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ellewritesathing · 5 years ago

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Faith and Forgiveness III

Summary: Faith was tricky, fickle. When you’ve been trained your whole life to do awful things, you have to have faith that your misdeeds will be worth it in the end and trust that your faith hasn’t been misplaced. The Weeping Monk wasn’t so sure that he was capable of that trust.

Masterlist Prev. | Part 3

Word-count: 7.5k+

A/N: pov: you haven’t updated this fic in five months and you’d like to finish it before the end of the hell year 💕 hope you like it

Running away was a tricky business. It was the business of empowering the downtrodden and angering the rest. It wasn’t the business of the faithful; running away was the business of desperates and refugees, and sometimes you had to leave pieces of yourself behind if you wanted to survive.

The night was quiet and heavy as you thought about all the pieces of yourself that you’d left behind over the years - you weren’t sure if you could handle losing any others. You were sure the others were thinking something similar; despite Squirrel’s age, he’d already lost just as much you - maybe even more - and then there was the Weeping Monk.

How much had he lost to become the person he was? The other Paladin, Brother Abbott, had drawn similarities between him and Squirrel because Squirrel was a fey orphan - did that mean that the Weeping Monk was a fey orphan? Would you be more or less sympathetic to his plight if he was fey?

Unfortunately, the night was deaf to all your questions. Hoofbeats hitting the hard dirt road and low hunting noises of nocturnal animals were the only sounds that kept you company for the first few hours. It would have been insufferable without the steady inhale and exhale of the dying Monk leaning on your back.

With a sigh of your own, you tried to straighten out your spine before tilting your head to the night sky above you. Hundreds of constellations that you never had the opportunity to learn the names of twinkled above, unobstructed by clouds but mingling with different kinds of night birds. They were stubborn little things, but they’d taken pity on you after the death of your kind. Still, you were never sure if they understood the warning call you taught them or knew when they were supposed to sing it.

Squirrel watched the bird carefully as it mimicked your warning call and soared back into the sky. It swam between the stars, high enough for it to disappear almost entirely after a moment. “So the birds just … do what you tell ‘em to?” Squirrel asked, taking his eyes off where he supposed the bird flew to look over at you.

“It’s a bit more complicated than that. They used to listen to me about as much as you do-” you stopped talking long enough to laugh at Squirrel’s offended outburst. The Weeping Monk’s steady breathing lapsed for a moment, you hoped in an attempt to laugh and not in pain. You shrugged. “When everyone else died … it was like the birds knew I was the only one. They look out for me.”

The Weeping Monk straightened up behind you, as much as he could. His arms tugged your sides slightly as he leaned back; he might have been tilting his head up to the sky, maybe asking the stars some questions of his own, but you couldn’t turn to look at him - no matter how much you may have wanted to. He took a deep breath and exhaled, slowly, shakily, through his mouth.

Squirrel squinted at you for a long time, looking like he wanted to ask something else. You weren’t sure if you could answer any more of his questions, but he must have decided it wasn’t worth it because he pulled on his reigns to quicken the pace of his horse. He glanced over his shoulder awkwardly and said, “Well, goodnight then.”

“Goodnight, Squirrel,” you said with a small smile. “Don’t get us lost.”

“How could I get us lost when we’re in the middle of bloody nowhere?”

Between Squirrel and the night birds guiding the way and you and the Weeping Monk staying vigilant against threats, the three of you stumbled through the night until the sun snuffed out the last of the stars’ light and replaced it with unrelenting indifference. The light needled your already-inflamed skin and stung your eyes. As the sun rose, it sucked all the moisture out of the grassland around you.

Wherever you were going, it needed to be near water. The dirt road you were on seemed to go on forever, but there was an outcropping of trees in the distance that broke up the horizon and some mountains further back. You were about to tell Squirrel to change course for the mountain when the Weeping Monk started moving for the first time in hours.

Until now, the Weeping Monk had been trying to sit up by himself, but the Trinity Guard had beaten so badly that it was nearly impossible to do so for more than a few minutes. He shifted behind you to rest his head on your shoulder closest to Squirrel. He watched him for a few seconds before asking, “What’s your name, boy?”

“Squirrel,” he answered, looking over at the Weeping Monk. They had a history, but the two of them saved each other’s lives, and Squirrel seemed to be deciding how to handle that; he’d had the whole night to think it over but now he was making up his mind whether or not to strike.

