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

32| Ties Which Bind {Part One}

═ 𝙏𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙒𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝘽𝙞𝙣𝙙 ═

[TW// blood, minor injury.]

Lancelot chooses to make a sacrifice and Ari takes magic into her own hands. Squirrel is confronted with a harsh reality.

❖

I should have known, I'd leave alone.
Just goes to show that the blood you bleed
is just the blood you own.

❖

"We demand his blood."

Ari's stomach knotted uncomfortably and rose up into her throat. The Fey around them erupted into chants echoing Brila's words, demanding the murderer's blood. It took a moment for her to question and realise what the woman was saying, she didn't quite believe that she'd heard her correctly. Her face was stuck in this half state of confusion, half grimace when she raised her hand to silence them and spoke.

"You mean a blood binding?"

Brila, the elder Fawn twisted her face to Ari over her shoulder, "Precisely." Her darkened eyes were sharp like her antlers.

The air sat tentatively, dangerously as Ari swallowed down. The Fey around them muffled their chants again of agreement and the volume slowly rose in the clearing until Ari commanded silence once more with the simple raise of her hand.

Lancelot did not understand what was going on. He wished he had the familiar weight of his sword over his hip but he had left it in his tent before he was almost dragged down here so early in the morning. He understood blood and binding separately but not the two joined together where the Fey were concerned, whatever his expectation was he'd likely be wrong.

Ari's somewhat annoyed frown shifted to her father at her left side, then Lancelot for a moment and finally back to Brila and the other elders in front of her. She wet her lip out of hesitance, "There has not been a binding in years."

She knew why they had asked for this. It meant that Lancelot's life would be out of their mortal Fey hands and he would face certain death by the will of another, something that no one could control, not even the queen. Whatever command over this situation that Ari had had before now was slipping out through her fingers. She clasped her hands more tightly behind her back where nobody could see beneath her cloak. 

"Well then what great timing for another," Grenn mused from within the group of elders and Ari heard the sourness that she was learning to just expect from him now. She shifted her eyes to him as the blood ran cold in her veins, don't push it.