It was an impossible feat to get Gilgamesh off of Saber and to settle him onto an isolated (and slightly elevated, to temper his ire) they had set up without the two getting into another argument. Good thing Iskandar was all about impossibilities, appeasing the King of Heroes by pouring him wine and the King of Knights by placing himself between them.

Iskandar was very aware that Diarmuid, Cú, and Lancelot were giving the blonde king the death glare, but as the latter lounged on pillows he pulled out of his Gate of Babylon, he realized Gilgamesh either didn't mind or didn't care.

Still, the red king couldn't be happier, surrounded by kings and knights of so many different eras. A little nibble on his knee caught his attention. Oh yes, there was also the very enticing woman resuming using him as a pillow, how could he forget? The night felt most nostalgic, as only a small distance from here lay the shipping docks where the Fourth Holy Grail War participants all met. In fact, there was a moon alike to this one that night, wasn't there?

A wide grin surfaced as he recalled the glorious battle between the King of Knights and Lancer, both their weapons flying at impossible speeds as they danced around each other. He couldn't help himself but join in the fun back then. Tonight though? Tonight was all about doing just that: kicking back to watch how these from the smaller continent swung their weapons while stuffing himself silly with the local cuisine. And Gilgamesh's wine, Zeus's beard , that was good .

Iskandar ran the fingers of his left hand through Medusa's hair, wondering why she looked like she had enjoyed the last match when she couldn't see it. Her other senses must have been ridiculously sharp. But… he had to speak to that Caster soon. There had to be a way to give his beautiful lover here her sight without accidentally turning people to stone wherever she looked.

For now though, amongst heroes—friends, if they would allow it—one could say Iskandar was wholly satisfied.

Happily, he tossed the fishbowl over to the victor of the first round, who caught it without even a flinch.

"You pick the next round."

Diarmuid's eyes moved from their new arrival, to Arturia, and lastly to the man who'd interrupted his duel with Saber all those years ago. The three seemed awfully... friendly considering they'd only met in the Fourth Holy Grail War. Iskandar was practically sitting at Gilgamesh's feet and the latter didn't seem to mind. Arturia, despite being a mere Iskandar-wide distance from Gilgamesh wasn't high-tailing it out of there. Like Iskandar brought balance between her and the golden prick.

Did something happen when he wasn't around?

Iskandar didn't give Diarmuid much room to think about it, waving an encouraging hand in the direction of the fishbowl he was holding. Despite the multitude of questions running through his mind (Were they...friends? Did Arturia spend time with them as well, apart from all those days she spent with him and Cú? Do Kay and Bedivere join the three kings? How long has this been going on?), he sifted his fingers through the small pile of names in the glass bowl.

He could understand why Arturia would be amicable with Iskandar. The man was hard not to like, with such a wide smile plastered over his face, one that could easily placate hundreds. He could even understand why Gilgamesh might allow Iskandar's presence, despite the apparent severe allergy he had to anyone that wasn't Arturia.

And of course, she could do whatever she chooses. If that was spending time with— Arturia's eyes flicked over to the King of Heroes—questionable company, that was her choice. There was just something about the idea of the two blonde kings spending more time together that didn't quite sit right with him.

Thinking he was taking too long, Diarmuid scooped up a name from the bowl and offered the glass orb to his competitor.

"Bedivere." His eyes widened curiously as he read the letters inscribed in the now familiar loopy script of Arturia's hand.

Answering his summon, the blonde knight stood, opening up his palm as the hilt of his sword materialized to rest in it. Ah, that was one other knight Diarmuid would have loved to have a match with. If Kay had mastery of a bloody greatsword up his sleeve, he wondered what a one-armed knight would have in his arsenal.

"Lancelot," Kay grunted, the paper crinkling between quivering fingers.

Whatever warm, competitive air he and Kay had established with their fight had been doused like a candle to a wet blanket, an eerie stillness enveloping them in its place. The scarred man huffed and tossed the white slip at Diarmuid and sauntered off to the food table, leaving the lancer at a loss for words.

