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

42| Lighthouse Keeper - 𝐈𝐈

[TW// repressed grief, reference past trauma, mild mature content]

Lancelot learns a bitter detail of his past whilst Ari is conflicted further about the choices she is to make in this war to keep her people safe. Elsewhere, Hector voices a concern for his brother.

Swords she had always been drawn to, though her mother protested greatly against it. Like learning to cook or sew or ride a horse, Ari learned sword play out of necessity. There was an art in the craft, a well choreographed dance between enemies as if it were a game, or friends as if they were lovers. By the very nature of the sport, swordsmanship required there to be a winner and a loser, and as the Fey queen stood watching out at a group of her fighters in training, she was not entirely sure just yet on which side her people would fall.

She was not on patrol this day, instead wishing to see how the skills of their fighters were coming along under Arthur's instruction this morning. Unfortunately for her and her plans of advancing within this war, her people currently appeared more as if they were only fighting to fend off an enemy and not end them. Ari hoped that it would perhaps never come to it, but if the day came when they were required then her orders would most definitely be not to just swat away the enemy. Disarm and defend, is what she had been taught... disarm and defend.

The more notable time that she was here last was when Lancelot sparred with the man that she currently was doing with, Hector, since he was here and as bored as she was observing. On that day she had seen Arthur and the trainees observe the way the elder Ash fought, how he moved so sleekly through the air with the sword as an extension of his being in this dance, and she thinks that maybe they had forgotten some of the things which they had witnessed that early afternoon. You must not be afraid to get hurt, is what she had told them. Most of them were still training with blunted swords, showing unwillingness to go beyond basic defence and actually demonstrate that they could be relied upon to fight well in a battle.

"You move like your brother," Ari commented, maintaining a steady breath as the younger Ash and herself circled one another.

"Well, he taught me to fight for myself, so..." Hector left it open ended, positive that the queen was wise enough to know what he was speaking of.

Ari tested him, narrowing her eyes and darting forwards with a combination of advances that even she found a little tricky at times, yet Hector handled them and parried well against her blade. A few hushed grunts echoed in this end of the forest clearing, their swords locking in a cross. The queen was impressed, "He could not have taught you all of this so young."

Hector pulled his sword away and stepped back for some distance between them. "No, my-" he stopped himself from saying 'father', something which he was learning to do around Lancelot that was just becoming a habit now. He saw the brief pinch of Ari's brow when he suddenly halted his words. Hector wiped the sweat away from over his lips with a snuff, "The man who raised me was a blacksmith, he made swords too sometimes." The blade which was in his hand twisted around his wrist in a swift motion and the younger Ash tracked the steel briefly with his pale eyes, "Showed me how to fight and when my younger brothers were old enough, we trained together."