[interlude -- good friday]
Mar. 29th, 2024 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onthewillowsthere[Cw for passive suicidality and canon self-harm]
Because Magnus is sleeping outside at the campfire with Alex, Galahad has reclaimed Damien's old room as a kind of chapel for himself. He puts the icons of Saint Jude and Saint Martin on the dresser and surrounds them with delicate glass votives, etched with tiny crosses (he wishes he had taken Saint Lucy's, too, when he had the chance). It's a place where he can come to be closer to God, or at least the comforting rituals that have always accompanied God, without hurting Claudius. The fairy lights and the flowers he'd painted on the walls make it feel closer to being outside with Percival, the way they used to be during the Grail Quest -- a haven, a place that's holy, where holiness is more like a soft blanket than a crushing weight.
On Maundy Thursday, at the end of Mass, after the Abbess had washed everyone's feet, the priest and a few of the nuns would strip the altar of everything -- the chalice and paten and ciborium, the altarcloth and corporal, the candles, the cruets of water and wine. They would cover every depiction of Christ and the Cross with black gauze, shrouding him in preparation for his death. When the altar was bare it would be laid with twigs and branches to symbolize the scourging of the Lord.
Because the house is no longer being so forthcoming with its gifts, Galahad covers his altar with the almost-sheer shirt Magnus created for him, carefully arranging it over the icons and votives. Over top of it he places a large thorn branch he cut from a bare multiflora.
There's no Eucharist on Good Friday. It's a time of deep mourning. He remembers the nuns kneeling on the stone floor of the nave, the Passion read for a second time in ever-encroaching darkness -- the candles in the single candleholder extinguished one by one, until only the Light of Christ remained at the center. While the priest, barefoot and stripped to his surplice, carried a cloth-wrapped crucifix and a silver pyx full of host over to the wooden sepulchre the nuns had constructed the day before, Galahad watched the shadows climb in the sanctuary and felt a numbing sense of dread.
Christ had died. His body lay wrapped in shrouds in the cave-tomb, awaiting resurrection, but until that time He was dead. Galahad imagined His wounds too vividly: the nails in His palms, the crown of thorns piercing His brow, the spear thrust into His side. He remembers the tightness in his body, as if his ribs had begun to shrink, crushing his lungs -- he remembers that he cried, but the nuns agreed it was right to cry over the Lord's sacrifice.
Here, now, he doesn't weep. He curls up in the bed that still smells like Magnus, like fresh grass after rain and sun-warmed earth, and like Drosera, like a kitten.
For a long time here, and now, Galahad hasn't wanted to die. He still doesn't want to die. But he doesn't want to move, either, or eat, or breathe. He wants to step outside of himself and watch his body from a distance, barely tethered to his own flesh. Like Christ in the tomb, His body anointed with myrrh, incorruptible, preserved for its return to life. That freedom of nothing, of leaving the world behind, descendit ad inferos to conquer death: it's a strong temptation.
He's trying, instead, to find his field of wheat and fish, but that inchoate dread keeps tugging him away. He sits up--
Percival is sleeping in a pavilion, his long red hair tousled. His face, which Galahad knows better than any face in the world, is tired. Still, it's been so long since Galahad has seen him that it takes him a little while to realize that Percival is older and thinner, that his hair is longer than he likes it and his clothes are worn through in places, despite his careful mending -- his mother taught him to mend, and he's always helped Galahad fix his own clothes when they tear.
Beside him there's a woman. Her face is obscure to Galahad, but she might be beautiful. He can tell that she's richly clothed: the fabric of her gown is brocaded and there's ermine at her collar and sleeves. Her hair is woven up with ribbons into two rounds on either side of her face, but one lock has fallen loose by her cheek, like the lock of hair Galahad loves so well on Claudius. She reaches over to smooth back Percival's hair, and Galahad feels a pang, but Percival leans into her small, pale hand, turning so her fingers brush his cheek, and when he opens his eyes the look in them is soft. It's not the way he used to look at Galahad; there's something else there.
Time passes. Percival's hair gets longer; he starts to grow a beard. He stays with the woman. In the mornings he hunts for her, and in the afternoon he sleeps in her pavilion while she watches over him. Sometimes when he catches her looking at him he grins, the bright grin that used to make Galahad's sinful heart long to hold him in his arms or help him dress, back when the only ways he knew how to desire someone were chaste acts of service. Percival brings her flowers; surely he names them for her, the way he used to for Galahad. At first they never seem to speak to one another, though, or when they do the words are soundless, and Galahad never hears what they say.
