[TW// Canon-typical religious opinions/racism/prejudice. Blood, gore, moderate violence. Strong language]
Ari is held captive by the Trinity Guard. Chaos ensues.
Lancelot spun, slashed a throat and moved on to the next who rushed through the rip he had made in the side of the tent.
Ari lunged to the table and grabbed onto her dagger while Lancelot sidestepped away to another Guard. She spun, throwing the blade. Not stopping to watch the blood spurt from the fatal pierce of a neck. The dagger glowed as she ripped it from its fallen victim and planted it in the next - catching the chain that they attempted to hurl in her hand. It stung like a bitch but she didn't care.
As the guard fell - Ari snatched the chain and cracked a skull of the next, reacting to whatever came. She had no idea how many Lancelot had taken outside before joining her. How was he even here?
A black cloak hurled at her, sword raised, and she threw the Dagger again to pierce the stomach - pain yelling up into the air. The swing of the sword was slow enough to dodge, and as she reclaimed her blade - kicked to the back of the guard's knees. He landed face first, that gold mask causing a crack to the nose.
Bodies were piling around their feet. Over her shoulder, Lancelot had another speared through the gut. He pushed on a shoulder and tugged back his blade, shining steel soaked with dripping red blood.
The Abbot stumbled his way further into an inescapable corner, his protection being diminished one by one in front of him. From the look on his face, he knew that he was going to lose this fight - and his life.
Lancelot had a second to recover and met Wicklow's eye, breaths haggardly rattling from his chest. They stared right through each other. Raging storms in Lancelot's glare enough to rip the snake right in half.
He could kill him.
He should kill him.
But another bastard swung for him and his own life was more worth defending.
Ari's dagger missed - swatted in mid air by a guard striding for her. Shit! She scrambled back to pick her sword up from where it had slipped off the table to the dirt. As she bent - a boot collided with her side. Her brow split where she smashed against the edge of the table leg.
The sound of his lover's pain was like thunder in Lancelot's ears. Narrowly he missed the blade point that skimmed across his chest. He caught that sword when it lowered with his own, keeping the guard disengaged.
Ari rolled - the guard stabbing the earth instead of her by the skin of her teeth. On one knee she swung back and sliced the tendons in the rear of his knees, and as he fell - her thin blade pulled from her boot swiftly slit his throat.
With a perilous roar - Lancelot's boot kicked into the body of his attacker. The guard tripped over a dead brother in the ground and fell back over them. Lancelot wasted no time in thrusting his blade down like he were skewering a pig. The blood that they spat seeped out from underneath the gold mask.
Ari.
He twisted - chest tight and a haze in his wild eyes - seeing her knelt over the dead. Her sword bloodied down the edge in her hands. She was fighting for air but she was alive.
The Fey Queen swallowed down on air, barely. Her head light while she got herself to her feet. She kept her sword ready at her side, not allowing herself to blink at the open entrance. One more. There was always one more. But no more guards came.
Blood pooled and soddened the grass - short red blades instead of green each wet with the victims of this day.
Lancelot kept his eyes on her from beneath his hood for a moment longer, as long as he dared to. The grip that he had on his sword hung down beside him did not weaken. But then he turned his face, sweeping his hardening glare across to the Holy man. And that was the wrong choice.
The fury of the fight in his veins froze to a cold wrath.
He began to step forwards and raised his sword towards the Abbot, staying between him and Ari.
The almost silent sound of movement snapped her attention behind her - her senses still on edge, heart racing like the wings of a hummingbird. Lancelot put himself between where she was and the other man, the point of his sword aimed at his chest. She half turned, keeping an eye on the open veil.
Wicklow was stood far too calmly for someone who had just witnessed a bloody massacre. He could have done something but he just watched it all happen in front of his eyes. If he said one single word that Lancelot deemed wrong, then his sword was going straight through the dirty blonde's chest. No mercy spared.
Ari didn't like this stand off between them. Her lover was more than unpredictable when pissed off.
She watched him - saw how taut his shoulders were beneath his cloak. The square placement of his feet ready to fight. That sword. There was a distance between the two men for now but she didn't know if she could stop him from killing the Abbot.
