[2] WEEPING MONK║you're not what I was looking for

41| A Quiet Love, My Dear - 𝐈𝐈

Ari must tell the council of what has been agreed and Lancelot continues to bask in his new happiness, though finds himself butting heads with a familiar Fey.

Lancelot had hoped that the chill in the air from dawn would disappear as the day went on, but he was here at the height of the day and the sun was barely thawing his own body, let alone the earth. There was a tingling in his fingertips as he stood in the armoury, a feeling that he was recognising to mean that rain would come today. His powers did not tell him when, but he knew that it would fall.

He heard a heavier tread of footsteps coming his way after a few minutes of deciding what he would work on today, since the elders now just expected him to do something off his own back and not wait to be told. Perhaps a hunter collecting their weapons or someone wishing to finally pick their fight with him. He waited, ignoring it until his concern was necessary and sorted through their stocks of handcrafted bows and arrows to find anything which may need repairing today.

"Oi monk!"

Lancelot lifted his eyes, staring blankly at the panels of wood a foot or two away from his face. The name once did not bother him but now he found that it was like a snake in his veins, slithering through his blood and bit by bit, bite by bite, leaving its venom behind. He turned his body around slowly, the young Tusk standing half towards him and half retreating back along the trail from which he had came but watching him definitely.

"Raif is sick, you're coming with us. Get your horse," the man commanded and walked away before Lancelot could question it.

He hated taking orders, after so many years of them being barked by another. But he tightened his jaw, let his ease with the morning so far disappear and dropped what he had half started working on in the armoury. He flicked his eyes up to the sky quickly between the half barren canopy as he walked, realising from his days of simply observing from afar that it was about time for the patrol to head out through the forest. It took only a minute or two for him to stride across the forest to the paddock of horses where Goliath was grazing and fetch his saddle from under a lean-to which had been built, spreading between several trees. His horse's tack was obvious amongst the rest, the only one studded, adorned and crafted by a Paladin leather maker.

Goliath ambled over when he called and he prepared him quickly, leading him to the shallow stream for a moment until he heard the rumble of hooves moving between the trees at the other end of the paddocks. Lancelot could not see the recognisable golden mount amongst the remainder of the horses, the only one of its kind as he led his blackened steed towards where the patrol members had convened the other time that he went with them.

One short of a dozen of Fey were finalising their preparations to leave when Lancelot joined, earning a few looks which were wondering why he was here, but like they were learning to they turned away quickly enough. It was out of reluctance that the Fey were learning to accept that he was here whether they liked it or not, Lancelot was not going anywhere. He pulled Goliath to a gentle stand still and allowed him to graze for a moment longer, his eyes glancing around to see if any of the faces around him were ones that he recognised. He saw Ari chatting at the forefront, stood at her horse's side as she tightened the saddle girth a fraction. She pat his neck and as she twisted, perhaps to check that everyone else was ready, she caught his eye, and his previous huff from being dragged away from his work drifted away.