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

67| The Eve of War - 𝐈

[CW/ Threatening language]

Ari's army reaches the White Hart fields of Avalon. Lancelot finally makes a bold confession.

"Please let me come with you," Squirrel begged on Ari's heels. Nearly tripping on her cloak, he followed her out of the castle and into the bailey where the royal convoy of warriors was waiting to depart. The whole town and camps of Southern soldiers surrounding it had been awake before the dawn that was now.

"No, Squirrel," Ari refused, however much it pained her in a way that she hadn't felt before to leave him behind. Perhaps for the last time...

She turned to him and clasped his shoulders, looking down in his round reddened eyes dulled by the grey sunrise. Heartstrings tugging tight. "If anything happened to you I could not live with myself," she said, and as soon as the words were spoken, the perpetual sting behind her eyes became a tear.

The boy worried his lip until it was bitten raw. "Well then promise you'll come back."

Through a tired smile, Ari sighed. Her best attempt to stay positive as she willed herself to not cry. The weight of the Sunborn Crown on her head, weaved with her braids to keep it in place, felt heavier now than before.

"Squirrel," her throat tightened, "you know I cannot."

"Promise," the boy insisted, jutting his chin in the air. His furrowed brow was far deeper than any child's should ever be.

Promises held too much finality for Ari to be able to keep them. She was heading off to war, not certain that she would return. Anything could happen in the next few days and she was not prepared for any of it. She couldn't promise Squirrel what he was asking. But she couldn't leave him with no hope, either.

Ari's lips tugged in a gentle smile, tucking his chin with her knuckle. "I don't die easily."

She watched him hold his resolve to stand tall, then the tremble of his lower lip. Before her arms could react, Squirrel pushed himself within them and wrapped his around her body. The tears coming fully now down his face.

Her insides twisted as her body was squeezed tight. Desperation clinging the boy's hands to her coat. She bundled Squirrel's growing frame in her embrace, too. Holding the child who'd burrowed his way into her heart.

Over the boy, Ari caught Lancelot watching them, a sorrow spreading across his face as he flicked his gaze between them and his horse.

If she never came to have a family of her own, she thought, at least she had known this one.

All too soon she found herself unable to stop her eyes from watering or her throat from drying up. Horses and their riders filled the bailey along with well wishers bidding them goodbye. Lord Hubert, too old now for battles and bloodshed, was sharing his last moments with his son. Hanna and Kaze secured packs of food rations to their horses saddles. Elyan clung on to his three children, his red eyes trying to retain his tears.