Lancelot kept his sword steady and his eyes locked with absolute precision. Daring the snake to say something. Anything that would give him cause to make him fall like he did the others around them.
Wicklow tried to keep some semblance of authority. Though without a crown or a blade, he found himself at the bottom of this food chain. "The famous Weeping Monk, it is no surprise to see you here," he said.
Threads of control which Lancelot had over his temper frayed and flared and he did not hold back his tongue. "I will be the last thing that you see."
"You were barely alive the last time that I saw you, betraying your brothers."
Ari turned her eyes to Lancelot. Betraying your brothers? She had never come across the Trinity and Lancelot hadn't either since leaving the Paladin camp with Squirrel. It made sense as she realised now why he was barely restraining himself from killing the Abbot - Wicklow had been there on that night.
"I should have killed you," Lancelot seethed. White knuckles straining around his grip.
"You should have," Wicklow retorted, staring down Lancelot's blade, "but you let me go."
Inwardly, Ari frowned at that, palming her throat now where the guard had choked her. The former Weeping Monk would never have just 'let' him go with all of his limbs and life. The Abbot's face was serious with mockery and the hood over Lancelot blocked her view of him to see if that reaction told the truth or not.
Lancelot was stuck in this impasse, jaw clamped so the pain ran through his teeth. He couldn't deny it. He had let the Abbot go that night when he turned against the church but only because he could barely stand. As soon as the Abbot had retreated back around the shadowed corners of tents - his knees had planted in the ground. Sword dropping from his hand and wounds littered over his body. There was no way that he could have followed even if he tried.
The following silence didn't give Ari a good feeling for how this would end. Her instinct was screaming that at whatever Wicklow said next - Lancelot was going to snap. Her breaths were just about steady again, though her throat felt like it had not been watered for a week. The Abbot dragged his gaze to her, lowering down her body.
He spoke but not to her. "You abandoned your faith for a witch."
"I shall take your tongue," Lancelot hissed, stepping nearer. So much iron of blood clung to the thick air and flooded his senses, making him see red. The snake could say whatever he liked about him, but one more word about Ari and he would act on his threat.
Wicklow ignored him. "Or was it the devil in you finally breaking through?"
A streak of silver flew past Wicklow's face, slicing into the wooden scaffold behind him.
"Next time will not be a warning." If fire burned then so too did the blazes in Ari's eyes, her stare fixed on the withering Abbot. She didn't care for watching the entrance any longer and strode to her lover's side.
Wicklow straightened himself from how he had ducked. Bone thin fingers lifted to his ear, pulling them away from the shell with a smear of blood across his fingertips. You should be grateful, Ari thought, I could have taken more.
His low stare darkened on his red fingertips, then he met the queen through his lashes. "We were getting along so nicely as well, weren't we?"
Lancelot moved without thinking, his bloodied sword raising higher at the Abbot. Watching as his final victim quickly realised that he was not going to stop. Trapping him at the point of his bloodied sword.
The Abbot scampered back like a frightened rodent. His back pushed into the wooden scaffold, hands coming up from his sides. "You wish to know why this war began?" Wicklow raised his voice, nearly trembling.
Lancelot stood still. It was a last resort - a plea for mercy, most likely. Men about to die had no reason to lie.
"Speak," Ari furiously growled from over his shoulder, and Lancelot steadily lowered his sword. Keeping himself prepared to raise it again.
Wicklow watched the blade lower. The Weeping Monk's weeping eyes burning through his skin. He didn't rush out the answer and bought himself time. "Before Carden was a Brother he was just a farmer. There was a boy who helped him work his land," he said. "One day he was in his stables and he caught the scent of smoke. His house was on fire - his wife and child burning inside as they slept."
Ari felt her heart rise, guessing what was coming next in this story.
The Abbot's mouth curled wickedly. "That boy who started the blaze was a heathen Fey!"
There wasn't a second until Lancelot lunged.
"Lance!"
He stopped mid air, sword raised. Irate. Flaring nostrils and staring down at the Abbot. It wasn't about that boy, his fury was about him. Young Lancelot running from the burning flames of his home as it fell. Being pulled from freedom by Carden himself. The heathen Fey boy turned to a monster.
"He will receive his justice but not today," Ari insisted. She wasn't wanting to start a war, not until she had spoken to Uther.
