† Year Six, Day 326 †
Every year on that day, Elaine sat in her redcurrant garden. Because the cold of winter had no staying power in Benwick, and the plants teemed all year long, the berries always shone like brilliant rubies, but Elaine took pleasure in their beauty only once a year. Surrounded by the bushes bowing under the burden of a hundred redcurrants, closed off from the world by broom and ivy, Elaine sat in her garden on that day and reminisced.
Ban knew about her little ritual, had noticed how she had snuck out of bed on the morning of that day five years ago. And when she had repeated this practice step by step for the succeeding years, he had known for certain what drove her towards the redcurrant garden.
Nevertheless, he avoided the place like the scorching heatwaves of Purgatory. Reminiscing hurt, it was so much easier to bury the accursed images, the countless lighthearted conversations, and the rainfall proceeding the pain. Ban had long ago declared himself the master of burying the pain under a joke and a mug of ale. Scratch that, ten mugs of ale. The Captain might have played that game for longer, but he had dropped out about sixteen years ago, so Ban won this, like every contest between them, by default.
That crown suited him far better than the reign over Benwick.
Unfortunately, Ban found no meaningless task to jump onto on that day. The Fairies, who always found themselves in this or that little quarrel, were unusually quiet. No one came forth to bother Ban with their troubles, and messages from outside Benwick failed to appear. And to make the disaster complete, some damned spell drove all merchants and curious adventurers away from the borders, so Ban couldn't even waste his time in dealing with them. History loved to repeat itself, and Ban's unholy luck on this of all days proved this beyond doubt.
He had circled the outskirts of the forest twice, and the sun had yet to pass its midday peak. In a fit of idiocy, Ban let his feet decide the way for him while he occupied himself with plucking leaves from the trees beside his path. The Fairies would scorn him, hell, Elaine would scorn him if she knew, but Ban cared little about their plant-obsessed feelings. Let him trample on them for this one day.
But karma got its revenge soon enough with a backhanded slap as Ban's traitorous feet led him towards the redcurrant garden. Before he knew it, he stood face to face with the red berries. And although every voice in his head urged him to turn and run, Ban stepped between the two slender stone pillars enwrapped by ivy which marked the garden's entrance.
Elaine sat on the patch of grass amidst the overgrown bushes and rolled a handful of berries around in her palm. She paid no mind to the dew sparkling on the blades, even though water and dirt had left stains on the white hem of her dress. Even her wings looked sorrowful in the way they hung to the ground, without a trace of energy glittering across the translucent shapes.
Ban made an effort not to sneak up on her, but Elaine nevertheless pretended to have overheard his arrival. Maybe she hoped he would leave soon. Maybe he should.
But his feet had led him this far, so why not wait and see what would come of this surprise visit?
The vibrant scarlet of the redcurrants burned in his eyes, and Ban shoved his hands into his pockets to stop them from trembling. If Elaine didn't speak up soon, or if Ban didn't leave this accursed place in the next few minutes, he might lose himself and tear out every last plant so that the scarlet eyes would stop looking at him. What comfort did Elaine hope to find here? Why would she subject herself to this torture, to all the youthful scarlet eyes brimming with life?
Another tuft of grass succumbed to Ban's soles, but Elaine played deaf.
"Hey," he said louder than necessary.
Elaine turned to look at him. And while she did spare him the sight of her tears, the grief showed in her trembling lips. "Hey."
A bird chirped between the branches of the tree overlooking the garden. A confused bee flew a turn around Elaine's head before the insect fled to a more pleasant sight in search for nectar.
"How was work today?" Elaine asked.
"Pretty good. Nothing out of the ordinary. I'll probably run another patrol soon. Should start with it right away, actually. Don't want anyone to see me slacking off while on my king duties." But Ban couldn't find the energy to go. He stood there, a handful feet away from his wife and looked at her like the people look through the strangers with whom they have to share a carriage.
"Ban, how long will we keep up this game? I can't go on like this forever. It's been almost six years. I want to remember the good days, and not just strangle and bury every memory because I'm afraid of the pain. I take the pain over this any day."
"Well, I don't."
Elaine tossed the berries in her hand aside before she could squish them. "Do you really want to forget him? Do you think just because neither of us dares to mention his name in front of the other he will disappear from your heart?"
"I don't expect you to understand…"
"No, I don't understand because what you're doing is stupid! You don't talk to anyone, you avoid Liones at all costs because you just might run into Meliodas and Tristan, and you pretend like today isn't the birthday of our son!"
