The best and worst thing about the knights is how little backstory we have for most of them. It's the worst thing because holy crap I love these characters so fucking much and I want to know every little detail about them and why was there not an episode dedicated to knight backstories? But it's also the best thing because it means we get to make up our own shit about them, so.

Written for Day 5 of the BBC Merlin Fest over on tumblr: favorite knight. Now, technically, Lancelot is my favorite knight, but I couldn't think of anything to do for him, so enter Percival instead, whom I love a little bit more after writing this. Because damn man, he lost his entire family and I don't think about that as often as I probably should.

Disclaimer: I don't own Merlin or anything even slightly related to Merlin.

Never Enough

*.*.*.*.*

Percival had had four siblings—three little sisters and a little brother. His parents had been frail, old and weak, but they had loved them all the best that they could and provided for them until they each died of an illness Percival had known little about. He was twenty when it happened, and left all on his own to care for his younger siblings, who were all considerably younger than him—and all taken in, all adopted, but still very much his family.

He took to the job of sole caretaker well enough, getting whatever work he could to earn whatever money he could to provide for them, give them good lives, make sure they could almost never want if he could help it—he did the best he could and adjusted quite well to being their only parent. Though he was only their brother, really, that seemed to matter less and less most days.

He loved his siblings—loved them more than anything else in the world, and would do anything for them, would go anywhere, do anything, fight anyone—as long as they were safe and alive and well… Nothing else mattered, and he was willing to go to whatever lengths he needed to to keep them safe and alive and happy. He was responsible for their well-being, for their happiness…

So, naturally, he blamed himself for their deaths. After he returned home to their house and found it burnt to the ground, found their young, innocent bodies slaughtered by swords they had no way of defending themselves against…

He was a changed man.

Every day after that, so many questions, regrets, what-ifs ran through his mind, scenarios that could have meant them being alive: If only he had taken a different route home and arrived quicker, he could have saved them. If only he had been home instead of out, he could have gotten them to safety. If only he had taken them with him, they wouldn't have been in any danger at all. If only he had done things completely differently than he had… Perhaps they would still be alive.

But… he hadn't. He hadn't stayed home, he hadn't taken them with him, he hadn't been there when Cenred—when Cenred…

He thought of them often. Of his little sisters and brother.

There was Joetta, the youngest of them all, her hair short and unruly because of an accident with some sap that led to Percival having to give her the worst of hair-cuttings there ever was—but she had loved it, loved it when he would playfully ruffle her hair when he walked by or tucked her into bed at night, loved that it made her different from the other little girls in the village, loved that Percival had done it with the best in mind for her.

There were Rosalinda and Aubrey, the only two blood related. They were sisters, Rosalinda older, Aubrey younger by something like a year. They had dark, flowing hair that they spent countless hours brushing in their spare time, and Percival had been sure that, once they were a bit older, all the boys in the village would be after them. They had been extremely close, spending most of their time with one another, and Percival sometimes worried that they were leaving their brother and sister out of their games when he wasn't around.

And then there was Francis, older than Joetta but younger than Aubrey and Rosalinda. His hair had been fine and he was so wiry and thin that he had often lamented to Percival that he was afraid he would never grow up—not like Percival had. He was afraid he would never be strong and brave and courageous—he was just afraid, sometimes, that he would never grow up to be a real man.

Percival thought of them often—how could he not? They were his family. And everything seemed to remind him of them some days, of what he was missing, of what he ached for.

He saw them when he closed his eyes, saw their innocence, saw the lives they never got to live, heard their laughter and the stories they liked to tell, that he memorized, mumbled to himself on quiet nights when he couldn't quite remember what they had sounded like.

He thought of his sisters when he saw young women—because that's what they would be now, if they had still been alive, young women, perhaps married, or being courted, at least—talking and giggling and brushing their hair.

He thought of Rosalinda when he saw an older girl sitting before younger ones, telling a story or joke—because that had been Rosalinda, always telling stories, always commanding the attention to spin one yarn or another.

He thought of Aubrey whenever he saw a girl with her best friend, playing, carefree in a shy, quiet sort of way—because that had been Aubrey, carefree and outgoing with her family, but shy when around others, more reserved when she was being observed.

He thought of Joetta whenever he ate anything sweet—because that had been Joetta, always sticky with what her sweet-tooth craved and what he could never seem to deny her—which had been the cause of the accident that had led to Percival needing to cut her hair.

And he thought of Francis whenever he saw a new knight, so weak and inexperienced, not really knowing what to do until an older knight or Arthur explained it to them—because that had been Francis, so insecure and unsure of himself until he was guided, nudged, in the correct direction.

He saw them, thought of them, whenever he saw children out and about, playing and running and laughing, whenever they rescued a child out on a quest or mission and they had fear running rampant in their eyes, tears streaming down their faces—in those moments, he often wondered what had been going through the minds of his siblings at the time of their deaths—had they called out for him? Wondered where he was and why he wasn't there to save them? Had they held out hope until their final breath that he would come back—any second now—to save them, to make everything right again? Had they been brave? Had they cried? What had their final moments been like?

And when he allowed himself such thoughts, he felt his blood boil, ached to make Cenred rise from the grave just so he could put him back there himself, to seek out justice for the children who hadn't had a chance against him, against his men.

But that wasn't an option.

So, instead, he carried their memories, held them close, and tried not to forget, even as he was swept up in a new family of knights and brothers—or rather, in spite of his new family, he didn't forget. Could never forget. They would never want him to, if he had ever said anything about it to them, but… Telling of his greatest failure in life… It would have been too much. Even for him, even for a knight of Camelot.

So he carried their memories and thoughts of lives never fully lived, and he tried to make it up to them—tried, as hard as he could, to make amends for allowing them to meet such a fate.

And he lost much too much sleep wondering to himself if it would ever really be enough.

*.*.*.*.*