[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

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"All of us?" Susan says, and then it slots together. "Elaine."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye," softly. He does not particularly want to feel... any of this. "She fulfilled her purpose. I suppose I fulfilled mine, or what part of it was intended to further God's prophecy."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"To hell with God," Susan says fiercely, eyes flashing.

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot looks up at her, grateful and adoring and with a kind of fellow-feeling, as if they're in this together. "An thou hadst told me that this would further some great good, I think I would not feel quite as I do."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"What good," Susan says. "The end of a world?" (She's incensed on his behalf and her own, and does not realize that this shows her hand with respect to just how much she knows of the story of Camelot.) "Must God treat the world like - like baby Sunny knocking over a pile of her toys?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

He gives her a curious look, but holds off on the question that's suddenly arisen. Instead he says, "Sunny is innocent. God is not."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Thus making His actions all the more galling." She scoots her seat closer to his.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"King Galahad told me the whole tale," as he lets his knee bump gently against her own.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"What did he say?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot takes a breath, "Well-- he spoke of finding the Grail with Percival. They then took the Grail to Sarras, as instructed, where the sight of it converted the heathen Sarrans to Christ and Galahad was made king. This was his reward for his holy service, but it is not what he desired; even so, he continues to do his duty. I have never seen someone who seemed so lonely."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"How perfectly dreadful."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"He seemed to want to reassure me that all was well-- Elaine had passed, but that was well, as she achieved her purpose. We all of us accomplished God's plan, and God's will is paramount. No matter that he himself seemed unhappy, that God had deceived him and continued to try him. God's will be done."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Her eyes flash. "He sounds like Lucy."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He gives her a curious look, "What dost thou mean?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"The blind faith in God's plan."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Ah-- whether that plan brings rest or happiness to those involved, or not. Yes."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Though I suppose she was pleased with the outcome," tightly. "Was Galahad?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Pleased? I do not think so," he sighs a little, sips his drink. "There was a kind of stubborn, resigned insistence that things were good, but that was because they were as God has wanted them to be. With everything else he told me.... I don't know. Can one be unhappy and pleased at once?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I believe so," thoughtfully. "If there's enough self-delusion at play."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye... I cannot imagine keeping my faith, when I had been deceived. When I had seen what surely must have been punishment for others who had the same goal in mind."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan takes his hand in hers and draws it up, pressing a kiss to the tender skin of his inner wrist.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I don't know-- I dislike being angry. I don't know, though, which part of this makes me angriest."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Would you like to try and sort it out?" Susan asks, pressing another kiss, this time to the palm of his hand.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He strokes her cheek, giving her a long look -- his expression is a curious mixture, but plainly visible, as ever, is his adoration. "Wouldst thou mind?"

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Of course I don't mind," Susan says. She kisses his fingertips, too, before releasing his hand and reaching in her pocket for her notebook. "Let's see. Shall we list the pieces out one by one and address each, or start with the big picture and break it down?"