Fate Apocrypha Volume 3

Chapter 3.3

It was... a loathsome dream.

In my youth, my mother had whispered to me.

"My beloved child... you shall become a knight, and defeat your king. As my son, you have a claim to the throne. But the king must not learn of this now, or he would surely end you. For now, you must bide your time."

It was a disturbing noise. Evil thoughts wormed their way into my head. I did not want to hear them. I wanted to ignore them.

I was an artificial life form – a homunculus. Birthed by twisted means, it was decided that I would grow, and age, and die quickly. While innocent boys of the same age played around the village, I was swinging a sword. By the time they reached manhood, I would be long dead.

How jealous I was of their lives. How I envied them. How I despised them.

And so it was that I swore to become an existence superior to common men. After all, I must race through life faster than any of them. It would only be natural that I would also be greater than all others.

One day, my mother had brought me to observe the king from the shadows – a steel figure of bravery, and austerity, and temperance.

"That is your goal. That is the enemy you must defeat. That is the king you must fell."

Impossible – how could I hope to overcome such flawless elegance? The king's judgment, the king's swordsmanship, the king's strategies; they were all the utter definition of perfection.

Unfortunately for my mother, I abandoned her scheme. Instead, I desired to serve the king, to become the blade that would cut down those aiming to sully his lands and people.

Yes, I would become a knight.

I grew up quickly and was eventually granted a helm. It was something I could never remove before the eyes of others; it would all be for naught were someone to see me and recognize my face. So said my mother, and I donned my mask. Despite this, my skill and knightly spirit were proven to be exemplary and the king honored me with a sword.

Although I was not yet granted a seat at the Round Table, I had gained the right to one. The days of bliss passed by quickly as was only natural for me. As a knight, I brought down those who opposed the king. "Why do you oppose your king," I would ask.

They would retort, "our king is far too infallible."

What fools. Was that not exactly why our king was great? In all of man's long history, when had there ever been such a perfect king? Most who called themselves kings were cruel, and proud, and contemptuous – presenting their own greed as a source of joy for their people. These kings gave dreams to those who follow them, or took them away, but upon even once having their own dreams taken from their grasp, they left disaster in their wake with no thoughts for the future.

"All who become king are the same. They steal from the people, and the people must steal in turn."

But the King of Knights had no selfish desires. The king saw only what was needed, and everything else might as well not exist. The king carried no dreams, forging ahead only to unite our homeland – a pure existence as exquisite as a sharpened blade. Although it brought me immense shame to consider my own birth in comparison, I still adored the king and aspired to embrace the path of chivalry in the same way.

I could say with certainty that those had been the most brilliant and joyful years of my life – but their end came soon enough. Frustrated, my mother made clear to me my pedigree. I was not merely the homunculus son of the great foe, Morgan, but also somehow conceived as a child and living clone of the king.