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

56| Tears Of A Monk - 𝐈𝐈𝐈

[TW// Sickness and injury. Strong language. Mentions of blood. Anxiety, grief, a touch of depression]

Lancelot lives his worst nightmare. Pym uncovers a secret and Hector makes a bold decision.

On this third day, the queen's orchard began to fail. It was her who had been keeping it alive through the winter. The vegetables that were seasonal to the summer heat, otherwise growing comfortably in the kailyaird garden, were starting to wilt. It seems that the Fey were not the only beings lost without their queen.

"Great, thank you," Adrian dismissed the group that had gathered around him. They'd returned from their search to procure grain for the camp, visiting various farmers under the guise of pretending to be humans, and using broken pieces of masks that had to belonged to Trinity Guards as coin — empty handed.

Arthur and Kaze were the only ones who remained close around the Old King, his hand rubbing across his forehead. In the last few days, they'd watched his stoic demeanour slip more and more each hour.

"Is there any word on Ari?" Arthur asked with an apologetic look, stepping nearer so that he did not have to raise his voice as loud. Adrian must be getting that question a thousand times a day and he grimaced at making the tally one more.

Adrian dismissed his query like he had dismissed the Fey — with an edge of frustration. "Not yet, I'm afraid."

"It is not my place to say, but you are doing well, your Grace. Given the circumstances," Kaze said to him. He paused the rubbing of his forehead, closing his eyes.

The whole camp knew that this is not what he wanted. To take his daughter's place before she had actually passed. The people here, humans included, needed someone who they all could trust and irrespective of who he once was, the Old King was fair-headed enough to keep the peace.

"Your queen is not gone," he said. "There is still hope."

Arthur glanced to the people around them in the clearing. The area was not packed to capacity but there were more than enough who could overhear. He gestured his arm out in an attempt to usher Kaze and the king down the nearest trail. When they halted out of earshot, he hushed anyway.

"This problem of us running out of grain needs to be fixed, before we are unable to feed who we have here."

Adrian simplified the problem that he had lived through before, when he was king, saying, "With Uther and the Red Paladins all moving south, they are paying greater than what we can trade. And they are calling upon grain stores to be handed over as if they were tax."

"Perhaps we could ask Lord Hubert for help?" Kaze suggested but she didn't sound sure. "If he knew why—"

"We must keep news of my daughter's state to within this forest," Adrian said and leant closer, towering over them both. "Hubert is an ally and an old friend but whispers travel fast from places such as a castle, even if unintentionally."