I am very exciting in my sleep, I'll have you know. More exciting than when I am awake and reality takes over.Originally Posted by mAc Chaos
I am very exciting in my sleep, I'll have you know. More exciting than when I am awake and reality takes over.
Localizationing stuff
Did this on a whim and lost interest part way through, but yeah.
When we returned to my domain’s castle and arrived in my chambers, sleep overtook the Queen. Small wonder. She had been branded with adultery and taken to a decrepit castle awaiting judgment in a stone cell, which she had finally become freed from. Finding safe haven relieved her of the tension that had built up, allowing her mind to fall into unconscious at last.
On her cheeks were the stains of tear streaks. What ailed her was not that she was driven from Camelot nor was it that I had stolen her. It was that she had betrayed King Arthur. The marks on her face were from her constantly apologies to the King thinking of the pain our relationship must have wrought. My uncouth fingers could not even wipe away her tears. The other knights know not of how much the Queen had loved and supported the King. She was called a traitor, called unfaithful, but her heart remained one of a fair maiden. Doubtless she was continuing to apologize to the King even now in her dreams.
Between the King and the Queen was no normal relationship, but it was founded upon accepting what was out of their power. Had there been no interloper such as I, the King and the Queen would have continued their lives with their secret preserved, there would have been no fighting between the Knights of the Round Table, and Camelot would have been restored to its former glo –
“…No, this was for the best. This was for the best.”
I seated myself on the bed still in helm and armor. Knowing what circumstances the King was in, I at least owed it out of loyalty to remain in armor until the end of the expedition to Rome and the King’s return to Britain. The night was long. Until the Queen would awake, I reflected on what the Queen told me of half the life of the King.
The king chosen to be the King of Britain was bestowed with a mysterious power. It waned however, and Uther, the previous King, was to have been the last of its keepers. King Uther feared that the next generation would no longer be under supernatural – under the protection of the British Isle, and was driven to the forbidden: to produce a child with his own blood and the blood of a dragon by manmade means. The magus Merlin accepted King Uther’s proposal, and finding the best carrier for blending the two bloods he created the ideal king. It was for the sake of Britain’s survival. There was no ill intent in the act. It was the proper course of action for a ruler of a kingdom to wish to make an even stronger successor.
The child born as the incarnation of a dragon became what the King and the magus had envisioned it to be. However, there lay two problems. One was that the child was female. The other was that Morgan, daughter of King Uther, also retained that supernatural blood against all expectation.
Despite being the same offspring of Britain, her younger sister was the one to have received the love and hopes of her father, and Morgan despising her for it became a witch queen who craved vengeance for all her life. Agravain too was an assassin sent by Morgan, and Mordred was – nay, I shall say no more. It was true that Morgan was a ruler with immense power, that she was Uther’s daughter and retained the supernatural power thought to have died out with him. She who was the owner of the British Isle was a greater “King of the Island” than King Arthur. But she still was but a small pebble in the path of the King. The witch queen can do nothing to injure the heart of the King.
The problem was the gender of the child that was born. She had to be raised a man. One ruling over many lands and knights had to be a man. Only King Uther, her foster father Ector, and the magus knew her true identity. She literally cloaked herself in iron and concealed the truth for all her life. I know of the Sword of Selection.
In my territory on the other side of the sea, I heard rumors of the King of Britain, chosen knight of the magus Merlin, champion who pulled out the holy sword none could pull out, single ray of hope in Britain who defeated the foreign invaders in its more dire of times. As another knight, I had to be intrigued. No, I will be frank. I was young back then, filled with passion and conviction. I feigned lack of interest, increasingly conceitedly believing that this King of Knights in Britain was but rubbish, that I alone was the ideal knight. I began to be compared with the King of Knights in even my own land, and finally having enough, I thought to see this so-called legend with my own eyes. By the Lord’s guidance perhaps, I met the King as soon as I landed in Britain in the midst of battle. The impact I felt then is not one to be forgotten, seeing her ride on horse with a body that could only be taken for a young boy, gallantly swinging her sword in a horde of invaders. Those who had little heart must have looked down on the King’s appearance, deriding it as not being fit for a knight.