"You should listen to your witch," Wicklow spat. Watching the famous Weeping Monk being commanded like an obedient dog.
The insults meant nothing to the Fey Queen but Lancelot tightened his grip on the sword. Daring the snake to say that again. Give me a reason. It would only take another few inches. A shuffle of his feet and he could split Wicklow's throat.
Once awoke, her lover's anger was near impossible to douse. He had every right to thrust that sword further but Ari couldn't let him. "Lower your sword," she demanded coolly, the golden flames in her eyes burning through his cloak.
In the silence, Lancelot heard his own shallow breaths. Control. Have control.
Another place, another time and he will get his revenge. Today, he would not disobey the queen's orders.
"Leave," Lancelot asserted, growling, twisting the point of his sword further through the air.
Wicklow sent a questioning glance across to Ari, met with her graveness staring back at him. He made the wise decision and worked his way slowly around the edge of the tent - a blade trained on his every step. He ducked out through the rip in the tent and sauntered back towards his horse tied at a tree. He left alone, his Trinity guards yet again slaughtered by the Weeping Monk.
Lancelot rushed to the split veil, glaring at the back of the Abbot as he rode off with haste into the forest. Then he turned back and took one long stride to Ari.
"You should have let me kill him." Lancelot was seething, hanging his sword taut at his side. Standing over her.
Ari stared up into the rage in his eyes, unusually calm in her stance. "And you should not have come. He was going to let me go," she said.
"You should not have gone willingly with him."
"You should stop bickering about this and take me home."
Lancelot's expression of frustration dissipated. He blinked at her, shoulders slackening. She raised her unbound hand and cupped his cheek - her gaze lifting up his face to meet his looking down on her. He could feel his heart ticking with his worry.
Ari wiped away the splatter of blood beside his mouth. "Take me home, Lance."
I will come home to you, I swear it.
He surged down and kissed her. Dropping his sword to hold her instead. She stumbled back, hitting her legs against that somehow still upright table. Her sword thudded where she discarded it on the surface - the half empty pot of ink toppling over and colouring the parchments black. She gripped his arm to not let him go, pushing her fingertips into his tied back roots.
It was a moment fuelled with pure relief. Not soft at all as their lips pressed together. He'd been so afraid that he'd actually lose her this time, but to their enemy instead of the water.
Ari arched over the table, his hand sliding up her back holding her steady. She couldn't breathe - moving her lips with his.
When they parted, Lancelot went to rest his forehead to hers but saw the blood trickling down the bone of her eye, recognising now that she was bleeding. He lifted his hand from her neck to wipe the crimson away.
"Ah!" Ari hissed as he caught the wound and Lancelot retracted his touch instantly. She saw that concern in his flared eyes. "It's fine," she said. "Doesn't hurt." Not much anyway. Her throat was bothering her more.
Lancelot knew that it was just the rush of the fight flooding through her veins. "It will do."
Ari knew that, but it wasn't important right now. "I'll deal with it later." She brushed it off.
A breeze then wafted at the panels of the tent - billowing the sheets of red between the wooden posts. It reminded him of why they were here, surrounded by a mass of dead sinking into the ground.
"The forest is likely compromised," Lancelot said. "We should get everyone out whilst we still can."
Ari shook her head. "Wicklow was searching blindly," or so he had alluded, "and his numbers are compromised too. That is why he wanted to talk, I suspect he was trying to persuade me not to fight against them." Though it obviously hadn't gone particularly well.
The Abbot had mentioned something of minimising her own casualty before she derailed him with accusations of the past. Questions for why this war exists. The answer that he'd given hadn't been the one that she'd been expecting - Carden's retribution for his family's death. It wasn't right, or just. But now that she knew - she understood his reasons. And her sympathy for him made her stomach turn.
"You cannot be sure." Lancelot said. "The church has influence. They can easily get more fighters." Dwindling numbers wasn't as much of a problem for them as it was for the Fey. Greed and glory were traits inbuilt into humankind.
Ari ran her palm back and forth along his forearm, soothing herself as he held her waist. "They are terrified. Their numbers are falling and ordinary humans are turning from them." There were many gathering in her forest, and in the south - there were bound to be more through the kingdom. "They have no allies left here," she said, raising her bloodied brow, "I would like to see them try."
