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

57| One Born From Fire - 𝐈𝐈𝐈

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

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

Tensions were high throughout the camp. The humans that had come with honourable intentions were looking over their shoulders each time that a Fey came near, for it was one of their own kind who had attempted murder on the queen.

For the first time in the last week, Lancelot forced himself to do something other than sit at Ari's side. He knew that she was fine. Squirrel was with her and chatting her ears off, regaling stories of one thing or another.

He had been in the tent still and listened the night before when, at supper, cheers erupted through the clearing as Adrian announced that their queen was well. She had fallen back asleep at the time but he smiled a smile which did not fade, even as Pym came in once more to change Ari's dressings. He had helped like he'd done most of the other times.

The armoury had been a haphazard mess when he arrived after breaking his fast. Tools were strewn everywhere across the table and bows were all mixed in their buckets. He would not even begin to explain the state of the arrows. What was the point of sharpening their heads if they were to be thrown in with the bows as they were? A mess.

Squirrel's voice somehow came into his head and he muttered to himself, "I leave for a few days..."

He heard the distant rumble of the changing of the scouts. No one in and no one out had been the orders since the poisoning, unless the venture had been signed off by the king himself. The very man who appeared from amongst the thunder of boots.

"Lancelot, with me," Adrian commanded with a sideways tilt of his head, stopping his briskness only for a minute to do so.

Lancelot lowered the bow that he had been waxing the string of. "Where to?"

"The council den. We need every man, woman and warrior who knows of war and that includes you. Come."

Adrian left the armoury as swiftly as he had entered it and Lancelot did as he was asked, no questions given. He had to make haste to catch up with the elder man's strides through the winding trails.

He had not been to a council meeting for some time, and the elders sent disgruntled but passing glances in his direction while he stood himself behind Adrian's right shoulder, alongside Kaze, Gawain, Elyan and other Fey who were their more hardened warriors and quick minds.

He leant now on a slight tilt to his left whenever he did have to stand. Carrying Ari's body not once, but thrice, had not done his recovering wound any favours. Though sitting with her for days seemed to have given his body enough time for rest.

The divide between human and Fey had never felt so tense as it was then, with Arthur standing as alone as he may as well have been at the far side of the round stone. Lancelot had been stood as Arthur was within his first days here, and a new part of the extending arm of friendship between them compelled him to feel pity. He would not wish to be stood by himself to face the den of Fey on this particular day.