I was one of them. I thought that what was required in combat were weight, strength, and the stamina to keep fighting day and night. I thought that it was impossible for a boyish body to fend off even a single barbarian. But how wrong I learned I was. What mattered most in becoming a knight was not a tough body but the spirit that swore what it was one would discipline, what it was one’s sword was meant to protect: to continue holding onto unwavering convictions.
I fought together with the King in that battle, and for my accomplishments I was granted the honor of speaking with her as a friend and invited to Camelot as a guest. Before long, I began desiring a seat on the Round Table. Many battles I saw as one of the Round Table, like the other knights who idolized the King, not even able to penetrate through the King’s secrets and troubles. This is not to say there were none who had been suspicious of how the King appeared. But with the holy sword, the King does not receive injury, nor does she age. The holy sword had the blessings of the Lady of the Lake and granted immortality onto its bearer. For that reason, no one probed further into her frame that was too petite for a knight, and the knights came to become proud of her girlish countenance as a demonstration of how handsome their King was.
The fact was that the King was invincible. Size and appearance could not change that. The people fearful of the advance of the foreign invaders desired a strong king, and the knights that rode on the battlefield would obey only a great commander. The King met all of those qualifications. And so no one questioned who the King truly was. That she protected the kingdom as its ruler was enough. The new King was fair and impartial, and she always stood at the vanguard on the field of battle slaying foe after foe. Many of her enemies and many of her people died, but her decisions were always in the right, and she governed better than anyone else. There was no room left for doubt, in fact, who among those she ruled would think they were the same human being as the King?
“The King does not understand how others feel? Sir Tristan, nay, all the knights of Britain are mistaken. Why had it not occurred to any of you that the King was another person of Britain like the rest of you?”
I was a knight from foreign soil. An outsider. The climate and the culture I was raised in was different. My beliefs at the crux of things did not mesh with theirs. The British put their island, their kingdom above all else, but I placed people over the kingdom. I believed the happiness of the individual mattered more than that of the kingdom. A French knight holds to the creed that he will take the hand of the woman he loves if she is in peril, even if it means abandoning his own country. I have experienced stigma because of it, but thanks to it I could observe the Round Table calmly.
After Sir Tristan had left, the King’s fatigue became apparent. The Queen was concerned for the King and I too was concerned about the weight being placed on the King. I thought to lessen the King’s burdens even a little, and the Queen and I shared that as a common goal. We conversed and came to respect and rely on each other. It was then that I became attracted to her. I felt something rare in how she backed up the King from the shadows, in the strength of her spirit.
The burden inside her must have grown too large for her to contain the King’s secret. I learned from her of the true identity of the King, of the Queen’s loneliness, of my own callowness. At that moment I was seized by anger. Anger at all things pure. I felt an uncontrollable rage towards the island of Britain itself.
And then my affair with the Queen was exposed by that man.
“As I suspected. You never were a worthy queen for King Arthur, Guinevere.”
“Agravain, how dare you!”
The knight who rose to the rank of secretary knew the secret of the King. He knew it and used it to threaten the Queen. The insult to the Queen forced me to make my final choice. I cut my blade through many knights, took the lives of my former comrades on the Round Table, and fled to my own domain. I was a traitor who committed adultery and fell to becoming a foul beast undeserving to call itself a knight.
The man deep inside of my soul cried out that this was what I had wanted. I took the woman I loved. King Arthur was a knight living in ideals, as I once had. But we age. People age. We cannot be everlasting like the King. There is far too little time for us to live by ideals. I had no longer been the knight that the King had such hopes for. What I committed with the Queen unexpectedly proved that. I even felt relief that the King would know of my disgrace, know of the limits of a man, and punish me for my disloyalty. But the King said she would forgive us. That right and just King said she would forgive me, me and the Queen.