Confidence was necessary in a leader but Lancelot had too many doubts. He wet his lip, dropping his shoulders. "Ari, the forest-"
"Will be safe," she cut in. Squeezing his arm in reassurance. "I doubt they would come with the order to kill us - not if they want to keep themselves alive."
After what had just happened - how only two had slaughtered more than ten times that - Wicklow and his men would be wise to stay away from them.
Lancelot finally let himself breathe, breaking his gaze down between them. If he looked at her now, he might not have been able to hold himself together any longer. His admission fell from quiet, bashful lips. "When the Fawn said that he'd taken you... I was beyond scared." He let his thumbs trace back and forth across her ribs. She was alive and in his hands - he could feel her body as it moved beneath his palms.
For him to admit that he was scared, he really must have been. Ari felt her eyes sting with how earnest he looked. She put her arms around his neck and stood on her toes, pulling him down into her embrace.
"I'm okay Lance," she hushed, "I'm okay." She felt his chest deflate, the sound of relief by her ear. He breathed out into her shoulder, his arms circling her body.
"I prayed the whole way here that you were safe," Lancelot blurted out. He hadn't prayed for so long but it had been the only thought in his mind as Goliath galloped through the forests to bring him to her. "I want you to be safe."
Her heart sunk in her chest. A feeling of being safe - it was all that Ari wanted. For her people, for her kingdom, for herself. "I am the Fey queen of an outcasted kind, nowhere is safe for me."
Lancelot worked his jaw, considering the right words as he lifted from her. She held every single possible piece of his focus. "Then let me be your safety." It wasn't a question - he would always protect what was his. If she was hurting, then he was hurting too.
He lifted a hand and gently traced the crimson staining from beside her eye, avoiding the wound this time. "I go where you go, remember?"
Ari could never have forgotten. Holding his gaze, she nodded. Then reached up again on her toes and he pulled her into his body - enveloping her in that safety of each other. She wanted nothing more than to tell him everything was fine, and have him believe her.
They stood for minutes. Two people surrounded by destruction and spilt blood that they had caused. Eventually they separated and went about collecting their weapons. Swords were easy to gather but Ari had to wander a little to find the Dagger of the First Queens, since the guard had deflected it with his sword. It was laying right next to another body, practically under a flailed arm. She began to retie her sword belt around her waist before doing anything else.
Lancelot walked across the tent and pulled her dagger from the wood, hearing it snap and splinter. There was a drop of the Abbot's blood still remaining on the tip of the blade somehow.
"We must leave," he said, wiping that droplet off on the tent panel before turning back to her.
Ari motioned to the fallen guards, still tying her sword belt. "What do we do with them?"
Lancelot looked around at those surrounding them, searching too for the few that he could catch a glimpse of outside. It was a small massacre but there was nothing they could have done differently. "A fire that big would draw attention," he said as he approached Ari, offering up her thin blade. "Leave them. The wolves can feast tonight."
That's morbid, Ari thought. But he was right, they couldn't do anything. Still it felt wrong to just leave them here even if they were her enemy - or used to be. She nodded but couldn't keep her gaze on him, taking her dagger and lifting her ankle to slip it back into her boot. A warmth came over her side and she realised that Lancelot was steadying her.
She looked up to him when she was done, letting out a definitive sigh.
"Goliath is not far," Lancelot said.
~
They quickly gathered a few bits and pieces before they left. The masks of gold that the Trinity wore could be melted down to coins or broken to smaller, tradeable pieces. Fey did not value riches, but money was money and extremely useful when you are penniless.
It felt wrong to unveil their faces. Some were bruised, burnt, scarred. Some looked youthful like they were still almost children, but perhaps her age. Ari couldn't help but wonder if any of them had family, or if like Lance they were alone in the church. Did they join the Trinity willingly or were they forced? Grown into soldiers from birth? There were too many 'how's' and 'what ifs'.
And then the guilt hit her. Each one had been a life. Whether her enemy or not - in death they deserved more than to be left as a feast for wolves. It was an opinion that she knew many of her people did not like her having, but she would never change it.