Then something changes. When Percival wakes, the woman cups his face and looks into his eyes.
"Sir Percival," she says. "Shall ye swear from henceforth ye shall be my true servant and to do nothing but that I shall command you? Will ye ensure me this as ye be a true knight?”
"Yea, fair lady, by the faith of my body."
“Well,” she says, “now shall ye do with me whatso it please you, and now wit ye well ye are the knight in the world that I have most desire to."
Percival grins, and this time Galahad understands the way he looks at her. It's the same look he sees in Claudius' eyes. It's love.
The woman and Percival hang blankets within the pavilion until they've made a shielded place inside, laughing as they work -- Galahad can tell she's teasing Percival from the way he blushes. He hears snatches of words, but not enough to understand. Percival takes down the woven rounds of her hair, unplaiting the green ribbons, and she winds them through his fingers. Then she unfastens her gown and lets it fall from her body, and Galahad wants to look away: he doesn't want to see her naked, because he knows what's happening. Percival loves her, the way Galahad loves Claudius, the way Claudius loves Galahad, and he's going to touch her the way Galahad used to wish Percival would touch him.
Percival takes off his own clothes, and Galahad wishes there was an angel with hot coals for his eyes and his mouth to purify him. He doesn't want to see. He doesn't want to stop looking. He hates this. He hates that he's here.
Then Percival looks at him.
Percival's warm gaze meets Galahad's, and from the edge of his vision Galahad sees Percival cross himself, mouthing Galahad's name.
The woman screams. She screams. Galahad claps his hands over his ears, but it's not enough to lessen the sound of her screaming: "Sir Percival, ye have betrayed me," she screams, and then everything is dissolving into smoke, the pavilion and everything in it, and then the woman, and she doesn't stop screaming until she's gone.
And then it's only Percival. He's still naked, though his clothes are strewn nearby, his sword on top of the pile. He's staring at Galahad, but he's staring past him -- Galahad knows now that he can't see him any more.
"Sithen my flesh will be my master I shall punish it," he says. He takes his sword and unsheathes it. When he cuts his thigh open it's with one quick stroke, and Galahad flinches. He doesn't sound like Percival any more. He hasn't this whole time. He looks older and thinner and tireder, and the woman is gone. “O good Lord, take this in recompensation of that I have done against thee, my Lord. How nigh was I lost, and to have lost that I should never have gotten again, that was my virginity, for that may never be recovered after it is once lost.” And then he stops his bleeding wound with a piece of his shirt.
Galahad is still sitting up on the side of the bed, exactly as he was when he rose, but now he's trembling. His ears are ringing distantly, and the room swims in front of him. That was Percival. It was a vision of Percival. It wasn't right, but it was a vision, and Percival was in love, and Percival was hurt--
For the first time in months, Galahad wants to leave. How can he be here, quiet and protected, when Percival has been drawn into a temptation that isn't fair and been punished for it like this? Percival is alone and wounded and he needs Galahad (before he came here, Galahad had always thought that he wasn't a very good friend, that Percival took care of him and he offered little in return, but now he knows he's good at listening, at care, at letting things matter when the person he loves can't. He's good at embraces, even when he lets them last too long. He's a person who can help, and he should be helping Percival now). It's not the Grail he wants to leave for any more; he knows he can never attain the Grail. But he should be with Percival.
He can't be.
He sinks back down on the bed and prays. He prays for Percival, like Jacob with his wounded thigh, halting home, for succumbing to desire because of love -- Galahad could have cut himself like this and it would be warranted, he's failed worse than Percival has, and Percival shouldn't have to bear the weight of failure alone. He prays for Magnus, to be able to protect him from whatever is going on and whoever wants to hurt him, for him to be safe from Ragnarok and happy with Alex forever here. He prays for-- he doesn't pray for Claudius. He can't. Claudius would hate it.
He clasps his watch face against his chest and tries to think about Claudius, about the corona of brown around the brown of his irises, about his silvery hairs, about the fine lines in his face that Galahad will never mention to him. He tries to remember how it feels to be held and kissed by him.
But all he can think about is Percival, alone, bleeding, and how the stone is rolled across the face of the tomb, and how he can't do anything to help any of the people he loves. The room, like the sanctuary in the nunnery, slowly fills with shadows and then grows dark.
