A / N: The chapters are intentionally short. As the title suggests and I've written before, the story will mainly follow Sir Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur and the Lancelot-Grail Cycle. This will start to change in later chapters. If I had to say, it would be around where Chapter IX of Book 1 is in Le Morte d'Arthur.
Chapter 3
The company stopped at a small village skimming the fringes of the unkempt wilderness. The river Trent ran parallel, a green bubbling brook to the vast foam expanse a ways down, and Arturia went to the water's edge, already knowing what lay through that thicket before them. What she witnessed and who she faced, in her first taste of battle against they, the turquoise-dyed berserkers, the red-painted raiders, those foreigners from the shores and coasts with their open boats. She recalled that final battle with their leader, and what it'd cost though still years away. Of Bedivere's rage, pushing in and screaming her name, hacking, slashing, rampaging his way to her side where he lost his arm in exchange for his severer's heart. The moment after, when her eyes were opened just a little to the true meaning of fear. A fear for his life, but, also, fear of what he were truly capable of. The moment the fawn blossomed into a buck. A beautiful beast. An unshackled being of nature, unbeholden to his oath to king. That same man, facing her as her World crumbled around them, silver shining, piercing her through. Straight to the core.
Bedivere's father came beside her then, asking how she felt, dressed in his armor. Helm under an armpit, he knelt level with her and stared into the water awaiting her answer. In the water, his expression was stern, carved like rough stone, but, out the corner of her eye she saw past it—those smooth edges once shaping a handsome man, sharp of mind and wit. Upright in his beliefs, his devotion to king and kingdom. There was no wonder why Bedivere was the way he was, not a doubt in her mind that he was his father's son. And, she felt a pain in her chest. A slow burning hatred, a smoldering contempt, for the man who sacrificed life for loyalty, leaving him behind. A wonderful, foolishly proud man who during the last several weeks she'd grown much more familiar with than she ever might've as his king. Except, here, she was his niece, the mirror image of a younger sister lost to cold, and the flames became ash in her mouth at his and hers reflection. A feeling she never would've had as king.
"I'm well," she said quietly.
"I see."
Bedivere's father betrayed a small smile. A crack of relief, barely noticeable to even those who knew him. The reminiscent of her and the blood of her blood and an unspoken promise between them in a letter received on campaign, of grief read aloud with dry tears, from then on kept close to heart with unbridled love.
He turned his head to look at her. "Then, go join your cousins and help prepare the horses. We've a lot still to do."
It took them the better part of the day with the horses. None of them spoke. Arturia wondered if it was always this way between the brothers. She couldn't remember them ever quarreling like the Balin and Balan or the Orkney siblings. The three of them sat there for a time in disciplined, peaceful quiet until they were called again.
The company was finally ready to move on.
Springing into action, her horse's name was Llamrei, the mount of a friendly knight from across the channel, a warhorse full bred. His hair, as his mane, was dark, an ominous black death rolling over his master's enemies. Though she also didn't recollect encountering any steed with the name, somewhere, someplace, removed from her memory as the King of Knights or the insight as the Lion King, she felt a faint connection with this horse in particular. Something only the King of Storms could see. But, other than this, in these weeks following Merlin's disappearance, she'd come no closer to discovering the reason for her presence here.
Guiding Llamrei to the feeding trough outside the local stable, the company's journey from place to place, rallying those willing and promising those that weren't they would be protected it was expanding into a host as she'd thought. Thus, events were panning out as she remembered and if that were the case then next would be that first battle. Stroking his side, she couldn't recall its exact details. Only, when it was over, she stood alone. A girl, covered in the blood of men twice her age, chin held high by a fate she'd accepted without hesitation, wanting to press forward, end it soon, because many people had been smiling and thus many more certainly would be, too. Or so she'd thought at the time. She nuzzled Llamrei's thigh. The horse paused, raised his head, snorted then went back to eating.
"He's taken a liking to you, that one."
Sir Brastias appeared behind her, juggling four apples between seven fingers. He tossed her one, one to Llamrei, and one to his own horse. Grabbing his saddle, he threw it over his horse's back and asked her to fetch the spurs and stirrups and fasten everything together as he unhurriedly put on the rest of his armor. Their king wanted every knight to gather round for strategy. When she finished securing the saddle she helped him up, holding the stool steady. He thanked her, cracked his reins, and rode out the stables and it wasn't long before the owner of Llamrei, too, required assistance. She saw him off as well, and when the stables were empty again set her apple down on a bale of hay, uneaten.
It was only a few days away.