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Oct. 22nd, 2023 01:30 pmGalahad has always been good at the holy things.
Fasting, scourging, midnight masses, dawn prayers. Anything with a ritual or pattern to it is easy to follow, even soothing -- he knows the liturgy by heart, could speak the priest's part if he had to. He has a thin, toneless singing voice, but that's well-suited to sacrament, unlike hymns (Percival sounds beautiful singing hymns, and once again Galahad wonders how he could ever have thought he'd be pure enough for the Grail, when he can't even think about Percival in church without that greedy surge of longing (now that he knows what it's like to kiss someone, he can imagine kissing Percival, not just chaste fantasies of sleeping in his arms, and he hates himself harder)).
Stop -- he's losing the thread again. In his mind he takes hold of it, following it back to where he started.
He has always been good at the holy things, and he believes he could keep his vigil in his room forever. But after being rescued from his penance once already, he's trying to... try, at least a little. People have helped him. His burn is a scar, a remembrance: that's good (If he were who he used to be, before he came here, he might look at the warped tissue of his palm and think of nails, but the comparison disgusts him now. It's just a reproach, but that's good). People have helped him, and he owes it to that charity to do more than die through self-neglect, no matter how tempting the idea is.
So, following that thread, he's in the kitchen making himself something to eat. It's well past midnight; he's hoping, at least, not to meet or have to talk to anyone. The refrigerator has given him plain brown bread, which is good, but when he tries to get small beer it just keeps giving him a red, sweet drink instead.
Fasting, scourging, midnight masses, dawn prayers. Anything with a ritual or pattern to it is easy to follow, even soothing -- he knows the liturgy by heart, could speak the priest's part if he had to. He has a thin, toneless singing voice, but that's well-suited to sacrament, unlike hymns (Percival sounds beautiful singing hymns, and once again Galahad wonders how he could ever have thought he'd be pure enough for the Grail, when he can't even think about Percival in church without that greedy surge of longing (now that he knows what it's like to kiss someone, he can imagine kissing Percival, not just chaste fantasies of sleeping in his arms, and he hates himself harder)).
Stop -- he's losing the thread again. In his mind he takes hold of it, following it back to where he started.
He has always been good at the holy things, and he believes he could keep his vigil in his room forever. But after being rescued from his penance once already, he's trying to... try, at least a little. People have helped him. His burn is a scar, a remembrance: that's good (If he were who he used to be, before he came here, he might look at the warped tissue of his palm and think of nails, but the comparison disgusts him now. It's just a reproach, but that's good). People have helped him, and he owes it to that charity to do more than die through self-neglect, no matter how tempting the idea is.
So, following that thread, he's in the kitchen making himself something to eat. It's well past midnight; he's hoping, at least, not to meet or have to talk to anyone. The refrigerator has given him plain brown bread, which is good, but when he tries to get small beer it just keeps giving him a red, sweet drink instead.