“A squirrel is an animal,” the Weeping Monk said. You couldn’t tell if he meant for his words to feel so condescending, but at least his tone mostly sounded amused. Amusement was more than you got when you saved his life the first time. “What name were you given?”

Squirrel cast an uncertain glance out at the scrub around you and picked at the reigns in his stubby little hands. “I don’t like that name.”

“It’s still your name,” the Weeping Monk said, his tone softer and more encouraging than amused this time. His persistence was curious for a man who once told you he didn’t have a name.

“You don’t have to tell us, Squirrel. You’ve done more than enough already.” You ducked your head to get his attention and spoke softly. When that didn’t work, you straightened and added, “Besides, the things we choose to keep mean more than the ones we’re given, anyway.”

“It’s fine.” It didn’t sound fine; the words sounded upset and a little awkward. Squirrel shifted in his saddle and forced his eyes off the dirt road and over at you. “It’s Percival.”

“Percival,” the Weeping Monk repeated slowly. Though his hold on you hadn’t faltered the entire night, he loosened his grip to straighten up as he considered the name.

Squirrel looked away for a moment to scowl at the horizon and turned back with an equally scrutinizing look for each you and the Weeping Monk. Ever since your argument about Gawain, Squirrel had been awfully restrained with you. Still, sometimes anger won out over restraint. “Do either of you have real names?” he asked.

His use of the phrase ‘real names’ made you smile. You hadn’t chosen the nickname the fey gave you, but it had stuck and over the years people stopped asking you about your ‘real name.’ It was one of the pieces you’d thought safer to leave behind.

“I don’t know, Sunshine,” you said, angling yourself to get a better look at the Weeping Monk as you teased him. You smiled at him to hide your surprise at the state of his face. It was still bloody and beautiful, if a little swollen. “Do you have a real name?”

Something moved in the Weeping Monk’s jaw. He dragged his eyes off yours to look over at Squirrel. “Lancelot,” was all he said. One word, but he drew it out. It sounded special when he said it, and you restrained yourself from trying it out yourself. “A long time ago,” the Weeping started as he took his eyes off Squirrel and made eye contact with you, “my name was Lancelot.”

One word sent a tingle down your spine and the extra seven stole your breath. His name felt like a secret. It felt like he was giving you a piece of himself that he couldn’t keep carrying around. A feather-light secret.

“And what about you?” Squirrel asked, snapping you out of your moment.

You looked down at your branded hand on the horse’s reins and, after letting out a breath, you told them your name. You weren’t sure if you still deserved the name - you were a very different person now and you’d done things your family never would have wanted for you - but you’d never chosen another one, so this was all you had.

“Unusual name for Moon Wings,” Lancelot said after repeating your name. His voice didn’t sound like he’d just told you a secret anymore, more like he was considering its meaning.

“I don’t think you’re one to talk, Lancelot.” Squirrel let out a laugh that he quickly stifled when the Weeping Monk glared at him, which only made you laugh in turn. Still, your name was unusual for Moon Wings. “But that’s because my father named me,” you said. “The name is human.”

Squirrel’s eyes widened to twice the size and he watched him bite his tongue to keep from parroting any of the old ‘fey and man-blood don’t belong together’ nonsense. Again, you were struck by how much he’d grown up since you found each other in the woods. “Well,” he said after an uncomfortable moment. “You two can choose whatever names you’d like now.”

“I suppose we could,” you said quietly, eyes catching on the crosses branded on your palms. You shook out your hand and looked up at the mountains. You were closer, but you still had a long way to go before you could rest.

When you eventually did break through the tree line, your body was ready to collapse from hunger and sun exposure, but the untreated arrow wound in your thigh could have been just as much to blame. At least, amongst the trees, the air wasn’t as dry. If there was any water nearby, you needed to find it before one of you collapsed.

A bird dipped between the trees close to the mountains and your heart stuttered. “This way.” You nodded ahead. “There’s a place to rest up ahead.”

“No. We need to keep going until nightfall,” Lancelot said. His tone suggested that he was used to getting the last word in matters like this, but you both knew that you wouldn’t give up without a fight.

“We need to stop before you bleed out and the horses collapse,” you argued, casting a look over your shoulder at him. He might have still argued about his condition but you knew you had him beat by mentioning the horses.

Squirrel threw a look at the two of you before steering his horse in the direction you’d nodded. “Besides,” he started as he tossed the Weeping Monk an impish grin, “it’s not like you’re the one in charge.”

