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

47| A Lover Scorned - 𝐈𝐈𝐈

[TW// intimidation, internal conflict, internalised/resolved homophobia. Canon-typical religious opinion. CW// angst and some shouting]

Ari's past comes back to haunt her and Lancelot unravels a heart aching lie.

"I am merely saying that it could be easier for you where nobody knows your name."

Lancelot did not believe what he was hearing and his forbearance faltered.

Easier? It's true, his life probably would be simpler where he was unknown but that notion was just a fantasy. Whatever motive the Green Knight had to provoke him like this, he couldn't comprehend.

He turned his head sharply, thunderstruck by such nonsense without giving his assertion a second thought. "I am not leaving." The only way that he would leave is if he could take Ari and the boy with him.

"It might be for your own good, Lancelot," Gawain argued, refusing to meet the other man's eyes which annoyed Lancelot further.

"I am not leaving." Lancelot pushed, stronger than before and now facing Gawain. He didn't understand - Gawain was the one who had said that his people needed him, that he could be their greatest warrior. A friend and brother. And now he was telling him to go?

He watched as the noble knight bowed his head, rolling his jaw, and deeply breathed a name in which Lancelot did not expect - "Ari."

Given the way that she had acted earlier and the things that Gawain had seen of them that he now knew to be true - that they were involved in a secret affair which neither were admitting - it had to be about her. His head shook with the jealousy rising higher within him for what once was his.

Lancelot was careful with his shallow nod, not wanting the motion to be misinterpreted to be confirming of something else.

"I understand that your feelings for her-" Gawain started but Lancelot interrupted him.

"It is nothing to do with that." Lancelot cut the knight off from whatever it was that he was going to suggest. Gawain's face shifted and looked to him in revelation and Lancelot realised just what he had admitted. He diverted the subject quickly. "I made a promise to her and to her people to help them rebuild what I have destroyed."

Gawain's face lifted again as he understood what Lancelot was saying, a knowing narrowing of his eyes. He had thought that whatever was between them was perhaps just lust, something to pass the time in this bleak winter and weak enough for him to act upon. But the Ash man's insistence was more telling than his silence.

"I will not leave until it is done." Lancelot concluded with a fury and turned and walked away before he did something rash. There was nothing more that needed to be said. He would not leave her.

~•~

Leaves crunched and squelched beneath Dusty's hooves as he carried the queen through the woodland. They had walked south from the paddocks to the southern creek where her horse could dip its head to the waters before they set off west along the patrol route, and after a while they deviated to explore trough some of the lesser known trails.