Interlude: Someone's Dream (5)
Lancelot knew. He knew who it was that had taken his hand every night when nightmares wracked his body.
He knew the girl who, not long after they first met, had hesitated when he snapped, I don't want comfort from a witch—and had still, in the end, taken his hand anyway.
「······.」
「What are you doing over there?」
「···Nothing.」
He knew, too, the way she would leap to her feet the moment he stirred from sleep, pretending she had never been holding his hand and putting distance between them. Remembering that, Lancelot found himself smiling without meaning to.
"Guinevere."
"I······."
"I don't care what kind of person you used to be. It doesn't matter what name you were called by, or how you lived."
Lancelot spoke.
"The you I know is Guinevere. The one who held my hand when I tossed through nightmares every night. The one who widened a world that had only ever looked straight ahead through a narrow field of view."
"······."
"That's enough."
Lancelot looked into Guinevere's eyes.
From the first moment they met, her eyes had stolen his gaze—because they resembled his own. At first he could not look away from the sense of kinship. Now it was different.
Now he could not look away for an entirely different reason.
"Witch."
Helping Guinevere to her feet, Lancelot turned his head. He glared up at Malkuth, who was looking down on him.
"Witch? Are you calling me? The woman next to you is a witch too, you know."
"I have one question."
"I have no reason to answer, but go ahead."
"Are all witches like Guinevere? Did you learn something wrong? Fail to understand what humans are? Is that why you kill us?"
At Lancelot's question, Malkuth tilted her head—then burst out laughing. She clutched her stomach and doubled over.
"Ahahaha! Are you serious? Don't tell me if I say yes you'll show me mercy too? Hmm, fun guess, but well······."
Malkuth flicked her fingers.
The knights who had been dragged into the Mystery of Reminiscence along with Lancelot and Guinevere screamed, frothing at the mouth.
"Not me. Most witches aren't. You ask if we kill you because we don't understand you? That's true enough—but why should we bother understanding you at all?"
Malkuth grinned.
"When humans wail in agony and thrash their bodies, that's when we finally feel alive. When your homes burn, when you hate us, when you still can't do a thing about it—that's when we feel rapture."
Her crimson eyes gleamed viciously.
"Just because we resemble humans, don't go thinking we're the same inferior species as you. Not everyone thinks like that stupid girl next to you."
"So Guinevere is the exception."
"Idiots like her do turn up from time to time."
"Good. That's all I needed."
Lancelot closed his fist on empty air.
Another reason to love her. With that thought, he drew a sword from the void. The conversation was over. There was no room for negotiation.
What he drew was a blade imbued with the Mystery of Unbreaking.
A sword that would never snap or break so long as Lancelot did no unjust deed—that would never rust, never dull—a sword that embodied a knight's conviction.
"I am a Knight of the Round Table, Lancelot."
Gripping Arondight, the Sword of Unbreaking, Lancelot jammed his helmet down with a metallic clack.
"Malkuth."
The knight who leveled his blade at the witch cried out.
"I will cut you down."
That day, Lancelot gained a new star. Severely wounded, Malkuth vanished into her lair.
The Witch of Reminiscence, Malkuth.
Driving back a witch notorious for torturing countless humans was a feat worth noting—but what Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table truly paid attention to was the change that came over Lancelot after the incident.
From that day on, Lancelot changed.
And swiftly.
2.
Until then, every swing of Lancelot's sword had held no meaning beyond cutting down or felling the enemy. There had been nothing in it that could truly be called conviction.
Because swinging a sword had itself been penance for the sin he committed as a child—a form of repentance. In a blade that sought atonement by killing the enemies of humanity, there had been no room for any other creed.
Of course, even that alone had made Lancelot one of the one or two strongest knights at the Round Table. And yet······.
Lancelot had felt a lack.
And what filled that lack was none other than a single woman. Because of her, something else began to settle into Lancelot's sword.
"Guinevere!"
Lancelot always stood on the battlefield with Guinevere. Fighting at her side, he naturally came to understand how to protect someone.
"How long do you need?"
"Ten seconds. Can you hold?"