Lancelot let out a low sound that could only be described as a mix between a growl and a groan, and you did your best not to laugh. Squirrel was going to be the death of him, but at least he’d go out with the sound of your laughter in his ears.

Squirrel’s horse almost got lost between the trees, less bedraggled since she only had a child to carry across the country. Your horse, unfortunately, had spent the last night and a half dragging two adult-sized piles of deadweight. She lagged behind, though she eventually lumbered to the stream that Squirrel and his horse had already found and started draining.

The fresh, damp earth and gurgling stream crashed into you with such force that it almost knocked you straight off your horse, and that was before even setting eyes on the water. You bit your cracked bottom lip so the pain could keep you centered. You let out a shaky breath and untangled your hands from Lancelot’s for the first time. Your hands moved clumsily as you dismounted, unused to the lack of Lancelot's weight, but they carried you through with minimal winces.

Despite your desperate thirst and throbbing leg, you steeled yourself and held your arms out to help Lancelot off the horse. His eyes darted between your outstretched hands and your face, unsure if he could trust you. In his defense, he might just have been unsure if you could hold his weight, but his uncertainty was keeping you from getting something to drink, and your patience had worn thin.

“I’d tell you to come down from there or I’d cut out your tongue-” you let out a breath and shifted your weight to keep your legs from giving out beneath you “-but the Paladins stole my knife.”

Lancelot’s uncertainty gave way to a ghost of a smile and he started pulling his leg over one side of the horse. He hissed as movement aggravated his wounds, but soon his legs were on the same side and he was bracing himself to dismount. Squirrel watched carefully from the stream as he watched Lancelot move, slower and more disjointed than his usual easy grace. With considerable effort, Lancelot pushed himself off the horse and crashed into you.

Your mind was so addled from dehydration and hunger that it didn’t register the impact of the fall until Squirrel started laughing and a rock dug too deeply into your lower back. Groaning, you shoved Lancelot off you and forced yourself onto your side.

Sputtered coughs and apologies drowned out the sound of Squirrel rushing over. He checked that nothing was broken and helped you to your feet, and you stumbled over to the stream while he did the same for Lancelot.

The water was cool against your angry skin and refreshing to the touch, though it burned your lips and scraped down your throat. A few frantic scoops of water didn’t satisfy your thirst, but it landed uncomfortably in your stomach and you knew you had to stop if you didn’t want to be sick. You consoled yourself with the knowledge that at least this reprieve gave you a chance to clean yourself up.

Most of the blood came away easily under the running water, some fragments stubbornly embedded themselves in the grooves of your nails. You picked at the damaged skin, sparing a glance at Squirrel and Lancelot when they collapsed next to you before scrubbing your wrist. Lancelot stopped drinking after a few handfuls to mumble an apology for crushing your windpipe.

The three of you sat in close silence, gulping down water as long as you could stand it. You’d need to find shelter for the night, but you’d need to eat something and treat everyone’s wounds if you were going to get any far. Sighing, you looked around for a rock to help you get to your feet.

“I’m going to find something to eat and something to treat these wounds,” you said.

“You’re a healer?” Squirrel asked, seemingly skeptical of either your ability to walk or to find the necessary plants to treat everyone’s wounds. Or, most likely, both.

“No.” You struggled to your feet, cursing how many muscles were needed to get off the floor and rocking back and forth a few times before the momentum was great enough to propel you to a standing position. You leaned down and ruffled Squirrel’s hair despite how much it hurt. “But I’m the closest we’ve got. You stay here with him.”

Squirrel smacked your hand away and scowled. “I don’t need a nursemaid. I’m not a child.”

“Who said he was the one in charge?”

Squirrel grinned to himself and Lancelot rolled his eyes, but neither of them followed you into the woods. It gave you some sort of comfort knowing that someone was watching over the Weeping Monk, and that the Weeping Monk was looking after Squirrel - despite both of their proclamations that they were the one in charge. You wondered how long you could leave them alone before the Weeping Monk throttled Squirrel or Squirrel drowned him.

Figuring it was safe enough to leave them for an hour, you started walking towards a patch of purple betony that you spotted on the edge of the woods. It wasn’t the strongest but it would stave off infection until night fell and you could get the nightbirds to find you something better to make a salve. It would still be hours until then, so the purple betony would have to do if your muscles didn’t give in before you got there.

