Chapter 27 - Turbulent Tranquillity

Even as the midday sun bore down on him, and the commotion behind him began to grow, Marc was already moving, running desperately through the village (and away from the swelling crowd), his head turning rapidly as he scanned his surroundings, praying desperately all the while.

Fortunately for the boy, the Lord was evidently listening to his prayers, and barely three minutes after he'd begun his search Marc spotted his target just as he was leaving one of the wheat fields.

Immediately he launched himself at the blonde giant, words flowing from his mouth in a raging torrent as he did his best to explain the situation to the mysterious man who'd only arrived at their little village last week.

Once again, it seemed that fortune favored the boy, and the man seemed to catch enough of what he'd said to understand the situation (or the gist of it, at least), since he allowed the little boy to drag him through the village by the hand as fast as his feet could take him, until they were at the site of where his Papa had fallen from his ladder while working on the roof of their neighbour's house.

The commotion and murmuring around the unlikely pair only grew as he continued leading the man through the crowd, until they'd passed through it and reached his groaning Papa, who was clutching his right arm as he struggled to right himself up with the help of some of the other villagers.

Now, admittedly. if Marc had been asked about how he'd thought their mysterious stranger would have helped his Papa's broken arm (and indeed when the boy was asked, after the whole situation had been resolved), he would have admitted that he didn't really know, but a knight would have certainly been able to help his father, right?

And he knew the mysterious stranger was a knight.

Sure, when he and the other children had asked him the man had told them he wasn't, but he'd seen the breastplate the man had worn under his cloak, and Alys had told him that she'd accidentally gotten a look at the inside of the stranger's bulky pack when she'd been passing by his campsite on the way to the river one morning, and within it lay a full set of knight's plate (or so she'd swore, up and down, when both of their mothers had been out of earshot).

Between that, the well-crafted steel sword he bore, the masterwork scabbard that carried his sword (and in turn carried a family crest, no less!), and the tales Rhys had shared with them when he'd returned from his uncle's smithy in the village downriver, it was all too obvious that the man was a wandering knight, and more than that was likely the cause of the rumors that had surged in the region in the past season.

Since none of them (or the adults, even!) had recognized his face, name, or family crest, Rhys was of the belief that the man was a new knight (though whether he was a newly-minted knight fresh from squirehood, or a knight new to their lands (like Sir Lancelot, who himself hailed from the lands beyond the seas), was something that changed every other day), while Alys had suggested that he could be hiding his true face and identity with fae magic, and was in the region undertaking a secret quest for King Arthur himself.

Marc wasn't sure what to believe himself, though he personally thought that those theories were more likely than what he'd heard one of the old wives telling another, that the man was actually a fallen knight, deliberately hiding his identity while on the run from justice, or had suffered a disgrace in service to his lord and failed in his chivalric duties (this, too, also tended to change every other day, he'd noticed).

Regardless of what the truth was, regardless of what the man's past was, all he knew for certain was that the man was a knight, and thusly would be able to help his father.

And when the man looked over his father's arm for a few moments, before murmuring something to his father and adjusting his broken arm, Marc could only feel like his decision had been the right one to take.

Of course, he could not have expected what happened next.

That wasn't on him, though; all things considered, it was highly unlikely that anybody in the village could have expected for a soft, warm, bright white light to suddenly erupt from the knight, a brilliant radiance that forced every head to turn away from the two men in the middle, lest they be blinded by its majesty.

And when the light faded away, and the villagers were finally able to turn their gazes back, it was to find the knight standing over the injured man, helping him up even as he carefully prodded at and tested his no-longer-unnaturally-crooked arm.

The stunned silence that followed was short-lived, quickly replaced as it was by frenzied whispers and fervent prayers.

-EIGHT HOURS LATER-

As he idly stoked the embers of his campfire, a small part of Jaune couldn't help but once again marvel at the fact that Aura could somehow protect him from the worst effects of low temperatures.

The rest of him, though, was still thinking about the village he'd just left, and how much work he'd had to do just to convince them to not throw a feast in his honor.

Don't get him wrong; Jaune wasn't blind to what he'd done. He'd grown up on a farm, after all, and even with Dust-powered machines a broken arm could still put one out of work for a long time (and there was a lot of time-sensitive work to do on a farm).

