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

24 | Love and War {Part Two}

{AN// Long update again, 7k}

Ari and Lancelot's relationship is tested as the trials and tribulations of their lives threaten to get in the way. Lancelot makes a decision, and the trio come face to face with something unexpected

"But you are the Fey Queen."

There it is. Ari drew in a sharp breath and looked down to her feet, biting onto her bottom lip as she exhaled back out slowly. He didn't need to say anything else, she knew exactly where this talk was going. She'd had a man hesitate to know her because of this once before, and she hadn't thought that Lancelot cared about her status that way, he hadn't seemed to have minded before. Ari's head bobbed in a sad nod and she tried to pull her hands back to herself but Lancelot did not let them go. They had gotten lost in each other on their journey but the fact that they were so close to the end was bound to pull them back to reality.

Lancelot lowered his voice, "And that is why this cannot-" he cut off his words, shaking his head as his thumbs ran over the leather wrapped around her hands. Lancelot didn't know how he was supposed to say this, Ari had a responsibility to protect her people, and inviting the Weeping Monk to stay indefinitely would not be right in their eyes. Just simply his presence had made the Fey yesterday start to turn against her. Ari didn't deserve that, for him to be in her life and ruin everything that she had built. He had thought it once that he could never be what Benni was to her and perhaps he had been right.

He stole a glance up to the trees and Squirrel was still not in sight, but he recognised the boy's earthy scent so knew that he was still there. Lancelot tried to find some way to say what he was trying to but his heart was protesting against it. He went for plain and simple, making the wound as painless as he knew how.

"We can never be anything other than enemies in the eyes of the Fey." He had realised this in the morning as he bent over his cot, he would always be a cold hearted monster in everyone else's eyes. No matter what he said or did, the Fey would damn him and he wasn't going to bring her down with him, if I burn, I'll not burn alone.

Lancelot saw how Ari's jaw clenched as she looked up to him then, he saw the water gathering in her eyes. He was somehow glad of her silence, that she was letting him get this off of his chest. There was a horrible feeling like his insides were tying in knots as he dared to try and justify what he was saying further.

"They would question your judgement," he said as the life drained from his voice, then he let her hands go. Making himself the bad guy here was just easier. It was easier for her if he was the one to make the decision to step away so that she wouldn't have to, or that's at least what his romantically naive mind was telling him to do. He doesn't know how to do this, how to have relations with a woman this way let alone the queen of all of those in the kingdom that he had made suffer. He tensed his hands out by his sides to keep them steady as he watched the emotion on her face fall. He thought he was making the right call but what if he was wrong? Had he just pushed her away for nothing?