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

16| Purpose

AN// These next few chapters are longer than usual for this app, I know, so after them I will start to post chapters in parts and hopefully that will make this easier to read :)

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═ 𝙋𝙪𝙧𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙚 ═

An unexpected problem occurs and Lancelot doubts what his future might look like, if he even has a future at all.

Fresh snow did not come the next morning, and Ari had woken a couple of hours before daylight. Lancelot was stubborn as he pushed for her to go back to sleep, but Ari was more determined and won their quiet argument without waking Squirrel. Lancelot put his head back and rested beside her against the tree for a few hours. It looked uncomfortable, and Ari questioned how he could sleep in that practically upright position and she doubted if he was actually sleeping at all. She noticed his sword unsheathed on the ground by his side and wondered if something had happened in the night without her knowing.

When everyone was awake they ate what was left over from the day before as the existing snow around them settled in the morning frost.

Ari found herself stood bored beside the readied horses, waiting for Squirrel and Lancelot to get back from going about their business in the trees. She played with her dagger in her hand absentmindedly whilst she waited, feeling its familiar weight and balance. It was a strange thing to bring comfort to a person but it did to her. She closed her eyes and breathed in, sensing the air and the earth around her awakening with the morning light, hearing the snowdrops fall to the ground as they melted off of the trees. She let the world go silent so that her ears were filled with nothing but her own breaths. Her hand came up to her shoulder and then forward swiftly, releasing the blade from her grasp. A second later she heard the recognisable thud of sharp steel meeting wood and smiled to herself. When Ari opened her eyes though, her smile faded and she was not prepared for what she had almost done.

Lancelot glared at her and a brief feeling of danger rushed through Ari's body. He turned his head to the blade next to his face and pulled it out of where it had embedded in the bark of the tree he had walked beside. Ari swallowed thickly, one unexpected breath of wind and she could have easily hurt or killed either of them. Lancelot turned and began to stalk towards her slowly, his eyes cast down to examine her dagger in his hand. Ari thought that this is what it must have felt like to be one of his victims, to be preyed upon by the mass of threatening darkness taking his menacing time.

"Are you trying to be off with my head, your highness?" Lancelot asked, voice gruff from the night's sleep. He rotated the blade carefully between his fingers at either end as if it were his own.

Your highness, Ari didn't too often like being called by that title, but something in the gravel of his voice made her start to change her mind. She could not see the gentle smirk on his face for it was hidden by his hood, but she heard the unfamiliar playful undertone in his voice. Was he teasing her? She crossed her arms over her chest casually as his footsteps in yesterday's snow came closer.