By some miracle, your legs survived the trek to the patch of purple betony, even if they crumpled beneath you in your attempt to sit. You cast a cautionary look at your surroundings and then started pulling up the betony at the root - a task made difficult by the plant’s rough stems and entwined roots, and your aching hands.

You pulled up as much as your hands could handle without rubbing the new brands raw and clambered back to your feet. A breeze drifted just before you entered the trees and you caught the sweet, apple scent of mayweed. The little white flowers usually blossomed earlier in the season, but you would take what you could get.

The breeze didn’t grace you again during your mercifully short walk to the mayweed. It was easier to pluck than the betony, with fuzzier stems and fewer teeth, but your back ached from bending over to harvest them and your muscles were weak from the lack of food. There were hardly enough flowers to make tea with the petals, but they would have to do.

If the Paladins hadn’t stolen your things, it would have been easier to carry your winnings, but they did and you were trying desperately not to drop anything as you dragged yourself back to the stream. If you miscalculated a single step or overlooked the wrong potential threat, you’d be dead in the water.

When you eventually found your way back to the stream, you found Lancelot hunched a few feet away from where he’d collapsed earlier, trying very hard to keep his cool as he and Squirrel argued over a small fire. He’d called Squirrel an insolent child and Squirrel threatened to kick him into the stream. You hid your smile.

Lancelot looked up from the rocks he’d used to spark the fire when he noticed you break from the treeline. He stopped turning the rocks over themselves in his hands as he watched you lumber over, then he turned his head to Squirrel and told him to help you carry the plants.

After telling Lancelot to stop telling him what to do, Squirrel hurried over to take plants out of your hands. “What did you get?” Squirrel asked, squinting at your pathetic-looking inventory. “Where’s the food?”

“I didn’t have a bag, so I had to prioritize. The nightbirds can find food but we need to not die of infection before then,” you said. You limped over to the stream and set the betony and mayweed down on one of the larger rocks. “Do either of you have a canteen? We can use the flowers to make tea.”

Squirrel wrinkled up his nose and scoured through the rest of your findings on the big rock. “Tea,” he repeated in disgust. “We don’t need tea. We need food.”

“Squirrel, I promise you that I’m not going to let you starve, alright?” You took a deep breath and lowered yourself to the rocks so you could start preparing the betony for treatment. “For now-” you grimaced slightly; your thigh didn’t agree with the angle that you came down at, “I just need to get this done.”

Squirrel hesitated. He was still angry with you about what happened with Gawain, but it seemed to lessen as time wore on. His eyes - or at least, the eye that wasn’t swelling shut - darted over to Lancelot and he straightened up. “I can get us food,” he told him. “I’ve been foraging since before I could talk.”

“There was a time when you couldn’t talk?” Lancelot asked. He smacked his firestarters together and produced a small spark to punctuate his sentence, then he tilted his head up to study Squirrel. “How peaceful.”

“Yeah, and if I kick your teeth in then you won’t be able to talk either!” Squirrel threatened. Lancelot let out a short laugh and went back to fiddling with the firestarter as Squirrel’s rage bubbled.

“Hey, Squirrel,” you said gently, before Squirrel actually did try to kick his teeth in. “You can look for food but stay close enough to hear if we call for you. Deal?”

Squirrel set his mouth in a hard line and straightened again in an attempt to seem older than he was. The movements broke your heart. He nodded. “Fine. You two can drink your tea in the meantime.”

“Don’t go far!” you called out as Squirrel raced into the trees. His reply was as unintelligible as it probably would have been if he was standing next to you, but at least these parts of the woods seemed to be safe.

Sighing, you turned back to your assortment of plants and divided them up. You threw one of the edible plants at Lancelot when you were done and told him to eat it. He did so in frustrating silence, only saying thank you before washing the plant in the stream and starting to pick off the berries one by one.

Instead of talking to him or watching him eat, you started breaking up the parts of the betony and mayweed and grinding the bits you needed to make an ointment under a rock. The whole process would be easier with a mortar and pestle, but the Paladins had taken that from you, too.

You weren’t exactly sure how long you sat there for until Lancelot lumbered over to you, but soon he was sitting next to and picking off the mayweed petals to stuff them into a small canister with water to boil over the fire. He didn’t have another container for your measly little ointment, but you probably wouldn’t have any leftover after treating everyone’s wounds anyway.

