Arthur looked at Lancelot as they rode out. The knight was still cross with him for locking him in his room.
"Lancelot?" Arthur asked cautiously. With Lancelot you had to be very careful or his infamous temper could be brought upon you. The angrier he got, the less control he had. The less control the less your chances of staying out of the sick ward. If angered enough there was a possibility you'd lose your life.
"What?" Lancelot asked with anger heavily laced into his voice.
"I did what I did out of concern for you." Arthur gravely hoped Lancelot would understand but felt deep in his stomach that he wouldn't.
"I don't need you to be concerned Arthur, I said I was fine. That should have been enough!" Lancelot exploded.
"Yet you're also a headstrong fool and won't admit if you're not feeling healthy. In the past you've said the same thing and ended up with some illness or other." Arthur said calmly which, sadly, wasn't helping him with Lancelot. Lancelot was about to respond when Tristan pulled his dapple stallion between them, effectively ending the argument. It was when Lancelot growled angrily at him that he noticed how pasty Lancelot was now. Tristan stared intently on Lancelot in attempt to figure out why the other was suddenly so pale.
"What?" Lancelot snapped.
"You're too pale." Tristan said his brows still furrowed. Lancelot released his reins and looked at his hands, indeed he was very pale. Galahad, who flanked the left side of Lancelot's horse, was wondering at Lancelot's ability to control his rambunctious stallion with only the use of his legs. Lancelot looked to the sun with a fearful look upon his face. In his head Lancelot prayed to Apollo, his sun god, that he wouldn't let the sun fry him alive today. Clouds moved in front of the sun, maybe Apollo was granting his prayers. Maybe not, the darn clouds moved.
Uneasily Lancelot began to worry his bottom lip. After 15 years of near constant, though it was forced, companionship with this man Tristan knew Lancelot never bit his lip unless he was afraid. Which rarely happened. This made Tristan edgy. Throughout the ride Tristan glanced at Lancelot, who was turning his gaze towards the sun every 6 seconds.
"Lancelot if you continue to do that you'll be seeing spots." Arthur said after what seemed like the 6 millionth time Lancelot looked at the sun, which was only while they were waiting on the hill. Gawain guessed Lancelot was probably seeing spots alone as he was doing the same thing while riding to the hill. Lancelot became anxious and twitchy as they waited. As if Lancelot had transferred some of his anxiousness to Xanadu, his steed, the sturdy black coffee-bay horse began to dance around and twitch.
"Lancelot calm that damned horse down." Galahad said from atop his moonwash'd Turanian.
Lancelot reined in Xanadu next to Arthur in an attempt to calm both him and his charger. Arthur leaned over in his saddle and stroked the robust creature's neck. He had never seen Lancelot like this and it was starting to worry him.
"There they are." Tristan said suddenly as a coach came into view.
"Anxious for your papers whelp?" Why Bors insisted on calling Lancelot whelp they didn't know. Lancelot's lack of immediate response got the others worried.
"Yeah, you could say that." The fact that Lancelot didn't reprimand Bors for the nickname worried them more.
"Woads." Tristan rang out and sent them off galloping.
Lancelot unwisely lost himself in the bloodshed and allowed himself to be controlled by the need for the racing hearts to stop. Oddly enough his own heart was being forced at a calm pace despite the adrenalin and bloodlust that ran through his veins.
After the encounter with the Woads the sun felt too hot on his skin. The priest that had come with the Bishop watched intently as the knight known in Rome as the Devil Knight, pawed at his hair as if trying to relieve the heat the dark curls trapped.
Night had fallen when they arrived; the Devil Knight had stopped pawing at his curls and calmed down. 'I really need to learn this guy's name.' Horten, the priest, thought as he entered Arthur's rooms. As they entered the meeting chamber Horten declared the round table in the room an evil.
A final assignment, Rome had given them a final assignment, no, a suicide mission. Lancelot felt his anger bubble. He'd be lucky if he could escape the crowds of the garrison before he lost it completely. Suddenly it struck him, he hadn't been able to control his temper of late, and therefore his other side wanted human blood. He hadn't had human blood for years. It was his luck he encountered no one on his way out of the garrison. That was until his senses kicked into high gear outside a village not far from the barracks. Tristan had followed him. Lancelot wanted to panic; if Tristan saw him doing this Tristan would surely kill him. Tristan found he had lost sight of Lancelot in the village. Something hard hit the back of his head causing him to lose consciousness.
Abruptly Tristan woke up, his skull ached and he was lying on the ground. 'The screaming isn't helping either.' He thought. 'Whoa whoa whoa back up, screaming?' Tristan sat up and saw a pale human, or what he thought was a human, with a mass of curly black hair lash out and grab a woman by her throat. It dropped her from its mouth and let out a roar. Grabbing the woman it sunk its teeth into her neck. Another woman stepped out from around a fountain. She threw back her head and let out a laugh. The other snarled at her and lunged. Thinking she could stop the person she stood there. The other person slammed into her sending them both to the ground. They fought tooth and nail, literally with their teeth and nails. Tristan absently noticed as the male ripped his claw like fingernails across the woman's chest that he looked like Lancelot. Then he realized it was Lancelot. Tristan promptly passed out again.