Welcome back! Here's the second chapter of this story, thanks a lot for the support on the first chapter, OC stories usually do badly but I'm glad people like this. I have some really wonderful ideas for this story so stay tuned!

A Knight's True Wish

Chapter 2: Le Lac


Too deep, way too deep.

That was all she could think of.

Not many- actually. Nobody in her kingdom knew this but Arturia could not swim.

The lake did look beautiful though, the water was clear and she could spot small fishes scurrying about, the sun was also just starting to set and the dim orange light that reflected off of the water only made it look better.

The sound of birds chirping was progressively getting louder as they prepared to sleep in their nests.

Her attention turned towards the man as she saw him take a small step in the water, it reached high enough only to surpass his heel. He was also still wearing all of his clothes, all made of seemingly cheap material, even the slightly tattered gloves he was wearing. But it was still enough to make the only visible feature about him his eyes.

"It's pretty warm right now but I would advise going in before it gets dark or it will be freezing." He said as he stepped out of the water. "I think I'll find us something to eat, you're still wounded so please call out if something happens."

He walked past her and crouched to take his quiver of arrows that was leaning against a tree.

"Wait." He heard the king say, he turned around to face them.

"Is something wrong?" He asked as he attached his quiver to his back.

Her cheeks had a hint of red on them. "I- uh." Damn it, this was so hard and humiliating to say! "Is there a lake that is... less deep?" She said, it didn't help at all when his first reaction was his eyes widening.

"I eh... no, not that I know of." Seriously?! The king couldn't swim?!

He kept his eyes fixed on the king for a moment before sighing and taking off his quiver.

"What are you doing?" Asked Arturia as she watched him continue, he didn't answer before taking his mask off.

"I can help you." He said, even behind the beard and long hair that were let loose upon taking off his mask she could notice the red on his face.

The man took off everything but his tunic pants and noticed that the king had been staring at him the whole time, damn it! Was there some sort of royal law that says this is illegal?

Taking your clothes off in front of the king wasn't that big of a deal...Right?

"Erm... so?" The man said, snapping Arturia out of her thoughts. Damn it! She was stuck in a deathtrap now, taking off her clothes means him noticing that she had the body of a woman but saying no after he took off his clothes is... ugh! This was frustrating!

She decided, after thinking carefully, to only take off her armor and leave the clothes under It on.

And so she did, and so she noticed the man staring at her with his eyes wide open.

There was but one thing that the man's eyes made up more than any else, at first, he did not understand why but the king's chest was... pushing off the shirt he was wearing.

His mind automatically put the pieces of the puzzle together, he had heard the rumors, the rumors about the king being an incredibly handsome young man, but oh god, the rumors could not be more off about the truth!

"Y-you're a woman?!"

...

She had done her best to explain it but it wasn't going through his head, why couldn't he simply accept that she cares not for her gender?

She had enough of trying to convince him and sighed, he was too adamant. "Fine, if you do not want to accept it then I need something else from you." Her face grew more serious than he imagined it could as she said those words.

But he himself had a headache from how complicated this got, a woman as a king? That woman thinks she's a man?

"Under no circumstances, could you ever reveal the reality of my physical body. That is an order towards you by your king, understand?"

The man nodded almost immediately and then spoke. "Yes, you didn't need to tell me in the first place, besides, I do owe you anyway." He said.

There he goes again about owing her something, he looked familiar but she knew nobody owed her anything.

He spoke again before she could. "With all that aside, it is getting dark so let's hurry up." He dived feet first into the lake and extended a hand after swimming back to the surface, his face was noticeably turned to face the water instead of the king. Obviously, he grew more embarrassed upon realizing she's a woman.

Had she been able to see his face she would have noticed that it was as red as hers. She moved her hand and slowly grabbed his, this was definitely embarrassing and not something she'd ever normally do... but damn it, her body felt too tense and a bath was probably one of the best ways to fix that. Even if she still had her clothes on.

And so she pushed herself off the edge and into the lake, his arms immediately hardened as not to let her head go underwater.

It was still mostly warm but the water was definitely edging more to the cold than hot, they didn't have much time.

