The death scene.
Rated PG.
Some essential plot points have been changed to suit the story.
Feed me!
This is for Ivory Novelist.
My body lies on the battle field, broken and twisted. Blood speckles my lips and face. Guinevere hovers over me, tears running silent down her cheeks in a mockery of the crimson patterns on mine.
A shadow falls over me, and I truly only feel it versus see it, because my vision has left me.
I know it's him, come to try and get me to fight, to live.
I'll have to tell him gently, finally, that this is my choosing. That in choosing her life to protect over his, I sacrificed myself for a cause I hadn't thought to care about…and I wouldn't take it back for the world.
"It was my life to be taken! Not this! Never this," the words pour from Arthur's mouth, tearing at the sky with their vehemence.
"Lancelot," Guinevere whispers.
I feel him pick up my shoulders, and he rests my torso on his knees. Hot wetness stains my face…gods is it raining again? Accursed country.
He presses his forehead to mine, having thrown his helmet to the side. I heard the distinctive metal sound hit the ground a few moments earlier.
"My brave knight, bravest and truest of all," he sobbed onto the prone form in his lap. "I have failed you. I have neither gotten you off this island…nor shared your fate."
The blue skinned woman kneeling next to the Roman commander tries to understand the thing that was just done for her, and she cannot quite get there.
Why would he choose her over Arthur? She chews at her lip distractedly as she watches her lover weep over his best friend.
I try to raise my hand and touch his cheek, to tell him it's all right, that I did not expect him to trade his life for mine, but I have no strength in my limbs either, that strength trickling out of the hole in my chest at a pace that worries me.
I shouldn't be worried…I know what's coming. Doesn't mean I have to like it.
I lay in his lap like a damn invalid, berating myself for not being able to rip the arrow out of my chest and stand. How many battles have I fought? How many times have we snatched victory from the jaws of defeat?
How dare the Saxons take my life, when I just got it?
Arthur continues to rock slowly, his rage and grief a palpable thing, and barely notices when Galahad, Gawain and Bors bring the body of Tristran to rest next to that of Lancelot.
Guinevere looks to the sky, challenging the gods to answer her, why won't they answer her, why in the name of all things holy did this simple man whom she barely spoke to come to her aid?
Why didn't he choose to aid Arthur…she runs the question over and over in her mind.
No answer comes.
I hear Bors and Gawain say something to Arthur, and his murmuring in answer. He won't move. I know he wouldn't leave me, not yet.
I see something suddenly, and I squint my eyes against the brightness.
Oh my.
Green fields like those of my childhood…and so many horses that one loses count quickly.
I reach out my hand, and a sudden pain hits my chest, slamming me back to the present. My eyes fly open, and I see Arthur's green gaze looking at me agahast.
"Lancelot?" he whispers, and I blink my eyes rapidly, for the vision of Arthur's face and the green hills are starting to overlap one another.
"Arthur," I croak, finally able to move my hand. He takes it in his own, squeezing it with shaking fingers.
"Lancelot, don't leave. Please, I..we need you."
I flop my other hand out toward Guinevere, and she takes it, her warm small palm feeling so different than the large, calloused one of Arthur's.
"No…mistakes," I whisper, the horses in my vision looking at me, calling to me to join them. To go home.
"But I am home," I tell them, and Arthur looks at me quizzically.
"What do you wish, Lancelot?" Guinevere asks me gently, her dark hair blowing against my cheek, as she leans in close to me. I try to smile at her.
"Peace. I've had enough," I say, echoing Arthur's words of only, my god, a few days ago. Has everything changed so much so fast?
"You will have peace, my brother, rest assured," Arthur answers steadily. He was always one for reassurance. I grip his hand tightly, groaning at the pain in my ribs.
Arthur looks to Gawain, saying, "We must move him, and quickly."
I shake my head.
"No time, Arthur. I am not long for this world, and I must make my peace with you," I tell him, trying not to choke on the load of bloody phlegm that has lodged itself in my windpipe.
He glares at me, and I know that heated gaze well. It is the one he uses for his enemies. He cannot scare me with it.
"Do not blame yourself for this, my friend," I say, and his green eyes fill with tears again. I hate myself for giving him this sorrow, but I continue.
"I make my own destiny. I am a free man, and I choose, willingly, Arthur, willingly to be with you through this. I am not sorry to be here. Damn it, I need more time!" I say to the horses, who are filling my eyes with the hills of the land of my birth. I cannot go just yet. Please, for his sake, just a moment more.
It is not to be.
My vision leaves me again, and I cannot help the moisture that leaks down my face from the pain I feel.
Not just physical pain.
And yet…no mistakes. I would do it again in a heartbeat. I would save her again and again, because she needs to live, for him. He needs her. He will need her in the days to come. It is my final gift to him.
"Lancelot!" Arthur screams, shaking the other man's shoulders so hard his armor rattles. "You cannot do this!"
I am in the fields now, and with the horses. They are so pleased to have me there…and I've never felt anything like this before. Not with a woman, not in battle, and it breaks my heart to think it, but not at Arthur's side, either.
I am truly finished.
I want him to know one thing, however.
I open my cracked and bleeding lips to say the words.
"…love," is all that I get out.
It will do.
The Roman general roars out an anguished cry, the trees shaking with its might.
The blue skinned woad woman drops her head to her chest, thwarted in her quest for any answer. She will be silent for the rest of the day.
The remaining knights of the Round Table close their eyes, but understand.
No mistakes.
Fin.