A cool sensation swept through Elaine's body. She groaned as she opened her eyes- if she was dead or dreaming, why was she in so much pain? A fuzzy heaviness sat in the front of her skull, warping the world into unfocused clutter. She began to sit up- there was a cloth draped around her. So dark, where was she...she blinked to focus her eyes- shapes of trees and grass began to form. Outside... try to remember... something came inside the room- there was a hand-
She turned her head- a fire, not too far from where she was... and sitting, staring into it with an equal or even greater intensity, was the first person she'd seen in ages; a dark hedgehog A helmet next to him reflected the orange light of the fire- a knight? Yes, he was wearing the rest of the armor- a knight.
The hedgehog turned his head towards her- his eyes weren't orange like she thought, they were red- and now they were soft, filling her with a warmth Elaine had nearly forgotten.
"Lady Elaine?" he asked, "are you all right?" She nodded, opening her mouth only to cough- disuse was scratching her throat.
"Wh...Where am I?" she coughed with a low, rough voice.
"We're about two days ride from Camelot." She put a hand to her head, forgetting the state of her clothes for a moment.
"Uhnn... Cor-corbenic... what about... King Pe-" she devolved into hoarse coughing- but somehow the message got through to him.
"Corbenic still stands, and your father is alive and well." The knight walked over to her, offering some water- cool and clear, soothing her ragged voice. "He's visiting King Arthur in Camelot, and he sent me to find you."
Elaine's head moved faster than her body- she was on her feet- "I have to see him- my-" her weak legs collapsed and she fell into her rescuer. Her knees quaked and her face burned against the cool metal- like a stumbling newborn calf, she cringed, and just as bare-! She tried speaking but her face forced every noise to be a sort of whimpering moan. Elaine forced herself to face him- "oh.."
An orange shimmer of alarm in his eyes were extinguished with a relieved sigh- "I admire your spirit, my lady, but I don't think you could get very far in your current state." The dark hedgehog corrected her posture and lowered her back to the ground. My lady? B-bu-but she was just a little-
Elaine stifled a shriek after examining herself- not anymore, evidently- at this rate, her fur would be red forever- "H-how long have-" cough cough cough... Her voice wasn't low from disuse, it was matured- she was a full-fledged lady-
"Your father said it had been five years since Morgan le Fay kidnapped you," the knight relented, kneeling down next to her, "and I'm sure he'll be happy to see that you're all right."
"Five... years?- cough, cough, cough..." she shook her head, shuddering, despite how her body was burning up. "No... no..." She tightened the cloth around herself- even her tears felt hot on her cheeks. She didn't think she had any tears left after all the crying she had done-
His hand touched her shoulder- he hadn't come closer, out of respect, maybe? He said nothing as she began to run out of tears again- she didn't know whether the silence was better or worse than talking to her.
When her tears ran dry and her whimpering slowed, she glanced at her rescuer- "Oh... I'm- sorry... I-uhn.."
"It's fine," he assured. "I can't even begin to imagine the pain you've had to endure all that time- and then to learn that so much time had passed..."
"Uhnn, no, it's-snuff- not that- I-uhnn... I haven't asked for your name," she wiped the remainder of the tears away from her eyes. The hedgehog's ear flicked and his eyes flashed-
"Oh. It's- Lancelot." The dark furred knight looked away, brow pinching, as if concentrating on a problem he hadn't solved yet, the fire's reflection present once more. His gaze softened whenever he glanced at her, though- making her flinch, but why?
"I don't mean to upset you, but how exactly did you survive that?" he asked, tiny sparks of energy in his eyes.
Elaine shrank away, humming- "um... I... I used a magic spell..." Intermittent with coughs, she explained to Lancelot how she had been able to cast a spell that kept her alive despite a lack of food- even as she told him, she couldn't believe it herself- a young girl somehow mustering the power to endure the death trap conjured by Morgan le Fay? And for five years?
"You're incredible, Elaine," he laughed, searing her fur red. "I don't think I could've lasted that long."
"I-I couldn't last another day," she stammered- she'd gotten used to her voice, and the coughing was dying, but she was still stumbling with her words- is it the fever, or...
"Uhnn... th-than- thank you, Sir Lancelot," she breathed, staring at him. Was it because he was the only person she'd seen in five years- had she almost forgotten what people looked like? Was that it?
His mouth twitched into a smile, and a shimmer in his eyes stopped her heart. "You're more than welcome, Lady Elaine."
Knocking jolted Elaine awake- Galahad still sleeping, she carefully moved off the bed to answer the door. Father? How long had he been knocking... "Just a moment-"
Lancelot- how could she forget he was here? "I'm sorry- did I wake you?" he asked, less distant than yesterday- "I...I was hoping that, I..."
She let him step inside, shutting the door after him, even though her stomach was screaming not to- "He's sleeping, but he'll be up a-"
He was facing her, arms crossed- that little moment from the past gone again, more nausea- "That's not, exactly why I came..." Galahad's whimpering snapped both of their heads to the bed, and even from this angle she could see the orange flash of concern in his eye. She hurried- wincing at the sudden movement- but she scooped up the bundle before he woke up and started crying.
"There, there," she cooed the half-awake baby, holding him to her chest- "I didn't forget you- you're not alone. You're safe..." Elaine turned towards Lancelot- Galahad had his undivided attention, and the dark hedgehog mirrored the same wonder-filled expression his son had. She moved over toward him- "Here- he just wants to hear a heartbeat," she offered, passing the infant to him, "-there."