Fortunately, it was Merlin who picked up the energy with a curious comment, grabbing the two slips of paper from Diarmuid's hands and turning to his king. "We have not seen that match-up in a while, have we?"

"Indeed we have not," she replied softly, the look in her eyes so faraway she could have been looking straight through Merlin and into the past—a past of grassy training grounds just outside the palace walls, littered with axes and maces. Of missed shots. Of broken arrows. Of targets so overused they needed new paint. Of laughter amongst bruises and drinks amongst friends. Of days and nights and just her and her knights.

It almost hurt.

Her expression was not lost to the two competitors, who had both learned to read their king's after years and years of watching. One with green eyes that knew eternal loyalty, the other with amorous orbs that could never tear themselves away from her.

The irises beneath her blond lashes spoke of yearning. Of a want for the days past, when her knights could all sit peacefully on their Round Table, with no secrets or grudges between them. Of when all conversation was quests, not conquests, affairs of the land, not of hearts. Of a time when things were far less complicated than the mess that resulted when Camelot imploded on itself.

Merlin took his nth glass of punch in one gulp and flapped a lazy hand in the direction of the sea. "Well, go on then!"

Wind and flowers pushed Lancelot to his feet and shoved Bedivere forward and off the mats. Apparently, it wasn't a request.

"Want your other arm, Bedi?" Merlin asked as the knight passed him, waving a chicken leg in the air like the phony magicians of this age loved to do with their wands.

The knight smiled amicably as he met the eyes of his opponent and then his king. "Not this time, old man," he called back without looking, then turned to Arturia. "Root for me?"

Arturia waved him off with a smiling face that feigned annoyance, murmuring something about bias and knights and equality. It was such a sweet scene it made Diarmuid's teeth hurt.

"Come on, Lance," Bedivere said, voice low, cocking his head toward the sea.

Bedivere and Lancelot stood mirroring each other, barely a meter between them as Iskandar came up to start the match.

"Perhaps it is best that I am your first opponent, Lance," Bedivere commented, his eyes going to his king, her brother, and finally the green-clad acquaintance he had made just recently.

"This tourney would probably have started on a rocky foundation otherwise."

Bedivere snuck a look back at the mats, only just catching the nervous look on Arturia's face before it disappeared, hiding behind a manufactured smile when Diarmuid took a seat beside her. Kay looked like he had just been handed a leather boot for dinner, what with the unpleasant scowl ruining what would have been a handsome face, scar and all. Bedivere couldn't blame him. Lancelot was probably the last face Kay wanted to see, as it was hard to forgive one who was instrumental in the series of events that led to Arturia's demise. Still, it was a little unbecoming of a man in his thirties to be stabbing tonkatsu and wolfing it down to express his annoyance. But Arturia had invited Lancelot, and Kay wouldn't possibly oppose Arturia's wishes.

"Hm."

Lancelot's voice was as expressive as a slab of concrete, typical of him in his later years, but there was an anger stewing in his countenance as he followed Bedivere's line of sight.

"Shall...shall we give them a fight?" Bedivere asked, seeing Iskandar excitedly bring up his hand in the corner of his vision. Energy rumbled in his veins like he'd flipped the ignition, mana surging all throughout his form like pumped gas. His familiar armor weighed heavily against his skin as it materialized, but it was a necessary weight when up against a foe such as this.

Bedivere could not hide his surprise as Lancelot's own equipment appeared, the once white steel replaced by a color as black as the sky. Even Arondight, whose light once led thousands surging forth in defense of Britain was stained dark as coal. But Bedivere had no time to think—not even about the pained smile Arturia was forcing—before his once friend touched Arondight to his blade and Iskandar yelled for them to begin.

Bedivere shoved his feelings to the back of his mind as Lancelot lunged into his space. Lancelot's first swing was about as sure as tomorrow's dawn: an upward slash from Bedivere's right, the best move to make when up against an opponent who was tall and lacking a limb on that side. Or it would have been, if Bedivere hadn't predicted it.