Ban closed his eyes to avoid the fireworks of fury in Elaine's eyes. No matter how much he loved her, her knack for hitting him with the truth made his teeth ache from grinding them too often. Curse this day, curse what it represented, and curse Elaine for reminding him. He needed a bottle of ale, either to smash the glass or to intoxicate his system with the alcohol until he returned to the bliss of oblivion. He wanted to scream, but his breaths came out more like weak stutters. The years had stolen the heat from his hatred, and the little glimmer that remained could not outweigh the tiredness.
"Sixteen years ago, I held him in my arms for the first time," Elaine continued. "He smiled when he first saw you, and you smiled back with that stupid, overwhelmed grin, and I had never been happier my entire life. The thousand years that came before didn't compare to that one moment. Why don't you want to remember that?"
But Ban remembered. He might have tried to burn the images from his mind, but they stuck to him with a stubbornness to match Elaine's. Yes, he remembered every little detail of that day. The smell of plants and the eastward breeze coming from the sea. The lose strands of golden hair on Elaine's sweat-covered forehead. The bunch of flowers he had planned to give her but that he ended up tugging into tiny pieces because he did not know what else to do with himself. He remembered the awestruck expression on Elaine's face when she read the tiny newborn's heart and saw herself in there, and he remembered how his own heart jumped up and down in his chest when she handed the bundle of life to him.
By the Goddesses, of course Ban remembered the moment he first held Lancelot in his arms. No might in this universe could make him forget, not the flames of Purgatory, nor the Demon King, and definitely not Ban's own idiotic attempts at banning the moment from his mind.
Lancelot had clenched his tiny hands, a fighter from the get-go. At the time, the endless potential of heroic feats his son might accomplish had swelled Ban's chest. He would be better than his father in every sense of the word, Ban would see to it. Never had the future shone with such promise. He had looked at the tiny, round facial features and had convinced himself that the boy's good looks were one hundred percent the result of fairy genes. But then Lancelot had looked back. With these wide scarlet eyes, with Ban's exact eyes, Lancelot had looked at his father and had smiled. And Ban had grinned back like the stupidest idiot in the world.
On this exact day, sixteen years ago, Ban had been the happiest man alive. Any try to deny this went up in smoke as the images overcame him with full force.
His knees resigned their duty and he crumbled to the ground. Elaine put an arm around him, but she blurred behind the tears running down his face. Tears of happiness, tears of sorrow, of regret and shame, what did it matter?
Ban filled his lungs with her scent of lavender until his head spun. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I couldn't protect him. I'm sorry that we lost him, and I'm sorry for being an idiot. I can't make it up to you, to him, to anyone, but I'm sorry."
"I know. I never blamed you."
Ban and Elaine clung to each other in desperate search for stability, for the remnants of the good they once had, and in the arms and the presence of the other, they found the comfort they had been missing for so long. In the redcurrant garden, they sat and reminisced.
"We had him for ten years," Elaine said. Her voice sounded hoarse too. "The most beautiful ten years I could have imagined. When you first stumbled into the Fairy King's Forest to steal the fountain, I thought such happiness could not exist, and that it would certainly never find its way to me. I don't want to trade these ten years for anything in the world. I want to hold on. And no matter what happens, I don't want us to break apart. I still love you and I will still do in a thousand years. Stay with me, please."
"I'm not going anywhere. You're all I have left."
With trembling fingers, Ban pushed a lose strand out of Elaine's face and placed a kiss on her forehead. She was so small, so fragile, and yet she was the source of strength he needed to carry on. Life had blessed him with the chance to meet her and spent the rest of his days in the warmth of her presence. Maybe as payment life had claimed Lancelot before his time. Could Ban call himself unlucky for the short glimpse into his personal paradise, even though the longing for this moment gobbled his insides with greedy maws?
A small smile played about Elaine's lips. "Do you remember his first word? You pulled every trick in the book to have his first word be 'dad'."
Ban chuckled. "Yeah, but that kid never listened to what I told him. I wasn't even aware that he was in the room, otherwise I would have never touched the booze shelf."
Elaine threw him an unconvinced look.
"Okay, maybe I would have poured myself a drink anyway if he hadn't said 'Ban' in the most terrifying impression of you I could have imagined. That stupid boy looked at me, said 'Ban', and shook his head like he wanted to lecture me. Like I was the kid with its hands in the cookie jar. He could hardly walk and still made sure to be a better person than me."
"I couldn't stop laughing at your dumbfounded expression," Elaine said and a glimmer of that joy lightened her face.
"I know, and from that day forward, I knew exactly where he placed his loyalty. I should probably call myself lucky that you two didn't band together and burned our entire stock of booze."