Because Magnus is sleeping outside at the campfire with Alex, Galahad has reclaimed Damien's old room as a kind of chapel for himself. He puts the icons of Saint Jude and Saint Martin on the dresser and surrounds them with delicate glass votives, etched with tiny crosses (he wishes he had taken Saint Lucy's, too, when he had the chance). It's a place where he can come to be closer to God, or at least the comforting rituals that have always accompanied God, without hurting Claudius. The fairy lights and the flowers he'd painted on the walls make it feel closer to being outside with Percival, the way they used to be during the Grail Quest -- a haven, a place that's holy, where holiness is more like a soft blanket than a crushing weight.
On Maundy Thursday, at the end of Mass, after the Abbess had washed everyone's feet, the priest and a few of the nuns would strip the altar of everything -- the chalice and paten and ciborium, the altarcloth and corporal, the candles, the cruets of water and wine. They would cover every depiction of Christ and the Cross with black gauze, shrouding him in preparation for his death. When the altar was bare it would be laid with twigs and branches to symbolize the scourging of the Lord.
Because the house is no longer being so forthcoming with its gifts, Galahad covers his altar with the almost-sheer shirt Magnus created for him, carefully arranging it over the icons and votives. Over top of it he places a large thorn branch he cut from a bare multiflora.
There's no Eucharist on Good Friday. It's a time of deep mourning. He remembers the nuns kneeling on the stone floor of the nave, the Passion read for a second time in ever-encroaching darkness -- the candles in the single candleholder extinguished one by one, until only the Light of Christ remained at the center. While the priest, barefoot and stripped to his surplice, carried a cloth-wrapped crucifix and a silver pyx full of host over to the wooden sepulchre the nuns had constructed the day before, Galahad watched the shadows climb in the sanctuary and felt a numbing sense of dread.
Christ had died. His body lay wrapped in shrouds in the cave-tomb, awaiting resurrection, but until that time He was dead. Galahad imagined His wounds too vividly: the nails in His palms, the crown of thorns piercing His brow, the spear thrust into His side. He remembers the tightness in his body, as if his ribs had begun to shrink, crushing his lungs -- he remembers that he cried, but the nuns agreed it was right to cry over the Lord's sacrifice.
Here, now, he doesn't weep. He curls up in the bed that still smells like Magnus, like fresh grass after rain and sun-warmed earth, and like Drosera, like a kitten.
For a long time here, and now, Galahad hasn't wanted to die. He still doesn't want to die. But he doesn't want to move, either, or eat, or breathe. He wants to step outside of himself and watch his body from a distance, barely tethered to his own flesh. Like Christ in the tomb, His body anointed with myrrh, incorruptible, preserved for its return to life. That freedom of nothing, of leaving the world behind, descendit ad inferos to conquer death: it's a strong temptation.
He's trying, instead, to find his field of wheat and fish, but that inchoate dread keeps tugging him away. He sits up--
Percival is sleeping in a pavilion, his long red hair tousled. His face, which Galahad knows better than any face in the world, is tired. Still, it's been so long since Galahad has seen him that it takes him a little while to realize that Percival is older and thinner, that his hair is longer than he likes it and his clothes are worn through in places, despite his careful mending -- his mother taught him to mend, and he's always helped Galahad fix his own clothes when they tear.
Beside him there's a woman. Her face is obscure to Galahad, but she might be beautiful. He can tell that she's richly clothed: the fabric of her gown is brocaded and there's ermine at her collar and sleeves. Her hair is woven up with ribbons into two rounds on either side of her face, but one lock has fallen loose by her cheek, like the lock of hair Galahad loves so well on Claudius. She reaches over to smooth back Percival's hair, and Galahad feels a pang, but Percival leans into her small, pale hand, turning so her fingers brush his cheek, and when he opens his eyes the look in them is soft. It's not the way he used to look at Galahad; there's something else there.
Time passes. Percival's hair gets longer; he starts to grow a beard. He stays with the woman. In the mornings he hunts for her, and in the afternoon he sleeps in her pavilion while she watches over him. Sometimes when he catches her looking at him he grins, the bright grin that used to make Galahad's sinful heart long to hold him in his arms or help him dress, back when the only ways he knew how to desire someone were chaste acts of service. Percival brings her flowers; surely he names them for her, the way he used to for Galahad. At first they never seem to speak to one another, though, or when they do the words are soundless, and Galahad never hears what they say.
