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

37| To Break Is To Heal {Part One}

{AN// This chapter as a whole is stupidly long (19.5k words) so I've split it in four parts. Prior warning, it's quite heavy, take a look at the warnings before you read.}

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═ 𝙏𝙤 𝘽𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙡 𝙄𝙨 𝙏𝙤 𝙃𝙚𝙖𝙡 ═

[TW// retrospective childhood trauma, fire, religious fanaticism/abuse, moderate angst, character death, blood and injury, moderate anxiety and panic. Referenced past self-harm]

Lancelot relives his past in the world of the Between.

❖
Unbreak the broken
Unsay these spoken words
❖

"Lancelot!"

His lungs stopped breathing immediately like the air were no longer important. He pushed himself back against the stone wall and up onto his feet, gasping at the call of his name as he stumbled into the middle of the hallway. What is going on? Where am I? Lancelot stared with a fixed intent down along the corridor in the direction of where the woman called his name.

"Come here!" The same voice called out once more and Lancelot thought that he heard the woman laughing as well. What is happening? He instinctually wanted to follow the sound but he couldn't move, he was stood frozen in the middle of a hallway, bright morning sun streaming in through the glass paned arched windows lining the wall on one side of him. His heartbeat hammering like an anvil in his chest. He could hear the distant, gentle lapping of an ocean against the rocky shore.

Footsteps on the flagstone came from the other direction and he twisted around immediately in his spot, his well trained hand going straight for his sword over his hip as a reflex. Two guards joked with each other as they walked along the hallway towards him, boots tapping against the hard floor as their deep, royal blue cloaks hung from their shoulders. Lancelot began to draw his sword but the guards didn't even flinch, what? He stood stiffened like he was preparing for a fight and waited for them to come to him, but they walked straight past him on either side almost as if they had seen through him, and Lancelot couldn't understand why. His face contorted with confusion as he followed their movements until they were out of his sight behind him. He couldn't fathom why they did nothing, why they had acted like he was not there? An unknown questionable figure cloaked and covered in darkness within their walls... and they did not care.

His eyes darted around the light stone corridor as his mouth hardened, forcing his shallow breath through his nose, where am I? What is this?

Then he heard the woman's laughter again and twisted backwards at once. Lancelot needed some kind of answer so he swallowed thickly what he could to ease the dry scratch in his throat and moved his feet but he stopped himself after only one step. His boots made no sound on the stone, not like the guards' had done. Those weeping eyes snapped down to his boots and the floor beneath him and this only perplexed him further. He was naturally silent but not that silent, what the-