While Lancelot went to retrieve his horse, Ari ripped some of the cloth veils with her dagger to create a sack and used more strips to tie it together. It might sound foolish but she only took a few of the masks, maybe eight or nine - she wasn't counting. Any more would be unnecessarily heavy for Goliath to carry on top of both of their weights. She also left some on the chance that inquisitive folk might stumble upon what had happened here, and maybe they would need the gold just as much as her people do.
As she stepped outside she finally saw what had happened beyond the tent. Most dead had an arrow each, all shot perfectly to kill. The rest were split in two with the force of a blade. If this was anything like what had happened on that night that Lancelot fled with Squirrel, then she could not believe that the child wasn't ever terrified of him.
A crack of twigs made her snap around and reach for her sword - drawing it an inch. But the noise was just Lancelot returning through the trees with Goliath at his side.
"Didn't mean to startle you," Lancelot said with a lopsided smile.
Sometimes Ari envied his ability to smell out others. It meant that he would always know if he were alone or not without needing to touch the earth like she must.
"You could have made a noise or something," she said. Pushing her now clean sword back into the scabbard at her hip.
Lancelot inclined his head to his horse. "He did it for me." He dropped his eyes and focussed on the obvious red sack in her hands, his brows knitting delicately. "What is that?" He asked, gesturing at the ominous sack.
"Gold." Ari walked to him and thrust the sack out towards him. She wanted to leave quickly - not linger here for any longer in case Wicklow came back with more resources. But she wished to clean her wounds and the dirt off of her leather bind hanging from her belt first.
Lancelot caught the sack, assuming it to be lighter than it actually was. Gold? He frowned at her as she moved around him. Where could you have gotten - oh. Through the entrance of the stand alone tent in this clearing, he could see that some of the soldiers were unmasked and still sinking into the earth.
He didn't question what the gold was for, since the answer was obvious. But he turned across his shoulder to see what she was doing so quietly.
Ari had taken the small flask of fresh water that she knew was always kept in his saddle bag and stepped away to quickly clean the cut to her brow first. He noticed what she was doing and left Goliath to graze on the fresh grass while he hovered over her and fussed. It was just a cut and nothing more but the bruise was already showing. And she didn't need his help.
Today was not the day to push Ari's limits so Lancelot tried to find the best way to tie this sack of Trinity masks to his horse. He contemplated just holding it down at their side as they rode back to the forest, but it would likely get in Goliath's way. His horse was stubborn like him - neither of them liking being annoyed by pestering obstacles.
With a couple of ropes that he cut from holding the tent together, he secured the sack to Goliath's rump. It mean that they probably couldn't move at anything faster than a trot. And the jangling noise was most certainly going to be irritating.
Ari mounted up into the saddle once she'd tended her wounds and wiped as much blood from her as she could, leaving enough space for Lancelot to sit behind her. She held out her arm and helped him up - Goliath rightly huffing in protest. But the horse was large enough to easily carry both of them, and it would not be the first time.
At least on this occasion, Ari was able to hold herself upright - not half alive from near drowning in the freezing river. Though it did not stop Lancelot from circling his arm around her and taking hold of the reins in his other hand.
They walked on into the forest, retracing their steps which they had individually made to get here. Ari had no idea where she was - the blindfold which was forced upon her made sure of that. So trusted Lancelot to take them both home.
After a while and a length of unusual silence, Ari found herself twiddling the string of her amulet around her finger. Tipping her head back into Lancelot's chest. "I can feel you fretting," she said. A fight had never stopped him from being his usual reserved self but this felt different. Even his body felt tauter than it ought to against her own.
Lancelot rolled his jaw, keeping his eyes ahead on where they were walking between the thorny thickets. "You said that you were bringing your best scout and you were taken by your enemy," he said through gritted teeth. Evidently correct to not trust Elyan with her life. "You should have let me come."
To Ari, that sounded like he was pointing a finger in blame, which she thoroughly disagreed with. "This was not Elyan's fault." She swiftly lifted her head from resting on his chest, twisting to try and see him. "He will be beside himself anyway so do not give him grief over it." Her scolding was only gentle because she understood, but she knew already the exact looks that he would give Elyan when they returned. This day was nobody's fault - they were just unlucky. End of story.
