hector, and Achilles! Lucian!
… Tristan, who could have lived… grr stupid filmmakers… and Lancelot!
Pain.
(Chilling, white-hot, all-consuming, in the back of your mind.)
Pain. You know a lot about pain (how even the word seems to hurt), comes with being a knight. Pain is a flesh-wound or a fresh blister (clench your teeth, don't scream, never scream). Pain is the dull throb of bruises and half-healed scars (the one where the Woad arrow passed through your shoulder). Pain is being cold and hungry and too long on duty (as always). Pain is the gnawing of service, of being unfree (manacles and leaden shoes). But seeing Lancelot disappear with different women every night is agony (never scream), and the pain of a death-blow, (how quickly your strength bleeds away) is desperation.
Even if your heart still beats you know that the Saxon has killed you. (It is for the better.)
Your hand fumbles with the throwing knife, but the futility of it all makes you hesitate. You are so tired. Fifteen years of stony resolve crumbles, why kill this last time? (You are already dead.)
You release the knife, feeling the lady Death brush her hands over your forehead, encouragingly. The promise of the freedom you were denied in life lies in her whispers.
And so you die, for Arthur, (for Lancelot) for the knights, on a Saxon blade, days after your service had ended.
The sky clears overhead but you do not see, you do not see that your lady has returned. You do not see something break in Lancelot's eyes when you go down. You do not see him fall. All you know is that the pain finally is fading.
- finis -