Memory Jar

Chapter 2

Gwen, Lancelot and Katie were sitting in the kitchen, as Arthur returned. His head was elsewhere. He felt a little dazed, like something was knocking on the back of his head.
It was a pounding feeling, which he knew would turn into a very nasty headache sooner or later.
Or something else. Something much more painful. He frowned.

Lance and Gwen were whispering among themselves.
"Have you seen him? Do you think they know each other?", Gwen said quietly, and frowned awkwardly, as soon as she noticed Arthur.
"Do you know him?", she asked immediately. So maybe it wasn't Arthur whom she tried to exclude from the discussion. Maybe it was Katie, who was still a bit in awe at the flower in her hands.
Arthur would be too, if he was honest.
Then again, he hadn't gotten a flower from an infamous murderer.

Arthur shook his head. "I'm not sure.", he admitted and rubbed his pounding head.
"He seems ... familiar.", Arthur finally admitted.

"He does?", Gwen exchanged a look with Lancelot.
"Do you know his name?", she asked further.
"Or maybe what position he had in the royal household before all this happened?", Lancelot added.
'Position in the royal household?'

Lancelot – Arthur still wasn't too sure what the man all knew. He certainly knew more about the past few years than Arthur did. Everybody did.
But he seemed privy to information that even Gwen or others of his friends had never even heard of.

"Everyone knows his name.", Arthur said, almost annoyed. "It's Mer-"
He stopped himself. He had wanted to say Emrys. Instead he said the name that had popped into his head earlier. "-lin.", he concluded lamely.
He shook his head. "Sorry, I – I was just -"
Then he noticed Lancelot staring at him.

"What?! Sorry. I know his name is actually Emrys. I just got confused for a second.", Arthur pointedly said. But he felt embarrassed. That much was evident in his tone.
Lancelot, however, exchanged a look with Gwen.

"Arthur. The name Emrys was given to him by the druids. The nickname the shadow was given to him by the new king.", he said slowly and stood up in curiosity.
"Only those who served Uther Pendragon know his real name. Gwen does, because she was Morgana's servant. I do, because I saved his life once and he tried to help me become a knight.
How do YOU know his name?"

Arthur froze.
"You mean – you knew him before the king died?" Perhaps Arthur should be more worried about the name thing. About everything else that Lancelot had just said. But Arthur tended to avoid questioning things that felt – too personal.
The two of them liked to be secretive about their pasts. And Arthur, who rarely had anything to share, tried to avoid pressuring them into things.
Also, new information tended to overwhelm Arthur now and then.

In the past year, Arthur had never asked Gwen what she'd been doing in the Castle before he lost his memories. But he knew she was a servant. That much had come back in one of those rare instances, when he regained a memory. As painful as those moments were.
Though he knew one of those was coming up soon. They always started with a headache.

And he also knew that Lancelot had wanted to be a knight. But he didn't know he had actually tried to become one.
Arthur blinked, as a sharp pain flooded his senses. Of course. Bloody now!
Like a small hole in a dam that offered him a glimpse of a memory.

He inhaled sharply as he remembered. Lancelot, who was fighting him. Dressed like a squire. How did Arthur know what a squire looked like?
Lancelot had been really good, especially for a rookie. Again, a judgment that Arthur didn't know the basis of. Then he saw Uther Pendragon call the man out for faking his heritage. Lancelot in a cell.
A random glimpse of a Wilddeoren who was about to eat both Lancelot and Gwen. A young man following them into a cave. Merlin.
A fire.
And then Arthur stumbled.