Paying Homage -- Sonadow

Chapter 2

A few days had passed, and the castle was now bustling with commotion since the announcement of the date of the ceremony of homage, which was to be in two weeks.

Since asking Arthur had no successors, it was allowed for him to appoint his vassals in his place when he stepped down from the throne. But this hardly ever happened, much less with more than one vassal, and even rarer during he ceremony of the making of a vassal. Thus, a big deal was made out of it, and many preparations were made, taking much longer than a normal ceremony would. All of the castle staff were to be dressed in their best garb, the gates to be opened soon, and many decorations to be laid all over the halls and rooms. It was an exciting time, and there was a buzz around the castle as many questioned whom the king had appointed.

Sonic hated it. The entire two weeks, he'd been constantly pestered. People needed him to sign approvals, check the decorations, taste the food, confirm times, get fitted for outfits, and make sure the castle defenses were all set. It was, frankly, exhausting, and Sonic did not know how to juggle it all very well. Gwain, Percival, and Lancelot had to often step in and help.

Turns out that because of this, Sonic saw Shadow much more often than he would have liked. They avoided eye contact, not that Lancelot made much in the first place. The knight was much more silent than usual - which meant he virtually never even uttered a sound, for again, normally, he hardly ever spoke. Sonic was silent as well. His usual tormenting and teasing of the dark hedgehog was absent, and he only asked what needed to be asked and said what needed to be said.

Needless to say, to do this was torture for Sonic. He missed being able to talk to his knight, he missed watching him scowl and look away, his cheeks rosy as he became flustered, so he easily was, and he missed Lancelot's quick, witty retorts, those of which no one else could come up with. He missed his scarlet eyes, which he could get lost in for hours, if he was honest with himself, and his handsome, playful smirk, and his strong arms, and every other aspect of him, and not being able to see him as often as Sonic would have liked to was beginning to get too hard for him to do. But ... Lancelot did not want to pursue these feelings. He did have feelings, this Sonic knew, but to what extent was where his knowledge ended. Obviously, it wasn't enough to break laws for his king, as ever since their private conversation he'd been avoiding Sonic as best as he could, and when he couldn't, he would barely speak more than he needed to.

Gwain and Perceval noticed this, for they often had to put up with Lancelot and Arthur's bantering about who was faster, stronger, or more cunning, or better with the sword, and it often drove them mad. But this new tension and silence between the two was even more disturbing. When asked, neither of the two would divulge what had happened, both determined to keep it between the two of them. However, Perceval and Gwain were not the kind of knights to give up so easily.

The knights had to meet on a certain day before the homage ceremony to discuss the laws they all were to consent on for their sections of land -- for they had set on ruling as one agreeable body, for the good of their people. The friends decided that on that day, they would finally confront Lancelot on his mood.

--

The day quickly came, and both Gwain and Perceval were apprehensive, unsure of how Lancelot would react to their questioning. So much so, in fact, that when they began the meeting, the two knights were unable to ask the third what they'd wanted to. Instead, it got pushed off to the next topic... then the next subject... then perhaps after a little break... until it seemed the topic would never surface at all.

It was a couple of hours into the discussion now, and there were many laws to go trough that needed correcting and/or re-establishing, for Sonic had been rather lenient with some of the most important rules. The three knights were beginning to get weary of the toil, but dutifully pressed on.