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CHAPTER THREE

THE MAN WHO WEEPS

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RANDVI CAN FEEL THE BURN IN HER LUNGS. She isn't sure if it's from the amount of running that she did to get enough distance between her and the Red Paladins, or the amount of smoke she inhaled. She was not even sure how long she had been running, but she knew she couldn't stop. Her life depended on both of her legs moving.

  Ebony colored locks flew in the wind with every step she took through the trees. She could still smell the smoke in the air but it wasn't as strong as it once was. Her heart was ramming inside of her chest, and she was sure the trees could hear the echo of the beating muscle.

Randvi's feet barely touched the ground as continued toward. Her mother had taught her how to walk across the forest ground without making any noise. Each step was with precision, only the tips of her boots touched the soil as she whipped past the trees. But she had calculated one step wrong, and her boot slipped as she stepped onto and over a large stone. The tops of her toes hit an indent in the rock, and Randvi lost her balance and tripped.

Her knees skid against the earth, ripping part of her dress on the way down a steep hill. Randvi let out a groan as the back of her head banged off of a tree trunk, sending her body to the left, then rolling further down the hill. Her ankle twisted as her body launched forward as she reached the bottom, head first into the soil, fingernails deep into the dirt as she tried to stop herself from rolling any further.

Randvi gasped for air, coughing as she tried to get air back into her lungs. The fey girl rolled onto her back, violet eyes staring up at the canopy of green leaves, untouched by the fire. Her head was hammering, a dull ache at the back of her head as something wet rolled down the length of her neck. With unsteady hands, she rolled onto her stomach and lifted herself off of the ground. The ache in her ankle coming to life as she tried to shift her weight onto her other foot.

Randvi took a moment to look around, but her vision was blurry from the impact of hitting the tree. Her mind was dazed as she reached back to cup the back of her head with her hand, feeling wetness under her palm while she looked towards the trees. She couldn't see any of the fey symbols that so many talked about, nothing carved into the trees to tell her where she should go.

  Randvi was alone, and terribly lost.

She was already exhausted and wasn't sure if she could push on any further. Randvi breathed heavy as she tried to take a step forward, but her ankle gave out from under her. The pain felt like electricity flying up through her nerves as she tumbled to the ground once again. She was out of options at this point.

Randvi could either crawl and hide in a stump, but she knew she was right in the Paladin's way if they decided they were heading North. There was no way of knowing whether or not they would light the whole forest on fire as they walked, and Randvi did not want to risk getting caught in a flaming forest. She knew if they found her, she would be defenseless without the use of both legs.

The only option that she had left was to teleport, and that kind of magic had it's own consequences. Randvi had never been physically taught on how to teleport. She had only studied the ways in the books, when she attended her mother's teachings. Only Fire Fae's were able to teleport, and even then, the magic was unpredictable unless you were powerful enough to withstand your soul partly going through the Hidden.

Randvi thought about it. She could either stay here and die, or  teleport and possibly die from magic exhaustion.

To her, the answer was clear.

Randvi took a breath to calm her dazed mind, then closed her eyes while summoning her magic. Soon, her finger tips began to glow into the earth. The threads of the hidden began to mark her face, tiny white veins showing up on her skin as she began to picture the forests surrounding Dewdenn. The magical forest, with tiny fairies camouflaged as little flowers. She could feel something wet touch her cheeks, but she knew she couldn't lose her train of thought.

Randvi began to feel her mind go foggy, and then she slammed into the dirt below.

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  A beam of light shined down on her skin as her body swayed back and forth, and Randvi began to stir as the man who had been carrying her spoke words but they were muffled to her ears. Her violet eyes opened slightly, but immediately closed from the light shinning back in her blurred gaze.

