Title: Ashes of Memory
Author: Nevoreiel
Pairing: Arthur/Lancelot
Rating: PG-13
Summary: First night spent without Lancelot by his side. [337 words]
Disclaimer: All familiar characters and situations are Copyright by Touchstone Pictures, etc.
Notes: Written for the First challenge at "knights500". It seems I have another 337 words ficlet on my hands. I'm ready to hate it as it took me a lot of rewriting and rewriting it yet again to get to this stage. Thank you, Silver for the prod to get it rewritten and the final nod.
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The knights were no strangers to the vigil over the grave of a fallen brother. When Arthur refused to budge from the empty, ashen, grave, he was left to grieve alone. He shifted the dirt with his fingers, dust to the wind, all that remained of Lancelot – the ashes of memory.
He walked through the woods, prying eyes respectfully drawing away as he approached, and his hands strayed to linger on the rough bark of trees. Gazing up at the expansive crowns, shielding the dark sky from view, Arthur clenched his jaw, eyes glazed over with recollections of the past.
Arthur lingered on the memories of laughter and jovial camaraderie that Lancelot shared with the knights and the heavy sighs and sad, little mutters as Lancelot shifted against him when they shared a bed. They shared many things besides – the terror of a nightmare after their first bloody, victorious battle, the binding of the first stinging wound, the tentative brush of fingers against skin before their first fiery, breathless kiss.
There was freedom in riding side by side, feeling the wind whipping past, and abandonment in the way the strong spirits tasted on Lancelot's tongue when they let worries fade. They had freedom in their grasp when, warm in each other's embrace, they kept the cold away. He could almost taste Lancelot on the tip of his tongue, could almost feel a phantom touch in the easy breeze, rustling like a sigh through the leaves.
It's only the first night spent without Lancelot there to carelessly fling his arm over Arthur and breathe hotly, soothingly against his shoulder blades. He knew that an indefinite number of such lonely nights lay before him.
Tears, the first real tears in fifteen years, dampened his cheeks. Before he could angrily wipe them away, an easterly wind whipped by, soothing the furrows between drawn eyebrows.
Whisper soft, it rustled of peace. It tugged at his hair and cloak and Arthur could've sworn he felt Lancelot's reassuring touch in its airy embrace.
End