[closed post -- heraldry]

[onthewillowsthere]

It took another few meetings with Grantaire before Galahad was satisfied with the colors and able to reproduce them himself, especially now that his time is taken up with training with Lan Wangji. Every moment he's not with Magnus or Claudius he's in the parlor meditating, at the wood edge lifting stones, or watching Lan Wangji practice sword forms. His balance is improving steadily from pure repetition. He's assigned himself to every exercise with the kind of singular focus he always used to give to God's commandments, and if he's not exactly happy he at least has the comfort of knowing that, however slowly, he's getting stronger.

That evening he showed Claudius the finished heraldry, after they were back in their room together, and Claudius was silent for several long moments before he said, "Well," and the back of his neck flushed, and everything he had to say after that mattered, but by then Galahad already knew it was what he'd wanted.

So now he's looking for Janet. He's wearing his red velvet pinafore and his sword belted on as usual, and he has his sketchbook in his arms.

Comments

[onthewillowsthere]

"What does a kidney do?" he asks, suddenly very curious. He's never thought much about kidneys before.

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet was a liberal arts student. Well, sort of -- she went to magic university instead of real university. But before that, she went to a pretentious boarding school in California. Biology class feels like it was five lifetimes ago. "I think it filters waste. I know it makes urine."

[onthewillowsthere]

"And a body has two but doesn't need them both?"

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Right. Nature goes for redundancy in case shit hits the fan. Like how you can live with one eye."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Or one ear, if you slice it off."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Yep." She laughs. "I'm still going to try not to do that. Out of the goodness of my heart."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Christ would not reaffix it."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Does he reaffix other body parts?" Janet's openly skeptical.

[onthewillowsthere]

"He reaffixes ears, even for His enemies, but I am less than that now."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"You?" Janet gives him a once-over. The pinafore is adorable, but doesn't scream Jesus thinks I'm a piece of shit. "Did you piss in his Cheerios?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I am apostate by my deeds."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet raises both eyebrows, very deliberately. Apostate? He sounds like a Mormon. This poor kid. "What did you do?"

[onthewillowsthere]

"I rejected God through foreswearing chastity," Galahad says. He remembers when he told Magnus the first time, when he thought God had rejected him (it feels foolish now that he was so quick to assume it, when nothing had changed; God was silent, but God had been silent since he came here, and he was still imbued with all of His power), and how he stumbled over the words, humiliated to admit that he had lost his virginity. It almost makes him laugh now. In Camelot, they knew; it was part of the prophecy. He knew he had been laughed at, pitied, envied for something he hadn't chosen and didn't know enough not to want.

Now he's almost proud of it. Let him be known unchaste, unworthy of the virgin white he means to wear for his wedding. He never thinks of what it would be like to return to Camelot, and yet for a moment it crowds in like a vision from God: to be there with Claudius, to be seen with his betrothed, the man he chose and has been chosen by. He lifts his chin, as if Janet had expressed some doubt in him.

"I am no longer pure."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh." Janet's taken aback -- not by the revelation that Galahad had sex, but by the ferocity he uses to present that information to her. She lets her chair thunk back down to the kitchen floor. "Well, good. That's all bullshit anyway. Gods are megalomaniacal dicks, nine times out of ten."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Susan also talked about God's member," with an absence of tone.

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Does God even have a dick? Maybe if he did, he wouldn't be such a piece of shit to people who use theirs for fun. Or to people who use other people's dicks for fun."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Susan does not think He uses it very well."

[sorrowandsorrow]

Janet grins broadly. "Susan's an incredibly smart woman."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes. I like her."

[sorrowandsorrow]

So does Janet, but they've pretty well established that already. "See? You should listen to us. Not some asshole of a god."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I'll consider it."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"I guess that's smart. You don't want to go from one authoritarian piece of shit to another. I'm not a god, but I am a queen."

[onthewillowsthere]

"Yes, your majesty."

[sorrowandsorrow]

"Oh my God." That makes her laugh, a little helplessly. "You're adorable. Stop or I'll change my mind about tattooing you."

[onthewillowsthere]

"I don't want to be adorable," he says, accidentally fierce. "I want to be wanton."