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

17| The Ambush

═ 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝘼𝙢𝙗𝙪𝙨𝙝 ═

[TW// moderate violence]

Lancelot comes to terms with his conflicting faiths and Ari makes a deadly decision.

"Do you feel that?" Lancelot sounded slightly startled as he twisted on his heel in the snow. They had camped not too far away from the wide flowing River Wren under the canopy just inside the edge of the tree line, and now they were preparing to leave again, never staying in the same place for longer than necessary. The fire that they had made now started to dwindle down in the morning light and Ari stomped her foot down to squander it for good.

"Feel what?" Ari asked, giving him a look as she picked up her empty water skin.

"The wind," Lancelot replied, looking a little confused. Ari narrowed her eyes at him, there was no wind. Lancelot's head twitched suddenly and he held a finger up in front of himself, pointing it towards the sky.

"That," his voice was urgent as he felt it again. Ari looked at him, face concerned for whatever was happening to him. There's no wind, is a fever taking him or has he finally gone mad?

"Do you not hear it?" He turned to her a few paces away, his blue eyes rounding as she just stared at him. His expression reminded her of being by the brook, of how panicked he looked then as his own thoughts tormented his mind.

"Hear what?" Squirrel asked from across the camp, and Ari realised then what was happening.

"The Hidden," Ari gasped, more to herself than anything but Lancelot heard her. She felt the markings on her wrist ache in that moment but she could not hear the whispers as he was doing.

Lancelot's eyes shifted back to hers quickly, mortified. Why would the Hidden want to reach me of all people? His mouth hung open, and the usual collected state he held slipped away, hands fidgeting down at his sided. The Hidden were uncharted territory and he did not like the unsteady feeling it was giving him.

Ari stepped closer towards him, "Does it sound like a whisper but it's not words?" She asked. He thought about what she meant and then nodded. He'd heard whispers before but they were so faint that he ignored them, blaming it on something else. This breeze pushed again at the hem of his cloak.