The woodcutter's hut was half-built and abandoned, but that was fine. It was all he deserved.
All he deserved, for he was a useless, failure of a knight. He had lost his honor, if he had ever had it to begin with.
The roof was caving in. The thatching was damp and moldy. The wall had bare patches where the caked mud used to seal cracks was flaking off.
Lancelot fixed it all up, heedless of the scratches and bruises that marred his body. It was all he deserved. He put his back into it, relishing the burn in his muscles.
The first time it rained, he got drenched. The next morning, he woke at first light and climbed onto the roof with a load of hay bartered for at the village, tore down the old thatching, and replaced it with new. It took him two weeks and the help of the farmer he'd gotten the hay from, but in the end, it was done. Not done to Camelot's thatching standards, but it was done.
The next time it rained, he stayed completely dry.
He lay there on his rough straw pallet, staring up at the roof that he had made with his own hands, and felt warmth spreading through his chest. He had done something, and done it well; and he knew it himself, without the clamor of the court celebrating him.
It was a different feeling, more satisfying somehow than all the accolades he'd ever received at Camelot.
He slept better that night than he'd slept in years, despite the persistent rain that fell on his newly thatched roof.
The next day, he woke with determination and a strange feeling welling up within himself that he distantly recognized as excitement; excitement for what he could accomplish in one day with his own two hands.
The answer to that, as he'd learned by the end of the day, was not much.
Although he was in good shape from his time as a knight, the muscles were in different places. There was a difference in muscles grown from wearing the heavy armor; the broad shoulders and strong legs to grip his horse. But with chopping wood, he found his arms burning, the skin on his hands worn raw and bloody by the rough wood of his axe.
He went to bed that night with a burning in his muscles that he was beginning to realize he'd never felt before.
It felt good to chop wood, to drive the blade into the wood with a thud and feel his chest lighten with each blow.
What did he have to be angry about? If it had been the him of last month, he would have been angry at Sir Wozzel, but now, he was only angry at himself.
Had Sir Wozzel defeated him fairly?
No. He'd not followed the rules and traditions of jousting and had behaved like a scoundrel. It should be Sir Wozzel that felt the sting of shame, not Lancelot. And yet, he had been ashamed. Ashamed of losing, and of not knowing how to act in defeat. Not knowing how to be anything less than the best, so ashamed that he'd left without a word to anyone, not even Guinevere.
But for all that, as the days went on, Lancelot found himself grateful that he'd been defeated.
Being a knight had been easy for him. He'd had no sense of accomplishment, no worth other than what other people gave him. But now, with each day bringing him a new challenge, he felt more alive than he'd ever felt before. Was this what it felt like to be truly happy?
Being a knight had been as easy as breathing. But now, when his arms and shoulders ached and he looked at the woodpile he'd chopped—every log cut well, of an equal size—he was content. It was much greater to be the best woodcutter in the forest than it was to be the best knight.