She began to hear shouting echo in the back of her mind, almost distant but in reality, the shouting was happening right beside her. One of the small girls in the village, watched as the man carried a woman into Dewdenn with severe injuries. This would be the second time today that someone new was brought into the village. The girl looked on with interest, watching as the young woman's face came into view the closer they got. Her complexion was very pale, almost no color to her face as the man struggled to carry her with the burn starting in his arms. Sweat, mixed with blood glistened over her face. The dress she had been wearing was dirty, and ripped in some places, singed from fire.

"We have another injured!" The man's voice bellowed towards the village as he carried her towards the healer's hut, with scouts hurrying towards the Ironwood to inform the Elders.

Randvi felt her back hit something solid and her head rolled to the side, her eyes opening slightly but then closed immediately after. Her lids felt unbelievably heavy, and her lungs were straining to breathe.

A woman stepped inside the hut first, then other Elders followed inside.  They had just been gathering healing herbs to replace their storage once they healed the Moon Wings burned flesh, and now another had found their way towards their village.

"She looks human." Randvi could hear the voices of the Elders, but they seemed far away and unreachable. She felt her body tingle as they touched the scars on her hands, and then someone touched her face.

One of her eyes were forced to open, and the blurry image of a woman clouded her vision. Randvi pulled back and groaned weakly before hearing them talk amongst themselves. "This is a Fire Fae." The woman pulled back the girl's hair and turned her head to look at another elder with disbelief. "They haven't been seen in decades."

  All of the Elders stopped to take a glance at the weakened girl on the table, her body covered in ash and dirt. Under her eyes, blood had flowed down in the shape of tears. Lenore grabbed the bucket of fresh water that had been placed next to the table, and started to clean the girl's face as she stirred from the coolness against her hot skin.

"Can you hear me?" The woman spoke softly as she cleaned the blood off of Randvi's face. Muffled words came next and then she felt more hands touch her limbs. The elders began to place salves over the cuts in her knuckles before wrapping them with leaves.

Randvi turned her head again towards the voices, and tried to open her mouth to talk but the words she said in her mind, didn't come out. The woman knew she could understand her but couldn't find the strength to talk, and she quickly took the girl's hand and squeezed. "You're in Dewdenn . . my name is Lenore." The woman informed her, and Randvi's eyes began to move behind her closed lids at the sound of her voice.

  "We have a twisted ankle, Lenore." One of the elders, Felix warned her once he had removed her boots and saw the angry purple dotting around the bone.

"Don't move anything that might be broken." Lenore warned them. "Any emotion she feels in this state might make her magic go unstable." Lenore instructed the man to instead, wrap the ankle with a soft touch, and to go slow with moving any limbs.

No One of Dewdenn had ever seen a Fire Fae before and those who had, were long passed in the twilight. Lenore had heard of them but most rumors were just that, rumors. Fire Faes hardly traded with anyone else other than the Ash Folk, who had been extinct for a decade. Those that they did share with were just as rare as they were.

Soon, the whispers that there was a Fire Fae found outside the village, carried throughout the small settlement. Many curious villagers stared at the healer's hut with curiously as Randvi laid there, healing from magic exhaustion, and her small wounds. Lenore was surprised the girl was barely touched by the Red Paladins, assuming most of her wounds came from running and not confronting her attackers upfront.

While Randvi was sleeping, a curious little boy with a fiery personality snuck into the healer's hut while the village mender stepped out to grab more supplies. His eyes traveled towards the girl in a small cot, a bandage wrapped around her ankle and leaves wrapped over her cuts that littered her body.

He had never seen someone like her before, and he had heard the stories that the village would sometimes whisper. Mostly uneducated children that spun horror stories about the feys, but she didn't look terrible like the stories. He had expected her to have wings like the Moon Wings, or horns sticking out of her head. She had neither and looked just like him.

The little boy walked forwards, carefully, as to not make any noise as he approached the cot and looked down at her. She slept peacefully, but her forehead was wrinkled  in distress, and her eyes rapidly moved behind closed lids while she slept. He wondered how long she would sleep for, as she had been sleeping for most of the morning since she had arrived. The sun was high at it's peak now, and she didn't look like she would stir just yet.