Looking up from one of the last betony stems, you caught a glimpse of Lancelot looking out at the stream. “Take off your shirt,” you told him, dropping your gaze to the betony again.

“What?” he asked. His face knit together and his lips parted for a moment, genuine confusion taking over his very carefully neutral features. It almost made you laugh.

“I can’t treat your wounds through your cloak, tunic, and shirt,” you said. Your hands hovered over the betony, one closed around a rock and the other barely touching one of the flowers, and trembled slightly. He still looked confused when you looked up at him. You tilted your head and added in a softer voice, “Please, Sunshine, just let me save your life again.”

Lancelot’s mouth opened slightly but then he recovered and straightened as much as he could. He unclasped his cloak and took a single white feather out of a pocket. His hands shook, probably due to hunger more than anything else, as he set the feather down and anchored it under a rock. You hadn’t known he’d kept it.

You shook yourself out of your wonder when he tried to lift his shirt over his head and stifled a painful sounding moan. Moving with a quickness you didn’t know your muscles were still capable of, you took the bottom of Lancelot’s shirt in your hands and helped him get it over his shoulders.

The shirt was completely soaked through with blood, and his back was in even worse shape than the last time you saw it. New lash marks covered his back and the bruises from the beating from the Trinity Guard were sharp and dark on his skin, almost obscuring his scars. Almost.

“Thank you,” you said quietly, wringing the shirt out before anchoring it in the stream to let the water clean it.

Lancelot was quiet. All he did was nod and turn away so that you had a better view of his wounds and he wouldn’t have to meet your eyes.

You tore off a piece of your shirt and soaked it in the stream to wash away all the dried blood. He recoiled from the coolness of the water and you resisted the urge to apologize. Instead, you told him that it would burn when you applied the ointment and he told you he didn’t care.

Cleaning up his back had easily taken up half of your ointment, but there was still enough for his front and Squirrel’s eye. You would have to survive until nightfall without treatment until then.

When his back was cleaned and slathered in betony paste, you took a breath and dragged yourself around to sit closer to the stream and clean Lancelot’s chest. It was less bruised and scarred than his back, but it was more difficult to treat because you could feel him watching everything you did.

You weren’t sure why it bothered you so much, but your hands were clumsier this time around. Shakier. More uncertain. Even though he’d arguably given you every reason to hate him, you found yourself wanting his approval more than anything else. Approval from someone who didn’t approve of anyone felt like it should mean more.

But approval wasn’t the right word. No, you wanted something more meaningful. Admiration? Appreciation? You weren’t sure. All you knew was that you wanted something from him that you knew you weren’t going to find by staring at the scar just under his collarbone.

You let out a long breath and looked up to his face. “You’ll still need to wash your hair.”

He nodded, looking at the cut on your cheek rather than meeting your eyes. “Understood.” His voice was as quiet as it had been that night he fed you that god awful broth in Brother Salt’s tent.

There was nothing more to say after that but your muscles ached at the thought of moving again, so you nodded and dropped your head to look at your hands. They were still stinging from pulling up plants earlier and the angry twin crosses on your palms didn’t do much to ease your pain.

Surprisingly, Lancelot reached out for your hands, his touch was cold but surprisingly light. Just like the night before, he opened your palm with his thumb and sucked in a breath.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. Lancelot looked up from your hands to meet your gaze for the first time all afternoon, and you got the feeling that he was apologizing for a lot more than just the fate of your hands.

You were distinctly aware of the tiny sparks arcing through the center of your palm. “I know,” you said quietly.

Despite the rumors, you’d never met a fey who could read people’s thoughts. You’d thought it must be a pretty awful gift, to never be alone with your thoughts, but at that moment, with Lancelot’s icy fingertips grazing your hands, you thought it might not be such an awful gift. If you could read his thoughts then you would have known why he pulled away.

Lancelot dropped his gaze as he tried to rebuild his walls and move anywhere that wasn’t his current spot on the rocks. “Squirrel will need to treat your leg when he gets back,” he said as if he hadn’t just started a small electrical storm in the center of your hand.

“No, it’s not that important,” you lied, adjusting yourself and trying not to wince.

“I saw the arrow hit you,” Lancelot said. “Frankly, I don’t know how you’ve managed to walk as much as you have.”

“Well, I’m very stubborn,” you told him, forcing a smile through the pain of pushing yourself to a crouching position.

