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Percival
Sex feels like it should be holy, but it’s not, so Percival dreams it each night, wakes up hard, and does his rote repentance before getting up for breakfast each morning. He’s been traveling with Galahad for forty-six days, and he’s still unsure whether or not it’s a temptation or his only salvation. When did the two start feeling so similar? And when did he realize that he was accepting sin from devils dressed as maidens only to stave off the more dangerous desire?
“Percival,” calls Galahad, and immediately, Percival is answering the voice. “Can you start the fire, please? There are wild dogs here.”
Percival doesn’t ask how Galahad knows that there are wild dogs, because the answer is always the same, and it’s that the Lord gave him warning. Instead, he starts gathering logs, watching as Galahad strips off his hauberk methodically and places it alongside the other armor. Percival had removed his as soon as they had made camp, but Galahad only removes his to sleep. Percival wonders if he should be more like Galahad.
He thinks that he should, not just in this, but in everything. Sometimes it feels like Galahad is too good to be traveling alongside him, like he should be in heaven with the angels. His disposition is better suited to an icon, and every part of him shines with divinity.
Galahad catches sight of the fire that Percival has kindled, and smiles. “Good work,” he says. It makes Percival weak in the knees.
He wonders, sometimes, if a heavenly devotion to a mortal man is as much a sin if the person in question is Galahad. He wonders if this counts as worshiping an idol, then sets it aside, and tries not to think on it. Whatever his feelings, Galahad does not need a worshiper. From all Percival knows about him, he only needs a friend.
Galahad
It has been eighty days of traveling with Percival, which is an auspicious number, because it is two forties. Galahad is expecting an adventure but not hoping for one when Percival comes out of the forest, dripping with blood, and clutching a wound in his side. Galahad takes a step back instinctively, and flinches. He doesn’t run to Percival’s aid, because it isn’t really Percival. The hair is too shiny and the fingernails are too clean, and the eyes are completely black. The other knights aren’t as good at telling when they’re looking at a devil, but Galahad always knows. He can see it in the way the light reflects, the duck-footed gait, and a thousand other tiny tells that he’s trained himself to notice in people.
For example, there is a root sticking out of the ground, which the devil stepped over. Percival would have fallen.
“Go away,” Galahad says, and crosses himself, without any real fervor in the motion. There is prayer meant to praise the Lord, done often, alone or in a chapel, and then there is prayer done to ward off evil. Galahad does too much of the latter for his liking.
The sign of the cross either isn’t strong enough, or more likely, the Devil has learned to stand far enough away.
“What was it this time?” he asks, still in Percival’s skin, using his inquisitive voice. The devil is good at voices, and Galahad doesn’t think that he should be able to take something so endearing and put it to evil. “How did you notice?”
“Everything” Galahad says. He hopes his voice isn’t shaking. “Go away,” he says again, and starts walking towards the devil, making the sign of the cross repeatedly with one hand and brandishing his sword with the other.
That does the trick. He sheathes his sword when the creature disappears, though he knows that it wouldn’t have done him any good. The weapon feels right in his hand though, and the Lord would not have given him it if he wasn’t meant to use it.
Somewhere from the side, he hears the rustle of leaves, and flinches when the true Percival appears. This apparition has rattled him more than most.
“I heard voices,” said Percival, the upturn in his voice obvious. “Is everything alright?”
Galahad doesn’t consciously think before he runs to embrace Percival. Percival stumbles, and hesitantly, puts his arms around Galahad. “What happened?” he asks.
“Nothing,” Galahad says. It takes him longer than he’d like to feel safe enough to detach himself from Percival. “Just another trick.”
Percival
It has been two hundred and fourteen days since he first started traveling with Galahad, and Percival has learned not to undertake a quest alone. The two of them have traveled far in their errantry, and have now come to north Wales, a place Percival is intimately familiar with. He knows this forest; they are not a league away from where he first left his mother. She is standing halfway down the road, dressed in white and holding a basket of half-wilted roses. He doesn’t know where she got the roses, but they seem in-character for her, so he takes a step forward.
“Percival, my son,” she says, spreading her arms wide, still smiling, “You have made me so ill from your departure that I nearly died, but I find myself healed once again just by seeing you, for you are now one of the most valiant knights sitting at Arthur’s table.”
He steps closer to her. He can smell the roses, even from here.
She continues speaking, about filial piety and her own despair, but Percival isn’t listening. He is instead wondering why she is wearing a silver crown on her head, when she has never liked the color, nor the ostentatious nature of jewelry. It does not seem right.
“Will you make me one promise, my son?” she asks, and Percival remembers too late not to be alone.
“Galahad,” he says, softly, and crosses himself. His mother’s face goes white with anger as he does so-- she knows she is caught. Even recognized, the devil will not take off the face it wears: his mother screams obscenities at him as she fades, made worse by the knowledge they are true.
“Galahad,” he says, louder, only to find Galahad standing behind him, one hand on his shoulder. “Her smile was too wide,” Galahad says. “Her roses smelled like they were covering corpses, and her dress was stained on the back with purple dye, but the rest of the dress was white. She walked like she was from somewhere else.”
