[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

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot squeezes her hand again, saying fiercely, "He kept saying 'God's will be done', as if it mattered not that God's will was to discard his own promises. An that is God's will, I would not wish it for anyone."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Nor I," says Susan, and ventures: "He sounds as if he might be a broken man."

[lanselos_du_lac]

He winces a little, starts to speak and then stops -- his impulse had been to say God help him, but God clearly has no interest in that. Eventually he says, "He did. I hated that for him."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Of course you did," she says, squeezing his hand. Fiercely, fervently, she adds, "Of course, this shan't happen to our Galahad, you know."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Just as fervently he says, "I know, and I am glad for that."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"It's good that you tried to reach him."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Dost think so?" His expression shifts into concern. "I felt I was rather-- forceful."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Well, sweetheart," says Susan, briskly, releasing his hand so she can cup his cheek. "I imagine I'm the wrong person to ask if you worry you ought to be concerned about forcefulness."

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot laughs a little at this, "I suppose you have a point."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"I don't see anything wrong with forcefulness when the situation calls for it," says Susan. She strokes her thumb over his cheekbone, lingering, and then drops her hand to his shoulder so she can give it a reassuring squeeze. "You were concerned. It seems the situation called for it."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I was concerned, I suppose, but moreso I was furious." This has the air of a confession, somehow.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

And yet Susan doesn't see why it ought to be a confession. It seems perfectly natural, to be furious in the face of an uncaring God who has hoodwinked your family. "Of course you were," she says, squeezing his shoulder again.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He reaches up to cover her hand with his own, briefly. "On to Camelot, then," quietly. This is the one that he dreads to discuss the most.

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Something in his tone has her straightening her spine. "What of Camelot?" Susan asks.

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Fallen." He sips his drink. "Arthur dead. Guinever disgraced and fled. King Galahad did not know my fate."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Ah. Yes. Of course. Susan had settled that knowledge deep in the recesses of her mind, sometime after her second disastrous conversation with Sagramore, and committed to knowing Lancelot as the man she met here instead of someone spoken of in Tennyson and Edmund's stories. Ought she offer to tell Lancelot of the fate the stories spoke of? Ought she dredge that back up? Lancelot knows she's familiar with the story from before she set it aside, so it shouldn't shock him if she offers...

But more pressing, of course, must be the fates of his first loves. She steels herself, takes another sip of her own drink, and then takes his hand again. "How dreadful."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"He said that I made war on Arthur, that Guinever and I were revealed," he frowns, thinking this over. "And worse. When Arthur was dealing with me elsewhere, his son rose up to take the throne and there was all-out civil war."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

Susan sighs minutely, thinks oh, very well, and ventures, "Mordred?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Yes," with only the faintest note of surprise that she knows the name. (He does remember, usually, that she has some idea of Camelot, of stories he knows nothing of. She does not usually speak of it, however, which he appreciates.) "Dost know-- it was only when he visited here that he acknowledged Mordred to me directly."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"Had you any knowledge of him beforehand?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"I knew him, though not well. He is of an age with Sagramore. I did suspect he was not simply Arthur's nephew-- he was not much like his brothers, in any respect. But it was not something we spoke of."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"So you hadn't confirmation until Arthur's visit."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Right. I think many at court had the same thought. It isn't as if Arthur could acknowledge him."

[quote_gentle_unquote]

"No, no, of course not."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"But this, I think, was the source of much trouble. If in all that time he had named no heir--"