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

46| Whispers In The Night - 𝐈𝐈𝐈

A familiar shadow moved from behind Ari and caught her attention as it stood before her instead. She saw his rigid stance, the way that he was ready to draw his sword.

"Lance," Ari warned with a drag of his name that he would understand, not knowing what he was doing other than that he had done this before. He was protecting her but as far as she could tell there was no need.

With clenched fists, both around his sword - one on the hilt and the other, the scabbard - Lancelot stood arrow straight, head dipped just slightly beneath his hood like a wolf stares out its prey before it strikes.

Gawain warned him too from across his left shoulder, "Ash man, Morgana is a friend to us."

"Then she tells you lies." The menace in his tone could cut through the thickening air without so much as even needing to raise his voice. Igraine, Igraine is her name. Her face pulled back and pinched subtly, more confused than offended from what he could see though he were looking nowhere else.

Ari didn't have a clear thought which understood why he was doing this, or how he had jumped to that particularly offensive conclusion. She would rather there not be an argument or swords drawn tonight, there had been enough of that recently.

The woman stood her ground rather effortlessly, "I must say that I am shocked to see you here, brother."

Lancelot's response was rasped and dry, "And I, you, sister."

The golden stare which had been set on the Widow past her shield's shoulder shifted to the shield itself, pinching, sister? And after a second of silence, Ari realised why her lover was stood like this guarding her, she's from the church. Her heart picked up, a feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn't know who to believe, the man before her or the two on either side who claimed this woman as a friend.

"Ash man," that low growl came from Gawain again. He'd picked up too on Lancelot's anger, "She is on our side."

Our side, he huffed, she is one of them. It felt like there was always some silent stand off between him and Gawain, he'd felt it in the morning. Lancelot just didn't know what they were competing for. Though this was not about that and he ignored his caution, throwing it to the wind which rustled up high in the tree tops above them.

Lines of understanding somewhere seem to have been crossed. No one had told their queen of this and Lancelot only knew half of the truth - the wrong half it seems.

The woman raised a smart, if not smug brow, "I am surprised that you recognise me."

Their eyes were locked, storm against night with a backdrop of cackling fires as neither relented, "The Wolf Blood Witch attacked you at Yvoire." She was the one who had let the witch and the Devil's Tooth escape from the abbey when they had been within his grasp - he would not forget that. Though he should, given where he was stood and who he was under oath to serve.