A Knight in Rusty Armor (and in love)

[1] Why Me?!

It's hard for an old-fashioned family to adapt to modern life.

This is especially true for my family, seeing as we are a family of Knights with a lineage that goes back about six hundred years. ...Actually, it's probably not that long. That's just what my father says, and he definitely likes to exaggerate.

My name is Tidus. Most people just say their first name and then follow it with their last name, but that's not how families like mine do things. So if anyone important asks, I say that I'm Tidus of the House of Crestfall. It's a terrible last name for a Knight, isn't it? It's like I was doomed to fail from the very beginning.

I'll be honest. I have no interest in being a Knight. It's not like we still serve kings or anything. These days, Knights simply participate in tournaments to earn winnings and prestige for their families, and if they're lucky, they can make a career later in life on commission work— getting rid of monsters for city councils and stuff.

It might sound easy enough, but I can assure you that it isn't. I've had to train every day of my life for as long as I can remember. And for what? So my parents can yell at me some more? So they can remind me that it's my job, and mine alone, to restore our family's fallen honor? They don't even care that I want to run a rescue for abandoned magical beasts. And it's not like it's my fault that my great-great-great-great-grandfather betrayed his King and got all of his descendants cursed with eternal poverty. All that matters, to my family, is our soiled reputation.

That's how I ended up getting entered into this tournament against my will. As soon as I turned eighteen and graduated from high school, my father signed me up for the biggest Knight's tournament of them all. The objective is as cliché as they come— we are expected to travel across a kingdom until we reach a castle built within a cavern of magma, and then we have to defeat a dragon and save the princess trapped inside of the castle. The first one to do so (or, as is sometimes the case, the last man left alive) gets the hand of that princess in marriage as well as a heaping pile of gold.

...I have a lot of questions. Why are princesses so poorly guarded, to the point that they're always getting taken away by dragons even in this day and age? Does this princess have any actual power, or is she just a figurehead, or a symbol of sorts? Why do they still pay in gold coins? Can't they just learn to use PayPal like everybody else?!

I know I probably won't ever get answers to my questions. I'm sure they'll say "That's just the way we do things". It's a line I've heard a thousand times.

My father signed me up for this tournament, and then, before I knew it, there was a royal escort at my door. I was given plenty of noticeably old-fashioned clothing to wear, and some spending money in the form of a pouch of gold to help me make it across the mountains and forests. I was offered armor and weapons, too, but my father insists that I use the ratty ones passed down in my family. I think that my grandfather made them. And since he was more buff than I am, I have to wear two shirts underneath my chest plate. It's hot, and it's itchy, and it's uncomfortable. My shield is really heavy compared to the more sleek modern designs, and my sword is blunt with a slightly rusted handle. I look like a total laughingstock. But, as usual, my family's pride drowns out my complaints.

I look outside of the window of the carriage that I'm currently riding in. It's strange to see cars alongside it. This is a road, after all. The cars grow fewer in number as we reach the outskirts of town, and by the time we're in royal territory, the concrete pavement and painted lines give way to stone and brick.

We get to spend the first night of the tournament in the Castle. We get to sleep in plush beds after the Royal family throws a feast in our honor. There's a parade in the afternoon, and local villagers can offer up gifts for their favorite Knights, while craftsmen tend to sell weaponry and witches add their enchanted items to the prize pool for the victor. These days, the tournament has become a huge gambling event. If a villager gives you a present, it's probably because he put a lot of money on your success.