Then something changes. When Percival wakes, the woman cups his face and looks into his eyes.
"Sir Percival," she says. "Shall ye swear from henceforth ye shall be my true servant and to do nothing but that I shall command you? Will ye ensure me this as ye be a true knight?”
"Yea, fair lady, by the faith of my body."
“Well,” she says, “now shall ye do with me whatso it please you, and now wit ye well ye are the knight in the world that I have most desire to."
Percival grins, and this time Galahad understands the way he looks at her. It's the same look he sees in Claudius' eyes. It's love.
The woman and Percival hang blankets within the pavilion until they've made a shielded place inside, laughing as they work -- Galahad can tell she's teasing Percival from the way he blushes. He hears snatches of words, but not enough to understand. Percival takes down the woven rounds of her hair, unplaiting the green ribbons, and she winds them through his fingers. Then she unfastens her gown and lets it fall from her body, and Galahad wants to look away: he doesn't want to see her naked, because he knows what's happening. Percival loves her, the way Galahad loves Claudius, the way Claudius loves Galahad, and he's going to touch her the way Galahad used to wish Percival would touch him.
Percival takes off his own clothes, and Galahad wishes there was an angel with hot coals for his eyes and his mouth to purify him. He doesn't want to see. He doesn't want to stop looking. He hates this. He hates that he's here.
Then Percival looks at him.
Percival's warm gaze meets Galahad's, and from the edge of his vision Galahad sees Percival cross himself, mouthing Galahad's name.
The woman screams. She screams. Galahad claps his hands over his ears, but it's not enough to lessen the sound of her screaming: "Sir Percival, ye have betrayed me," she screams, and then everything is dissolving into smoke, the pavilion and everything in it, and then the woman, and she doesn't stop screaming until she's gone.
And then it's only Percival. He's still naked, though his clothes are strewn nearby, his sword on top of the pile. He's staring at Galahad, but he's staring past him -- Galahad knows now that he can't see him any more.
"Sithen my flesh will be my master I shall punish it," he says. He takes his sword and unsheathes it. When he cuts his thigh open it's with one quick stroke, and Galahad flinches. He doesn't sound like Percival any more. He hasn't this whole time. He looks older and thinner and tireder, and the woman is gone. “O good Lord, take this in recompensation of that I have done against thee, my Lord. How nigh was I lost, and to have lost that I should never have gotten again, that was my virginity, for that may never be recovered after it is once lost.” And then he stops his bleeding wound with a piece of his shirt.
Galahad is still sitting up on the side of the bed, exactly as he was when he rose, but now he's trembling. His ears are ringing distantly, and the room swims in front of him. That was Percival. It was a vision of Percival. It wasn't right, but it was a vision, and Percival was in love, and Percival was hurt--
For the first time in months, Galahad wants to leave. How can he be here, quiet and protected, when Percival has been drawn into a temptation that isn't fair and been punished for it like this? Percival is alone and wounded and he needs Galahad (before he came here, Galahad had always thought that he wasn't a very good friend, that Percival took care of him and he offered little in return, but now he knows he's good at listening, at care, at letting things matter when the person he loves can't. He's good at embraces, even when he lets them last too long. He's a person who can help, and he should be helping Percival now). It's not the Grail he wants to leave for any more; he knows he can never attain the Grail. But he should be with Percival.
He can't be.
He sinks back down on the bed and prays. He prays for Percival, like Jacob with his wounded thigh, halting home, for succumbing to desire because of love -- Galahad could have cut himself like this and it would be warranted, he's failed worse than Percival has, and Percival shouldn't have to bear the weight of failure alone. He prays for Magnus, to be able to protect him from whatever is going on and whoever wants to hurt him, for him to be safe from Ragnarok and happy with Alex forever here. He prays for-- he doesn't pray for Claudius. He can't. Claudius would hate it.
He clasps his watch face against his chest and tries to think about Claudius, about the corona of brown around the brown of his irises, about his silvery hairs, about the fine lines in his face that Galahad will never mention to him. He tries to remember how it feels to be held and kissed by him.
But all he can think about is Percival, alone, bleeding, and how the stone is rolled across the face of the tomb, and how he can't do anything to help any of the people he loves. The room, like the sanctuary in the nunnery, slowly fills with shadows and then grows dark.