Lancelot watched as you struggled to your feet with a frustratingly lacking expression. “I can see that.”

With a teasing smile, you started walking and said, “And yet you say that as if it’s a bad-” Your leg wobbled under the pressure of your second step and your calf spasmed after hours of overcompensating. The rocks dug into your bones as you fell back to the ground, mercifully not drawing blood. “Shit,” you breathed, trying to move over into a sitting position. Your leg refused to cooperate.

Considering his own injuries and fatigue, you weren’t sure how he managed to turn you around, but Lancelot wrapped one hand around your calf and used the other to turn you over in a painful movement. He didn’t mean it to be, but any kind of movement was hell on your tired muscles. Lancelot moved the layers of fabric off his belt and pulled out a small knife.

“What do you think you’re doing?” You put your hands out and pulled back as much as your aching abdomen would allow.

“Cutting your pants so I can treat your wound,” Lancelot said. He used the same rough, imperious voice that he used to tell you to untie Squirrel in Brother Salt’s tent, but he faltered when he saw the look on your face. He must have thought you were afraid that he would stab you.

“Okay,” you said instantly, the desire to squash any of his doubts overwhelming any kind of logic that told you to just take off your pants. You’d have to move to do that, you reasoned, but at least this way all you’d have to deal with was a patch of missing fabric and not the pain of trying to move again. You dropped your hands. You could steal new clothes wherever you ended up anyway. With a small nod, you said, “Cut the fabric.”

For an unsure moment, nothing happened. Then Lancelot pulled himself closer to you and started cutting through the fabric. It was stuck to your leg with dried blood and some of your hairs were pulled out as Lancelot tore the fabric away to reveal a disgusting arrow wound.

It was deeper than you’d hoped, which meant it would take longer to heal, and still tender from all the walking. Even so, you’d walk twice the distance and thoroughly ruin what was left of your leg if meant being able to treat Lancelot and Squirrel’s wounds, your own be damned.

You did your best to stay still and silent as Lancelot first cleaned your leg with water. Not only was the water colder than you remembered it being, but your leg was annoyingly sensitive to any touch.

Despite your best efforts not to say anything, you were in the middle of an impressive string of curses when Squirrel showed up again with arms full of edible roots and berries he must have found further down the stream.

“Woah,” was all Squirrel said as he walked slowly over to you. He only took his eyes off your leg to steal a glance at Lancelot. Squirrel was very careful not to say anything about all his scars. “I didn’t know you could say all those words together without someone threatening to tell your mother.”

“That’s because you can’t,” you said. You straightened up and tried to seem slightly more authoritative and less like you couldn’t walk. You held your hands up to him. “Come here.”

Squirrel narrowed his eyes and took a step back. “Why?”

“Your eye is practically swollen shut and I want to treat it,” you said.

“My eye is just fine. It’s that bloody mess you should worry about,” Squirrel said, waving a hand at your leg. Hard to believe this was an improvement on what it had looked like. “It looks like it’s gonna fall off.”

“It’s not going to fall off,” you said through gritted teeth. You glared at Lancelot’s barely-there amused smile. “Just sit down or I’ll force you to drink that over-boiled tea.”

“Alright, alright, no need to threaten to torture me,” Squirrel mumbled. He set the rest of his roots and berries down before hunkering down next to you.

You held the cold washcloth to his brow for a few seconds before cleaning the rest of his face. The betony and mayweed paste looked awful against his pale skin and you couldn’t help but wish for a world where he could be treated by his mother that didn’t let him curse and be fed a meal consisting of more than just edible roots and berries.

Though he was dreadfully impatient, Squirrel held still enough for you to treat his wounds. He still pulled away from your touch the instant he thought that you were done and returned to the food he’d gathered for you.

As Squirrel prepared your food, you applied what was left of your paste to your thigh and Lancelot tore another piece of fabric from his cloak. It was long, not very thick. You wondered what he was going to do with it when he grabbed your leg again and bent it at the knee. He wrapped it around your wound without an explanation, but he met your eye for a second and you realized that was because he didn’t know how to explain what he was doing.

His explanation for why he was doing all this had been simple enough, assuming it was still the same as it was last night: Lancelot was taking a leap of faith.

Faith was tricky. So many people had faith that what they were doing was right and followed that faith right into the flames. Sometimes you had to compromise on pieces of yourself to make room for faith. Sometimes you had to give up on faith entirely if you wanted to survive.