Lancelot pursed his lips tightly, shaking his head. "I should have been there," he said, reiterating his point. If I were here than this would not have happened.
Ari tried hard to not grow frustrated with him. He had every right to be worried about her safety, like he'd already said. Her neck strained trying to look him in the eye so she watched the forest move past them instead. "You were, and I am more than grateful Lance." She held his arm which wrapped her body, squeezing gently.
"I was almost too late," Lancelot said, struggling to hold back his tongue.
Goliath halted abruptly beneath them as Ari tugged on his reins. If Lancelot was going to be like this for the entire of their long journey then she would rather walk by herself.
Lancelot didn't know why they had stopped, shifting his eyes to stare at the back of her head. In a motion quicker than his ability to react, Ari twisted and pressed her lips to his - catching him off guard.
The kiss shut him up. Stealing his worry and his breath. His arm around her tightened, fingers curling into her side. When Ari pulled away and hovered over his lips, his mind cleared and turned to confusion. Not knowing what that moment was for. From the way he was acting, he didn't deserve her affection.
"I am alive," Ari said firmly, but there was softness in her eyes. "Everything is okay. Let's just go home."
You are a fool, Lancelot. A stubborn fool. He let his eyes drift shut, nuzzling his nose to her half-braided hair for a moment. With a deep sigh he let his frustrations go.
Ari felt like she had gotten through to him, finally. She tilted her head to his temple and after a minute of quiet and calm, they walked on again.
Inevitably, Lancelot's mind turned back to the more important of events that had happened today. "The Trinity would not prioritize ordinary Fey, they were out here looking for you," he said as he tried to decipher it all. "They must know we aren't that far away."
Wicklow had told her that they had been 'searching', but Ari didn't know what they were basing their hunting on. It wasn't likely that they could read the symbols that Fey placed in the landscapes for directions - not if Lancelot had to teach himself. Unless he taught others? She wasn't even going to go there with that inquiry. He would have told her if that's what he'd done.
"Could there be enough of them to surround our forest?" She asked. If they were closing in then as the queen she needed to know what her people were up against.
Lancelot had been gone from the fight for too long to be sure. "I don't know. With the Red Cloaks? Probably." He remember the letter that Ari had received not that long ago, the one which had mentioned the Paladins moving south. "Could your Fey messenger have told them where we are?" He asked.
Iain? Ari couldn't believe that he would ask such a thing. "No. And don't ask me that again." Iain had never lied to her or mislead her - he wouldn't have reason to do so now. He was risking his life every single day, for her. Because she had asked him to.
Lancelot kept quiet after that. They were nearing the road which led to the valley, so they should probably focus on trying to not be ambushed again. A few minutes passed when he stopped Goliath abruptly, looking back over his shoulder.
"What is it?" Ari asked, resting her hand on his thigh while twisting her spine. Whatever he was looking at, she couldn't see. Which only made her anxiousness resurface.
Lancelot ran his eyes along the dirt trail back through the forest. "We are leaving tracks," he said. If more Trinity or Paladin forces came by the Abbot's orders, then following Goliath's hoof marks in the trail would be an easy path straight to their forest.
"Shit," Ari hissed beneath her breath. She hadn't thought of that. Lancelot echoed the sentiment in his mind.
In their silence they thought of what to do. Somewhere in the distance there was a trickling like running water which felt as if it grew louder.
"Do you hear that?" Ari asked, trying to see where it was coming from around them.
Lancelot tuned his ears to the sound, and now that he was still - he felt his fingertips and weeping tears tingling too. "There's a river," he said, then turned his face across his other shoulder.
They both looked off to the south. Squinting, they could see a break in the bushes and trees ahead of them.
Ari didn't know what he was thinking, but an idea sprung in her own mind. She looked across her shoulder, watching him cast her a sideward glance. "I think you can solve our problem."
__________
wc: 5.2k
I couldn't find more relevant gifs to make, so excuse the lack there of.
LANCE WAS DESPERATE, poor guy. Don't get in the way of him and the woman he loves... you'll probably die.
Plot twist - Carden's reason for starting the war 😨 Believe it or not, he once liked Fey.
Was Ari right to let Wicklow go?
And I wonder what her idea is to solve their next problem? 😏