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

36| Illicit Affairs {Part Two}

Lancelot pushes past his fears and a feast brings more than just celebration to the camp.

It had been a couple of days since their little encounter in the forest. They had spoken but nothing had gone further than stolen glances and pleasant smiles. Lancelot mainly observed Ari's interactions from afar as he continued to work to mend arrows and wax bridles from his stump. She seemed to always be surrounded by people, and he was always watched. She approached him throughout the days but they could not speak of their relationship so openly in the clearing and she couldn't drag him to a tent or the forest either with so many watching. Her father or Gawain and even Squirrel interrupted them more than once and slipping away during supper was not so easy to do as they might have thought.

Lancelot wanted to talk to her, to just have her close and both of them be unguarded like they were when it was just them and Squirrel travelling through the forests, but he couldn't find a moment to be alone again with her to do so.

It was midway through the day and the sun was disfigured in the sky by clouds of grey and white. Things were being moved around and shifted in the clearing as Lancelot worked to clean and sharpen some arrows from the early morning's hunt as usual. He watched and observed as some tents and shelters were moved aside and more logs and chopped wood than necessary brought into the space but he hadn't worked out why just yet.

His attention drifted as he noticed Ari at one corner helping to build an unlit fire pit in preparation for something. As he glanced around he noticed that each of the other corners were being prepared in a similar manner. It confused him further, he hadn't seen the clearing being set this way since his binding. The arrow and stone in his hands were carefully put down by the stump and he stood, making his way across the clearing.

He approached the queen beneath the hood of his usual guise, "Ari?"

The call of her name from that particular husk sent a ripple through her, a reminder of what had occurred two days prior. She was adjusting a couple of logs in the makeshift fire and her face turned up slowly towards him, "Hmm?" He hadn't caught her off guard but her mind was a little elsewhere with the preparations in that moment.

Lancelot came to stand by her side, "What is happening?" He asked, gesturing with his eyes towards the fire pit at their feet and then around the clearing.

Ari sighed lightly, wishing that she could reach up and kiss him in greeting but she couldn't. Someday, when their world was different, she would do just that without even thinking of holding herself back.