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

50| The Pagan and The Priest (Part Two) - 𝐈

═ 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴𝘵 ═
𝘗𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘛𝘸𝘰

[AN// Chapter 50! Oh wow. Thank you everyone whose been here since the very beginning, and welcome to the newcomers!]

After the massacre of the Trinity, Ari and Lancelot make their way home.

❖

oh don't fail me now
put your arms around me and pull me out

❖

Ari stood back to give Lancelot some space, her arms folded loosely across her chest. She didn't wish to rush him, but they needed to keep moving before they ran out of daylight. Their forest was still hours away at this pace.

"You moved the entire of the River Wren for me," she reminded him. According to the boy, it had been a magnificent sight.

Lancelot's jaw twitched. "That was driven by fear," he said flatly, a hint of irritation with himself breaking through. He turned his chin to his shoulder but could not see where she was stood behind him, which unusually made him feel small while he crouched to the water - elbows resting over his knees and hands balled in fists.

Ari didn't acknowledge his attempt of an excuse. Fey powers were best taught to be controlled with tough love and being thrown in to the den of wolves with no way out.

"You can move this." She gestured to the shallower water though he didn't notice the action, blinded by his hood. What flowed gently before him was little more than a deep and narrow stream, and she had no doubt in her mind that he could do what was needed. It flowed close to the trail which they had been following, so all that he had to do was wash it up the embankment opposite where he was crouched and soak away their tracks. As if that wasn't a lot to ask?

Lancelot didn't like this hollowing feeling within him, one which was quickening the pace of his heart. The last time he'd used his powers was when Ari had sat with him by the brook, and all he'd done was make ripples. He had not forced it to raise three feet and cross a forest.

Ari watched him staring back at the river in his silence. If he absolutely did not want to do this, then they could leave - but the risk of being followed from where they'd left behind that collection of dead Trinity Guards would be far greater than if they didn't cover their tracks.

"With all your power over the earth, how is that you cannot move water?" Lancelot asked, unintentionally bitter and exhaling with irritation. She was far more powerful than any one Fey which he had seen, though he understood why she kept such a thing to herself. Practically no one except himself, Squirrel and the old King knew of her fire. Most folk in the kingdom likely did not know that she belonged to the earth either.