Knight Percival

In spreading the word, trekking from place to place, Percival and Theodorus do much travelling. When its possible they catch rides from friends: those made over conversation close hours before or those forged in the blood and gold of the palace, but every once in a while they find themselves on foot. Walking the distance to the next town, hand in hand, light drawing in. And if you have ever walked home with one you love in the comfort of the dark, you know how vulnerable the conversation becomes. With black surrounding you, the world draws close, until all that remains is their face, and the tender words you exchange. It is on such a walk such as this that Percy says this:

I am not the person I once was. In some ways I am less: I will never be known for my status, nor connected to the power and bravado of politics. My children will never bear titles, other than the petnames we give them. I will not be buried in my family's crypt, under a name that has meant rank for centuries. But I am made more by this fact. I am myself, in a way that I had accepted, so many years ago, that I would never be. That I didn’t let myself be. This is not without loss, and the grief finds me, in quiet empty moments, when I am left without a family name to sign. The woman I was is dead, and her corpse sits tucked away in my chest. And yet this is not a death I will ever regret.

Here I am, in the hands of a person that I want to hold me, on a journey I want to be on. My name is not important now, but it is mine. That makes it meaningful. To be one’s own. To meet people as you want to be known and to let them know you. It is an honour and it is a privilege, to allow oneself to be known. To move past the expectation that buries you. To grow new wings and stretch them wide. To take flight.

Thank you, my love, for granting me the space to do so.

Written by Jasper H.

Two travellers walk a road.

Somewhere in the western meadows of Itascrius, resting on a rise of wildflowers and sun-brushed wheat, they pause and tell stories.

Despite the sword at his hip, Knight Percival has become well-trained with words.

He sings of potential, of surpassing the bounds that some would tell you are fate. He speaks with earnest depth of duty – of what is imposed, of what is draped around you as if skin, of where there is potential, however fraught or weighty, in seeing past the words spoken to you by old powers. He speaks, and people come to listen.

There have been many, from all worlds and walks of life, who listen to the white-clad man with smiles – and tears, sometimes. There has been music and laughter and dishes shared by merciful hosts, more welcoming than any manor.

By winter, there are roasted Egyorszagi chestnuts and scarves woven in Coreinodel by spiders emerging from the wayside. Come summer, sweet daisies are tucked into Percy's short hair, and seaspray stains his trousers as he stares upon the ocean for the very first time.

He will settle someday. For now, he wants to see it all.

And no knight truly travels alone.

There are two on the road together, shaking off the thick strangle-shroud of duty, of perfection-pressure, of polished nods and polite gloves. There are two on the road, clothes a little dishevelled with wear – but neither seems to mind. Theodorus smiles more, these days.

There are wings, strong with flight-feathers, no longer shed at a shiver, swaying proudly in the wind. There are blackened claws, no longer terrified to sully the white, no longer flinching into the self-imposed dirt. Feathers and claws, hand in hand.

Two transformed; transforming still. Two travellers, spreading the word. A knight and a not-Butler, two men trying to live and to learn.

Percy and Theo. It is imperfect, it is potential, and it is theirs.