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

32| Ties Which Bind {Part Two}

{AN// AAA we got to 7k reads, thank you!!}

[TW// blood, minor injury]

Lancelot chooses to make a sacrifice and Ari takes magic into her own hands. Squirrel is confronted with a harsh reality.

Lancelot sat on his stump all afternoon, waiting nervously for whatever was going to happen to him. Gawain, on his venture through the clearing, noticed that Squirrel was not where he was supposed to be and reprimanded to boy to go back to the den. And so Lancelot was left alone again. He felt like simply melting like he could command snow to do and sinking into the dirt. Instead he had no choice but to sit and watch the forest around him move for another day, but the sun was now beginning to dip in the sky so he knew it would not be too long before he met his fate.

"Lancelot?"

He picked his eyes up from beneath the hood at the voice he knew. Lancelot stood himself up from the stump before the poised and steady Sunborn.

"I thought that you might like someone to explain to you what will happen tonight," that silvered tone travelled to his ears and a moment later he nodded. He would indeed prefer to know what exactly he was walking so blindly into before he did it.

The old king led him over to the larger tent which they had stood in before, out of the way of the clearing which was still being prepared. He stood beside the elder man as he explained the ritual, one which he himself had only performed less than a handful of times in his reign as their king. Lancelot listened with an unfortunate interest, memorising what he would do, what he must say. He could not afford to mess this up. The Sunborn took a scrap roll of parchment from atop the large carved wooden table beside them and some ink and wrote a few things down for him but Lancelot's mind was sharp, he did not need more than verbal warning.

After agreeing that he understood everything Lancelot learnt that he did not need to do this. He could reject the ritual by right as a Fey but his word would then be discounted and his actions discredited. He would not be allowed to stay with them and that was final. He would once again be seen as a traitor and he would be safe from no one in these lands. It was the ancient law and there was nobody or nothing that could overrule it. To be outlawed once again was so far from what he wanted that his only choice was to accept.

"I will leave you," the Sunborn went to step away to give Lancelot a moment of peace but-

"May I speak to Ari? Before..." Lancelot trailed off as he twisted to follow the man, before I put my life on the line? His eyes fell on the dark earthen cloak of the Sunborn before rising to his royally white hair as he turned back.

Adrian stopped himself from moving any further, his lips slightly parted as he examined the genuine look of almost regret in Lancelot's eyes. He looked the man up and down for a reason he did not know but pulled himself back together to answer before the silence stretched any further, "Yes, of course. I will find her for you."