The latter looked at Lancelot from behind the crux where their swords met, reveling in the high pitched scrape as metal quivered on metal. Their strength was matched. It seemed he still knew his way with the sword even after a few years back on earth. It was Bedivere who moved next, throwing his arm to the left and diving in a fluid motion in the millisecond of time Lancelot had lost his footing.

But no sooner had he made a lateral strike did Lancelot's legs leave the ground, and Bedivere's attack did nothing but erect a hurricane of sand where his opponent once stood.

Curses!

Pure instinct drove Bedivere's arm upward, guarding against Arondight in the nick of time. He really didn't deserve the waves of praise radiating from the small crowd watching from the mats behind him, he contemplated, shoving Lancelot back like he was his highschool bully. Bedivere snuck a glance at the group as he parried Lancelot's blow, finding his king recoiling from the "pat" on the back Iskandar just gave her.

Lancelot's sword missed his form as he sidestepped. Bedivere continued the motion, making a swift turn to strike his opponent behind the head with the hilt of his weapon-a trick of agility he learned from the King of Knights, actually-but the strike whooshed through empty air, its target long gone.

Damn.

Bedivere resisted the temptation to look back at the mats where their king was watching, his forest eyes fixing themselves on his competitor. Lancelot was the toughest opponent among all those in the Round Table. He couldn't afford any distractions, despite the little twinge in his heart that demanded Arturia's approval.

Somewhere in the mats, Iskandar's eyes were lighting up with admiration. " Oi, King of Knights, you didn't tell me your friends here were individually Servant level!"

The surge of pride that traveled through Arturia was more than enough to wash away her fears. Thoughts of how Lancelot's armor still stained black could wait. "They are my Knights," she reminded him, sounding like a proud parent at an awards ceremony. "You shouldn't have expected any less."

The proud smirk on Arturia's face was delightful. She so rarely looked this smug. Iskandar sloshed some more of Gilgamesh's fine wine into a glass and reached over Medusa's hip to clink it to Saber's shoulder.

Her nose crinkled like paper at the offer, but Iskandar knew the young woman, and so he knew she didn't really want to reject wine of this quality. "Come on , you and I both know goldie would not tolerate anything of lesser quality," he encouraged, waving the glass in front of her like he was trying to tame a small animal with a treat.

The small twitch on her brow told him the gesture wasn't appreciated, but she took the wine all the same, shooting the King of Heroes a look and not breaking eye contact til she'd given the drink a taste. And from then, she focused her eyes on her two knights as they tried to best each other on the field and didn't look back at Gilgamesh even if she could feel his heated gaze travel from her eyes, to her lips, to her neck.

His fellow kings were...a curious pair.

If Gilgamesh was an unrelenting force, Arturia was an immovable object. They were fated to clash, forever at odds, always at each other's throats and yet...undeniably forcing themselves together.

How else could one explain them meeting on both Holy Grail Wars? It couldn't have been anything short of a miracle. Even now, when the both of them should have been free to do whatever they wanted, they were still dancing around each other like two leaves riding the same gale. Arturia could move the hell back to Britain to get away from Gilgamesh if she really wanted to lengthen the distance between them but here they were.

Iskandar left the decision to invite Gilgamesh to Arturia. Gilgamesh was here by her invitation, even if that invitation may have been out of courtesy. And even then, Iskandar knew there were only so few "mongrels" Gil did tolerate -himself and the girl king being the only two he knew of- and the flashy king came here despite knowing it would be full of people he detested.

Though, Iskandar concluded, shifting his attention back to the fight as the one called Bedivere dropped to the ground and swept the former Berserker's feet out from under him. Gilgamesh didn't even seem to notice the "mongrels" much, as his eyes had never once left the object of his fancy. If Iskandar could guess, it was satisfaction enough to the King of Heroes that she enjoyed the wine he brought, try as she did to hide it.

Bedivere was now on the offensive, gaining ground with every thrust of his sword as Lancelot slashed Arondight left and right to parry the blows. The former was always a tricky opponent in that he was one of the very few left-handed knights out there.

"I had thought the lack of a limb would have left him at a disadvantage to the versatile Berserker over there," Iskandar commented, his eyes not once leaving the battlefield. He hesitated to even drink, knowing the glass of wine would blur his vision. "My mistake."

