[Open Post] ..hell yes i mind..

[lanselos_du_lac]

It's been a long while since Lancelot felt this way: angry and adrift, too overwhelmed and in his own head to determine how best to manage it. (If Susan were here, it would be simple -- but the fact that his Susan is gone is part of the problem.) His anger is a hot stone at his center, a roiling mess, a weapon without a target. He still feels that he would like to smash something, start a fight, find some way to externalize everything all the things he could not bring himself to say to the Galahad who is far older than he ought to be, the quiet king of a quiet kingdom.

A fulfilled purpose. A completed quest. A long chain of manipulation and events that dragged Lancelot along in its wake, and that (in this other time, he has to acknowledge, not his time and not now) led only to the ruin of everything Lancelot had cared for. And for what? It makes him furious to think that the price of the Grail was Galahad's joy, Galahad's self, and that that price was somehow being paid long before Galahad was even born.

That's just the start of it; there is more, much more, and it feels like it will keep spooling out without ceasing.

His impulse, as ever, is to stalk off to his room and stay there until he feels he can manage himself. (He thinks, not for the first time, of himself ten years older and outwardly angry, angry enough that everyone sees it, fears him or dreads his company. A man who lashes out. He does not want that future, but this possibility has always been somewhere just under the surface; he's always known it. Sometimes it has worked for him, with him, but he knows that it is dangerous and there is no one in this place that he would want to bear witness to it.) If this were Camelot, that is what he would do.

Since he can't figure what to do, he settles for a middle ground. It's been a long while since he felt like getting very deliberately drunk, but that appeals just now, and so he heads for one of the smaller bars, just off the main corridor.

^{[Note: All are welcome! Those who care for Lancelot and/or those who also wish to fistfight God are particularly welcome.]}

Comments

[ninth_cavalier]

"You get your own icon?" Gideon asks, interested. "What did yours look like before? You don't like it anymore?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot grins at her, glad of her clear interest. "The shield you have sometimes seen me use actually belongs to the King, and at times it feels strange to use it. I would keep my own device -- I like it well, though I did not choose it. Such things are generally given to one by the ruler who has made one a knight, and so Arthur granted mine. In the register, it is described as field argent, two bendlets gules."

He casts around and manages to find a pencil and a scrap of paper, on which he draws the basic outline of the device shown in this icon. "This means: the field, the background, is white, these two stripes -- the bendlets -- are red."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Huh. Does it mean something, or is it just, like, to identify you?" Gideon is well-versed in ancient shitty icons redolent with meaning; less so with stuff that's just for aesthetic or whatever.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Mostly, it is to identify me. The design is meant to be distinctive, and that it is plain suits me. The colors, though, bear meaning. I think he chose them as a sign of his opinion of me," his tone does soften, as he speaks of Arthur and this gift. "Argent, silver or white, recalls sincerity. Gules, the red, is for strength in battle and generosity, which is a knightly virtue."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon files away some (honestly unsurprising) conclusions about Lancelot and his king. Cavaliers, it turns out, is the same. She nods; sincerity, strength, and generosity fit Lancelot pretty well. "Do all the colors have meanings? What's black mean?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"All of the heraldic colors do, yes. Black, called sable, is the color of mourning, for us. But in a device it can also stand for constancy and prudence."

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon laughs. "Well, there go my plans. Mourning, yeah. Prudence, no."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot smiles, "Constant, though. Thou'rt constant."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Constantly annoying, maybe," Gideon mutters into her whiskey, feeling stupid and touched and too big for her skin. She moves on, hastily. "You said yours was simple. There's more complicated ones?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh, aye. Most are fairly simple, but those for royalty are sometimes complex. Some have beasts -- Arthur's has a dragon, for his family name. There are other patterns or symbols."

[ninth_cavalier]

"What about, like, a kickass skull? Maybe some flames? Wait, do I need to have a shield to have one of these?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Flames, I have seen. A skull? I don't know, though I imagine that here thou couldst have whatever is thy wish. And no, I think a shield is not required; my device has been on my surcoat, on a banner, there are several ways it is displayed."

[ninth_cavalier]

"On a coat," says Gideon, a little muzzily. She's reaching the end of her whiskey glass. "Fuck yeah. I bet I could get Kade to add that shit if I tell him more about all the murders."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Er-- murders?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh," says Gideon, and claps him on the shoulder reassuringly. "Don't worry. Not here. Still only the one of those. The ones that happened to everyone before I came here."

[lanselos_du_lac]

With some concern he asks, "Where thou'rt from?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon nods; she regrets bringing to up, the tone shift of the conversation, but it's too late now.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He frowns a little, but then makes himself take another drink. "We need not speak of it now. Let's talk instead of other things."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah," says Gideon, with relief. "We'd moved on from depressing shit, no point heading back there. Point is, uh, Kade said he'd trick out my jacket for me in exchange for stories."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Oh," a little brighter. He drains his glass and refills it.

(He is, in fact, a little drunk, but it's nice. A soft haze. He is so glad Gideon is here.)

"That's well. Kade is very talented. A surcoat is not really a jacket, but I think it works either way."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Oh. What's a surcoat?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot gladly explains, "We wear plate -- metal armor. Covers everything. Perhaps there is some way I could show thee, I think thou wouldst find it interesting. A surcoat goes over that, so that my device may be emblazoned upon me even if I was to lose my shield, for example. It is important to be protected, but it is also good to be known."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah, if everyone's up to their eyeballs in armor I imagine it's good to have some way to know you're not stabbing the wrong guy," says Gideon. "There's metal armor in the catacombs on the Ninth, but cavaliers don't wear it. It's kind of meant to be a, like, ceremonial position."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Up past one's eyeballs," he says, helpfully gesturing to show that his whole face would be covered. But then the rest of her statement resolves and he asks, "Canst explain the role of cavalier? To me, it sounds similar to another term for a knight. Why would a cavalier not wear armor?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Hmmm." Gideon moves her glass around, watching the remains of her ice cube slide in slow circles. "There's not, like, always cavaliers. It's a special thing. Or, like, there are always people who are supposed to be cavaliers, but no one's actually been called on to do shit about it in centuries. Not on the Ninth, anyway. Until this year. The Myriadic Year of Our Lord, 10,000." She makes a face so he knows she hasn't forgotten they're pissed at God in this chat. "So--uh. I've mentioned the necromancers?"