Tale of Two Kings: Redux @SocialistBukharin

Fate/stay night fic

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13507658/1/Tale-of-Two-Kings-Redux

From nothingness, a king is born. The issue? He isn't from this age and time... nor he seems that willing go through this gig. (Medieval FSN SI)

Rated: Fiction T - English - Adventure/Romance - OC, Arturia Pendragon, Morgan Le Fey, Merlin - Chapters: 25 - Words: 109,174 - Reviews: 648 - Favs: 1,314 - Follows: 1,539 - Updated: 14h ago - Published: Feb 23, 2020 - id: 13507658

Prologue: Why are you looking at me like that?

Coming from a lazy potato couch that was urged to try and experience this kind of stuff, I have to admit that I was surprised of what I was looking at while enjoying a pleasant walk through the beautiful lands that surrounded several cities all around England.

Not only was I having a relaxing moment alone and away from any nagging individuals, but I was also awed by how this natural heaven I was exploring looked to be something truly astonishing to visit thanks to this trip here in Great Britain.

It was a perfect example of how there was still restrain among humans to not destroy everything that is green or originally natural, the purity of the planet preserved… for now as people could, like me, enjoy the bountiful aspect of Earth.

You would ask 'Why are you starting this tale with this boring set up and not straight into the action?' and I frankly can't think of a reason myself why.

Maybe it just felt nice to begin with a little and peaceful scenario to better introduce to my cast of spectators the incredible adventure that awaited me, the great journey that was just mere moments to come crash down onto my unsuspecting head.

Anyway, talking about all this gibberish was starting to remind me the horrible torture my feet had been suffering months ago because of the aimless wandering and of the never-ending feeling that I was being spied upon while I tried to 'enjoy' this wonderful place away from civilization.

Still, interestingly enough, some absurd madness happened mere moments after this peaceful instants.

For a moment, I was begging all deities that existed in this world to give me some relief in the form of a pleasant glade where to rest, while hopefully avoid any unpleasant encounters, and then I felt myself falling toward the grounds.

You might think 'Oh! Is that some magical deus ex machina to get yourself in something epic?'.

Wrong! Nada!

A traitorous root coming from one of the many identical tree near to where I was had willingly tripped my poor, sore right foot and caused my entire body to painfully trip on the ground.

Muttering some not-so-holy words to the tree that caused the whole debacle, insulting its ancestors, its ancestors' ancestors and his ancestors' cow, I finally noticed a curious issue that I had made just a few minutes earlier.

A good explorer should never forget where he came from while going for this kind of aimless walks deep in the woods.

Sadly, the dumb dude that's me wasn't a good explorer and in my shenanigans I might have forgotten where I should go to make my way back civilization.

Several mood swings happening in a solid ten minutes, from anger to regret, from insanity to serious self-bantering about the intentions behind this unplanned excursion.

To be fair, maybe I should have expected to find myself in this kind of situation, especially when I vehemently refused some crazy-looking guide's attempt to guide me around during this solo trip.

I mean, after seeing some scary horror movies, I can't help but feel rather uneasy at having some permanently wide-eyed fellow with some insane-looking big smile plastered on his face.

Hopefully the one that was spying on me was this pseudo-murderer, that it was just my consciousness trying to make things 'scarier' for the sake of… something.

…

I don't know anymore what to say at this point, what about we move straight into the mind of mine?

Who knows, maybe I was calmly thinking about the possibilities I had, experimenting my chances to make a safe return home and-

"Why God? Why did you leave me?!"

Jeez, sure I was truly looking useless back then. I remember trying everything possible by the circumstances to solve my big and unavoidable issue.

"Phone, don't betray me!" I barked at the device I was holding in my hands.

*Low Battery and no connection*

"Dangit!" I furiously holstered it back in one of my pants' pocket.

Once all of my chances of survival were expired, those that were supposed to see me make a safe return home, in my exhausted state of mind, I started to contemplate how to survive in such hostile habitat.

"As Bear Grylls says, first we need a source of water. And I'm certainly not going for his Plan B."

Thus, after walking for several hours deeper in that unknown forest while trying to find some source of water, I found it eventually together with a temporary refuge in the form of a cave nearby.

Until I was able to return to a village or a town and get out of that green hell, I wasn't going to sleep outside where animals could have exploited my weak, sleeping state.

"Please Jesus, let this cave be empty and void of any possible ferocious animal and serial killers."

Slowly, I ventured inside the cave with a careful but tensely slow pace and by the very moment that I made my first step inside, I make I felt like in one of those fantasy movies.

