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

54| Survive This Winter - 𝐈

═ 𝘚𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘞𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳 ═

[TW// Blood, major injury, implied drug use.]

Lancelot's life is put into the hands of others, and Ari finally comes face to face with her adversary.

❖

crowned in glory, fear no more
winter's misery, or the coming war

❖

Someone amongst you will not survive this winter.

"Lance!"

The way that Ari called out his name alarmed everyone still standing, and she was by his side before the echo of her voice along the road had ended.

Lancelot staggered to the closest tree, dropping his sword and leaning with that hand. The more that he pressed to the very obvious wound over his left hip, the more that a shooting pain shot through his gut. He'd had enough injuries to know when one was not good, and given the amount of blood coating over his shaking palm and dripping down his tunic and trousers - he knew that this was not going to end well.

Ari fell to her knees between him and the tree, barely containing her franticness. "Let me see," she commanded, a concerned lover and not the Fey Queen. She tried to move is hand away and pull the split leather of his tunic apart - but he clenched above her in such pain.

Her hands touched him and Lancelot doubled over at the waist. Seeing stars where he screwed his eyes so tightly shut. "His blade was sharper than his wit," he squeezed out. Though he suspected that it was the other Paladin who had stabbed him like a suckling pig before Ari's thrown dagger had ended him.

With her knees muddying with the dirt, Ari tried to get further between him and the pine - her own aches not mattering to her. She grappled at his blood-stained tunic, hearing the winces coming from him. But there was too much blood pooling and too much clothing. "I can't see, we need to move you."

"It's just a scratch," Lancelot said, breathlessly. Right away a stabbing pain radiated like his wound was protesting against being 'just a scratch', and Lancelot doubled further towards the tree, nearly collapsing with how weak his legs became.

Even when he had shown up to her camp, battered and bruised, or knelt on the forest floor with his neck sliced open - Ari had never seen such agony on his face. Her pulse was threading too fast for her to calm down. "It is not."

She stood and moved around him. Then grabbed his outstretched arm and looped it over her shoulder, positioning herself at his side. "Press on it, please, press." Her voice shook as she watched his reddened hand move back to the wound. He blenched at the pressure - baring his teeth to the sky - and folded against her side.