I Don't Belong Here

Can you feel the love toni- oh shit there's an assassin!

Merlin and I watch as Arthur practices his jousting for the tournament tomorrow. He waits for Arthur to be done so he can fetch lances while I stand over with the other knights who await jousting with Arthur, taking care of their horses. I never understood jousting. Sure, there's skill in aiming and strength but other than that, it's just hitting each other with blunt spears at high speed. Just, sticky sticky stab WHEEE fly off horse. Fucking dumbasses. jousting: poorly explained. provided to you by @humgry-gender-thief on Tumblr. go give em a follow ;)

Arthur, admittingly, is good at jousting. But seriously, someone is going to get severely hurt doing this. It's no rodeo, but still.

"That's gotta hurt," Merlin comments as he takes the broken lance from a, once again victorious, Arthur.

"That's the point, Merlin," Arthur sighs. "It's not a pillow fight. Fetch me another lance, will you?"

Merlin obeys, gets the lance, and Arthur sets up for another joust again Sir Leon. I think he's a knight of the round table. I recognize him from edits on Youtube and TikTok.

The servant in the middle waves the flag and the knights start running. Suddenly, Arthur flinches away from Leon. Maybe a sunglare or something? I don't know, but Arthur is going to get destr-

What the fuck? Why did Leon pull up? Oh wait, he's the prince, right.

When Arthur comes to a stop, I can see the anger and confusion in his eyes as he throws his lance to the ground and tears off his helmet.

"Why did you pull out?" He asks Leon. "I was wide open, you could've unhorsed me."

"I was fretful I might injure you, sire," Leon answers. Yup, makes sense.

"You had the advantage," Arthur keeps going, upset and confused about Leon's reasoning. "You can't afford to hesitate."

"I wouldn't have done if I were facing a different opponent," Leon answers. Arthur looks taken aback. "You are the future king, my lord."

Arthur approaches, suspicious and slightly angry. "You jousted against me in the tournament last year," he reminds Leon. "Are you saying you let me win?"

Leon hesitates. "No, my lord." No tone change, no fidgeting, no different speech pattern. His eyes did flit to the right, but I don't think he's lying. Not entirely.

Arthur doesn't seem to think so. He turns to the other knights who all suddenly find their boots incredibly interesting. "It doesn't matter who I am," Arthur announces to them. "I do not expect any special treatment from any of you. Is that understood?"

They all nod, but I can tell that they are still going to take it easy on the prince. He is the prince so everyone gives him special treatment; even I treat him a better than others. Me, the sarcastic bitch that likes to make him flustered. As much as I care about Arthur, as much as he's my friend, he's still an arrogant prick 80% of the time. He just isn't a person you are allowed to say 'no' to. If I was allowed, it would be my second most used word. The first being, 'fuck'. Probably said together in that order.

Arthur start storming off. Merlin and I share a look. This is going to be a mess to deal with. I bid the knights goodday before following Arthur to his chambers. He aggressively starts tearing off his armour, clearly having a fit.

He bursts through the door as Merlin and I scramble to grab all the pieces he throws. "How am I going to prove myself if my opponents aren't trying their hardest?" He asks us.

"I'm sure it's not happening all the time, Princey," I try to assure him, picking up his gauntlets.

He turns to us. "So it's happening some of the time?" He asks, angry as fuck at this point.