Bedivere tucked into a backwards roll just as Lancelot flipped his sword into reverse grip-the correct decision, considering Arondight was now half-buried in the sand where his head used to be. A subtle smile tugged at Arturia's lips as Bedi shook his head free of sand, sword at the ready.

"The one in black's the better swordsman," Medusa commented off-handedly as she leaned into Iskandar's wide lap and stole his drink. She was acting very catlike, stretching into the king's space and nudging his chest in demand of a head pat. One might argue she was doing it to tease the conservative King of Knights with the public display of affection, and judging by how she was now looking anywhere but at her, it was working.

"I will not deny that," Arturia admitted, focusing her attention on how Lancelot was now using his broadsword like a dagger, his form completely unaffected despite the weapon's weight. A few strikes later, and he shifted to a hammer grip, bringing his blade down on Bedivere using the advantage of his superior height.

A sword, or any weapon, was always to be used like it was an extension of oneself, or so Merlin had trained her. And so, it was imperative one wields a sword like one would guide a partner during a dance. The grip must be firm, but not rigid, flexible, but not loose. Every swing had its own choreography, and like in a waltz, the transitions between each movement were what would make or break a routine.

For all intents and purposes, Lancelot was born a swordsman. Arturia had known so the very moment she saw him in battle. He embodied all those principles she spent years mastering, slaughtering foes left and right with the grace and finesse of a crane. When they sparred, she would learn he was like that with any weapon, be it spear, knife, lance, and even shield, never once fazed by difference in weight or size. It was a fearsome talent, one she should have recognized when they first met in the Fourth Holy Grail War.

Arturia would even go so far as to say Lancelot bested her when it came to swordsmanship, and for reasons beyond just his obvious advantage in height, weight, and strength. If they had a match on sword fighting alone, she knew, deep down, she would lose.

But, she reflected, correctly predicting that Bedivere would dodge rather than block, the knights were more than just their skill with the sword. Bedivere threw himself backward once again, propelling himself to his feet with his hand mid-roll in an incredible display of acrobatics.

"Bedivere's a bit more nimble-witted than the rest of us," Arturia explained, amused at the gaping mouths of the pair of Riders to her right.

"If that's so, then which of them are you betting on?" asked one Diarmuid, who handed Saber a platter and plopped down on her other side with some barbecue. Cú followed shortly, seating himself between Arturia and Iskandar even if there was much space elsewhere, practically squishing Arturia into Diarmuid until they both shoved him off.

"They are both my knights, Diar- nggh would you give us some room, Cú -now why would I bet on one over the other?" she asked, feeling Cú's elbow digging into her rib. Honestly, the more she got to know him, the more he seemed like little pup: quivering with energy, endlessly seeking affection, and gradually shaving off whatever personal space she had left. In fact, she was half-convinced Cú was trying to get her to let him sleep on her lap with the way he was leaning into her like that. How Diarmuid could tolerate a roommate without any sense of boundaries, she would never know.

"It's the mad dog's victory," Gilgamesh suddenly interrupted, the sentence being the only words he'd said since his appearance. The king almost spared a laugh at the mongrels' expressions, as bewildered as they were, but his focus was on those two intense green eyes. "You know this, King of Knights."

Arturia's neck stung from the whiplash as she turned to face the red-eyed king, who only looked on in mild amusement.

"He's right," interrupted Kay, who stood up, eyes following every sword slash, seeing patterns he must have analysed a thousand times before. "Bedivere's distracted."

Sure enough, the Servants witnessed Lancelot once again take the upper hand, gaining ground every second. Bedivere now had a cut on his cheek, and though Lancelot had more bruises from all the times the blonde had bashed his head in, Bedivere's brow glistened with moisture while Lancelot had barely broken a sweat.

