To Sir Gawain, the one and only knight of the sun (and king in my eyes) :

Thank you. Thank you for being my first SR in my Chaldea. After doing my tutorial roll and getting Emiya (and subsequently hating Emiya because of certain individuals), you were the first gold servant to arrive, on July 22nd, mere days before my birthday. The Camelot banner was up, and I threw 2 or 3 solos. And I got you.

I used you for a bit. People complained about you, hated you, even condemned you. You never killed enemies in single hits. I wanted to desperately clear Fuyuki, but my disinterest in the game at the time meant I had a low attention span. Then I stored you away into the deepest, darkest depths of my storage.

I logged in on my birthday, and you gave your greetings. I rolled my eyes and sighed. Then I forgot about you. You stayed, and you waited. You waited for the longest time— For seven months. You remained at first ascension for the longest time. You stayed in the darkness for seven months, until I decided that you were worthy, and finally brought you for my journey through Arc 1.

Servants only allow themselves to appear in someone’s Chaldea if they think their master is the right one (or so they say), yet you appeared and allowed yourself to be thrown away like commonplace trash. So why me? Out of every knight on that banner, why did you show yourself? Why did you appear? Why didn’t you throw a common servant like Euryale or Gilles at me? Nobody would have blamed you. You were a SR, a servant that many would have to take at least 2 or 3 10 rolls to get.

Then I learnt about you. You were a knight of loyalty, dedicated to serving your king no matter what. When you failed in your first life, you vowed to follow your king, no matter the consequences. You forced yourself not to complain, to lament, or to speak up—because you would only be repeating your mistakes. In the end, you wanted nothing but to keep your king happy, to ensure that the world would continue turning as per usual.

And that is why you arrived; it is why the knight that appeared before me was not the knight of chivalry nor the knight of sadness, but the knight of the sun. Even if your king was rotten to the core, you would still serve him with dedication and a smile. That is why I admire you, because all this time, you never let your true feelings get in the way of your work. You smile even if your soul is drained. You smile even if your king has abandoned you. You smile even when you’ve been forgotten like yesterday’s news.

Right now, you’re pampered like a king in my Chaldea. You’re max ascended, grailed, and on the way to getting 10/10/10. In comparison to other servants, you’re living the life. You battled your way through the Camelot singularity, where you were powered up by the numerous sunlight fields and beat the utter shit out of all the knight bosses. Especially Lancelot. God bless Lancelot.

But anyways. You’re the most loved servant in my Chaldea. We’ve been through so much together, and it’s so surprising that feelings really can change overnight. Thank you for choosing me, this pathetic master, as your king. Thank you for withstanding those cold, lonely 7 months, where you saw various servants being pampered instead of you. Thank you for serving as a perfect ideal to this useless person.

This is my love letter to you, my ode. Because I’m worthless, because I’m so many terrible things that you aren’t, because I could never be as loyal as you can be; thank you for staying. You’ve made my days brighter, and I cry less on the nights where I think of you.

You’re a fictional character. I won’t ever meet you or touch you or ever talk to you. But when I’m on my death bed, I think I’ll be able to give one last ‘thank you’, because I would know that my life has been prolonged by a knight whose smile shone like the sun. Even if that life was prolonged only by a bit.