"Don't play the victim, you still got the last laugh. I needed another week to get an intangible 'mom' out of him."
"At least he did call you mom. I was just Ban to him until he could pronounce the word 'father'." The images seemed so lively in his head. All the little talks, all the laughter, the tears, and the scraped knees. If he could go back to these days one time to slap and tell himself to appreciate every second…
Ban leaned his head against Elaine's hair and stroked the fine lines running across her palm. "I miss him."
"Me too. Every day."
Arm in arm, Ban and Elaine sat in the redcurrant garden and reminisced about their son. And perhaps this little trip down memory lane, towards the vibrant days and the joy of daily life, would help Ban stand the pain for another year.
⸸ † ⸸
This year, on that day's evening, rain fell in Avalon.
Lancelot kneeled under the lee of his archway and finalized another line he had carved into the stone. The sun had disappeared a few minutes prior, and darkness held the island in a firm stranglehold. But his fingers and the unchanging routine of his task told him that this new grove measured the same as its neighbors without the need for light.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?" he said to hear his voice.
No one was around to answer him, except for this odd magic presence which penetrated and infested every stone on Avalon. For the longest time, Lancelot had assumed this amalgamation of power belonged to the Lady of the Lake, or even the black water itself, but the feeling this presence evoked in his gut fit neither of them. Sometimes, it felt almost warm.
He reached out with his mind to a handful of pebbles, and as he drew energy from this magic presence, the stones lifted from the ground. No more than the twitch of a muscle, and they twirled between and above his fingers.
"Is all this part of your plan? One failed knight against the King of Chaos – the odds are so far off balance, I might make it into the history books for the stupidity of the try alone. All this, the lake, Avalon, Morgan, Sir Jonathan, and the people I have killed in exchange for one duel against Arthur. The liberation of Chaos in exchange for one life. A fair trade – for you, for me, for Morgan. Maybe even for a few people more, a few I can spare the suffering under Arthur's misguided kingship. I've made similar tradeoffs before. Willingly. I have no reason to hesitate this time… none at all."
Hands of the purest light and the darkest shadows, hands that had once held the world, embraced Lancelot. As though electrified, the hairs on his arms stood up. The pebbles spun faster in the air and glowed brighter than any gemstone.
"I will keep my promise to Morgan. But she's not the only one I don't want to forget, before the end. I want to remember the good days." Lancelot dropped his fist and cut the stream of magic. The pebbles clattered to the ground, unremarkable once more. "But I guess it's too much to ask for an answer from the universe. Talking to myself again, just like I did in Benwick."
When the first drop landed on Lancelot's forehead, he convinced himself to have fallen victim to an illusion, fabricated by his mind to provide him with the ghost of comfort. It was easy to dismiss the droplet of rain as long as he couldn't see it. But the illusion refused to falter, and another drop splashed upon his head, and then another and another, and soon it was pouring.
Lancelot crawled out of his campsite, he even left behind his weapons as he made haste to step out into the open. When he raised his chin to the sky, the rain kissed his cheeks and eyelids, and the bitter, iron-heavy taste tickled his tongue. It felt so real. So painfully real, the taste and smell and feel of the rain might have resurfaced straight out of his memories.
Puddles formed in the little crevices and hollows in the ground. How much he had missed the wind-lashed torrents, the sound of water splashing into the pond at the foot of Benwick's great tree, the smell of wet grass, and the taste of redcurrants dripping with raindrops…
"Why are we out here when it's raining, father?"
"Cause I promised to bring Elaine some berries to let her bake her cake. You'd almost think she doesn't want my cooking anymore. Besides, I can't carry them all by myself." In his careless trudge, Ban stamped into a puddle, and muddy water splashed high to ruin his coat. "Bah! Good thing Fairies can't catch colds."
Lancelot averted his gaze to his dirty shoes. He was outgrowing them faster than his uncle could gift him with new ones. "I'm not a Fairy."
"Who put that idea in your head? Your mom's a Fairy, your friends are Fairies, and we live in a Fairy kingdom. Ya can't have it more Fairy than that."
"I'm too old for you to lie to me about this! This is just like the time you told me about that girl who comes into my room to put Fairy dust over me so that I have nice dreams. The girl doesn't exist. And I'm not a Fairy. The others remind me of that often enough."
Ban stopped to put a hand on Lancelot's head. "Look, Lance, I didn't mean to lie to you. Your mom and I just thought that you'd have it easier to find friends that way."
"But the Fairies are not my friends! I grow and they don't. They fly and I can't. And if not-Fairies can get colds, then I will get one for sure!"
