[1] WEEPING MONK // you're not what I was looking for

19| Shadows

═ 𝙎𝙝𝙖𝙙𝙤𝙬𝙨 ═

[TW// referenced drowning and referenced character death]

Ari begins to heal and Lancelot is left with more questions than answers. Squirrel tries to do the right thing.

He watched as the figure cloaked in red drag the young Fey away. He had his sword, he could have helped him. There were only a few, he could have taken them easily. He had already fought through the halls and made it out to the trees around the castle safely, but the hand on his shoulder held him back. They watched as the child was bound, beat, and dragged roughly away behind a horse. He vowed on The Hidden to never forget how he could have saved that Fey boy, Ban's boy.

~

They scouted the camp as close as they dared, taking no chances with the reds. The King's eyes drifted and he saw a child not much older than his daughter, wielding a sword with such skill it was frightening. It was clear that the boy had been forged into a singular weapon. He did not wear red like the others, donned in grey and black, lines marking down his face like paint. It was not clear, he couldn't be sure. But he remembered the face of a similar boy, Ban's boy. The weapon danced through the air and parried every strike that came down on him with ease, his overly large hood hiding his face from the world.

~

An attack came on a nearby village. His daughter wanted to come, she wanted to wet her steel but the King would not allow it. He rode out along with fifteen of his best. The Paladins outnumbered them two to one but the King's swords were better than the red men ever could hope to be. They dispatched them swiftly and the village was almost safe again when a shadow stepped out from amongst the smoke. The weapon held out his sword, daring the Fey King to come closer. He recognised him then, how the boy was now a man. Taller, powerful. The lines on his face and hands made him look older beyond his years. The tears, his weeping eyes. The first blow came and the weapon was strong. Controlled and measured. Graceful but with purpose. The weapon was a contradiction. The figure battled the King, a man more than twice his age under the cover of the ashes and smoke. The Fey matched the strength of the shadow and more. He overpowered him, and the grey monk crashed into the dirt and for the first time, the King saw its face beneath the hood fully. He saw the younger face of a man he once knew staring back at him, recognised the weeping eyes, Ban's boy.

The one he didn't save.

~

The old Druid's words were bold, "Listen to me, you must keep the boy safe. He is destined for so much more." She gripped onto the King's hands. She told him of what she had seen in the fires, what she knew of the fates to come.

"What must I do?" The King asked. She told him.

"He cannot know," she said. "They must not know."