Work Text:
Ever since Lancelot first heard tales of the Knights of the Round Table, he’d admired them. From that first moment, he knew he’d do anything to become one of them. As a boy he trained for years to master every weapon, to win every duel, to be worthy of joining that mythical table. Once of age he’d been chosen and became the very best of them – for the knighthood was everything to him. With the deaths of his family all that Lancelot had left were the knights: their ideals of chivalry, their mastery of swordsmanship, their undying loyalty to the one true king.
As Percival had said: even though the king had changed and the kingdom no longer was what it had once been, those golden days of legend no longer true, it was still their kingdom and king that they’d sworn loyalty to. It was all Lancelot had left.
Until it wasn’t.
Lancelot had admired Arthur from a distance, as a boy reading epic tales admires the hero. He had come to him and knelt and served him- until that blue hedgehog came and tore him down, wielding the sword of the one true king.
Lancelot had served and worshipped a false king all along. The false king, the great hero-king of Lancelot’s childhood dreams – slain, by that strange blue hedgehog. Lancelot swore loyalty to him, of course, because in the wake of that calamity and in the wake of that revelation about whom the true king was, what else could Lancelot have done?
Yet still, thoughts of the false king plague Lancelot. Standing in the armoury one afternoon all by himself after a bout of mock-duels with some other knights, Lancelot gazes at his own reflection upon the curve of a shield and wonders how he is supposed to love Sonic the same way as he did Arthur.
Because Sonic is not a hero to be admired from a distance and grow up idolising, no, he detests every notion of social inequality and proper distance to a king. He is no myth. He is-
“Lance!” crows somebody from the doorway, and Lancelot knows without turning whom it is; only one man is presumptuous enough to call him by a nickname.
“My liege,” says Lancelot with a curt nod.
As Sonic comes up next to him he says, “Aw, don’t be like that. My name’s Sonic, I told ya already…”
“Is there anything you require?” says Lancelot calmly, even though he quietly despairs. Once again he falls back on old habits: he addressed Arthur formally, and now he does it to Sonic, even though Sonic… has made it clear his reign will be very different from the false king’s, indeed.
Some spark that had been in Sonic’s eyes disappears, unnoticeable until it vanished. “Ah, not really. Are you busy?”
Sonic is not Arthur, but he is the one true king. And Lancelot swore loyalty to him. No matter what, Lancelot wants to try forming a bond with his new king. He must do better by him. So, Lancelot sets down the shield he was fiddling with and turns his full attention to Sonic. “I was just finished putting away our equipment,” he says. “Would you like to… accompany me on a walk around the castle grounds?” Lancelot hesitates to ask – yet is quickly rewarded for his daring.
“Yes!” and the light is back in his king’s eyes. “The reparations are coming along great,” he chats, as they leave the armoury and walk across the courtyard, side by side (and Lancelot used to always walk behind the false king, a respectful distance – but now he is trying to account for what Sonic would want, instead, and… he thinks he might prefer this). “Though I don’t really get why we need to have a moat…”
“In the case of a siege,” says Lancelot. “And the guardsmen like to go fishing in the moat, I am told.”
Sonic laughs. For some reason, Lancelot’s heart warms and his cheeks flush.
“There are so many people living in the castle,” Sonic says with what sounds almost like wonder. “Before coming here, I never woulda guessed. But we’ve got guards and maids and advisors and all you guys, and the craftsmen and the cooks and that guy who looks after the horses…”
All for you, Sire. But Lancelot doesn’t think Sonic would like to hear that. Instead, another statement that is equally true but which Lancelot would never have dared voice to the false king, to that pillar of a man he only loved from afar, but in Sonic’s presence, he feels as if he can be open: “Yes. I have no family, but when I am in the castle, I never feel as if I am alone.”
“Lance…” Sonic smiles at him. “That’s sweet. And you know, I think I feel the same way.”
They stop walking on the parapet walk on top of a battlement, leaning against the short wall which crowns the battlement. Sonic tilts his head back and looks up at the sky, just darkening from blue to evening’s indigo.
Lancelot watches him quietly.
“When I came here, I didn’t think I’d be staying this long,” he muses. “But though I miss my folks back home… I don’t feel lonely. Not with you here, Lance.”
And Lancelot decides that he does not mind the nickname. That he may even like it, if it is the king who says it.
“I am glad,” Lancelot says, and though it feels awkward, inadequate, informal, the way the king smiles at him makes it feel right.
Lancelot is starting to realise that he will not be able to love Sonic as he loved the false king. Not with the same respect, same cold devotion, same unquestioning loyalty. And that perhaps that’s for the better. He cannot love Sonic with any coldness or calculation, for Sonic is warm and spontaneous. He will love Sonic differently, not from a distance but perhaps as a companion; and he will love Sonic more ardently than any other man nor king before.