But even if he could only imagine how much more important taking care of one's body would be in a pre-Dust world, that broken arm probably wouldn't have been life-threatening, and while the village's food stockpiles had looked like they were more than adequate to see them through the coming winter, that had been according to his admittedly-less-experienced judgement, and as such he couldn't in good conscience allow them to offer so much, not for him.

Of course, for some reason, telling them that had only made them even more determined to throw that feast for him...

Jaune quietly sighed, before shaking his head.

While their show of gratitude was certainly appreciated, he couldn't really say that this was what he'd expected, back when he'd left his home to chase his dreams of becoming a hero.

To be fair, though, dying and waking up in another world was also something he could safely say he hadn't expected when he'd left his home (not to mention everything that had happened since), and so, all things considered, this was a pretty tame and harmless surprise.

Unconsciously, his expression darkened into a frown, as his thoughts slowly drifted.

Of course, it still hurt, when he thought back to Remnant.

To his friends.

To his team.

To his family.

But by now, it had been almost a year since he'd died and arrived in England (and almost two since he'd run away from home), and while he still had no idea how or why he'd arrived, he'd had more than enough time (and help) with processing what had happened, with coming to terms with what he'd lost, and with accepting his new situation.

The same, however, could not be said when he thought back to Camelot.

Even though it had been months since he'd left, he found himself constantly thinking about how things were back at the castle.

Whether Agravain and Sir Mordred's mother had still convinced everyone that he was some malicious interdimensional spy, or if someone had finally found Arthur's missing court wizard, and he would be summoned back for a proper judgement.

How Gareth was doing as the newest fully-fledged Knight of the Round Table.

Whether Arthur had finally managed to resolve that entire affair that had been going on with his wife and Sir Lancelot.

How Sir Mordred was faring, especially in regards to his relationship with his father.

And sometimes, on rare occasions, a small part of him couldn't help but wonder what could have happened if he'd been swayed by Arthur's words, and chosen to stay that night.

The crackling fire and the peaceful moonlit night offered no answers as he stewed in his thoughts for a few more moments, before he finally shook his head, forcefully chasing away those thoughts just as he did each time they crept up on him.

Of course things were fine in Camelot; things had been fine before he'd shown up, and even if his departure hadn't calmed things down (a thought he really didn't want to entertain), he knew Gareth, Arthur, and Sir Mordred, and had complete confidence that they would be fine.

Not to mention everything he'd done since he'd left Camelot.

Sure, things hadn't exactly gone as expected (even with earlier events notwithstanding), but even if he wasn't fighting Grimm and being a Huntsman like he'd originally intended, he couldn't deny that he'd done some good in the past few months, going around the villages and making sure things were generally okay.

Of course, Arthur's kingdom was relatively peaceful and prosperous (at least for the standards of a pre-Dust society, or so he'd gathered), and most of the work he'd done so far amounted to helping out in the fields during the harvest, healing any sick or injured people with his Aura, dealing with any animal problems in the area, and in general making sure the village could make it through the coming winter with minimal issue (at least, by his admittedly-limited judgement), but at least it was something.

More than he'd have accomplished if he'd never run away from home in the first place, and more than he'd have accomplished if he'd never left the castle.

... and maybe if he told himself that second part enough times, he'd stop wondering about how things could have gone if he'd stayed.

Unfortunately, this night would not be the night he'd finally told it to himself enough times, and as he began to roast the day's catch over the crackling fires, a part of him continued to wonder how things were, back in Camelot.

-CAMELOT, LOGRES-

Even after twenty years, and as much as she could appreciate its necessity, she had never quite grown fond of poring over parchments, though she had at least become inured to the tedium and monotony thanks to assistance and experience.

Now, however, between the eventfulness of the last few months, the absolute mountain of work she had to process and take care of, and the... absences caused by recent events, she couldn't help but feel an all-too-familiar throbbing in her temples, one that even Avalon could not cure.

Regardless, the task set before her was one borne of necessity, for the sake of nothing less than the safety of England itself, and she could thusly give it no less attention than she had anything else that had been asked of her since she had drawn Caliburn and made her oaths.

Duty and honor demanded nothing less for her lands, her people, her kingdom.

And so, Artoria forced herself to focus.

