[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]

"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?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Ten thousand, Christ," he mutters, because he is feeling the bourbon and that year seems like madness. But then he says, "Yes. Thou hast mentioned them. I do not understand, but yes."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Yeah," says Gideon. That's fair. There's a lot to not understand about necromancers, even when they're just a fact of life. "Uh--for the purposes of this explanation, they're basically just, like--people who are born with the ability to use magic? You guys got magic?"

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Aye, we do." Or, at least, he believes that to be so.

[ninth_cavalier]

"Okay. Cool. So. It's hereditary, for us, and most of the powerful necromancers are heirs to the Nine Houses. Which are also planets. Supposedly planets in the same solar system as Earth, but I'm not totally convinced on that. Anyway. Heirs to the houses - big scary powerful necromancers, can do all sorts of magic shit. But the necromancy also makes 'em weak, physically. Noodle-armed bitches, the lot of 'em." Except Coronabeth. Gideon spends a long moment thinking about Coronabeth, and her legs, and her pajamas, and then seems to snap back into it. "So, uh, each of them gets assigned a cavalier—like a bodyguard, protects them while they're distracted with magic shit. But like I said, it's mainly ceremonial, because the Houses mainly get along, and there's not much can threaten a necromancer besides another necromancer. The most a cav is usually called on to do is fight duels with other cavs if someone's talking shit."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"How is one selected to become a cavalier?"

[ninth_cavalier]

"Depends on the House. Sometimes they're related to the necromancer, or a member of a rich family who wasn't born with necromantic ability. Sometimes the title is passed down. Usually they're like, trained up into it—or at least the possibility of it. On the Ninth, where I'm from, it was passed down." She swallows what's left in her glass, even though it's mainly just melted ice. "Guy who was supposed to serve as Harrow—as our Reverend Daughter's cavalier, Ortus, he was related to the Ninth cavalier from, like, a thousand years ago, and absolutely never shut the fuck up about him. Wrote this whole fuckin' poem." She straightens on her barstool, drops her voice, and intones, sepulchrally, "Nonius, wounded full sore, spat blood and gave him a grim smile; nor did the sword in his hand shake—Boldly he answered the saint, because he had the biggest dick of all time, no, really, guys, look it up—right there in the anatomical record—"

[lanselos_du_lac]

Lancelot nearly chokes on his drink, the laughter takes him by such surprise. "What?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon grins and claps him on the back again, delighted to have got him so good. "Okay, so I took some artistic liberties with the last bit. But trust me, that's the, fuckin', implication of the whole Noniad."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"Christ," still laughing. "It sounds dreadful."

[ninth_cavalier]

"It is, with all due respect to poor exploded Ortus, absolute dogshit."

[lanselos_du_lac]

"So-- wait, exploded?"

[ninth_cavalier]

Gideon nods, her grin fading—but not that far. "Yeah, it's a whole—thing. Technically a murder but not one of the murders we're not talking about. He, uh. We got a summons from the Emperor, all the heirs and cavs to travel to Canaan House for Lyctor trials. Let's, like, also not get into what that means right now. Ortus was about as good with a rapier as he was with a pen, and his mom lost her mind about it—going on about how he was gonna die, all this stuff. Harrow wanted to make me her cavalier instead, so she was gonna let them flee in a transport ship, but Marshal Crux rigged it to explode in atmo. Recompense for their disloyalty." This last is said with some genuine disgust. Man, she hates Crux.

[lanselos_du_lac]

He gives her a long, only slightly puzzled look, and then says, "I see." This is probably not true. "But thou wert trained up, yes? In sparring with thee it is clear thou hast been at this for many years."

[ninth_cavalier]

"Trained up, yeah, but not to serve as cavalier. I was training to escape and join the Cohort—the, uh, normal people army, basically." She scrubs a hand through her hair. "Harrow tried to forbid me from using my two-hander when I took the deal. Cavaliers are supposed to fight with a light blade and an off-hand."