“My friend, my pride, my ideal knight. If you had seen fit to commit such actions, they must have good cause. I am sure of their justness.”
When I saw the letter of pardon having those inscriptions on it, I foresaw that my soul would crumble from madness.
“What is this?”
Did the King not love Guinevere? No, I was certain she loved her. The King trusted the Queen as her wife, as her best friend. The King was giving forgiveness to those who trampled over her trust and friendship and abandoned her? It was absurd. It was absolutely absurd. She was only trying to keep face. Her responsibilities as king bound her to forgive her knight. Camelot will fall should I withdraw. The King was surely casing her heart in iron and forgiving the traitor that I was all the while holding the utmost contempt–
“If only that were true. Had she been as worldly, I would never have pulled back.”
Yes, the truth was I ran because I was afraid. The King was sincerely giving her forgiveness. She was giving her blessings. To the Queen and myself. As if she was reassured that that there could be no better conclusion. She really was a King who existed only to defend the kingdom. She hid her identity for ten years for that sole purpose, doing nothing but protecting the people while denying herself of everything.
If I were in the same position as the King, could I have forgiven those who wronged me? No, that was a flawed question. The King was unlike us from the very beginning. She was not a person, she had not been raised a person. But still she tried to live rightly as one. A creature who did not know the happiness of a person loved the happiness of the people. She truly was a monster, a greater one than Vortigern. There was no way others could understand. Was she not living the convenient hell of our imaginations?
“…”
What was it that I had been so angered by? Even now I respect and adore the King. But as a human being, I cannot, I must not accept her way of being. To whitewash it as “wonderful” would make me no better than the knight who had left the castle.
“Guinevere, is this what had been grieving you so?”
The fear born in me now will one day become anger, then hate, and compel me to continue cursing the King who will continue to live in ideals for all eternity. It was a horrid future but it was a fitting punishment for one like me.
The night was long. The sun had yet to rise on the horizon. I gazed at the island which had become a distant land to me, at the once glamorous chalk castle.
Last edited by peanuts; June 25th, 2015 at 09:22 AM.
what a good read. thanks arai.
man, garden of Avalon is pretty good.
Yeah, pretty interesting stuff all around. It seems like despite being created to be the perfect king, that same thing set King Arthur up for failure from the beginning.
Thanks, arai.
She wasn't Gilgamesh enough for the job.
There was one more Knight's Tale, amirite? Anyway, great translation, really changed my mind about Lancelot.
This makes me think how things would have gone if Gil had been Uther's heir instead.
Camelot wouldn't have needed a table or faeries for one.
It would have gone very mary sue like.
Spoiler:
Ya, but not that Gil was a product of 100% natural reproduction either.
Was there ever called into question?
Pretty clear that gods of the oldest civilization are better at baby design than a human ruling a provincial kingdom.
Are they though?
Like sure their product is more powerful and such, but Artoria actually tried to do her intended job while Gil did exactly the opposite of his.
Ragnarok, come day of wrath
That fallen souls might bear our plea.
To hasten the Divine's return.
O piteous Wanderer.
Gil's job was to rule over humanity.
You cant say he didnt succeed.
The "Gil brings humanity back under the gods" phase of the plan did not go so well.
Ragnarok, come day of wrath
That fallen souls might bear our plea.
To hasten the Divine's return.
O piteous Wanderer.
Oh yeah I mean the actual plan of sheeping humanity failed but Gil succeeded at the job given to him, which was to rule humanity, it was just that he decided that sheeping wasn't really a mankind thing.
First 10, then 20, then 10 again. How many years did she rule? :I
Great read. Good job.
Not really, the job given to him was sheeping humanity in so the gods would prevail, ruling them was just a means to that. Its like if you were sent to buy eggs at the supermarket and you bought a pair of headphones instead. Sure you succeeded in going to the supermarket, but you didnt do the job you were sent to do.
Too long.How many years did she rule? :I
"In Camlann Forest"
And thus there were no more Knight's Tales.
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