The Healer walked back into the hut with a clean mortar and pestle in his hands, when he looked upwards and seen the little boy's head spinning towards the noise of the door.

"Percival, you shouldn't be in here." The old man scolded him like a little child, putting the object on the small table in the corner before turning his attention back onto the little boy. "these kids need time to heal."

Percival, he hated that name. All of the elders called him that, even though he insisted his name was Squirrel. "I just wanted to look. I'm not harming them in looking, they wont even know I'm here." the little boy grimaced, a flash of annoyance coming across his features.

"She doesn't look very scary, and plenty of stories I've heard, described the Fire Fae as wicked beasts. She looks like a puny girl."

The elder smiled at him for a moment. Such a curious little boy with no thought on his words before he spilled them. "Small and weak she may look, but she's a lot stronger than you think."

Squirrel looked back at the young lady with a curiosity of the unknown. He wished she could wake and he could talk to her. She looked friendly enough. "Is it true that they can burn down forests with just their touch?" he said out loud, turning his head towards the healer.

The old man gave him a face, asking to not ask anymore questions. He had a job to do, and the little boy was taking much of his time. "I'm afraid I don't have time for these questions. Now, run along."

"I just wanted to look at the puny lady!" Squirrel shouted in annoyance as the healer began to lead him towards the door of the hut, and then shutting the door behind him once his feet touched the soil.

Randvi woke to the sound of piteous cries, and for a moment, she wasn't sure where she currently was. She looked around, gazing towards the bowls filled with healing herbs and salves that had been discarded and set away. Randvi then looks down, her ankle had been bandaged with leaves, and then tightly wrapped in a thin cloth. She wasn't sure how long she had been unconscious, had it been minutes, days, weeks?

The noise coming from outside took her from her thoughts, she swung her feet off of the cot and then carefully stepped to the wooden floor. Randvi quickly grabbed her boots as the screaming came more close and with a hurry, grabbed her cloak from the table before pulling it over her shoulders.

Her ankle was still weak but it didn't feel as bad as it did. Randvi limped towards the door and pulled it open. Her violet eyes widened as her eyes traveled to the sky, watching the black smoke rise. Was she dead and reliving her memories of the slaughter? Her answer was clear when a white horse ran in front of her, the coat up in flames and the painful noises coming from it's mouth as it ran towards the exit of the village.

Randvi's mouth opened as she hobbled outside and all around her, Red Paladin's galloped on their steeds, and the fey running around them. Everywhere she looked, she saw the people of the village being choked in the mud or torn from their homes.

The raven's squawked and fluttered in the air, adding to the surreal chaos. Randvi began to move her feet, her eyes rapidly searching the flaming village as Red Paladin's carried blankets or any goods they could use for themselves onto a wagon while fey were slaughtered around them. That's when she saw the same man from the village, on his own steed. He looked high and mighty and held the aura of a victorious leader.

The man looked down at the blanket, which had been covering some wooden statues that Randvi could not see in the distance between them, and the man bellowed. "God sees, my friends. He sees these instruments of demonic conjuring."

Randvi had been so distracted with what was going on a few feet away, that she hadn't heard the Paladin leap up from behind her, and grab onto her locks. Randvi fell backwards from the force of his hand, and her ankle gave out underneath her. The man began to drag her as Randvi thrashed around while her hands gripped onto her hair, where the man had been pulling to ease the pain of her hair tearing from her scalp.

He had been dragging her towards the hill where crosses had been set up and more prisoners were sitting to be selected and tortured by the flames. Randvi started to panic and her eyes began to glow white as her magic came to life, her screams of terror filled his ears as he laughed while dragging her.

Randvi twisted her body to reach her hand towards the man, then from her finger tips, a telekinesis blast spewed from her hands which sent the man flying, ripping a few strands of hair along with him. Randvi grabbed the back of her head once she was free, feeling the pulse under her finger tips as she forced herself upwards and to run. Her ankle screamed out at her, but she knew she couldn't stop running.

