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

61| Familiar Faces - 𝐈𝐈

[ TW// Blood. Minor injury. ]

Ari hopes to make amends for her mistakes, and Lancelot is confronted with an unexpected reunion.

Lancelot did not stray far behind. He had given up the need to keep one eye on Henry when he was around, and instead focussed on the humans who were gathered.

The last conversations between them were not lost to him— that he'd wrongly accused the nobleman and his family of instigating a Paladin ambush, or that in return Henry had called him by a name he had not heard since his childhood. Ash prince. The man was, of course, not Fey, but their fathers had been at court together, and Hubert had stayed loyal to the Fey since the Burning Night. The moniker only served as a reminder that trust did exist between them, but cast questions through Lancelot's mind as well that he were trying not to think about. Ash prince...

Lord Hubert had been conversing with the old king just outside of the entryway, spotting the younger Sunborn as soon as she appeared from the shadow.

Ari's spine momentarily weakened at all of the eyes immediately on her. Some two hundred pairs, perhaps. She tried to only focus on her father and Lord Hubert for the moment.

"Thank you for allowing this," she said quietly to the latter.

Lord Hubert nodded but his expression remained solemn, and he quietened his voice from those around them.

"We had word come just now that Uther has raised taxes yet again in the south. And the Red Paladins seized a human town last night, demanding supplies be handed over." He quietened even more. "There is rather loud chatter of a revolt."

Ari could not say that she was surprised by the news, though her raised brow betrayed her. Lord Hubert leant in to their brief conversation.

"Their war is getting closer. I thought that you should know this."

The warning was appreciated and Ari dipped her head in thanks, her chest however, worrying a little more.

Standing with his back to the grey stone wall beside the doorway, Lancelot took his place. He'd been out after dawn when the courtyard was only just awakening to scope the best place for him to be, where he would have a line of sight through the main gates down the road into the town, as well as a view of the whole crowd and possible hiding places for ill-intentioned onlookers within doorways of the workshop buildings and windows. It was a military thought process that he would always regress to when Ari's safety was of concern.

Henry decided to slip himself in at his side, too.

"Do you think she can do this?" He asked beneath his breath, facing the people.

Lancelot kept his eyes up and his voice low. "I do not doubt it."

Though inside, his words did not entirely ring true. He had every reason to let his anxiousness flow as he scanned out at the couple of hundred humans gathered in the bailey. Not as many as that had been exiled from the forest so he assumed that there were villagers from the town who had come to see what the Fey queen had to say for herself.