#failinaut

It being poorly weighted doesn’t matter too much to Lancelot, though he still recognizes that his fighting style is not one meant for defensive styles that staves are suited towards. Transformed, with the streaks of his magic over it that turn it violent, offensive, shifted for his purposes. The tip is still not sharpened, the blade never magically repaired.

It will be enough for the thing which isn’t Tristan. 

(Funny, isn’t it, that the thrumming of his bow still plays a mournful tune. As if he knows what he has become for agreeing to work for the false Lion King; a funeral melody.

It will haunt Lancelot’s thoughts for weeks, the notes burrowing into the crevices of his armour and staying there as a reminder.)

Even though Tristan knows who he is, he does not stop skirting close to Berserker as if tempting fate. The sharpened sound reverberates in his head. He thinks one of his eardrums might have popped, if the loud ringing underneath Tristan’s noisy arrows is any indication. 

Berserker dances with him, footsteps light on the ground and the glow from his eyes muted into a deadened fixation. Tristan can’t shift too far away, even as the repurposed halberd swings, catches one of the strings on his bow and snaps it with an unpleasant twang.

Tristan curses to himself.

Berserker tastes blood on his teeth.

(He hates it, he really does, this perverse playacting of the Round Table built out of only its worst components, turned inside out and dyed in blood even darker than Berserker is. Inhumane, inhumane, unbearably cruel. It makes him want to scream until his throat is raw, blood and bile bubbling up over his lips as he tears this place apart piece by piece, leave every single witness dead and desecrated, disemboweled upon the sands. No one can partake, no one can remember it.)

He hates it, he hates it, he hates it. Hates this Tristan who participates. This Tristan who was inverted, this Tristan who can offer no rebuttal to the King. An arrow sings through his arm, a beautiful note in the chorus. Blood falls to the ground and it hurts to move, black smoke glutting out of the wound like a second sort of blood. Lancelot can’t fight in tune. He can’t handle the music any more, and a scream rips from his throat, cutting through Tristan’s melody with a burning, betrayed anger.

He doesn’t care what he’s doing, he only can’t handle the noise any more. Can’t handle the blood that colours the ground of the battlefield, belonging to both fighters and the innocent. The sound is dyed, too. He can’t handle it. The scream brings the weapon with it, just as inevitable.

Tristan’s eyes widen as his bow is snapped in two. A vicious, vengeful thrill of victory (look at me, you bastard, watch what you’ve become! there’s no playing blind any more!). Lancelot could nearly rip his throat out, and almost reaches to do so as the bow falls backwards, seemingly in slow motion.

The scream shifts into a laugh, still filled with bitter hatred. A how dare you directed outwards, to Tristan for participating in this farce and to the world for allowing it, to the people for daring to watch.

Without Lancelot even paying attention, his grip on the halberd handle shifts. It’s not his empty hand that extends toward Tristan. A flicker and the handle pierces through the scarring over Tristan’s sternum.

It shouldn’t be possible. A blunt weapon, to tear through skin and bone and the reinforced durability that God Herself bestowed upon him from her noxious dripping Grail. It is not a Noble Phantasm -- but it is, and a knight will not die empty handed and Tristan will die with his hands still clutching his bow and a look of surprise on his face.

An impermissible mockery.

A thing of disgust.

Bone snaps, and Lancelot twists the staff because he knows the heart is not centered and he wants to see this thing dead, tear out its core or its heart or whatever it dares to have and rip it apart. Blood falls readily when he wrenches the weapon backwards, breathing heavily.

(This scene will haunt you for weeks, Tristan bloodied at your hands. Even if he is something false, it still has the look of a betrayal and now you know how his death tastes, like overripe gooseberry and mold. Now you know how it will linger and haunt you and give one more thing to overthink while avoiding dreams.)

Automatic, a second hit. It crunches through rib. The music still lingers like an echo, no longer played by Tristan’s hands as the archer falls backwards to the ground. The notes lurk in Lancelot’s dark now, won’t let him go. The ringing in his ears gets louder but doesn’t drown out the music. He stabs Tristan again. It’s hard, when slamming into the ground only dulls the rounded tip of the staff further. It doesn’t matter.

He has to destroy whatever this punchline is, this mangled facsimilie-- the staff crushes Tristan’s cheek. A bloody mess behind and Lancelot coughs a sickened, desperate noise. (It is worse now, but, no this is not Tristan.

--Except it is.)

He’s dizzy. Vertigo. Something spins around him, a queasy lurching. Lancelot doesn’t care, just slams the staff through Tristan’s chest a third time before staggering back and dropping to his knees, clutching his arm.