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

66| Queen of All - 𝐈𝐈𝐈

One evening gives Lancelot and Ari a chance to be free. Old secrets come to light.

The outside darkness faded further into night. Goblets were refreshed and plates sparingly filled from the buffet table. Voices cheered to the merry tune of the music. Hey!

Lord Hubert stepped to the Old King's side, swirling his half-drunk cup of wine. They stood at the edge of the hall in silence for a moment, and watched the Queen smile while she turned circles about the floor with the leader of the Ash. Their fifth, perhaps sixth dance.

"I think... that you may soon have a joining on your hands, my old friend," said Hubert, eventually. Lowering his voice from the eavesdroppers around them.

Adrian followed his daughter as she swept through the room with Lancelot. He inhaled, considering, and then out. "I hope so."

"Not many men would say that of their daughters." Hubert cocked his head.

Not many. Ari would always be his little girl, in Adrian's eyes. But she was a grown woman now, and nearing her twenty-fifth summer. He wished for her to have a family and know love like her mother and he had done.

Turning his chin down so that they may speak more privately, he said, "My daughter deserves happiness."

Hubert followed his cue for discretion. "And Ban's boy?" he asked, flicking his gaze across the hall.

Adrian watched the two of them for another moment. Ari, he knew, was happy. And when he looked more closely at Ban's boy, Lancelot looked content as well in his own way. So different from when they had first met all those years ago, and then met again in the white, wintery forest. The moniker of the Weeping Monk had been abandoned— destroyed. He'd shown loyalty and strength and continued to do so without fault.

Lancelot whispered something in Ari's ear when they danced close. She rolled her eyes with affection and grinned, adding a flourish to her twirl beneath his arm. The sight should have warmed Adrian— but he felt melancholy tugging on his heart. His mind lingered on a night long ago when Druid fire had shown him their fate.

"He deserves what was taken from him." Adrian cleared his throat to clear the lump that he felt.

A chorus of joyous Hey! filled the hall, arms flying up in the air.

Hubert narrowed his cynical eyes upon him. "You knew that they would happen."

Adrian lifted his chin, watching his daughter dance with the one made in flames. He couldn't deny what was right in front of him.

Those who weren't dancing were clapping in time to the upbeat jig. Lancelot didn't think that the fiddler could fiddle any faster as Hector's linked arm tugged him along in this circlet, with Pym bouncing about on his left. Faces about the room moved in a blur and colours blended into one— like a brush swept across a painting.