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

70| The End (Part One) - I

[CW// Blood. Violence. Gore(ish). Strong Language. Major/Minor Character Death. Major wounds/injuries]

The war is here.

"Pym?"

Ari didn't intend to startle the redhead who spun from her station that she was preparing with needles and threads, cloths for packing wounds, and vials of poppy milk for pain. From the wide look on her freckled face, Pym hadn't intended to see her queen this morning so early.

"Yes, your Grace?" Such kind eyes; Ari could see why Hector was smitten with her.

"Would you help me with something?"

Pym put down the tools in her hands. "Of course."

Moments later, Ari sat at the high stool within the healer's tent. Pym hovered behind her and worked her thin, nimble hands through the long silver strands of Ari's hair.

"Is there something that we should know, your Grace?" Pym quietly asked. No teasing or jests to such a lightly spoken yet weighted question.

Staring at the Sunborn crown upon the workbench in front of her, forever within her reach, Ari didn't say anything. Her voice would break if she did.

Blunt nails combed through her hair, close to her skin, sectioning off another strand to join the forming braid— a singular braid.

It wasn't how Ari had imagined it to be done, certainly not on a dawn where she could hear her army arranging themselves outside. She'd hoped that it would be her mother who would form the ceremonial braid, they had even practised once with leaves and flowers in preparation for her joining which never happened years ago.

"He did not leave your side for days when you were ill," Pym said softly when Ari was silent, a sympathetic tone that made Ari's heart bleed. There was no need to name who they were speaking of. "We talked as I changed your bandages, and it was obvious how much he cares for you even if he did not say it with words."

Ari had wondered how Lancelot and the healer had gone from animosity to a shared past. The former had not said much to explain the shift in their acquaintance.

The lump in her throat stopped Ari from speaking so loudly. "He is a good man."

"I know. I would not be braiding your hair like this if he weren't."

The reason subtly went unsaid.

Pym's fingers worked the last inches of Ari's hair to be tied away completely in the way that Fey women only traditionally do once they are joined, an old custom of their kind. One that Ari was willing to bend the precept of for today.

"I won't be returning, Pym." Pym's gentle hands stopped. Ari stared at the Sunborn crown with a numbness dulling the pain, the sadness. Her duty to her people came before all else. "After today... I won't be coming back. I want everyone to know that their queen was happy at least once."