Arturia would never say it out loud, but hell, Lancelot was a force of nature in combat,the strongest of her knights. In tournaments such as this, Lancelot would almost always win, beaten only a few times when the enemy was especially cunning or agile. In fact, she was sure Bedivere had noticed before she did, that Lancelot's strikes were wider and heavier than usual. He was purposely exaggerating his movements so that Bedivere would be forced to work extra hard to evade or block. It was Lancelot's go-to strategy when he was aiming for a swift conclusion, and judging by the dramatic evasive maneuvers Bedivere was employing, it was working.

Bedivere still had a chance to win, however. If Lancelot had a weakness when it came to sparring, it was that he always went for the best move to do in a situation. Now that wasn't inherently a weakness, more of an observation, but it was the reason Lancelot was susceptible to more quick-witted foes, such as herself, Bedivere, Gawain, and even Kay. Merlin too, because of those eyes of his.

All Bedivere had to do was think like Lancelot. Predict his analysis and then pull one step ahead. If Bedivere could just stagger the stoic knight he would have the match.

"What do you mean, he's distracted?" Arturia asked, peeling her eyes away from Gilgamesh to turn and face her brother.

Merlin, who was now miraculously sharing the King of Heroes' rug, smirked. Of course, she wouldn't know. Bedivere was now privy to Lancelot's secret, the only man besides himself who knew the whole truth about what happened with Guinevere and afterward.

Bedivere parried before he could take a hit, berating himself with increasingly colorful language. He was supposed to be focusing on the fight, he was supposed to have literally nothing else on his mind, but he struggled to think of anything else when he could clearly see Lancelot sneaking glances at their king whenever he was able.

Lancelot loved Arturia.

Bedivere struggled to know what to do with that information. Should he...should he hate Lancelot? Close off his heart to his old friend like Kay did? He had days to contemplate just what the hell he was supposed to do now that he knew, and so far he'd come up with nothing. In hindsight, maybe he should have sorted out his feelings before going anywhere Lancelot might be, but the excitement for the tournament had overridden any common sense he might have had.

In the first place, he only sought Lancelot out knowing he and the King of Knights were trying to patch things up. Or, she was, and the Frenchman couldn't really say no. That, and he wanted to make sure Lance wasn't destroying himself with alcohol and drugs like Tristan was. Bedivere never intended to discover the dark knight's feelings for Arturia. They just needlessly complicated things.

...but they also...clarified things.

Merlin told Bedivere what happened during the Fourth Holy Grail War. Lancelot was summoned as a Berserker for having gone mad following Arturia's death. And now, the reason why was blatantly clear.

Lancelot loved Arturia so much he couldn't bear the fact that he couldn't have her. He sought comfort in Guinevere, but when they were discovered, he couldn't bear the fact that he hurt Arturia. He sought retribution by her hand, but in her kindness, she could not give it. Instead, he left Camelot with Guinevere, branded as a traitor. When Arturia died, he blamed himself, unable to come to her side due to Gawain's interference, and then risked his life just to be able to see her one last time as they sent her body out to sea.

Bedivere's heart ached just thinking about it. No wonder he'd gone mad.

The knowledge also explained Lancelot's actions since his resurrection. Lancelot was in limbo, wanting to keep his distance from her, but never able to turn away. His head and heart were on opposing factions, one demanding her hate, the other desiring reciprocation of his love. It was a dark place to be.

What should Bedivere even do with this-

The night sky overtook his vision, his flipped stomach informing him much too late that this wasn't the right way to be facing as both his feet flew off the ground. He barely had time to swing his weapon when Lancelot's boot slammed into his chest, accelerating his descent. He hit the ground with an audible thud , the wind leaving his lungs as Arondight touched the tip of his chin.

And just like that, Lancelot was the victor.

"Told you so," Kay murmured, quietly, the sound almost drowned out by the small round of applause that followed the match.

Bedivere took Lancelot's outstretched hand and allowed himself to be pulled up, still slightly out of breath. Lancelot was looking at him darkly, like he knew exactly what had been occupying the blonde's mind. The walk back was quiet, save for one little exchange.

"You were...distracted," Lancelot offered, not quite looking at him when he spoke.

Bedivere followed the man's eyes to the mats, where Arturia was looking at them- both of them- and joining in the applause. "I had a lot on my mind."