The incipient discontentment among the nobles, budding for years and brought to the forefront by Sir Tristan's outburst months ago, the continued disappearance of her court wizard (and godfather), the discovery of her then-unknown bastard child (in the literal sense), the absurd accusations levelled at her... advisor and his subsequent departure, the affair between her greatest knight and her wife, its publicization by Sir Agravain, and the shattering of the unity of the Round Table caused by Sir Lancelot's subsequent actions (not to mention the deaths of her kin)...

With a herculean force of effort, the Perfect King cast those thoughts to the back of her mind, and instead turned her attention back to the parchments arrayed before her, resuming making the many plans and preparations required to conduct an expedition to the heart of the former, now-potentially-hostile, Empire.

Author's Notes: Let the milk curdle, the children cry, and the poxes return, for once more have I finally returned, bringing with me yet a few things, least of which is possibly the timeskip chapter itself.

Firstly, as you may have noticed, this story finally has some cover art (commissioned from anniewalker090). Long story short, I used the donations I got, as well as some of my own money, to commission some artwork for this fic (both of which can be viewed in full on the SpaceBattles forum; not that I intend to self-advertise, it's simply that its nature as a forum allows me to share more information than I can on FFN or AO3), and this one in particular, I feel, best sums up the first 25 or so chapters of this story.

The fact that you're only getting this now, after things have already changed so much, was an unplanned tragedy (which to be fair is, in my personal opinion, a not-wholly-inaccurate summary of this story either).

Now, getting to the chapter proper - the chapter itself can be split into two sections, with the first one showing just what our dimensionally-displaced protagonist has been up to since leaving Camelot, how Jaune would be viewed by the common person in Arthurian Britain at the time (as opposed to Chapter 22, which showed how he was viewed by the common knight at the time), with a special emphasis being placed on just how much he'd stand out (even ignoring the anachronistic suit of full plate armor the Knights of Camelot wear (and he thusly also possessed) and his height, the sword he bears as a replacement to Crocea Mors is still a steel sword from Camelot's armory, and even if it's more mundane and mass-produceable than most of the things in Camelot's armory (it probably isn't actually magic, as far as I know, though) it's still not exactly the kind of thing the average villager can afford in their lifetime), and lastly focusing on how Jaune's feeling, and essentially how much he misses his friends, both the ones in Remnant and the ones in Camelot, though he's had time to come to terms with his situation and try to make the most of it, in what should be a short, subtle, bittersweet segment.

And the second section can pretty much be summed up by "EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE" and "being Artoria is SUFFERING".

Because, in the end, even if the Fall of Camelot wasn't pretty much a canon event, and even if there wasn't a certain force specifically designed to keep things on the rails, Jaune arrived in Camelot far, far, far too late to stop most of the initial dominos from falling (like Tristan's dissatisfaction with Artoria, which stemmed from his inability to deal with the harsh but necessary things Artoria ordered in their war against the foreign Saxon invaders, and whose outburst ultimately led to Lancelot and Guinivere meeting, which led to...), and while he did attempt to help Artoria deal with some of the fallout, he ultimately left too soon, before she could confront Lancelot and Guinivere, which meant that whole mess pretty much blew up just like it did in canon.

As for the one major thing he did change? Well, we'll get to Mordred, when we get to Mordred (and that won't be any time soon, either).

But until then, have a little taste, of one of the two ways it could have gone, if Jaune had met Mordred instead of Artoria at the end of Chapter 26.

SCENARIO: E-2 (ESCAPE & EXILE)

POINT OF DEVIATION: CHAPTER 26

As he stalked through the deserted corridor, utilizing both his knowledge from Beacon's survival classes and his experiences growing up with seven sisters, Jaune mentally ran over his plan one more time, as well as his memories of Camelot's layout.

The exit he was aiming for was about ten minutes away at his regular pace, and if the patrol routes hadn't changed from the last time he and Sir Mordred had returned from training late he should have at least a good twenty minutes before the guards got anywhere near this section of the castle again, and he did have a back-up plan for if he got spotted, of course-

The sounds of footsteps coming down the hallway in front of him made Jaune instinctively freeze, and he immediately began backing up.

Unfortunately, though he'd tried to minimize his movements, the person ahead of him somehow heard him, and hurried their own footsteps in return.

And before Jaune could reach one of the hiding spots he'd mentally marked, the owner of the footsteps turned the corner, revealing a dimunitive armored figure with a distinctive horned helmet, carrying a tray with some bread and cheeses.

