† Year Eight, Day 19 †
The light from the stained-glass windows painted vivid patterns onto the tiled floor and coated Excalibur in an aura of majesty and mysticism. A little intimidating. Like an undying monument, the sword of kings sat enthroned in the middle of the chamber, and the power housed within radiated from the blade in untiring waves to make Arthur shiver.
In the eighteen years since the end of the Holy War, Arthur had wielded the symbol of his power only twice. The first time, he had raised Excalibur above his head and had awed when walls and houses and towers had risen from the earth to rebuild Camelot. How marvelous the alabaster and marble constructions had looked back then, a city made to rival the most fantastical of stories. The city of the greatest human king Britannia had seen. When Arthur had used Excalibur for the last time, he had won the loyalty of the southern tribes and kingdoms with a single strike. In Arthur's hands, the sword had split a mountain and crushed the opposing forces' fighting spirit. A few murmured complaints had remained, but everyone present had bowed their knees to him. And so, Arthur had accomplished the great expansion of Camelot.
Since then, Excalibur had rested here, protected from wind, whether and the curious eyes of the outside world, but its presence never faded from Arthur's mind. The call of its power sounded through the wide halls and chambers of Camelot every once in a while, a call only Arthur heard.
But until today, he had resisted the temptation, had ruled his kingdom with words and generosity rather than the language of the blade. Of course, his reign had not been free of violence, here and there, humans had held onto their power with a little too much vehemence, but all in all, Arthur had created the small paradise he had envisioned since his childhood.
Was all this doomed to fall?
The White Knight continued to haunt Arthur's dreams, and with each night, he drew closer. This morning, before Arthur had escaped the stranglehold of the vision with a scream, the white helmet had borne his own reflection. Fate or maybe Chaos himself had a strange sense of humor if he had given Arthur all this power only to send him his undoing a few years later.
Arthur kept quiet about his dreams in Merlin's presence, despite the small chance of deceiving her for long. Too many worries tormented her mind already. Although the disappearance of humans had stopped, the missing remained as untraceable as ever, and Chaos either refused to share his wisdom on the matter, or he was as clueless as Arthur. Merlin had worked night and day on a solution, but she had made sure to hide the tiredness and frustration from Arthur. As though her dismissive handwaves and empty reassurances blinded him to her struggles.
And then, the sounds of her uttered curses in the darkest hours of night had stopped. The lights of her laboratory stayed out.
With all the power of Chaos in his hands, Arthur still failed to bring her peace. Maybe he should have put more effort into his attempts to convince Meliodas to reconcile with her. If he survived long enough, he would make sure to seat both of them at a table and lock the room until they remembered the hardships they had mastered together.
A little cautious, Arthur stepped onto the rostrum in which Excalibur rested. He reached out with his left hand but hesitated before his fingers touched the handle. What was he doing here? He had the power of Chaos on his side, and he had sworn to bring everlasting peace to the world, to rid people of hunger and hopelessness, to be the king they looked up to and admired for his kindness. And yet, he was only inches and a closed hand away from abandoning all his principles to meet the White Knight with steel.
Chaos rose from his slumber in the back of Arthur's mind and filled his head with a kaleidoscope of images. The streets of Camelot, the people calling this place home in the same way that Arthur did, the Sins, the Knights of the Round Table, Merlin. If Arthur hesitated, what would become of all of them? The streets might burn, the people might fall victim to the dark forces out there, Merlin might die for the actions she had taken and the power she possessed.
"I don't understand what you want from me," Arthur said, and his lonely voice echoed through the chamber. "Is this a test? Will you send the White Knight to see whether I still have the strength to protect my home? Do you want me to remain loyal to who I am or kill this foe for the sake of my own life?"
Chaos gave no answer. But the image of the White Knight persisted.
For all the good Arthur had done, at the end of the day, he had to admit his failure. While Camelot itself teemed with prosperity, the world beyond its borders remained as tormented by conflict as ever. Edinburgh waited for its opportunity to go to war over the crimes of the past. Liones, while allied with Camelot, refused to become part of Arthur's domain, no matter how often he argued with Meliodas. The Fairy and Giant Clan hid away in their forest, and no one knew when they would disappear from Britannia for good. Arthur had wished to unite all of them and offer them peace and shelter from all worries. But reality had pushed against his dream with all its might.
For all the good he had done, at the end of the day, Arthur was tired.
But the stiffness in his bones could not convince him to give up. Merlin had bestowed him a second chance to live, had conferred him with power beyond his wildest imagination. The last he would do was disappoint her.