You weren’t sure how you felt about faith after all these years, if you still felt anything for it at all. Did it make you one of the lucky ones to have faith in Lancelot or was he going to burn you to cinders?

No, you thought, Lancelot wasn’t a burning building that would set your lungs on fire. He was a snowstorm; he was something icy that crept up on you before you knew it. He was a lightning strike; he was something blinding that sparked in your chest. Lancelot wasn’t a forest fire, but he was a force of nature.

You set your musings aside long enough to stuff your face with berries and roots. The boiled mayweed tea was bitter but at least it washed down the earthly taste leftover from the roots, not that Squirrel would know. He washed it down with stream water between his stories about the woods.

Not only were his ramblings a welcome change from the silence (awkward or not) between you and Lancelot, but they were endearing. Squirrel was quick-witted and sweet, with more knowledge about poisonous plants than you expected. His speech about the difference between dandelions and cat’s ears was interrupted by his memory of the cave he found while looking for roots.

“Wait, you found a cave?” you interrupted, eyes darting up from Lancelot’s hands reaching for his clothes in the stream to look at Squirrel’s precarious balance on the rocks. ��How did you find a cave if you were supposed to stay within earshot?”

Squirrel shrugged. “I’ve got good ears.”

It was truly a wonder how you and Squirrel survived those first days in the woods by yourself. Taking a breath, you asked, “How far is your cave?”

“Not far,” Squirrel said. With a cautionary look at your leg, he added, “It’s a few minutes walk, but you could take the horses.”

“We can spend the night there and leave in the morning,” you said, setting Lancelot’s canteen of disgusting tea to the side. “We should leave for it before the sun sets.” You cast a look at the others and dusted off your hands.

“We need to keep moving,” Lancelot said. He’d wrung out his clothes by now and was in the process of laying them out on the rocks, the light catching his sloppily treated wounds. He’d need to clean himself off before you could move anywhere.

“If we keep moving, we’re just going to exhaust ourselves,” you said and shook your head. “They’ll kill us before we can even dream of making it to the border.”

Lancelot looked like he was going to argue with you but Squirrel misstepped on one of the rocks and slipped. He was tiny and fragile looking when Lancelot caught him, and between his swollen eye and the bags underneath, Lancelot must have realized that he needed to rest more than you needed to keep moving.

“Fine,” Lancelot said gruffly. He set Squirrel back down and turned away. “We’ll stay the night.”

“That’s the spirit, Sunshine.” You caught his eye as you struggled to your feet and worked up the courage to start walking. Luckily, Squirrel came to your aid without you having to ask.

He helped you over to the shady patch of grass and somehow managed to avoid falling to the ground with you when you collapsed. You leaned against the tree, tilting your head up to look at the sky. Not a cloud in sight, just the unrelenting sunlight.

Even with your eyes closed, it was still too bright. Moon Wings were nearly nocturnal by nature, so not only had you been sleep deprived from your stint with the Red Paladins, but your body still hadn’t adjusted to the human schedule. All that missing sleep caught up with you as you lay under the tree and you dozed off while Lancelot cleaned his wounds and Squirrel did … whatever it was that Squirrel did. When they were finished, they woke you just before sunset.

Everything was colored golden and warm, including Squirrel and Lancelot. It filled your chest with a fuzzy feeling that was quickly replaced by dull pain as you got to your feet. Lancelot helped you onto a horse, his hair damp and loose around his face, and Squirrel led you all to his cave.

All things considered, it wasn’t very different from the cave that you had patched Lancelot up in when he insisted he had no other name than the Weeping Monk. The only thing that stood this cave apart was the large cavern that Squirrel had found through a web of tunnels. He must have had really good ears if he could hear the stream through all these rocks.

Squirrel set a fire under Lancelot’s careful instruction while you tried to track down some night birds through an opening in the ceiling. You weren’t sure it would work but it was a better option than trekking through the cave tunnels again.

The tunnels made it more difficult for the birds to find you, but eventually, the night birds brought stolen food and supplies. After the other birds had left, one of them returned to bring Squirrel some extra food. You smiled at the sight of him sharing what little he had with the night bird when he thought no one else was watching.

It also didn’t go unnoticed that Lancelot snuck some of his food into Squirrel’s share whenever his attention lapsed, though you pretended not to have seen it when his eyes glanced over to you.

