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

57| One Born From Fire - 𝐈𝐈

AN: there are a couple of flashbacks in this part, I tried to make them obvious.

[TW// Poisoning, sickness, anxiety. Implied violence/character death. Blood/major injury.]

Lancelot hedges his bets on one last hope to get Ari to wake.

He was again at her side the next morning, his fingertip slowly pushing the last morsel of bread that he had succumbed himself to eat around the plate in his lap. The light rain had not ceased overnight and so everywhere around him now smelt of dew and damp. Water ran off the leaves of trees and pit-patted against the tent overhead. Lancelot sat on his stool and counted each one to keep himself awake as his eyes drifted shut.

A soft, prolonged groan from his side did not rouse him. But the heavy and painful cough which followed had him fully alert.

Lancelot sprung forwards and clasped Ari's shoulder, rolling her onto one side as she buckled into a fit. The plate fell to the floor out of his lap and he couldn't care less about spoiling his breakfast.

"It's alright, you're alright," he said as he held her head steady with a near shaking hand.

Ari was obviously delirious with her heaving and wheezing but it was her trembling which worried him most of all. Writhing the blankets off of her body. Lancelot did not think that she could see — her eyes restless and glossed when they opened for split seconds. She probably couldn't hear him either as he pushed through his panic and soothed her.

She groaned over and over and Lancelot felt helpless. There was no river water to cough up this time and he didn't know what he should do. He grabbed at the blankets before they fell from the cot and tried to cover her.

"C— c— cold." Ari croaked, quivered and meek. She had not woken completely until now.

Lancelot's heart sunk and his mind went back to the river. He could see her there, laying in the bitter snow. Her skin white and bruised in too many places. He wrapped her in the blankets as best as he could while she showed no signs of calming soon. She was shaking but Ari was alive and moving, which was more than she had been for three days straight.

With an arm beneath her shoulders and knees, he lifted her so that he could lay beside her, tucking her into his chest, though his many fears told him that he shouldn't. Anyone could walk in through the veil in front of them and see how he was so close to her, with her on her cot. He had to trust that no one would.

She groaned and groaned and clung to his coat until her knuckles were white.

"It's okay." He ran his hand up and down her waist and held her tightly. "I'm here, it's okay. You're safe."

Ari struggled against his body, kicking at him restlessly. "Lance—"

"I'm not going anywhere," Lancelot promised with a kiss to her crown.