With a sigh, Ban kneeled down in front of Lancelot to meet him at eyelevel. "Okay, I'm gonna tell you a secret. But only if you swear not to tell anyone. Not even your mom." Lancelot nodded. "I'm not a Fairy either. Come on, don't give me that indignant look. It's not exactly hard to figure out once you realize that I don't have wings and don't throw myself around every other tree like they're my cousins. I was born as a human, but I never really liked them that much. For such a weak clan, they sure love to push the weakest of them down to elevate themselves. So, you know what I did when I didn't feel like I belonged to the humans? I found myself a Beastman as a father and married a Fairy. Made some friends among the Demons and Goddesses too."
Lancelot furrowed. "So, I have to get a new father to feel better?"
"No, you airhead! What I'm trying to say is, it's okay to feel different. You'll eventually find friends who take you as you are. You shouldn't bend over backwards to fit into the Fairy norm. Only dumb kids do that. If you stick to what you believe in, you'll earn the respect of others someday. Keep on trying, even if you're down. Okay, now let's find those cursed berries."
Thanks to Lancelot's sense of direction – Ban had a talent for running in circles and complaining that all trees look the same – they stumbled into a shrub overladen with ripe redcurrants. And while Lancelot fell on the task of filling his basket with mechanical precision, Ban watched him and did what he knew best: slack off.
"As much as I appreciate your enthusiasm, you're allowed to have a little fun, you know? Elaine's baking skills are just gonna ruin the taste. You gotta try one while they're fresh and draped with rainwater. That's when redcurrants taste the best." To prove his point, Ban plucked a scarlet berry from its stalk, pushed the fruit between his lips, and indulged in excessive chewing.
Lancelot looked back and forth between Ban and the half-filled basket. Then, he took a redcurrant from the pile and mimicked his father.
With a little less speed than before, they stocked up on berries as Elaine had ordered, and when they made their way back, Ban allowed Lancelot to carry the basket.
"You're helping me big time, as always," he said. "If someone can bring a little order into this place, it'll be you, Lance. I'm counting on you, don't forget."
Lancelot still tasted the redcurrants on his lips. He still felt the warmth over his father's words swell his chest, a feeling he longed to experience and reexperience like an addict starved on the very substance that killed him.
Did Ban still count on him? Or had he given up hope for Lancelot, had written him off as a failure and a waste of his time when he had again and again struggled to make due on his promises? Maybe childish hopes convinced him or maybe the ecstasy of rain made him dizzy, but Lancelot wanted to believe that Ban remembered him. The good part of him. For all his flaws, Ban possessed an unfathomable determination and a will to continue on despite the flimsy hopes of victory. He had proven this strength when he had brought Elaine back, when he had followed his friend to Purgatory, and a thousand other times, all those moments a gleaming memory in Lancelot's head.
One day, Lancelot would find a fraction of his father's courage. He would take on the duties Ban never wanted and exceed his expectations. With one duel against Arthur, he would bring the order Ban hoped to see. The thought of this future brought a smile to his lips, a smile that tasted of rain and redcurrants.
Wrapped in utter darkness and unable to see his feet, Lancelot hummed a melody Elaine had taught him when he had hardly managed to stumble after her. Whether the song came from human or Fairy origin, he failed to remember, but the words helped him forget the blood on his hands, the death of his free will, and the line he had overstepped.
Walk by the riverside, my dear, stay strong, walk on
Come to where we used to meet, to the common ash, to me
Then soon you'll fall in my embrace, the cold won't hold
And as the river whispers here, no harm will come to you.
The smile did not falter for as long as the rain splashed onto his face, and Lancelot stayed out in the open until he felt giddy from spinning in circles, his arms outstretched to catch the drops. For the first time in years, he slept accompanied by the gleam of images instead of their torment. The hands that had once held the world warmed him in their embrace. But like the rain washed away the trails in the sand, so did the shower take a hold of his memories and carried them down the river towards where the beloved person waited.
And when the next, cloudless morning arrived, Lancelot went out to kill another man who begged for Arthur's mercy.
1/6/2021 - Sometimes, I'm having a hard time to come up with reasons for Lancelot to talk. Seriously, as the protagonist, he doesn't have all that many lines. Good thing Nakaba established his tendency to talk or sing to himself once in a while. And while we are on the subject of odd details, did you know that Babies don't adapt social smiles until they are about six weeks old? But since Lancelot is part Fairy, and their development works differently, I allowed myself to bend the rules a little.
Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter. Please feel encouraged to express all your thoughts and ideas in a comment. So long!