The man's brain was overflowing, here he was, helping a beautiful lady swim, and that lady was the Queen- err. King, damn it, this was so confusing!

Arturia, on the other hand, was actually quite surprised, in a good way too!

This had been her first time swimming, and if she were to be honest, this was amazing! It felt as if she was flying but with one hand being held by the man and the other holding tightly onto the edge of the lake.

"Do you want to go a bit further in?" The man asked, he sounded as smug as ever! What was that about?

She winced inwardly as she realized that her hand was holding onto the edge of the lake with force enough to slightly dig into the dirt.

She wasn't about to reject a challenge though!

"Yes, let's go." She said, the man snickered and started pulling her away from the edge and she was forced to let go of it.

And that was when her heart dropped.

Now, not having solid land to grab onto and completely relying on the man to not let go of her made her heart race and swimming was suddenly a lot less peaceful.

And within but a moment, she panicked and lunged herself to hold his shoulder tightly with both hands.

"Ow- ow! Easy, you're gonna drown me too!" He said.

Not realizing that he was merely joking because of the panic, she panicked even more and didn't know what to do, and now her body decided to let go of him as not to drown both of them together.

Her eyes snapped shut as she started sinking.

Thankfully though, it didn't take long to feel the man's hands pull her up and drag her towards him.

When she re-surfaced and opened her eyes, she found out that he had swum back to the edge of the lake with her. She grabbed onto the land as if her life depended on it and the man beside her started laughing. "I think we should just stay here." He said, and this time, she agreed.

She took her time to catch her breath and steady her breathing and then spoke. "I had a question." She explained, the man looked at her curiously, what could a king have to ask of him?

"You've told me that you owe me multiple times, but I remember nothing of the like, in fact, I don't know anyone that owes me anything."

Instead of getting a reply to her question, she saw the man's hand move up and his index finger resting in front of his mouth, indicating for her to not speak, he then pointed at something behind her.

She slowly turned around and spotted exactly what he pointed at in but a second. About thirty meters away from them, a bear was coming to the lake.

She turned around to face the man again and found him slowly leaving the lake, as soon as he got out he extended a hand and helped her out.

By now, the bear was in the lake and she noticed how it was fishing. The man next to her slowly grabbed his bow and whispered. "Looks like our food had come to us by itself." He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and carefully lined up the shot.

This was dangerous, this was a bear and not a deer or some other animal. If the arrow doesn't hit something vital then it will come charging at them.

Sadly though, the arrow was already flying towards the bear before she could protest. Though surprisingly and impressively enough, she saw the arrow go straight into the bear's skull and it immediately dropped dead.

...

"This tastes really weird..." The man broke the silence that the two of them were in, they had started a fire and cooked nothing other than bear meat, Arturia had refrained from complaining but nodded as she saw his own dissatisfaction, at least now she wouldn't be disrespectful if she were to say the same. The last thing she wanted to do was to sound like she wasn't grateful for all of the help this man offered.

He put the meat that was skewered to a stick beside him and sighed. "I think I have some bread in my bag." He said as he grabbed his bag and pulled out the bread.

He split it into two, one was significantly larger than the other, he notably inspected both and made sure to give her the larger one.

She had enough of this treatment though. "No." She said plainly as she cut a small piece from the bread he handed to her and offered it to him. He opened his mouth to speak but she cut him off. "Take it."

He hesitantly took it and not long after that, the silence they were sitting in continued. Until he broke it again, that is.

"Elryd."

"Huh?" The King asked, confused.

"My name, I just realized I never said it. It's Elryd."

She smiled slightly, she never heard a name like that before. "Ar-"

Elryd cut her off before she could continue. "I know your name, my King... Arthur."

That was true, everyone knew the king's name, but not the true one, which is why she giggled. "No."

"No?" Yes, it made sense now, Arthur was just for show, she's a woman and was probably given a woman's name upon birth.

"Arturia."

"Well, my king." The man paused and took a deep breath. "You've asked me why I owe you, it probably doesn't mean much to you so I'll spare you the details."

"No, I want to hear everything." She said, it wasn't like they had much to do.

