[closed post -- sadmas]
Dec. 15th, 2023 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onthewillowsthereAfter Galahad has finished sketching Alex and before he runs into Reynaldo, he stops at the lake.
He's so cold. There was a frost this morning before warmer air came in and caused the bank of fog to rise up from the lawn and cover the lake, and even in the long coat he's been wearing his hands get cold enough to hurt.
He can't stop thinking about Gertrude, with her kind eyes and quiet voice, the way she so easily made room for him, the way she said good when he said he loved Claudius. He has her portrait in his sketchbook; he won't forget her face that way.
For a few moments he stands in the slanting sunlight, and then he sits, near where he and Magnus were sitting the day Magnus told him he could talk to birds. The ground is cold too. He should compare it, he thinks, to something Biblical -- he should imagine a cold morning when a prophet waited for some sign, Amos with his sheep and fig trees. I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit But Amos had faith. Galahad's millstone feels huge again, crushing him into the muddy bank, and he has no faith at all.
He wants to go back to his room -- their room -- and be quiet by himself, until the despair becomes more manageable, but he doesn't know any more whether it's theirs. He doesn't know what Claudius will want. And having been beloved once, he doesn't know how to go back to before; the thought of not being looked at the way Claudius looks at him opens a cavernous sinkhole in his body, swallowing him from inside out.
He misses Percival. He misses Percival so much.
He misses when everything was hard in the way he knew. He misses Percival's warmth at his back, the soft sound of his breathing while he slept, the sun catching in his red-gold hair, the roe deer lying down at his feet, the ease of his laugh. He misses how Percival didn't even need him to talk to know what he meant. He misses knowing they'd be together until Galahad died, a simple straight line drawn into the horizon.
He draws his knees up to his chest and puts his head down and feels the sun on his too-long hair.
He's so cold. There was a frost this morning before warmer air came in and caused the bank of fog to rise up from the lawn and cover the lake, and even in the long coat he's been wearing his hands get cold enough to hurt.
He can't stop thinking about Gertrude, with her kind eyes and quiet voice, the way she so easily made room for him, the way she said good when he said he loved Claudius. He has her portrait in his sketchbook; he won't forget her face that way.
For a few moments he stands in the slanting sunlight, and then he sits, near where he and Magnus were sitting the day Magnus told him he could talk to birds. The ground is cold too. He should compare it, he thinks, to something Biblical -- he should imagine a cold morning when a prophet waited for some sign, Amos with his sheep and fig trees. I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son; but I was an herdsman, and a gatherer of sycamore fruit But Amos had faith. Galahad's millstone feels huge again, crushing him into the muddy bank, and he has no faith at all.
He wants to go back to his room -- their room -- and be quiet by himself, until the despair becomes more manageable, but he doesn't know any more whether it's theirs. He doesn't know what Claudius will want. And having been beloved once, he doesn't know how to go back to before; the thought of not being looked at the way Claudius looks at him opens a cavernous sinkhole in his body, swallowing him from inside out.
He misses Percival. He misses Percival so much.
He misses when everything was hard in the way he knew. He misses Percival's warmth at his back, the soft sound of his breathing while he slept, the sun catching in his red-gold hair, the roe deer lying down at his feet, the ease of his laugh. He misses how Percival didn't even need him to talk to know what he meant. He misses knowing they'd be together until Galahad died, a simple straight line drawn into the horizon.
He draws his knees up to his chest and puts his head down and feels the sun on his too-long hair.
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Date: 2023-12-18 01:33 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2023-12-18 08:39 pm (UTC)