I Would Have Left You
I Would Have Left You
King Arthur Between the Scenes, Lancelot's POV
Author: Lokei
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the woods north of Hadrian’s Wall, Lancelot has issues with Guenevere. He’s not the droid she’s looking for. (*grin*)
Author’s Note: I had serious disappointment issues with King Arthur when I saw it first. It is not Bernard Cornwell’s Winter King, or even The Once and Future King…but seeing it twice and having recently developed a new appreciation for Ioan Gruffud, I have decided it has a few good moments. Most of them involve Lancelot. *wink*
“Oceans of grass, from horizon to horizon, further than you can ride. The sky-bigger than you can imagine.” Knowing a flip answer would not satisfy her, Lancelot allowed a distant wind from the east to brush through his memory, evoked by the Woad woman’s simple query. He smiled ever so slightly. “No boundaries.”
Her gaze was warm, inviting confidences. “Some people would call that freedom. That’s what we fight for, our land, our people. The right to choose our own destiny. So you see, Lancelot, we are much alike, you and I.”
He couldn’t quite believe it, but he nodded in polite acquiescence anyway. Very well, they were both of peoples oppressed by the Romans, whose dreams of freedom seemed to be repeatedly snatched away, but he would not grant any more than that. She was still in her land, had had the privilege of a childhood in these hills she loved so unaccountably much. She did not wake with her eyes still full of dreams of wild horses and her ears still ringing with the heart-breaking war cry of a family she might never see again. She had the option to fight. He had only the requirement, and the promise of retribution upon his people if he failed.
No, he would not allow that they had much in common.
She stepped closer and Lancelot could see the curves of her arms holding closed her cloak. He wondered, not for the first time, if there was truth to the stories that the Woads were all a little unearthly, somehow alluring in a way not of this world. He took a half step forward, and checked himself when she spoke.
“And when you return home, will you take a wife? Have sons?”
He began to regret having flirted with her in the caravan. He flirted with all women, was serious about none. How could he be, in such a place, in such circumstances as his own? Who could be free to love who was not free to live? There was no bitterness in his reply, only a solemn acceptance of the price he had already paid for his deeds.
“I have killed too many sons. What right do I have to my own?” It was a rhetorical question, which she wisely did not choose to answer, though she seemed not to like his reply.
“No family, no religion. Do you believe in anything at all?”
It was Lancelot’s turn not to like her riposte. Her eyes were far more piercing than the moonlight should have allowed, and despite his cloak and armor he felt more exposed in her gaze than she had been in her tent just moments before. What did he believe in? What he could see, what he could touch, what he could kill. That was all there was left to him. That, and Arthur. There was a long pause, and he sighed. If not for his friendship for Arthur, he could consider himself a cold man. It was not a picture he liked of himself, but only the truth would make her look away.
“I would have left you and the boy there to die.” There. It was said. Yet still she held him in her glance and he opened his mouth once more, to say he knew not what. To apologize? To say he would have then, but he wouldn’t now?
There were no words left save the ones she read in his face anyway.
If you want a hero, go find Arthur. I’m not the one you’re looking for.
He nodded once, and turned away.
King Arthur Between the Scenes, Lancelot's POV
Author: Lokei
Rating: PG-13
Summary: In the woods north of Hadrian’s Wall, Lancelot has issues with Guenevere. He’s not the droid she’s looking for. (*grin*)
Author’s Note: I had serious disappointment issues with King Arthur when I saw it first. It is not Bernard Cornwell’s Winter King, or even The Once and Future King…but seeing it twice and having recently developed a new appreciation for Ioan Gruffud, I have decided it has a few good moments. Most of them involve Lancelot. *wink*
“Oceans of grass, from horizon to horizon, further than you can ride. The sky-bigger than you can imagine.” Knowing a flip answer would not satisfy her, Lancelot allowed a distant wind from the east to brush through his memory, evoked by the Woad woman’s simple query. He smiled ever so slightly. “No boundaries.”
Her gaze was warm, inviting confidences. “Some people would call that freedom. That’s what we fight for, our land, our people. The right to choose our own destiny. So you see, Lancelot, we are much alike, you and I.”
He couldn’t quite believe it, but he nodded in polite acquiescence anyway. Very well, they were both of peoples oppressed by the Romans, whose dreams of freedom seemed to be repeatedly snatched away, but he would not grant any more than that. She was still in her land, had had the privilege of a childhood in these hills she loved so unaccountably much. She did not wake with her eyes still full of dreams of wild horses and her ears still ringing with the heart-breaking war cry of a family she might never see again. She had the option to fight. He had only the requirement, and the promise of retribution upon his people if he failed.
No, he would not allow that they had much in common.
She stepped closer and Lancelot could see the curves of her arms holding closed her cloak. He wondered, not for the first time, if there was truth to the stories that the Woads were all a little unearthly, somehow alluring in a way not of this world. He took a half step forward, and checked himself when she spoke.
“And when you return home, will you take a wife? Have sons?”
He began to regret having flirted with her in the caravan. He flirted with all women, was serious about none. How could he be, in such a place, in such circumstances as his own? Who could be free to love who was not free to live? There was no bitterness in his reply, only a solemn acceptance of the price he had already paid for his deeds.
“I have killed too many sons. What right do I have to my own?” It was a rhetorical question, which she wisely did not choose to answer, though she seemed not to like his reply.
“No family, no religion. Do you believe in anything at all?”
It was Lancelot’s turn not to like her riposte. Her eyes were far more piercing than the moonlight should have allowed, and despite his cloak and armor he felt more exposed in her gaze than she had been in her tent just moments before. What did he believe in? What he could see, what he could touch, what he could kill. That was all there was left to him. That, and Arthur. There was a long pause, and he sighed. If not for his friendship for Arthur, he could consider himself a cold man. It was not a picture he liked of himself, but only the truth would make her look away.
“I would have left you and the boy there to die.” There. It was said. Yet still she held him in her glance and he opened his mouth once more, to say he knew not what. To apologize? To say he would have then, but he wouldn’t now?
There were no words left save the ones she read in his face anyway.
If you want a hero, go find Arthur. I’m not the one you’re looking for.
He nodded once, and turned away.