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

31| Judgement Day 𝐈𝐈 {Part One}

═ 𝙅𝙪𝙙𝙜𝙚𝙢𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝘿𝙖𝙮 - 𝙄𝙄 ═

{AN// Long update, 7k... I'm sorry again}

[TW// referenced blood, death, minor grief.]

Lancelot receives answers for who he used to be and the question of his fate is sealed.

❖
I've crossed every line, broken every boundary.
Now its retribution time 'cause the church that I went to, it ain't that holy.
❖

There were only a couple of commotions still going on after the battle had apparently ended, and the remaining Fey and raiders gathered around the small fights so that the unfortunate few Paladins knew that there was no way out of this forest for them.

Ari moved back towards the camp, needing to check that whoever had slipped through their grasp out here had indeed not made it past their secondary line of defence. She could still feel whatever it was that the dagger had sent through her body lingering beneath her skin. It trailed through her veins like the deep set hollowness of hunger. The ashy markings over her wrists burned as if small coals were wrapped beneath her binds, pressing into her skin but there was nothing she could do. These aches usually did not hurt but this feeling was painful and she knew not how to make them go away. One foot in front of the other she carried on walking, the rush of war still coursing through her body as well. The hands around her reclaimed sword and the reddened dagger gripped even tighter to whiten her knuckles.

This is why she did not want the Sword of Power's sister blade, it had changed her. She lost control as the darkness overwhelmed her and her mind was not her own when she killed that boy. It wasn't until she saw his face and he was already half dead when she came back to herself. Ari tried to shake it off, walking faster through the forest.

Lancelot was not proud of what he had just done and he had lost count of how many that his sword had cut through of his former brothers just then. He had felt the old ways of the Weeping Monk come to light when he fought, blade travelling so smoothly through both air and flesh. He recognised that those things were inescapable, the part of his mind that controlled this killing is governed by the merciless crusader, and it always will. He cannot unlearn that or rip out what has been ingrained within his muscle and bone.

His senses were overwhelmed with the smell of death and bloodied flesh laying in the dirt but he was used to this. This he knew how to block out of his mind. He did not recognise many of the faces around him, dead Paladin or living Fey. He could see Ari no longer but the familiar stance of Gawain was in the distance. The Green Knight was holding his arm and Lancelot guessed that he must have been caught by a blade. Fey were moving around and checking bodies, trying to find anybody perhaps still alive.