"I'm always as modest as need dictates," Arthur said, casting her miming finger an amused look. "But if you're looking for a story, I suppose I could manage one or two."

"You are too kind," said Arthur, dryly.

Who didn't sound like he was about to get hampered by that. There weren't a lot of people on Fandom willing to serve as an audience for embellished perfectly accurate hunting and sporting stories.

... Fear.

"When I was sixteen years old, my father arranged this jousting tournament, inviting knights from the surrounding kingdoms as well as our own," he began, "As a way to announce that spring had returned to our lands. There was this one knight, Sir Cledwyn, from Mercia. Everyone had him pinned as the one most likely to win the tourney. And he did well for a while, completely trounced that knight from Gwynedd. Seemed like a challenge. He'd ascended through several rounds when I finally faced him..."

Congratulations. You'd found the one subject Arthur could get very, very wordy about.

"...he comes at me at the first run around, and I realise I've seen his stance before. In fact, he'd been using it the whole while, no one had just caught on yet. The crowd's roaring in my ears because they think I won't make it," and Uther had frowned at him, but nevermind about that, "When I mirror his stance and twist my lance. The man had kept the same flank open all this time while close to impact, and no one had taken advantage of it before."

A pause.

"He fell backwards off his horse. Smashed right into the rear at first, too-- Gaius had to look after some hoofprints the horse had left on his..."

Arthur trailed off for chivalry's sake.

"They had to get him a carriage to head on home," Arthur agreed, "I went on to win that tournament. And thoroughly, for that matter. I faced another Mercian in the final match, but he wasn't much of a fight. Not to disparage his abilities, but he had a very defined favour for his left side, making it easy to outmaneuver him while striking him across the chest."

He took a moment to smile about it. "Of course, the year after, we were at war with Mercia, so Cledwyn never got the rematch he wanted; he came at me during a battle near a pass at the Ridge of Aesctir and I cut his head off."

Arthur paused.

"We lost twenty of our own during that skirmish," he said. "The tournament was better."

"We signed a peace treaty with Mercia a few months before Merlin and I came here," Arthur said, neatly sidestepping the matter of Merlin's poisoning and his own incarceration due to efforts made to deal with that. "But relations with some of the neighbouring kingdoms have been rocky. I know King Odin hasn't been particularly devoted to Camelot's interests since I killed his son."

Y'know. That.

Arthur rubbed at his brow. Were he anyone else, this would be where he'd lapse into his spiel about his angst re: that, or whatever.

"But things are peaceful enough that there should be plenty of tourneys upon our return. It was actually getting to be time for the jousting tournament again shortly before we left. Father spoke of perhaps letting me come back for it."

Arthur shot her a sharp look.

"Of course I'll be up to par," he said, in a drawl that was significantly lazier than his tone so far.

"Don't worry," he said, shooting her a completely idle second look to show he wasn't bothered. "I'm sharp and well-trained. I do have a title to defend."

And his father would be very, very disappointed if he didn't get it. Again. If he got home.

"Maybe some day," he allowed. When he could be certain any of them would be safe. "As it stands, you'll just have to cope with stories of trophies won in the past. I do have quite a number of them." Courtesy of daddy issues, unlimited.

Arthur rolled his eyes lightly. "Anyway, the last tournament Father hosted was one of swordsmanship," he continued, "My chief competitor, Valiant, decided to use magic to tip the scales in his favour. He didn't succeed in the end, of course."

But it'd be a cold day in hell the day he thanked Morgana for that.

"Sir Valiant," Arthur agreed. What? These names happened. You know. "He'd had his shield enchanted to produce these... snakes. Merlin passed on a warning to me, but my father was... skeptical."

Which was Arthurian for 'he humiliated me in public, I sacked Merlin and I refused to leave my room out of sheer misery', but let's just cough and pass over that.

"The snakes appeared during the final battle of the tournament, but I managed to dispatch them. Killed the man and took my prize. As was only just."

"He was using it to kill his competitors in a friendly tourney," Arthur retorted, narrowing his eyes.

"How does that figure?"

Now Arthur was attempting to run the math of exactly how many wizards had come in trying to kill him back home. It didn't look pretty.