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

48| Risky Business - 𝐈𝐈

Ari receives a letter from the human king and Lancelot is offered an opportunity from a very unlikely source. The two also relearn the dangers and pleasures of wandering off into the night.

[CW// implied/sexual content and mature themes. Strong language]

"Why are you and the Red spear avoiding each other?" Kaze asked in her usual blunt way of saying things.

The voice broke through the sound of their horses hooves plodding on through the softened dirt trail, and drew Ari back from wherever her mind had wandered in thinking of what she should write to Uther. Her friend's plainness wasn't unusual but the question seemed to have come out of thin air. They had been talking previously of the new plans being put in motion prior to this deviation.

Ari resisted turning her face and kept her eyes to those in the patrol walking ahead of them. "We aren't," she said, and it wasn't a whole lie. Avoiding wasn't the right word for describing the situation. Perhaps 'giving each other space' was better? She didn't dwell on the technicalities.

Kaze spoke again from beside her, "I haven't seen you speak for days."

The raiders had done little to remove themselves from their corner of the forest since the ambush and Ari was surprised when the Red Spear volunteered to aid their supply run, given the outcome of their last outing. Still, she allowed for them to go with Gawain and a few others.

Kaze would only persist if she did not offer some sort of reprieve. "I may have been... harsh with her," Ari said, frowning at her own choice of words. Once broken, her trust was easy to let go. And Red had danced along the line of losing it with her undermining attitude and drunken ways. She'd offered leniency because of what had happened that day but there was still a level of respect that she expected, even if she were not the queen.

"That is not like you." Kaze's sharp features pinched as she turned her face across the trail.

Ari had been riding towards an overhanging branch for several of Dusty's paces now, and she rose her leather bound hand to brush it aside, sparing the woman beside her a glance. "You barely know me Kaze, I would be slower to make your judgement." She didn't mean it to sound as an insult or so pointed.

"I meant that you are firm with good intention, not harsh." Kaze let her jet horse amble along the trail alongside the queen's sunburnt golden mount. She had faith that Ari was not one to be involved with arguments for no reason. Many times she had watched with her own eyes as the queen dissembled a squabble or lay to rest a dispute that served more as a nuisance than anything else. Her intrigue in the silence of the forest got the better of her.

"What was it about? Your disagreement?" She asked without mincing her words.

One member of Ari's council had already cautioned her this week regarding the main reason - her lover. She knew that if she spoke of it now, then Kaze would not be so delicate as Gawain had been with the inevitable warnings and disapproval. The whole camp didn't need to know her business and Ari didn't wish to share this more intimate reasoning, not yet. How Red drunkenly propositioned the camp's most mysterious figure should probably be kept quiet too.