Phantom pain shot through Arthur's right arm – the arm that wasn't there – as he lifted Excalibur with his left. The steel slid out of its stone bed with a sharp cling, and the hilt emitted warmth when it rested in Arthur's palm, as though the sword was glad to reunite with him. The ghosts of past swordsmen, all capable far beyond the humans of their time and far beyond Arthur, welcomed him with their knowledge and their encouragement, and the blade quivered under their combined strength.
Arthur raised Excalibur further and examined his reflection in the polished steel. Tired, violet eyes looked back out a face that did not match his age. With Chaos' generosity, Arthur might outrun age and death for two hundred years, but his human shell would not survive the slash of a sword or the head of an arrow.
Chaos or not, he was still mortal. He was still a human.
With one last look at the fine details of the sword, Arthur sheathed Excalibur at his side and left the chamber. Equipped like this, he waited. Waited for the arrival of the White Knight who came closer with each step and every hour.
⸸ † ⸸
The gate loomed over Lancelot with each step and every hour. Although Morgan assured him that he possessed the power to traverse back to the realm of Britannia, and although the magic of the lake brimmed at his fingertips, he hesitated to go. Even after his wounds had healed and Sir Jonathan's final confession had faded away, Lancelot stayed within the confines of his prison. Once out there, he would have no way to return other than victory. Only Chaos could open the gates of Avalon to the fullest. The best Lancelot could do was push a little and pray the opening would let him through.
And out there, the lake and its comforting presence might vanish and leave him weak and exposed. He could not even tell how the world out there looked, too many days had passed since his last step on Britannia's ground.
Caught in the web of uncertainty like this, Lancelot waited. Waited for a sign to tell him the time had arrived.
Pebbles crunched under his armored boots. Boulders and smashed bricks covered the paths across Avalon. Lancelot had to climb over the rubble as often as he circled around them, always accompanied by the jingle of his new armor. The ruins that had defied gravity and the relentless fangs of time were no more. With the exception of one structure, not a single stone stood atop the other.
Lancelot stepped into the shadow of his former camp, past the ashen remains of a fireplace, and placed one palm against the wall. Throughout the years, the crude masonry had given him a sense of security where so little else on this island had. When Morgan's outburst of darkness over his last victorious trial had razed the ruins, for some reason, she had spared Lancelot's campsite. Perhaps as a reminder of what he had endured so far.
His fingers brushed across the fine groves in the limestone. Perfect lines the length of his upper forefinger joint. Two-thousand-five-hundred-and-seventy-six marks covered the wall and its neighboring archway – one for each day he had lived in Avalon.
All this could be over soon. Tomorrow, he might no longer have to carve another line into the stone, he might stand under the massive outer gateway of Camelot, the wind in his hair and the towers and crenellations of Arthur's fortress in front of him as they blocked the sun. Tomorrow, his dream might evolve from the airborne castles of his childhood imagination into reality, as tangible as the groves underneath his fingertips.
He only needed to step through the gate.
A handful of paces, nothing more.
Simple.
But Lancelot only made it to the foot of the gate hill before he stopped. His armor pulled him down, the metal doubled its weight with each step. Useless. Even now, with nothing left to restrain him, he hesitated to realize his dream and fulfill his promise to Morgan.
As if his thoughts had summoned her, Morgan emerged from the ground alongside a sea of shadows. A few hands reached out for Lancelot, maybe with the desire to embrace him, but Morgan held back and stared him down with her featureless face.
"After you defeated Sir Jonathan, I thought you had finally gained the confidence to face your destiny."
Lancelot returned her gaze. "Perhaps we both put too much faith in me."
"No need to harbor such gloomy thoughts. I know how to get rid of your little inner hurdle: with one last trial. The best of knights have failed because of their inability to overcome their past; you've seen how this played out for Jonathan. As I have offered you the best training anyone can wish for, I will now offer you a challenge you will find quite endearing. Put on your helmet. You will face a knight who served in the New Holy War, a war hero if you will. How you will approach this trial is up to you."
Routine kicked in, and like he had done a hundred times before, Lancelot unsheathed his sword and dropped into the slight forward crouch that proceeded each duel. Although the helmet limited his view, and the unfamiliar confinement quickened his breathing, he lowered the visor. The metal bars imprisoned his field of view, but Lancelot had grown accustomed to the life of a prisoner, and another set of bars made little difference at this point.
