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

59| To Protect A Heart - 𝐈𝐈

Beads of sweat dripped down both of their brows in minutes, drying with the freshness of the air. Their blades crossed to one side, Lancelot with the back hand was able to parry hers away. He kept her at the end of his sword as best as he could, trying to keep this to merely a friendly tussle. Though Ari still tried his skill and his patience.

She had him on the back foot now, blocking her cuts. She slipped forwards to strike but Lancelot heard the sharp intake of her hiss. So he stood on his own cloak and allowed the way that it snagged taut to pull him to the ground.

He landed, one knee muddying, his sword purposefully dropped to steady himself, and then the flat tip of Ari's sword tapped beneath his chin. His heart was pounding in his ears.

A collective gasp rippled from across the clearing. Then everything went still.

His palm had shot to the knife blade tucked within his boot on instinct. In any other fight, Lancelot would have pulled out that blade and swiftly cut an arm, a wrist, the back of a knee— or simply released it upwards to his assailant's stomach. But he had not told her that the blade was there. She would think that he had no defences left.

Lancelot slowly turned his face to look up along the sword currently at his throat, careful to not catch himself with the point. The heat of his breaths fogged on the steel.

The smug curve of her lip was the only sign of victory on her face as Ari stood tall above him, her silhouette blocking out the sun's light. But there was something else there, something in her eyes that was both ice and fire.

Their stalemate came to an end as she dipped the blade away and held out her hand for him.

He took her wrist and she clamped his, but Lancelot hauled himself up of his own accord. As soon as he was on his feet he was looking over her — how she stood, if she pressed her hand to any particular pain or not. Her breaths were slow and heavy from the match but that was all.

"Well played," Lancelot said, voice coarse. Her eyes glittered with confidence, the distance between them a little too close for disproving to the watchful eyes that there was something other than her blade between them. He bent down to retrieve his own from the grass.

"I thought that you would have pulled that knife from your boot," Ari mused as he rose, sounding as though she were wondering why he didn't. She shouldn't have to guess, the answer was staring her right in the face.

Lancelot opened his mouth but closed it again, dropping his gaze to where he sheathed his sword then wiped his hands on the edge of his cloak. He'd thought that he'd been discreet in letting the blade go.

Ari furrowed her brows at his silence, examining his shyness, and then her voice rose up the octave without her permission.

"You let me win," she gasped.

Was it that obvious? Lancelot wondered.

"I let myself lose," he countered, which was different to her accusation. He glimpsed to her and she was smiling.

"Semantics." Ari scoffed in good jest. "Accept the loss, Lance," she said, teasingly twisting her shoulders back and forth.

"As your highness commands." He ducked forwards in a shallow bow, his eyes never leaving hers until after she swatted at his shoulder. Such playfulness made him forget for a moment why he was wary of her opinions right now.

They joined Squirrel and both moved to grab their water skins from the ground beside him. Squirrel helped by offering Ari's up to her. She thanked him and drank.

Lancelot looked up at the position of the sun in the sky, tilting water back to soothe his dried throat.

"Your lesson with Elyan is soon," he said a moment later to Squirrel. "Go on, get yourself cleaned up."