Not only was it spacious, but it had some curious pictures painted by Gods' know who as I was fairly sure that any-cave with this kind of stuff would have been found by some archeologist and properly secured it considering how close it was to a major city.

Ignoring the already ominous note of this encounter, I found myself intrigued by the pictures themselves, or rather by the unique figures displayed by those.

Some were representing humans, others animals... and dragons… and scary demonic monsters?

"Is this cave the cove of some Lord of the Rings cult or what?" I found myself muttering to myself, knowing by now that there was no one here to cause me any trouble.

There was no noises that could make it seem like there was any animal lurking around, nothing dangerous at least.

Still, the odd painted figures left me with a certain uneasy vibe over what was going on but I still walked even further in the dark place until I noticed something else.

Something that was providing some shiny light and some mystical hue to the whole place.

Something that solved my grand problem… at least until I was back to civilization

"Oh... SHINY WATER! FINALLY!"

To make it clear, my state of mind was already influenced by the fact I had skipped breakfast that day, I had forgotten to bring some water bottle or any snacks to keep me energized and… not prone to go this mad.

But just as I paced quickly towards the body of water, the unthinkable happened again-

"Oh No! Not Again! Goddammit, you painful son of a-"

I tripped again. I fucking tripped again and this time on some blasted rock, right into the small glowing light-blue lake in front of me.

"-tch!"

Falling again face first to the floor caused my brain to almost shut down completely. My mind was unable to understand why the floor felt different as it was neither water, nor it was the sturdy stone of the cave.

My hands were testing the texture while I tried to recover from this fall and I noticed that the floor was made by... wood?

Then other details started to slowly add up at my 'something is wrong' brain folder, as I felt a sudden source of heat warming my body and I was quick to also notice that I wasn't alone anymore in that…

This isn't the cave.

My eyes adjusted to the dim light of the candles around this 'house' and I stared at the small group of people now looking at me.

...Where do they come from? H-How did I get in there?!

Like seriously, did I just get kidnapped? Is this the cult I was half-jokingly thinking owned the cave- Was I the sacrifice to some demonic God?

Hail Stalin!

The odd thing about this new and insane development was that they were all standing around me their eyes showing surprise and... happiness, as if my arrival had been half-planned but needed.

I ain't Batman, tho.

The unnerving silence was interrupted by something I was certainly not expecting, a proclamation that left me even more stomped, confused and immensely frowning at the matter.

"T-The Ritual was a success!" Some old man donning quite the 'I am a wizard' fashion exclaimed to the rest of the spectators. "We got the King that was promised to us, the one that shall head us against the Germanic invaders!"

The old man that gave this strange speech looked incredibly sure of what he had just said and the others started to murmur to each other, looking as if they had been aware of whatever madness he was sprouting about.

As the greatest of the heroes to come in this dark age, I started my reign with the most logical reaction to this kind of predicaments. Something that couldn't exactly be considered

"Now that you are here, Your Majesty, you might need to- Y-Your Majesty!"

Facing the possibility of being in an even more hostile habitat because of weird circumstances and the sudden transportation, my brain decided to launch the operation 'Tactical Faint' and I went for some immediate rest, away from the crazies and the insane ones.

Maybe this was actually a dream, thus the sudden faint to dismiss this absurd scene…

But boy was I wrong. From there my real adventure in quite the familiar but so-different world begins.

AN

Settings: FSN Medieval Age, Self-Insert, lots of tactical madness and some focus on magic-technology.

I still remember when I first started to write the first draft of this story. I had been so nervous and so uneasy about trying my hand at this, especially with the rogue days I was dealing with.

But now that I'm more accustomed to writing lengthier chapter, I can say for sure that one of my minor priorities is coming true.

After some heavy pondering, I'm indeed thinking of going for some rewriting for some of my older stories.

'Tale of Two Kings', the original draft in FF, will be the first one to enjoy some improvement and expansion.

Next is 'Zero Chances to Heaven', which I plan to give some more accurate tones to not make the MC sounds so Gary-Stueish (I really wasn't minding those details back then, what an embarrassing flaw of mine!).

Finally I think I will work on 'Aegean Holidays' to make it a little more… realistically-paced. Some of the readers of the story might think that I'm thinking of a complete rework, but I only plan to bring some grammar polishing, some expansion of the chapters and maybe some more chapters in between those already available.

Also lots of omakes. FGO is still a focus for those mini-stories.

Without further ado, I will say that this story will replace 'Aegean Holidays' in the schedule until we reach the conclusion of both this and 'Zero Chances to Heaven'. I know, it's a long time, but it is a certain time. No more avoiding the problem, I shall strike to make it a better story, for loyal readers!

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