Morgan's hands coiled with pleasure or excitement, and out of the shadows of her form she bore the knight she had promised. From which depths she pulled them from, Lancelot never understood, but the tension of pre-battle silenced the question. The knight straightened once they realized their surroundings. They wore armor as well, without a crest or symbol to show their allegiance. A sword hung at their side, which the knight made haste to draw once they understood Lancelot's fighting position called for a minimum of seriousness. They fumbled with the hilt for a second, as though the weapon was foreign to them.
A war hero who struggled against their own weapon. Such disappointment. Then again, disappointment followed Lancelot wherever he went.
He never stopped to address his adversary or read their heart. All the blood and the fires he might find there, he had seen before, and the regrets of a war hero were no different from those of Iweret and Sir Jonathan.
With a quick chain of hits, Lancelot tested the other's defenses, and although they struggled with their weapon, their skill showed in the way they adapted to each new challenge. A surprising amount of strength and precision accompanied the knight's every move. But Lancelot had over seven years of experience to look back upon, often under life-threatening circumstances, and this duel offered nothing he hadn't seen before. Compared to the King of Chaos, this knight was little more than a bump on the road on his way.
Lancelot was gaining ground as effortlessly as he breathed. The other knight built and rebuilt their defenses, but Lancelot chopped up their parries, shattered all their attempts to strike back, and doubted the use of war heroes altogether.
When he became tired of this final game Morgan played with him, Lancelot called out to the magic of the lake. The rich tapestry of tastes filled his thoughts, some sweet, some bitter, others faint or oppressive, but all of them belonged to the one magic which ruled over them all. Chaos. And with its help, Lancelot needed no more than a thought to call his spear into his hand. The sky darkened, the lake roared, and somewhere in the back of his head, Morgan chuckled.
The other knight backed away, surprise or maybe fear controlled their steps, but Lancelot offered them no opening to escape. No one had escaped his judgement. And the first one to do so would have to kill him.
With all the strength he could muster, a strength that far surpassed regular humans, Lancelot arced his right foot, spun counterclockwise, and hurled the spear at his opponent. Transfixed, the knight almost reacted too late before they twirled out of the trajectory.
And then, a voice from a far distance, a half-forgotten past and a long-lost dream called out. "Lance?"
Lancelot congealed to a frozen statue. He tasted ice crystals. The voice was so real, so full of memories and affection, so full of mockery and a few strict lectures, a voice with everything he had strayed away from since his first day on Avalon. A trick, no doubt. Morgan never failed to use his emotions against him. But if this was her last deception, he had never wanted to believe in a ruse so badly.
The knight dropped their sword and tossed their helmet aside to reveal long waves of lavender hair and eyes overflowing with hope and the fear of seeing that same hope crushed.
Jericho.
She hadn't changed one bit in these years. Time had passed her by while it had dragged Lancelot through the street, and she looked strangely beautiful in the set of armor that didn't belong to her. If he could go forward, strip himself of everything that had happened since her disappearance, and relish in her presence – if he could pretend to smell strawberries and forest leaves, pretend to feel the moss under his feet, and pretend to have just finished another training lesson with her…
But the idea was too perfect. Jericho was clean of the blood on his hands, and if he went towards her, he would ruin her, he would ruin the image he had of her from before the lake had swallowed him.
And yet, despite the slow death of his feelings over the years, Lancelot surrendered to their pull and lifted his helmet.
"Master," he said, and his voice broke under the weight of this single word.
A storm of emotions battled on Jericho's face, shock, relief, disbelief, but in the end, a smile won. With a handful of shaky steps, she crossed the distance between them and flung her arms around his neck.
"Look at you." Tears brimmed in her eyes. "How dare you grow so much without my consent? I wouldn't even have recognized you without that stupid scar."
"Are you alright?"
"Am I alright? That's rich coming from you, you look like you went to Purgatory and back in the span of an hour. Ban is so going to kill me when he finds out I let you out of my sight for… for how long?"
"Seven years and nineteen days." Too much time while Lancelot drifted away from her, too much time to bridge with one hug.
Jericho's eyes widened as she pulled back to count the years in his face. The disappearance of roundness, the paler shade of his hair, the emptiness in his eyes…
"It didn't feel like seven years," she mumbled. "I spent all this time in blackness, thinking that I have to find a way back to you and if it kills me. I think it was a couple days ago that this freaky shadow lady woke me up. Said she had a challenge for me. If I'm gonna get my hands on that bastard, I'll—"
"I can't allow you to do that. I have made a promise to Morgan, and I have made my peace with keeping that promise no matter what price I have to pay. She kept her word and let you live. I owe her everything I am."
Jericho looked tempted to smack sense into him, but Morgan raised her hands and voice in time to baffle her senseless. "I understand this means you will finally attempt to open the gate with the power of Chaos?"