You’d been stealing looks at him almost ever since you’d woken up. You told yourself it was because you needed to make sure his wounds weren’t infected, but you weren’t entirely convinced. After all, the swelling on his wounds had gone down, and you were still looking at him whenever you could.

Despite the stolen glances, none of you said much of anything as you ate and then redressed your wounds. None of you knew how far you still had to go or where exactly it was that you were going, so you didn’t talk about that, and none of you wanted to talk about Paladins or the fey, so you didn’t talk about that either. Conversation was difficult with so few acceptable topics and so many uncertainties, but the three of you still tried. The only things you all knew for sure were left unspoken: you were going away, wherever it was and however long it took to get there, and you were going there together.

The limited conversations you could have died down once it got dark, especially since Squirrel was the one carrying most of them and he grew quieter as he got more tired. He was determined to fight off the exhaustion in front of the two of you, but he had been awake for at least two days and he couldn’t take much longer. You knew he’d refuse if you asked him to go to sleep.

After what felt like forever but was probably only an hour or so after your dinner, Squirrel gave up the fight and curled into a ball in front of the fire to protect himself from the cold. Once it was sure Squirrel was in deep enough sleep, Lancelot covered Squirrel with his cloak and told you that he’d take the first watch. He didn’t leave room for discussion.

Unlike the rest of you, sleep didn’t follow the orders of the Weeping Monk. Your body ached and your bones felt too heavy to move, but your mind raced. What if you got caught? What if something happened to Squirrel? What if you froze to death?

One after the other, the what-ifs haunted you. With a sigh, you looked over to the other side of the cave. Lancelot had given up on keeping watch; instead, he lay beneath an opening in the cave with his eyes fixed on something you couldn’t see. He looked so impossibly alone, staring up at the stars, searching.

Squirrel slept soundly next to you, and you tried not to wake him as you curled yourself into a seat. You pulled the cloak up to cover his back and steeled yourself for the journey ahead. Quietly as you could, you made your way over to Lancelot and his stars. The sound of your boots hitting the rocky floor was deafening in the silence, yet he gave no indication of hearing you.

Before, he would have bolted upright before you’d even made it halfway, movements wiry and knife outstretched. Now, he just lay there until your footsteps ceased and tilted his head to get a better look at you. He didn’t say a word.

“You were supposed to wake me.”

“You were supposed to sleep.”

You bit the inside of your cheek and glanced at Squirrel by the fire, acutely aware that you were never going to sleep through another night when his safety was in your hands. The fire grew too bright to consider any longer and you tore your eyes away from the flames before they burnt. When you looked down at Lancelot again, all you saw were stars.

Waiting for your vision to clear, you said, “Sleep is hard to come by these days.”

“I know the feeling,” he said quietly. When you didn’t respond, Lancelot took a deep breath and tilted his head back to the sky. “I’ve heard of fires in the sky, in the North. They flicker across the sky, some blue or green, and light up the night.”

This, you realized, was his way of asking you to look at the stars with him. Gingerly, you took a few steps to the side and sat down. With a deep breath as you stretched your legs out opposite him and eased your head down beside his, you said, “Tell me about them.”

“That’s all I know,” Lancelot said, turning his head slightly to look at you. It was a strange position, lying in opposite directions with your heads next to one another almost as though one of you were upside down, but it was the best way to the stars through the small opening in the roof. His voice was softer than you’d ever heard before when he added, “But I can tell you about the stars.”

“I’d like that,” you said quietly. There wasn’t enough air for you to say anything else.

Lancelot turned his head back to the sky, and you forced yourself to the same. He pointed to a cluster of seven stars, traced connections between them, and asked if you saw the tree. You lied and said that you did, when all you really saw were the galaxies of bruises on his knuckles and constellations of scars down to his fingertips. He told you about the tree that connects all fey, and you listened to his breath hitch before he said ‘connects us’.

When your sliver of sky ran out of stars, you turned your head to look at him instead. “I think we should go north. To see the lights.”

For the first time, you saw Lancelot smile. For the first time, it didn’t seem to be an echo from another life. It wasn’t sad, or tragic, or heartbreaking. It made your heart flutter, it was hopeful. “I’d like that,” he said, head still tilted up the sky, mouth still curled up at the edges.

For the first time, hopeful.

Tagged: @angrygardendeer

#i watch cursed for the plot #the weeping monk #faith and forgiveness #cursed

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