"Ah—of course."
The Lancelot who once charged alone into enemy lines with only a single sword began, at some point, to take up a shield. He raised that shield for her sake.
"Now."
He bought her the time to chant. The moment her magic was ready, he shoved every enemy back with the shield and charged out alongside Guinevere's spell.
A mage, and the guardian knight who protected her.
It had always been a troublesome combination to face—and with both of them so skilled, countless witches and demons fell to the pair.
"Lancelot, what are you doing?"
"Practicing how to smile."
Protecting her, fighting beside her, Lancelot learned to smile a little better. The man who had always worn a gloomy expression now laughed and talked like anyone else, and could even trade jokes with the other Knights of the Round Table.
Guinevere had made him that way.
When she whispered that she liked his smiling face, Lancelot gladly smiled. It was not one-sided; Guinevere was the same.
"Like this?"
When Lancelot said he wanted to see her smile, Guinevere offered an awkward one in return. They were each other's guardians, and irreplaceable companions.
Simply having someone to walk beside them began to change their lives.
They never left each other's side—standing on the same battlefields, lingering in the same places, opening and closing their eyes in the same spot. When that became everyday life, wanting something more was only natural.
"Um, Lancelot."
"Ah—Guinevere."
That the two of them confessed at the exact same moment was not chance but inevitability. Opening the gifts they had each prepared for the other at the same time, they finally burst out laughing.
"About my name."
Guinevere spoke.
"My original name was Vivian. After that it was Nimue, then Niniane, Nineve, Niviana."
"And?"
"Yes. And now··· it's Guinevere."
At first it had been awkward.
Now she smiled a smile that no longer felt awkward at all.
"I like this name. I like this thirteenth life of mine. I won't run anymore, and I won't lose these memories."
So, she whispered to Lancelot.
"I am Guinevere."
Your Guinevere.
"I love you, Lancelot."
Whispering that, Guinevere smiled as if a flower had bloomed.
Kneeling on one knee before her, Lancelot planted his sword in the earth and answered her smile.
"You changed me. That I can smile, that I can trade jokes with my comrades, that people call me a guardian knight—every one of those changes is something you made."
So.
"I do not want to lose you."
"Neither do I."
"I will protect you, and live as the sword that exists for you."
Guinevere nodded. Then she cupped Lancelot's face in her hands and met his gaze.
"I don't really understand sacrificing myself for some great cause the way the Knights of the Round Table do, or heroic convictions. But······."
Her face drew closer to his.
Their foreheads touched with a soft tap.
"For you, I can do anything."
Even if it was wrong.
3.
Najin opened his eyes.
"You're awake?"
As Najin blinked the sleep away, a voice came from beside him. It was Merlin, who had been keeping watch while he slept against the wall of the ruins.
"······."
"What? Why are you staring like that?"
Still staring at Merlin, Najin muttered.
"You seem smaller somehow."
"What?"
Merlin blinked. For a second she looked as if she hadn't understood what she'd heard. Then, realizing he was talking about her height, she glared.
"Personal attacks out of nowhere? Hey, I'm not even that short, okay? That Yuel girl or whoever is just tall—I'm average!"
"No, I wasn't comparing you to anyone else. I meant compared to past Merlin."
"Past me?"
Najin nodded.
"I don't know exactly which point in time, but she was pretty different from you now."
If the Merlin in front of him was, generously, a girl of seventeen or eighteen··· the Merlin he had seen in the dream had looked like a woman in her early-to-mid twenties. Far more grown than she was now.
And that's without even mentioning Fairy Merlin······.
Come to think of it, hadn't Fairy Merlin said something like that? That she would strip away everything muddy and unclean, leaving only the purest, most transparent self.
"Well, I don't know the details, but supposedly when Arthur died and I went on my rampage I burned through some power and soul? I don't really get it either. Bedivere told me."
"Is that so?"
"It's not like I got weaker or anything—more like the mental side got worn down? Once you become a constellation your appearance shifts to 'the self you picture yourself as,' so that probably has something to do with it. Anyway, I'm not undergrown—I'm just······."