"What about Jericho?" Lancelot asked. "What about the other people you took from Britannia?"
Morgan placed a hand on his cheek, and the simultaneous heat and cold of her touch sent a lightning bolt through his nervous system. Appalled, Jericho jumped away from them to recreate distance between herself and Morgan's darkness. For Lancelot, all attempts to do the same would come too late.
"There are no other ones," Morgan said. "You put a well-deserved end to their miserable existence. Sir Jonathan was the last one. But fear not, my dear. Through your deeds, you have freed Britannia from a great many monsters and sinners, like Chaos would have done in your stead."
"Will you let Jericho go then?"
"You know that this doesn't lie within my power. Only Chaos can lift the barrier around Avalon. Only his power will enable you to free her."
Jericho made a step forward and extended a hand to wrench Lancelot away from Morgan. But her sense of self-preservation prevented her from coming too close.
"Lance, what is going on? What's with this chaos she keeps talking about?"
"Chaos is everything."
The key to unlock Jericho's prison. The door Morgan had desired for so long. The path Lancelot needed to take in order to fulfill his one true wish. Chaos was all that and more. And to run from the confrontation promised as little success as a barehanded fight against the raging sea.
Hey Master, be careful. You see I wanna…
He wanted to become the strongest knight. Only then could he right all wrongs. Jericho might not understand this, Sir Jonathan had never grasped the idea, and the people in Britannia who suffocated under the golden illusions King Arthur had planted in their heads would call him a madman. But it didn't matter. He was used to the raised eyebrows when he tackled the work others strayed away from, and when he concentrated, he heard the voices of Fairies through the depths of the lake as they mocked him for running patrols. All these people, even Jericho, only saw the comfort, not the price others paid for their security. And when tragedy did come knocking at their door, they were met unprepared.
Jericho looked between Lancelot and Morgan before her glare came to rest on the latter. "I don't know what sort of spell you put him under, but you better knock it off before I make you."
"I didn't need to fall back on such pathetic trickery. Everything that has happened came to pass with Lancelot's agreement. I offered him what you couldn't give him, and thanks to my work, he has outgrown and outclassed you a hundredfold. With your defeat, the last chains of the past to hold him back have fallen." Morgan's eyeless head fixated Lancelot, and the darkness there reflected his face. "Now nothing stands between you and the gate. And only one stands between you and Chaos."
Without as little as a second thought, Lancelot called his spear to him and grabbed his helmet. No more than a few yards separated him from the gate, from Britannia. The child in him would call what lay beyond home. But the child had died when it had witnessed the crimes of Iweret, when it had buried the spear into his flesh, when it had felt his heart wither with its last beat.
Lancelot gave the mentor of his past life a last look. "I'm sorry, Jericho. I have to borrow your sword for a little longer. But I will come back to free you, I promise."
"No, you come back here right now!" Jericho reached for his arm, but he freed himself and continued his way towards the gate. "Whatever it is, we can figure it out together. Let me help you for once, you dumb kid! You agreed not to let go of my hand, you dragged me into this mess, now the least you can do is tell me what in the name of the Goddesses is going on here!"
Lancelot refused to turn. "I'm sorry. I won't fail you again."
"I don't want to hear your stupid promises, I want you to shake the spell that witch put you under and talk to me! You're just like your father, all you can do with your self-punishment trips is drag people into your mess and then pretend like nothing happened, pretend that the people in your wake can just look and walk away. I'm not gonna go through that again, not for you, and not for—"
"I am not my father."
"That's right, you're even more annoying than he is. Take responsibility and face me, you airhead!" Jericho caught up to Lancelot and threw a handful of desperate punches at his back in an attempt to make him stumble and convince him to give up. He hardly felt the impact.
The gate towered above him. Detailed carvings ran across the stone, images of Goddesses and Demons, caught in a perpetual war, Fairies playing in their forest, and Giants on the hunt. In their midst, humans covered the stone, laughing, crying, waging war, and dying, all under the eyes of Chaos. Although the gate missed a distinct face to represent him, Lancelot felt his workings all throughout the image. He had created all this, and he had the power to destroy them all, wipe out every light of life under Britannia's sun.
King Arthur held all this power in his hands. And yet he chose to meet the criminals with mercy. He allowed Edinburgh to garner supporters. He had done nothing when the Lady of the Lake had stolen all these people. For this, he would pay.