She ran past the charred bodies on the crosses, their limbs twisted. The sight of it made Randvi upchuck in her mouth but she was forced to swallow it back down as she ran. The forests seemed like any good place to hide, she thought, as she ran towards the trees in the distance.  Randvi dodged through the trees until her boots hit a well-worn path of stones.

Unaware of someone behind her, Randvi began to walk towards a sunken temple, embedded into the ground, the entrance covered with vines. Randvi moved the vines away as she walked down the moss covered steps, this must be the temple of the Sky Folk, she thought when the she saw the altar in the distance.

The air was unbelievably thick inside the temple, and for a moment, it felt like she could barely catch her breath. Her mind felt foggy and dazed but she moved forward. Her violet eyes traveled around the room, then caught onto a woman whom was clutching her stomach as she laid in a starfish position on the stone floor. Randvi didn't waste any time picking up her skirts and running, kneeling down beside the woman.

  Randvi studied the woman for a moment, faint bruises left on her skin meant she had put up a fight. She had been attacked down here, in this sacred place. The woman's eyes were shut when Randvi touched her arm, shaking her slightly but she didn't move. Randvi, then bent forwards to put her ear a few inches away from the woman's mouth, feeling a weak puff of breath fan the side of her cheek.

She was alive, but barely holding on.

The woman was so cold as she laid on her back, and Randvi frowned down at her before her finger's began to illuminate. White magic began to pour out of the fey, and the heat from Randvi's body began to fester onto the woman. Randvi seen her eyes flutter slightly under her closed lids before they opened.

  "Nimue . . " her voice was barely above a whisper and the words were lazy on her tongue. The woman's blurred sight began to clear as she gazed up at the woman, with white glowing eyes, and white veins traveling from her eyes, down to her cheeks, and under her clothes. "you must bring the sword to ―."

Her eyes began to dull as she lose her breath once again and with one last rise of her chest, the fey woman left this terrible world. Randvi's brow furrowed and she shook her once again. "No wait: what about the sword?!"

Randvi knew there was nothing else she could have done. She gave her the warmth from her own finger tips as she passed onto another life, and gave her a more comfortable passing. The fey shook her head out of disappointment. She still didn't have any idea where to find Gawain and for most of the morning, she had been asleep, healing from her wounds. She didn't even know the forests that surrounded the villages, not like the other fey.

CRUNCH.

Randvi's head snapped up from the noise coming towards the entrance of the temple. The air inside her lungs were sucked out when her violet eyes landed on a man, body covered in a grey cloak, and a sword at his side. Randvi's lips parted anxiously as the temple instantly got quiet, almost like the hidden was afraid to make their presence known in this sacred place.

The man behind the hood, stared back at her, studying the alarmed expression frozen onto her features. Her movements had halted once she heard him step on that stupid twig on his way down. Behind the cloak and unknown to her, his blue eyes traveled over her frame as she stared back at him, waiting for something to happen. He had smelled her from a mile away, the blood leaking from her body was like a perfume to his nose and once he caught a whiff, he knew someone was trying to escape the slaughter.

He watched her as she moved to the side with slow movements and then she spoke to him, "Who are–?" The rest of her sentence died in her throat once she heard the metal slide out of it's sheath, and her eyes traveled downwards, watching the sword slowly escape from it's place at his side.

She swallowed hard as she looked where his face would be, if it wasn't hidden by the cloak he was wearing. Randvi watched as he advanced on her, and she quickly dodged the attack. Metal rang throughout the cave when his sword had struck solid rock,which left a ringing sound in their ears. Randvi's eyes turned white and she fisted her hand in the direction of his sword, swinging her hand across the temple, and sent the sword flying out of the monk's grasp.

The Weeping Monk looked at her, his total attention onto the strange sight in front of him. His icy blue eyes, that told a thousand stories, drunk in the sight of her. White threads of magic written all over her body like connecting constellations glowed on her skin, traveling up her arms where it sunk into her white orbs. His attention snapped down to her foot, where she lifted the weight from her leg.

