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

50| The Pagan and The Priest (Part Two) - 𝐈

Between the two of them, they commanded all of earth, fire and water.

Ari had asked herself that question too before now and come up empty. However, like with everything regarding Fey, there were few who had answers to give her.

"Water is a different element," she said, lifting her hands from across her chest and looking to them. Like their lines would hold the truth. "It has energy and so I can feel it, but I cannot manipulate how it moves." Even if she wanted to, she couldn't. She'd tried many times before with no success, and so had drawn the conclusion that it just was not possible.

Ari dropped her hands down to her sides, settling her eyes again on the back of his hood. "Do not ask me why, I have no answer." Not even her old Druid friend, Zurah, had been able to enlighten her.

There may have been some explanation within the ancient scrolls that her father had once told her about - ones which had lived in the library of the Sunborn Court. Except they no longer existed as anything but ash in the earth now. The Fey had once had Sunborn scholars and teachers - people full of wisdom about the exact things which Lancelot yearned to learn of. Their entire history stored in minds and writing.

But now few Fey knew when they would even get their next meal.

Lancelot stared down, watching the water as it ran its steady course. He shook his head in defeat. "I don't think I know how to do this."

The words that were in his mind came out through his mouth, and he didn't even think of hiding his doubt like he used to. Yet still he felt the shame - a pressure he was putting upon himself to not fail her. Across his back, he felt his scars tighten ever so slightly.

Inside her chest, Ari's heart sank to hear him say that. He'd come further than he knew in a time shorter than most. He needed to cut himself some slack.

She came to him at the edge of the embankment, crouching as he was doing. Past the hood, she searched for his eyes - seeing the beginning of a storm rolling in. "I told you before - you don't think," she said, "you feel." Ari lit a flame from her fingertip which got his attention, burning it out almost right away. He looked up from her hand between them to her eyes. "I moved my first flame when I was two summers old, and I definitely wasn't thinking about doing it." What she was trying to say is that these things take time, and she could see in how his brow didn't pinch or his eyes, narrow - that he was realising that.

"Scared the life out of my mother though," she added jovially, exhaling a breathy chuckle at the same time.

Lancelot's lip twitched at that image. He did not know her mother or what she looked like, or even her name - but he could imagine a young, bright eyed Arianne Sunborn causing mischief by playing with flames. It was odd to think that at the same time, he would have been locked within his cell under the Abbey, reciting his prayers in the silent darkness. Or spending hours learning the skills of murder which a boy of ten summers should not have to learn.

Ari saw that crack in his smile, and also how quickly it faded. She put her hand to his chest, covering his heart. Through the layers and in those troubled blue eyes she could feel his fear, how he was afraid of himself - to let his powers be strong. He was always there for her in her moments of doubt. And it was time for her to repay that debt.

"I believe in you," Ari told him with her whole heart, gripping her fingertips to the woven blue leather of his tunic. Firmly, she looked in his softening eyes. Giving him no room to not listen to what she was saying. "All you can do is try. And if it does not work then we will go."

Lancelot looked straight into her eyes, so golden and warm. Within them he could see the world - anything that he wanted, it was right there. For a moment the rest of the forest went away. He no longer heard the river at his feet, or his horse uprooting the grass somewhere not too far away. But he could feel his heartbeat - how steady it was becoming as her kindness held all of his focus.