Sundown
Lancelot, Arthur.
By the time they put Alymere into Britain's soil on the eve following what had been a banal skirmish of unexpected violence, it hit Lancelot that Arthur's knights, the warriors of legend, were dying.
Fractured by another loss that made them regroup closer by instinct, the ones still standing sported no more than a soldier's common injuries, easily mended by thread and Venora's ale; but Lancelot could not ignore the downward tilt of Arthur's hea when their commander retreated to his quarters at sundown. Lancelot stood watching the closed door until the sky turned black and the courtyard louder.
It's when Galahad (who kept to fretting after others when he grew restless of fretting after himself) came to draw him into his and Kay's game of dice, that dread settled deep where Lancelot had felt hollow, the white-hot fist of it heavier than grief and the longing for home.
Less than two years from freedom now, yet most of them would never taste it. The thought stained Sarmatia red.