Jaune blinked, and though he couldn't see it he imagined Sir Mordred blinked as well.

Silence filled the corridor, as the two stared at one another, before Jaune finally broke it, injecting a forced casualness into his tone as he greeted his mentor: "G-good evening, Sir Mordred! What brings you here?"

"... I could ask you the same thing, Jaune," Mordred replied, as she began moving once more, heading towards her squire and friend where he stood.

Jaune gulped, knowing there was no real good way to explain.

-ONE EXPLANATION LATER-

"You told me everything was alright!" Mordred fought down the urge to shout, though she couldn't quite keep the accusatory tone out of her voice (or the hurt). "You told me you would just ignore what Agravain said!"

"I did, really!" Jaune defended himself desperately, before reluctantly adding: "... but he's still right, Sir Mordred. Look at all the trouble I've caused in the past few weeks. Gareth's been arguing with Gawain and Gaheris because of me, King Arthur's probably been having to deal with Agravain, along with anyone else who's convinced I'm guilty, and you... Sir Mordred, what about your dreams of being the Knight you've always wanted to be... serving your father as you've always dreamed of?

"..." Mordred could only stare at her friend's anguished face, unsure of how to comfort or reassure him in the least.

"... face it, Sir Mordred," Jaune concluded, after a lengthy pause. "Things would be better for everyone, if I wasn't around."

"That's not true," Mordred immediately retorted.

"Isn't it?" Jaune snorted, looking away. "Look, Sir Mordred, I was just a farm boy from another dimension who died, and couldn't even be honest about it before it became a problem; there's no way I'm worth any of this."

Mordred wanted to rebuke him.

She wanted to tell him he was wrong.

She wanted to tell him that he was worth all of it and more.

But she couldn't.

She didn't know how.

Not to the only person who'd done it for her.

And so, instead, after desperately racking her head, she instead tried to argue: "But you can't leave! Father would never allow it!"

"King Arthur also said my indefinite confinement wasn't fair; I'm sure he'd understand."

"Then, what about your dreams of being a hero?" Mordred quickly tried.

"Do you think I'm helping anyone by being stuck here?" Jaune shot back, even as he slowly got up from where he'd been sitting on the floor.

"Then..." Mordred's mind desperately raced, looking for a way to not be separated from her friend, before seizing on the next thing she could think of: "Then I'll go with you!"

"..." Jaune couldn't help but pause and turned back, his jaw agape, as he tried to process what Sir Mordred had just said. "Sorry, what?"

"If you go," Mordred repeated quickly, seeing that it was the first thing that had actually made him stop, "then I'll go with you."

"... you can't just leave with me, Sir Mordred!" Jaune pinched the bridge of his nose as he argued, trying to reason with his mentor. "What about your Knighthood? What about the Kingdom? What about your father?"

"What about you?!" Mordred retorted furiously, refusing to allow herself to be swayed by her squire's words. "Should I leave you to fend for yourself, Jaune?

"The Kingdom and my father will be fine, as they have always been under the Perfect King, but you're my squire, Jaune; I have a duty as a knight to you, too!"

Jaune closed his eyes and looked away, a war raging internally within him as he processed his friend's words.

But no matter how much he wished he could accept Mordred's offer...

He couldn't do it.

He couldn't tear the newly-discovered father and son apart.

He couldn't let Agravain be right.

He couldn't let himself be the reason Mordred gave up on his dreams as a knight.

He couldn't let himself be the reason Mordred gave up on his dreams of proving himself to his father.

Thus, Jaune turned away, back towards the exit, as he said: "Not anymore, Sir Mordred.

"I'm not your squire anymore."

And as Mordred recoiled in a shocked silence, Jaune seized his chance and moved, unable to look his mentor in the face, and for the second time in as many lives he ran away from the people who cared about him, armed with only a stolen sword, his family's shield-sheath, and whatever he could carry on his back, determined to protect others, to be a hero.

And desperately hoping and praying that one day, it would all be worth it.

That one day, his mentor might understand, even if he'd never forgive him.

Postscript: I hope this has served well as both an apology for my increasingly-frequent absences, and to also really drive in what I said about the story's new cover, as well as why I emphatically refused to actually go down this route.