A year or so of being a knight had passed by, filled with bloodied battlefields, glory, and social unrest. We may have won battles and King Arthur has proven to be a great leader in certain aspects, but the issues had become uncomfortably visible. The people, though they respected the strong divine king of Britain, were filled with disdain. No matter how they praised the glory of their nation, such prayers and the news of victory could not fill their stomachs and lower the taxes.
We and many of the knights of the round table tried to reduce the suffering of our people. My personality had become so scrambled with Mordred's that we were nearly one existence. Not completely one, since I still view myself to be an outsider. From it, we contributed to the livelihood of the citizens rather than seeking more glory through combat like the original version of ourselves in Fate lore.
Our efforts bore fruit in many regions within Britain. As our progress increased, so did the apathy of King Arthur. Arthur Pendragon, like the original in Fate lore, desired to be the perfect king. A king void of emotions and entirely different from humans. She became indifferent and confused about the varying troubles of the common people. The knights and advisors surrounding King Arthur knew this and slowly left her side.
Mordred and the remaining knights stayed by the King's side. The events I had known from my past life would soon come into play. The when was a mystery and the how was vivid since I never bothered with the in depth details of Fate lore. Mordred still didn't know her true heritage and I was reluctant in sending ideas of it to her.
King Arthur still failed to notice the core problems of his ideology. The King made frequent ventures into the battlefield, leaving the ruling of Camelot and other government affairs to his associates and knights. Apparently, one such knight is us for the sole reason that we were less of a glory seeking warrior than the other trusted knights, but still held an unyielding presence in conversations.
Even now, the King and my fellow knights were waging battles with rebels and barbarians. It had been a month since the last departure of the king from Camelot and an hour after his return.
Gawain walked towards us with parchment in hand. "Knight Mordred, this is the list of spoils obtained and death tolls. Do what you must to rejuvenate the army's morale." The listed casualties were in the thousands, most due to infected wounds from battle. Alas, successful nonetheless as the battle was won and the enemy pushed back.
"It saddens me that we were forced to inscript untrained villagers to fight our battles." Gawain continued as Mordred scanned through the parchment details. "Though a warrior named Egbert held the qualities of a knight. It saddens me that his talent was wasted."
'What?'
"What?" Mordred dropped the parchment and stared at Gawain. "What did you say?"
"Oh, a inscripted villager of the name Egbert led his fellow villagers to battle. The knights needed energy and the king did not wish to send them to battle without rest. He ordered us to find willing people to fight in the knights' stead. I saw to the recruitment myself" He continued, only noticing our bursting bloodlust when Mordred pushed Gawain away and raced down the halls of the castle towards the horse stables.
We moved as one as we grabbed a healthy stallion, pushed open the gates, and rode towards Lena's village. The returning knights were struck with confusion at my distressful actions. Even our King raised an eyebrow at our unique actions. We didn't care for their thoughts and stares; only Lena and Egbert were on our minds.
We rode on the dirt road, never stopping and never resting. We feared for the worst and desperately wished it had not come to pass. They were the only ones who brought color into our life besides the joy of serving under our king.
"Oof!" Our horse tripped over his own weight and crashed onto the ground. It had lost all of its strength in the hours of continuous running. I…Mordred…We tumbled to the group with our steed. The pain was nothing compared to our distress and we picked ourselves up. We discarded our armor and sword to increase our mobility as we ran towards the village.
We did not know how long we traveled, but we reached it nonetheless. The sight of the ruined village worsened our fears.
"Huff…Huff…LENA!...Huff." In between breaths, we called for her. In our search, we found corpses. Many bodies littered the village grounds; the people whom we had grown to recognize throughout our visits to Lena. The sight only increased our pace towards Lena's cottage.
The bloodied path opened up to the village plaza. Upon the dirt ground, laid the man I wished had lived. Egberts body was covered in arrows and deep wounds. He died with his eyes open, those eyes filled with fury and determination. He knew what he was fighting for and even in death, he wished to achieve it. I knelt down before his body and placed my palm open his eyes, closing them and laying him to rest. His body was cold, but his blood was still liquid.
For all we knew, Lena could still be alive. We raced towards the cottage and kicked the wooden door open.
As I did so, I saw her. She was bleeding, but her chest was moving…Lena was alive.
"AAARRGH". A man screamed from behind us. We did not care for his existence and immediately brought our grip upon his swing arm. The anger and adrenaline pushed us to greater strengths. We crushed it without remorse. The barbarian could not scream in pain as we brought our other hand towards his neck.
*Snap* The lifeless body dropped to the ground. He never had the chance to plead nor understand his demise. We kicked his corpse through the cottage window before racing towards Lena.
"Lena! Stay with me! Lena" We pleaded.
"I can fix this! I can heal you!" We brought forth pieces of cloth to try to stop the bleeding.
"Mister Knight?" Lena slowly opened her eyes. Her breath was quick and shallow.
"Don't worry Lena! I can make everything better." We reasoned. Wet streams flowed down our faces. It was unsightly, but we didn't care.
Her eyes met ours; we could see the relief washing over her body. "Mister Knight, you came."
"Of course I did. I promised, didn't I?"
"I am so happy right now." She meekly replied. Her body was getting weaker. We desperately looked around the cottage, going through everything we could do to save her. Anything would do!
We felt a hand caressing our face. Our eyes were met with the crying face of Lena.
"Mister Knight I'm scared." She slowly said. "I'm scared, but I am a big girl now. Big girls shouldn't be afraid so I won't be." Her hand wiped away our tears. Yet, new ones replaced them.
"Please…Please don't leave me." We begged.
"Don't be sad, Mister Knight." She continued. "Can I…Can I get a hug?"
We didn't reply as we embraced our dying friend. We could feel her chest slowly stilling; her breath was getting silent. "Mister Knight…I am sleepy right now…Can you tell me a story?...The story of a knight?"
"Don't leave, Lena." We continued to plead. We begged her to stay as if a miracle could happen and change fate.
"Please?" Lena's grip on our body was getting weaker.
"Alright." We gave in and murmured.
"Does it have a happy ending?"
"Yes…Yes it does."
"Thank you…Mister Knight."
With one deep breath to hold our tears, we began our tale. "The story of The Knight of the Round Table; The Knight of Treachery."