As the violent story the gate told burned its way into his mind, Lancelot raised his spear. The traces of Chaos clinging to every corner of Avalon, in the outer layers of the gate, in the deepest depths of the lake, and even in the tasteless air, answered his command. Jericho stumbled backwards when the might robbed the surroundings of oxygen to replace it with sheer magic. The light and the darkness flowed though Lancelot's veins, infected his blood, captured his mind, tore him to shreds and built him up at the same time, and soon his heartbeat fell silent as he subjected himself to the voice and will of Chaos.
May the lake lend me strength, and may it guide my hand so that I shall right all wrongs.
Jericho's heart seemed to spill over, two thousand images all at once, when in reality Lancelot's senses and his abilities attained a sharpness they had never known before. All her regrets were laid out before him: a cup with bubbling purple liquid handed to her by a man with sharp features, the blood-covered face of the man she called brother, Ban's face, Lancelot's face, and the striking resemblance between them. Despite her best attempts, she saw his father in him, always, every day, with each step he took.
And for the first time, Lancelot caught a glimpse of Morgan's heart. From deep within these shadows, Chaos looked back. Chaos as Morgan had known him, the man she loved and feared more than anyone else. He had given her life, and he had taken her freedom. When she played by his rules, he rewarded her with gifts, and when she turned against his new creation out of jealousy, he punished her with imprisonment.
Light and darkness. Love and hatred. Generosity and cruelty.
This was the only life Morgan knew.
This was the only life Lancelot believed in.
And as this truth sparked in him, reverberated in his chest and echoed in his mind, Lancelot tugged at Chaos' magic and opened the gate.
The tidal wave of power ebbed, and Lancelot regained control over his muscles. A little shaky, he stood on the hill and drew in a lungful of air. A mild breeze seeped through the gate, caressed his face, and greeted him with the flavors of Britannia; the rich odor of the earth where humans grew wheat and barley, the scent of wet grass, and somewhere far away, almost like a dream, a forest.
Lancelot's chest swelled, and a warmth filled his body he hadn't felt in seven years. A forest with the slender trunks of pines in the sun, where his feet would sink into cushions of moss and shed larch needles from last fall, where the light would filter through the leaves with a green so vibrant that no artist in the world could replicate the color.
One day, he would make sure that Jericho returned there. One day, he would share this wonder with Morgan. And maybe then the emptiness would ease its grip around him.
Until that day, Lancelot had a mission to fulfill.
Jericho still stood a few feet away from him, shaken, but unable to see what had caused the surge of power she had felt. Behind her, Morgan waited, and although her expression remained hidden behind the black nothingness of her face, Lancelot was convinced she had never looked more delighted and… hopeful.
He gave them a smile and stepped through the gate. Avalon disappeared, and so did the only two people that mattered. On the other side, the vast plain of southern Britannia welcomed him. Gusts brushed over a lake of grass that stretched on until the horizon. The real sun bathed the landscape in warm hues, and the poppies and tansies beaconed with color in between the hems. Behind Lancelot, a gigantic sphere of water hovered in the air, kept afloat by the magic radiating from within.
Avalon, the lake – both placed a hand on his shoulder, and Lancelot made the first step forward. To Camelot.
Lancelot sold himself to the devil three times. When he accepted her training, when he struck an untrained merchant, and when he promised to kill the merciful king, he missed another crossroad and went down the only path ahead of him. But he is not the villain of his story.
What role he will play in Arthur's story remains to be seen.
2/3/21 - And that shall be the end of this story. While I do have an idea for an additional chapter, I think it would answer more questions than necessary. In this case, I would argue the more open ending fits better, also with nnt's sequel in mind. Speaking of Four Knights of the Apocalypse, I found the first chapter absolutely delightful. And some of the details, like the return of the knight's creed or the prophesized goal of the titular Four Knights, fit this story oh so well. I'm at the very least excited to read more.
As for Lancelot of the Lake, I had so much fun building and expanding the story. At first, I anticipated this journey to be done in 20 maybe 30k words, but as usual, I couldn't stop myself, and here we are now. Most of Lancelot's character development is based on that single one shot Nakaba gave us, but I have drawn inspiration from older Arthurian texts here and there, especially for the side characters and some aspects of Lancelot's training. Morgan probably best resembles her counterpart in Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, while Lancelot's journey and to an extend his ideology parallel Ulrich von Zatzikhoven's Lanzelet. I recommend giving that one a read if you can find a good translation.
Enough of the history lesson; I want to thank everyone who read and enjoyed this story. I know that fanfiction outside of shipping content isn't all that appealing for a lot of readers. Not to mention that Lancelot is so far a manga-only character with barely any "screen time". All the more reason for me to be glad for those who left a review, gave their kudos, or followed this story with excitement as silent readers. Thank you.
