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

45| Silver and Gold - 𝐈𝐈

Squirrel's persistence could land Lancelot in trouble if he takes a risk, and Ari's suspicions towards a particular Fey rise.

"Monk."

Lancelot recognised the voice which called for him, flat and clear and crisp unlike the last time he had heard it. He heard the tread of boots through the dirt, one heavier than the other and growing louder as they came towards him on the log. Picking his attention up over his left shoulder, he saw then the woman. She appeared considerably more sober than the last time that they had interacted. Her leg was still bound at the thigh but she was moving quick enough towards him, a softer look in her darkened eyes than usual for the Red Spear.

He was calm but not relaxed, still gripping the blade hilt and stone as she halted beside him, both of them out of the way of the trail. Red must have seen that he was not going to be the one to speak first, since she had come to him after all and he had nothing to be said. She did not huff or sigh but simply breathed to prepare whatever was going to push past her lips.

"I want to apologise for what I said to you, and for how I acted. I did not mean to offend."

She was plain and frank but Lancelot knew when he was being lied to, it was like an instinct, and he didn't think that Red was fooling him. He could see not just on her face that she was serious, but her eyes holding his, her steady hands by her sides. How her chin turned down. She was showing all the signs of subservience that had been trained into him in his youth.

Red continued, "You were honest, and because of it I did not do something that I would have regret."

Her apology was a little stiff but earnest enough. She knew what she was saying unlike their last encounter but he didn't know if the words were her own or someone else's, if Ari had sent her like she had so adamantly insisted she might do. There was a passing thought in his mind that there would have been nothing to regret that night except her drunkenness, because he would never have done as she had asked, pleased her as she had suggested. He was right to refuse her, he need not feel shame for that. Though Ari was right too that Red's intentions had been wrong even if nothing had come of them, and that was only thanks to him.

Lancelot did not know what else to say other than, "I appreciate your apology, and there was no offence."

Red shifted in her tilted stance, her injury obviously still troubling her. He heard her breath squeeze out like it had done when he was tending to that wound, "If I had my senses then I would not have done such a thing."

He didn't doubt that. They had barely spoken other than when around a campfire with the others, never been alone together like they were then and she hadn't shown any interest in him as anything other than an ally in this war, at least as far as he could tell. So Lancelot just nodded in agreement, turning his eyes back down to the almost completely honed sword over his lap that he had been carefully crafting for most of the morning. It was just gone past midday, the sun high and pale through the white cloud above yet still the earth was cold.