  Randvi stared back at him with fear glowing in her eyes while he looked at her with bewilderment in his cold gaze, then his lips turned at the corner before he launched himself in her direction. Randvi dodged to the left but her ankle gave out from the weight she put on it, realizing that was his plan all along. The monk grabbed onto her arm, flipped her over his back before she landed on the stone floor, wind knocking out of her lungs from the impact.

  Randvi coughed but her breath caught once the Monk had straddled her, both hands placed on her throat, fingers closing around her windpipe in the frightening hold. Randvi's white eyes slowly died out as the magic began to dissipate, and the violet stared back at him with alarm. For the first time, that's when she saw his face and he looked back with a furrowed eyebrow.

The strange tear-marked eyes. The nightmares that she had weeks before the slaughter began to flash through her mind. The monk spinning in the flames, knocking down every winged creature in his path while the outline of his weeping tears illuminated against the orange.

Your face, she wanted to say but she couldn't get the words to come out of her closing throat. The Monk lessened his hold against her throat as he stared back at her, mouth opened slightly as he studied the lilac in her eyes. He wanted to shake away the incoming visions from something unnatural: a broken and bloody hand grasping for another, green eating the flesh of the hand as they touch. He shook his head as if to shake them out of his mind.

Randvi didn't even notice that he had loosened his hold until her throat contracted, and she was able to take a breath until the Monk regained his senses and squeezed even harder. The veins in Randvi's eyes became more prominent as her lungs began to burn, and black circles started to dot her vision.

Randvi mustered all the strength she had left. She reached and placed both of her hands on either side of his neck and squeezed. She thought she saw him smirk back at her lazy attempt but then the heat came from her fingertips had quickly wiped the smirk right off of his face. Under her grasp, his flesh began to cook. He gasped and immediately let go of her, his hands shooting up towards his neck and the new burns she had placed upon his skin.

  Randvi gasped for her breath once his hands had left her neck, and she pushed away from the man, crawling backwards. She coughed and sputtered as she clawed her way to make distance  between the both of them. Randvi watched as he began to walk towards his discarded sword, while his other hand laid against the burns on his neck.

Randvi had to think fast while he was still turned around. There was only one way out of the temple and it was right in the Grey Monk's path, and even if she could reach it, her ankle would give out before she even reached the steps. Randvi did the only thing she could do. She closed her eyes and began to imagine the forests outside of Dewdenn, which was hard since she had never seen them with her own eyes. She had heard stories from the elders, but that was enough for her magic to go on.

When the Monk turned around with his sword in hand, her face was glowing with white threads, trailing over her cheeks and down the sides of her neck. He heard her say things under her breath, but they were weak and muffled as her lungs screamed, her throat burning with each word. He advanced on her but even though he raised his sword to strike her down, he hesitated which costed him greatly.

Randvi had disappeared before he had a chance to curse himself for hesitating. The Monk was left in confusion, wondering why he dared to hesitate. He had never hesitated on killing another abomination before, but it was almost like something was taking control of his arms. He didn't even know that the faes could use that kind of magic, but then he remembered the slaughter of Rockwell, those kind of demon's used the same magic. That's when it dawned on him that a Fire Fae had escaped the slaughter, and now had escaped his own clutches.

The Weeping Monk's eyes traveled around the temple before he threw his sword on the ground out of spite.

A/N: Randvi and Lancelot have finally met and my heart is melting.

I decided to put this chapter out early since I finished the next one anyways. I probably won't be writing until January since Christmas is soo busy for my family. Anyways, I hope you guys like this chapter and are excited for more Randvi x Lancelot.

I wanted to go a different route with them, so don't expect the 'love at first sight' crap that other authors go for. He's literally trying to murder her, like ??? this ain't some 'omg he tried to choke me out, i'm in love.'  like same but no. it's going to be a very slow burn. but i aint gonna deny the sexual tension they had turning that choke out. y'know.