Watching Merlin ramble through a lengthy defense, Najin finally huffed a quiet laugh.
"What? Why are you laughing?"
"It's nothing."
"······So? How was it?"
"What was? Arthur's dream?"
"Not that!"
Najin tilted his head.
Merlin shouted.
"What did past me look like! That was the question from context! What did old me look like?"
"Hmm······ current Merlin is more familiar, yeah? We've known each other a long time, after all."
"Right?"
Watching Merlin beam as if her mood had improved, Najin swallowed the rest of what he'd been about to say. There was no reason to tack on a needless remark that would only make her furious.
"So, did you learn anything?"
"I learned more than one or two things, yeah."
Najin sent Merlin a signal.
If they talked out here in the real space, the Star of Oblivion might notice and interfere. The signal meant: let's talk somewhere she can't reach.
Najin closed his eyes.
In the inner world no one but Merlin could ever touch, he opened them again. He settled himself against a wall of the subterranean city—now cluttered with various additions—and sat.
"So what did you see?"
Merlin plopped down right beside him and asked.
"First of all—I already told you I saw not only Arthur's memories, but Lancelot's as well, right?"
"You did, yeah? Probably has something to do with Lancelot's star carved into Excalibur··· so?"
"Guinevere."
Najin said.
"Do you know that name?"
"Guinevere, Guinevere······."
Turning the name over, Merlin frowned. She pressed a finger hard against her temple.
"Weird. I definitely know it. It's incredibly familiar. But I can't pull it up."
"The Witch of Forgetfulness, Guinevere."
"······."
"A witch who belonged to the Round Table. Lancelot's companion. Lancelot's lover. And······."
Najin continued.
"The first witch to ever fall in love with a human."
Love between witch and human was taboo. And in all of history, there had been three cases that broke it.
The third: Lapis and Anton.
The second: Lena and Albert.
Plenty of records remained of those two—but nowhere was it written who the "first" had been. As if the fact itself had been carved out and discarded.
「In a thousand years there have only been two cases.」
Anton had said once.
「And one of them doesn't even have a single record left. Weird, right? Love between a witch and a human is the kind of story bards go crazy for—and there's nothing?」
Turning those words over, Najin spoke.
"So the first case was Guinevere and Lancelot."
Merlin still wore a complicated expression, as if the memory refused to surface. Piecing the context together with effort, she opened her mouth.
"So the true identity of the Star of Oblivion is 'the Witch of Forgetfulness, Guinevere'? The one who was Lancelot's lover?"
"Yes. If what I saw in the dream is right."
"It'll be right. Those things really happened. I remember how Lancelot changed all of a sudden at a certain point, and how he started carrying a shield."
But she could not recall why, Merlin said. Raking through her own memories, she went on.
"For sure, the memories connected to Lancelot have holes in places. There was someone who helped with Lancelot's separation, and I can't remember that either—so given the circumstances, that someone must have been Guinevere."
Merlin sighed.
"No wonder."
"Why?"
"I told you before, right? That I'd seen the true form of the Star of Oblivion."
She had.
When Najin nodded, Merlin said,
"Back then I got this feeling like I recognized her. Like I'd seen her somewhere a lot—like looking at an old acquaintance I'd known forever, even though I was definitely meeting her for the first time."
And why Lancelot stuck so close to the Star of Oblivion also made sense front-to-back if what you say is true. Having said that, Merlin still looked troubled.
"It's strange. There's no way she should be able to touch my memories. No matter how great a constellation the Star of Oblivion is, unless she's on the level of the Witch of Camlann······."
Muttering that, Merlin let out a long breath.
"So."
She looked at Najin.
"Did any of it clear up the question of why Lancelot made that choice?"
Najin traced the dream.
Even after Guinevere and Lancelot became lovers, the memories had raced forward at high speed, and he had watched them. Tracing those memories, he opened his mouth.
"No."
He had seen, and yet he had not seen.
Because that was something only Lancelot himself could have seen.
"I'll have to ask him myself. Why he made that choice."
Even knowing it led only to ruin.
Why he had driven himself into tragedy.