Lancelot stared, petrified with a smile that mimicked her own father's- he only let out a nervous laugh when he realized Galahad was fully asleep again. Elaine sat down on the bed as he grew calmer with his son against him.
"He's..." he trailed off, leaving Elaine to guess- Beautiful? Perfect? Perhaps maybe even adorable?
Lancelot laughed, glancing at her. "He's just like you."
Despite hearing the same sentiment from her father and Briselda, she could feel her ears turning red- "M-me?" Well, yes, they did have similar color fur... but that was all there was- "I mean... a-a little."
He returned to Galahad, humming to himself. "I guess you wouldn't have known, to be fair," he hummed. "What I meant was, he's an exact likeness of you- in the woods."
She wanted to jump into a frozen river to get rid of all the heat in her body forever- "I- I can barely even remember those nights," she mumbled. "I must've been a handful for you."
He walked over and sat on the bed beside her, thankfully not too close- "No... you were just... confused. You were burning up, and you just wanted to see your father again.
"There were nights when you woke up screaming because you thought you were back in that bath, and the only thing that could calm you down was my armor, do you remember that?"
She rubbed her temple, "Maybe- it seems familiar..."
"Well, because you were practically on fire, every time I had to calm you down, you always leaned against me, since I was always wearing my chestplate. And you'd fall asleep," he explained, glancing at Galahad, whose mouth was slightly open now- "looking just like him."
Elaine's skin was probably stained by now- just like him- did she snore, drool and whine-
"And I was just as afraid to move away from you as I am afraid of moving him now," he added, laughing. "Are you ever afraid of hurting him?"
She hummed, "Sometimes... it's something you get used to. Did you ever- were you ever afraid that you would break your sword?" Another nervous laugh- it'd been awhile since she heard his genuine laugh... Maybe Galahad would get to hear it, someday.
"The first time I held Galahad," he sighed, "it was just like when I held Arondight... She was a gift from the Lady of the Lake, made from the stars themselves. How could I be holding the stars in my hands, I thought. The first couple of nights I'd stare up at the sky trying to see if any had disappeared- just as foolish as you can imagine- and I never let her out of my sight for an instant."
"Sounds familiar," she laughed, imagining the blade she once feared being coddled over by a young Lancelot. "And when did you stop fretting over her?"
A hint of pink came to his cheek, "Well... I... don't think I stopped fretting over her...just eased up." He rubbed a finger up and down Galahad's forehead, "She's not fused to my hand anymore, but I always take care of her..." He started laughing to himself- more natural. "Not unlike a mother, now that I think about it."
"I doubt Arondight woke you in the middle of the night so you could clean her for third time," she huffed, shooting a loving glare at her sleeping son. "Or that she came with her own chattering handmaid that nagged you for holding her the wrong way."
Now Lancelot was chuckling, his laughing making a smile form on his son's face- somehow not waking him. Elaine's chest lightened at the sound.
"I understand, the wondering," she hummed. "I still wonder, sometimes- how could I be carrying a life inside of me? How..." she held her hands out, trying to express her sentiments. "How could I have... had a person inside me all that time?" How on earth did she deliver something so pure when...they...
Elaine kept that last thought to herself as she beamed at the baby in the dark hedgehog's arms; he turned towards the patch of white fur, clutching strands of it in his tiny fist. Part of her was glad that Galahad liked him, even if he couldn't understand their familial ties- second only to the inverse: that Lancelot loved Galahad, even if he couldn't shout from the highest point in the land their ties.
Perhaps that was what he wanted to talk about before Galahad had started to wake up- Galahad's future? Only a few possibilities were open to them: leaving Galahad in the care of her grandaunt, where he'd be raised at a nunnery, virtually removed from both Corbenic and Camelot- and thus his parents since any long, unexplained absences would arouse suspicion; having Elaine raise him on her own, within or without Corbenic, but never disclosing his father's identity, preserving Lancelot's but tarnishing Galahad's and her own; the unlikely option of Lancelot just taking the boy to Camelot with some tale of destroyed villages and a lone survivor among the bodies- but their actions thus far had erased this path.
He started wiggling in Lancelot's arms, eyes blinking open slowly. Lancelot gazed down, a tiny speck of fear floating in his red iris. "Hello, there, little Galahad," he whispered. "Do you remember me?" Elaine inched closer to get within Galahad's line of sight so he wouldn't cry. After spotting his mother he stared back at Lancelot, smiling up at him. "Yes, that's right... what a sharp little man you are," Lancelot cooed, sending the baby into a laughing fit by tickling his stomach. Instinctively the boy kicked and grabbed at the hand, the fight widening his father's grin.
"I imagine this is a new kind of foe for you, Sir Lancelot," she hummed as her son tried to stave off the attacking hand.
"He's spirited, I'll give him that," he hmphed in jest, easing up- now Galahad was pulling his hand closer, the baby's tiny hands exploring the length of the object, gaping and laughing- the great unbeatable Lancelot had surrendered the duel.
"I think he has an unfair advantage of being your son," she mused, leaning to watch her son play with his trophy.
"Hah. Do you think I'd take pride in defeating a child?" He shot her a glance that hiccuped her heart- no dark clouds behind his eyes, no sharp-edged judgements... at least for a moment, then the clouds reappeared and he turned away. Elaine's ribs grew cold, her heart faltering as she sighed.
Yo! So this chapter is getting really long, so that's why I'm stopping it here- don't worry, I'm working on it as we speak! (。・ω・)ノ゙ - PikasPuma
