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Not a Father, but a Daughter Still

Lancelot ignores the knock at first. It’s easy to do so; it’s such a light, timid sound. The Knights of the Round don’t knock like that. They plow the door for all it’s worth until Lancelot answers, if they bother knocking at all. As they make up around ninety-percent of Lancelot’s social circle, he figures whoever is at the door can wait-

“Sir Lancelot? Are you there?”

Actually nevermind that he has to answer this right now immediately.

“Sir Kyrielight.” He greets as the door slides open. “How can I help you?”

The girl fidgets. It’s a bit odd to see her out of armor. Her glasses frame a face he’s used to seeing bare. Like this, she doesn’t look like a warrior. She looks like a kid. “I… am in need of some advice, Sir.”

It hurts a little, that she calls him Sir instead of Dad. He knows it’s unfair of him to think so, though. The girl was never his to begin with. Mash is not Galahad. Lancelot is not Dr Roman either, nor Da Vinci, nor anyone else who might have served as a parental figure as the girl grew up. Still, while Lancelot is aware that she does not see him as a father, he can’t help but see her as his daughter even now, and that means he’ll support her in whatever way she needs.

“Do come in.” He closes the door behind her. “What is the matter?”

He gestures for Mash to sit down on the bed, but she does not take his invitation. She just stands here, looking mildly uncomfortable. “It’s… a matter of romance.”

… Well, that is certainly not where he expected the conversation to go. Briefly, he hopes she didn’t come to him based on his philandering habits. Lancelot loves beautiful women and is not afraid to say it, but when it comes to actual romance… ah, Guinevere. Neither of them had wanted this.

“There’s this… girl.” Mash continues. “I love her. I think… I think she loved me too. But circumstances got us on opposite side of a war, and… I killed her.”

That is. Unfortunate indeed. “One of the newly summoned servants, I assume?” It’s not unusual for former enemies to be join Chaldea as allies. While that’s definitely a rocky start, the situation isn’t yet unsalvageable.

Mash nods. “This all happened while she was still alive, though.”

Lancelot holds back a wince. This is… tough. Conflicts between servants are easily forgiven- their lives are already forfeit. They can pursue their desires, certainly, but it’s much harder to hold grudges when you know you weren’t meant to have that second shot to begin with. Conflicts from life, however, carry over to thousand of lifetimes.  

“Does she seem to hold it against you?” Do you want her to forgive you?

Mash looks down. “I wouldn’t know. I have been… avoiding her.”

Lancelot can’t blame her for it. It took him… a long time, just to face the copycats of his king.

“Do you love her still?”

“Yes.” She says, and from the weight of her voice alone Lancelot can tell it’s the same kind of love that plagued the rest of the Round Table; the same deep love that haunted Tristan, the same love that made Lancelot sick. The kind of love one cannot ever get rid of, the kind of love that burns and feeds and consume until the end of your life.

(She may not be Galahad, she may not be his son- but she truly is one of them.)

“Talk to her.” He says. “Nothing will change if you don’t take that one step.”

“But what if she hates me? What if she doesn’t?” And oh, how Lancelot knows this fear, how intimately familiar he is with the pain of forgiveness.

“The least you owe her is the right to decide how she feels about you.” It was Saber Lily, surprisingly, who taught him that. She’d taken him aside after a training session, and told him with a soft voice thank you, Sir Lancelot, your teachings are invaluable. But you cannot make anything up to her by being nice to me. She’s the only one who gets to decide whether you should be forgiven or punished. Her, not me. Her, not you.

Lancelot walks closer to her. “If we knight of the Round can fight together once more despite everything, then maybe the two of you can stand alongside too.” They never talk about it, but Lancelot knows the truth: he alone was the cause for the fall of Camelot. If the other knights are willing to let him atone despite all of that- then who is Mash to say that her own situation is hopeless?

He sets his hands on her shoulders. “Talk to her. You still can.”

The king of Knights is never coming to Chaldea. He’d feared, hoped, for years now- heart beating out of his chest anytime he met a newcomer bearing her face. But after all these years, all these versions of her, all the knights that have found their ways here- he has no choice but to acknowledge it. King Arthur is not coming.

It’s good, in a way. This is what Guinevere and him had wanted- for the king to rest at last. Still Lancelot wishes, wishes from the bottom of his heart- just for one more conversation, one more explanation, one more plea for her to be a human being and acknowledge that he had wronged her terribly.

But she is dead, and so is he. There is no fixing this.

Mash is still alive, though, and Lancelot may not be her father, but he wants to, he has to, stop her from making the same mistakes he has.

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