"Well, it was a few years ago, you had been a king for just over a year and..." The man's face grew more serious and it seemed like he was recalling memories that are best left to rest.

"I lived in a small village, we were on the outskirts of the kingdom and everything was going well for us, we had a good season and were about to harvest bountifully, the only problem was how I was the only capable man in the village, the rest were too young or too old."

He noticed that she was paying full attention, he also had no idea why she was so interested in a simple man like himself though he kept speaking.

"One night, I was out to hunt for me and my sister, she was the only family I had left. Normally we had enough food but winter was approaching and we needed to stock." He kept on speaking, Arturia's ears never losing focus on what he said.

"I still regret not being there when she needed me..." He dreaded the words as he said them. " The village was sacked, raided, and razed to the ground by a huge tribe of bandits." He said, her eyes widened as she started remembering vividly.

"My sister, she was pinned to the ground by those rascals, those damn Knaves." The king still paid full attention and her eyes widened even further as she realized what Elryd had meant.

"Thankfully though, that's as far as they could go with her..." He said, Arturia released the breath she didn't know she was holding. What horror that poor girl must have felt. Even if they couldn't go all the way with what they planned.

"It was you, my king. You had, by chance, been close to our village. My sister told me that you never hesitated for a second, even though you didn't have a company prepared to fight a whole tribe, you still saved our village and my sister, you gave the village gold for the repairs and left all the knights that were with you to protect it."

Yes, she recalled all of it now, the village on the outskirts, how she only had a small company of knights with her but still saved them, how she ordered all of those knights to stay and protect the village even though that meant that she, Bedivere and Merlin would have to journey back to Camelot by themselves. And needless to say, that put them in great danger.

One would say that she should be happy but she only found his logic vexing. "No, you do not owe me anything, Elryd." She explained, she soon continued. "It was I who owed your village, I owed them protection, just like how I owe it to all of the kingdom. It is simply my duty."

The man failed to reply immediately and gave the king enough time to add to her words. "You do not owe me anything, Elryd." She said, her seriousness was slowly getting replaced with a weak smile. "Though I have reasons to believe that you are helping me for more reasons than simply thinking that you owe me."

He still failed to reply to her words, he didn't really know how to reply to that because what she said was simply the truth, that said, he still didn't want to accept it, he felt gratitude towards her and that wasn't going to go away just because she said that it was her duty.

"There is potential in you, Elryd." She said out of nothing, his head moved to look at her. "You are helping me because you want to do it, gratitude and feeling in debt are two different things."

Honestly, was this how all kings spoke? He could do nothing but listen to her speak. It felt like she was reading his mind.

"For example, you feel gratitude upon receiving a gift but that doesn't mean you feel like you need to give the person a gift back, does it?"

She let out a sigh, but it wasn't an annoyed one, it was more like a sigh of satisfaction. "You'd make a fine knight, Elryd."

He stopped her there, he had enough philosophizing for one night. "Well, thank you but I think it is about time we slept."

Arturia nodded. "Yes, we need to rest for the journey tomorrow." She said as she wrapped her royal cloak around herself tightly.

"What journey?" The man asked. Arturia's eyes shot up in surprise.

"The journey back to Camelot." She said, wasn't it obvious?

"We can't go tomorrow, you're wounds are still not fully healed." The man shocked her with what he had to say, did he really think that she cared about her wounds when her kingdom was in danger?

"I can't stay here when I know those magus assassins are out there, who knows how many more of them there are and what kind of rumors they have already spread? Camelot might be in chaos as we speak now!" She said, trying her best to maintain her composure.

She continued before he spoke. "I apologize but I will be journeying to Camelot in the morning and that is final, you are free to do as you wish."

The man sighed but what could he do? He had no authority over the king. "Fine, I'll accompany you but we need to rest well tonight." He said. He had planned to stay up and guard so they can keep the fire lit to keep them warm. But now he had to sleep so he can be ready which meant extinguishing the fire as to not draw any unwanted visitors.

Arturia let out a faint titter as he started putting out the fire, she was right. He did have potential.


I hope you enjoyed! (P.S Arturia can't swim because she didn't get Excaliber yet.)

Much Love! Stay hopeful! ZilverHope Out!