eachdraidh | Video; OTA - Scrying Stone

A MEMORY

The scene played out somewhat hastily. There had been an old man in a hood and robe, chiding the viewer for mucking around in a graveyard in the middle of a foggy summer morning, when it would have been better to have just gone home and had breakfast.

The knight replied, steadfast, claiming that his involvement in the graveyard had solely been to put the local village at ease--that he was simply trying to check if there were rustled spirits who needed to have their gravestones fixed in order to properly return to heaven. The old man chided him further as he fixed the gravestones until he reached one that had been perfectly intact, but knocked over into an empty space.

The old man warned him, saying it was dangerous to touch it. The knight, acknowledging this replied that it would be safer if a knight were the one to fix it and not a well-meaning child who might suffer the consequences, instead. The old man huffed and turned to leave, but stopped in his tracks as the ground burst. The gravestone was a trigger which summoned the rage of a dragon sleeping beneath the ground. The Earth split beneath their feet and from it came that fiery dragon, towering like a mountain as it spewed flames upon the two.

The knight, with abnormal haste, had shielded himself and the old man with a tall, pristine shield he had carried on his back. The dragon, scoffing and uttering curses at the two, hazed the forest around them, turning it into a wasteland of ash under a minute.

The knight ran on foot, chasing the dragon until he realized he would be outrunned. Whistling for his horse, the knight pursued by means of his steed, which tore through the forest, seemingly unaffected by underbrush, tree roots and uneven ground. Above all, it was a horse that was meant to match his ambition. Coming close to the local village, the knight called for a lance, which was tossed to him as he rode by. The villagers, he saw, wore faces of horror as they had seen the dragon pass in the air.

Catching up by the horse's abnormal pace, the knight hurled the lance he had been given with a ferocious gale that put a hole in one of the dragon's massive, scaled wings. The creature fell to the Earth, howling in pain as the knight jumped off of his horse and drew his sword.

There, the knight made his stand. He couldn't rest even for a moment, or else the dragon would recover, rise into the air and take off to kill innocent people. He muttered this over and over to himself, "I cannot falter, I cannot relax, I cannot even breathe or blink. Not until my King is safe, my Queen is safe, their people are safe--"

The dragon and the knight exchanged blows over and over and over. The dragon's claws uprooted the Earth with horrendous swings, its tail battered trees and sent them airborne and its teeth nearly split the knight each time he came close to slowing. In the end, both the dragon and the knight were littered with wounds, each tested to their endurance. The dragon, readying its breath one more time, breathed in so it could erase the troublesome knight from its sight. It gave the knight the opening he needed.

Despite his exhaustion, the knight rushed and closed the gap between himself and the dragon as it drew its breath. With an exquisite swing, he split the massive dragon's breast open with his holy sword, his shield raised to protect him from the fiery blood that gushed from its massive wound. As the dragon collapsed onto its side, the knight stumbled, the adrenaline coursing through him still keeping his heart beating hard. Pain began to gather in his limbs and his wounds despite that and he raised his sword over his head, ready to finish the dragon by cutting its throat. The fact that he was still standing, himself, was an inhuman feat.

"You inhuman monster," The dragon beckoned to the knight, asking him one question as the life in his eyes had begun to wane. "Creatures like you shouldn't exist--not only do you reek of the fairies, but you've killed a true phantasm. What name does my death possess, human?"

"Lancelot of the Lake," The knight replied somberly, his sword gripped tight. Despite the fact that he felt as if he would die soon, he still felt he could end the dragon's life with one more swing. "However, I was never a human in the first place. I'm nothing more than a knight."

His sword came down in his next breath and before the dragon was slain for good, the memory ended then and there.

(OOC: This is just a memory of Berserker's--him fighting the red dragon that he accidentally unleashed from a cursed graveyard. In case anyone's familiar with this legend, this is right before his weird thing with Elaine.)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You shun your own name?

Not only I. The entire world does. 'Lancelot' is a name shrouded in sin, my lady.

Truly? [ interesting. there is no sin attached to that name that she knows of, only mourning and woe and the honor of a knight. ] I believed Lancelot to be a great and honorable knight. A selfless man who could do no wrong.

There was a time for that before. Once. Now, no longer.

Glory and good may easily be removed in the name of a crime. My crime--it was among the greatest.

Did you kill your king? [ the thought is near laughable. but she wagers she may have an idea of what his crime was. ] Or did you steal his wife?

Both. [The first was indirect. The second was pretty direct.]

One way or another.

That is a great sin indeed.

I appreciate that you're willing to see the truth in such a thing.

I've been pitied far too much.

I would not pity a man whose guilt is clear.

Tell me, who was your king?

He was Arthur Pendragon. The King of Camelot... In the land of Albion.

[ arthur pendragon. she thinks to laugh but no sound leaves her mouth, it catches in her throat. her expression twisting between surprise and anger. ]

How strange, he shares both name and title with my brother.

[Lancelot didn't so much as blink. He tilted his head, instead, only really connecting a bit of information he gleaned when they first spoke and knew nothing of one another.

The idea of 'alternate universes' was something he was aware of even in his age.]

I see. You look rather different than the Morganna I'm acquainted with.

[ unsurprisingly the information does not fill her with joy. her reaction barely changes in the face of his calm. this she likes less than knowing there may be another arthur somewhere. ]

Is that so?

[Lancelot nodded. He couldn't help but be curious. Alternate dimensions were only pale shades of the same story told from different perspective. 'Rumors' gave birth to timelines that had the same themes and end results, but often times had greatly different contents.]

Your brother. Your Arthur. What became of him?

He still sits his throne. [ she says it with a sharp tongue, anger boiling in her blood. ]

I suppose the look in your eyes is proof enough. Even if you are not the 'Morgana' of my world, it makes you no less yourself.

[Still he had one more question.]

I only beg one more question. Do Arthur's people love him?

They do.

[It was one small relief.]

I do not know if he'll follow the same fate as the Arthur I served under.

However, the story will be the same. Mordred will not win in any instance.

[ he speaks mordred's name and morgana flinches, the loss still fresh after so many months. ]

Do not speak of what you do not know. [ she wonders if this man would be surprised, she wonders if she should tell him how mordred wears pendragon colors and swore to protect her brother with his life. but she will not, she will keep mordred close to her heart as she did those years ago when he was still a young boy. ]

But, I do know Arthur.

His strength of conviction, his honor and temperance...

[Lancelot nodded his head, absolutely certain of himself.]

He cannot lose.

[ her expression twists, caught between anger and something unnameable. ]

No, you do not. You know nothing of my brother, only a man who shares his name.

In all dimensions, the name 'Arthur Pendragon' is associated with freedom, kindness and strength.

As my name is synonymous with betrayal an darkness, his name is the utter opposite. There is no exception in any world. Fate itself will bend at the knee to force that outcome, Morgana.

[ she refuses to listen more, slamming her locket closed. he knows nothing, she thinks bitterly to herself and she throws it across the room. ]

Video; OTA - Scrying Stone

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