[1] WEEPING MONK // you're not what I was looking for

10| The Twilight

═ 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙏𝙬𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 ═

[TW// referenced childhood trauma/abuse/religious based and internal conflict.]

Ari, Squirrel and Lancelot seek shelter in an abandoned barn while Lancelot struggles to deal with a hard truth.

"Father Carden, he's dead."

The Paladin should have chosen his words better for Lancelot's sword was instantly at his throat. "Deceit is a sin, brother," he warned, eyes dark and irate.

The red wavered, his body tensing as he tried to pull back. "I do not lie brother, we had word from the Abbot, Wicklow," Lancelot pressed his sword further into the man's skin and the red grit his teeth, trying not to resist, "it is true, I am sorry, brother. He is gone."

Lancelot stared him down and realised that the Paladin was not lying, he would know it. Withdrawing his sword, he pushed the red away perhaps too hard as the man stumbled backwards and almost hit the dirt before two others caught him.

More Paladins had come out from behind huts and tents at the commotion. They all seemed shocked that their Weeping Monk was here before them now, and even more so that he had threatened one of his own.

I should kill them, by rights as a Fey he should. Ari would not protest against it, but he was not thinking. His eyes were wild as they darted through the red crowd, feeling them closing in on him like vultures at a feast as his breathing grew more and more erratic. Lancelot wanted to run. He eyed them all as his heartbeat got out of control, then his instincts took over and he strode backwards before turning and mounting Goliath, taking his reins roughly from the Paladin.

"Brother!" One called out to him but Lancelot ignored him, his head thumping like a jackrabbit. He spun Goliath around and cantered off back through the trees.

He got to the shallow river and halted Goliath, turning them both to look back along the trail. As far as Lancelot could tell, none of the brothers had tried to follow him but he was not sure. He stared down into the water, nostrils flaring furiously like an irate stallion, Father Carden is dead.

"Lancelot!" Squirrel shouted over to him and broke his transfixion on the river. Spurring Goliath forward, the pair splashed their way over to the other side of the bank.

Squirrel and the queen had moved themselves onto a mound of earth lightly covered with snow to give her horse a rest when Lancelot left. Ari didn't think that she could hold herself up for much longer anyway, with the darkness still reeling through her body. She cried and mourned for her friends whilst she was alone with the boy, who comforted her as best as he could.

"Get up, get on your horse," Lancelot looked down the pair with an ill-tempered urgency. "Get up," he repeated more forcefully, head turning back to watch the trail across the river as Goliath danced anxiously, "we have to go."