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

36| Illicit Affairs {Part Three}

Lancelot pushes past his fears and a feast brings more than just celebration to the camp.

"You have an admirer."

Her voice startled him and he pointed his eyes down at hers where she had crept up by his side. She looked different. The same, but different. There was something in her eyes and her smile which was new. Strands of her bright silver hair were braided more for decoration than practicality as the rest hung in almost perfect waves over her shoulders.

Ari tilted her chin towards a small group of the Red Spear's northmen, at one woman in particular who she had noticed was indeed watching him, though from his reaction she guessed that he was completely oblivious to the fact. Ari naturally wasn't the jealous type and this observation was made even easier by the fact that she knew Lancelot would not act on any advances that the woman may attempt through the evening anyway, he was far too shy with strangers for that.

Lancelot felt his face drain of blood as he cast his eyes away from the dark haired woman. "She is drunk," he practically scoffed an excuse on the raider's behalf as he shifted his eye-line.

"She is not," Ari laughed heartily, still watching the woman for a moment longer. Her eyes then dragged over and up to Lancelot at her side. "You are not an unattractive man, Lancelot... you must have realised that," she said without a care in the world for anybody who heard her. She expected that perhaps if he had grown up with the Fey then many a woman would have perhaps fawned at his feet, entranced like she was by those piercing eyes.

He gave her a look, an unamused smirk hidden beneath his expression. He had never thought of it, he had never needed to. Vanity was not something that he had been allowed to have in his life. Lancelot kept silent on the matter, but he realised that he'd never told her anything of the same. She was so beautiful in his eyes and it wasn't just her looks, it was everything that she was. It had taken him a while to admit it to himself that he thought of her that way but, why hadn't he told her? How would he even tell her? Lancelot's mind fumbled but her voice drew him in.

"I told you that there would be plenty of people here," she recalled that evening as they sat again by a fire, right after she stumbled with asking if he would want to know such things that came with love. She glanced her eyes slowly around her people, "You could take your pick of any woman if you wished..."