“Her roses always smelled like corpses,” Percival says, because that was the one thing Galahad got wrong about the apparition, and the one thing which made him believe it to be real. “She would cut seven roses, not bothering to remove the thorns. She would not relinquish them until a servant threw them away.”
Galahad starts to lead Percival back to their camp, gently but firmly. “I would very much like to go home,” Percival says. “It is only an hour west. We can spend the night there.”
“And your mother?”
“My mother is dead,” Percival says, now with more conviction than when he was entertaining her shadow. “She has been dead for a long time. I don’t know why I thought she might be waiting.”
Galahad
It has been four hundred days since Galahad and Percival first started traveling together. Galahad can no longer sleep unless he is physically aware of Percival’s presence, so they have taken to sleeping hand in hand. What Galahad will not tell Percival is that the devil is getting better with his bodies: the legs are shaped correctly now, and Galahad can no longer look at the hair of a creature and decide if it comes from hell. This is unsettling, because the devil has also taken to Percival’s skin. He wears it often, and only when Percival is away. The devil has a habit of trying to separate them.
It is the voice that makes Galahad flinch, and the devil uses it liberally. He has heard Percival die again and again, so often that Galahad can catalogue what pain Percival is feeling from sound alone. He has heard Percival laugh and cry and eat and mutter, ask questions, answer them, stub his toe or hurt his knuckles a thousand times over. How cruel, to rob Galahad of what brought him the most joy on this arduous quest. How convenient, that the one pleasure he could not abstain from was taken from him by force.
He cannot explain to Percival why he stiffens at the sound of his laughter, so instead he tells Percival not to trust a version of himself that does not make the sign of the cross.
Anger is a sin, and Galahad has it boiling under the surface in spades. He thinks about it as he listens to the soft exhalations of Percival’s breath as he sleeps, comforted by the knowledge that with Percival’s hand in his own, it cannot be an apparition. He is angry that Percival was sent on this quest with him, forced to endure hardship when he could be back at Camelot, though he knows that Percival would choose the quest every single time, if he could. He is angry that the devil tempts them both in different ways, and twice as angry that he dares appear to Percival, who has not the knowledge to tell the false from the true. He is angry that he must endure it, thinks it a sin, and remembers that even Christ the Savior cried in Gethsemane, begging the cup be taken from him. Then he remembers that the Lord God refused.
Percival
It is the four hundred and first night since Percival joined Galahad on the quest, and he is dreaming of the other Grail knight. Galahad smiles in his dream, wide and open, and Percival thinks that he would give up the whole earth and the grail quest to boot if he could see that smile again. Galahad’s happiness is a rare thing.
Percival knows that he will not be the one to reach the grail, should a knight among them find it: that honor will go to Galahad, the Lord has already willed it, and he would be a fool to deny his God. The most he hopes is that the two of them stay side-by-side for the quest, however it ends.
In his dream, Percival is handed an apple. It is not Galahad who gives it to him; rather, it is a maiden, which is not such a strange sight. He takes the apple, perfectly picked, and is about to bite into it, and it is Galahad who snatches it away, no longer smiling.
Sometimes Percival is angry at God. He knows that to scorn your creator, even within the confines of your own mind is a sin, but he cannot help it. He thinks about the crease in Galahad’s brow when his friend speaks of the grail, the weariness that sits heavy on his shoulders like a yoke upon an ox, and he finds it hard not to be angry that God would put something like that on Galahad.
Percival remembers when he first saw Galahad: the grail knight was sitting back-straight in the siege perilous when Percival rode into the hall. He was so intent on reaching Arthur that he did not spare Galahad more than a passing glance, but he still remembers the red on Galahad’s cloak and shield: the same color which Percival himself wore, his own red arms taken off a dead man. Blood, he thought then, and still thinks now, the dissonance between wearing the blood of Christ or the blood of the red knight, still caked into the grooves of Percival’s vambrace.
The apple dream-Galahad has taken from him is no less red, and Galahad scowls as he tosses it away.
“I’m sorry,” Percival says, though he is rather hungry and would have liked to keep the apple.
“Sir Percival, you must be more aware of yourself,” says Galahad. Percival knows that it is a dream, but the words are ones Galahad has said to him before.
The metaphor of the apple is not hard to recognize once Galahad points it out: What is more difficult is discerning why Galahad is the one to take the fruit from him. In his dream, Percival recites Genesis, and Galahad does not smile, but his face loses some of its worry. Percival thinks that he might have to be content with only that.
Galahad
It is the six hundred and sixteenth day of questing alongside Percival, and Galahad knows something will go wrong because he has been keeping track of numbers. When Percival sits down next to him, he flinches, hard, and can’t hide it. It’s not the devil, though, and Galahad can tell because Percival smiles crooked and immediately flops backwards and starts playing with a dandelion. Galahad puts his hand in Percival’s hair. He can’t help it.
The action is worth it for the way Percival immediately closes his eyes and tilts his head towards Galahad. Something about the way that Percival treats him-- as a friend and not as a hero-- makes Galahad unnecessarily fond of the other knight.
He remembers the first time he saw Percival: He had a baby face and his hair was darker than it is now.
His first thought was that Percival was beautiful, and his second thought was surprise for his first. As he studied Percival, who was still on horseback, riding straight for the dais that Arthur sat upon, he only found his first observation more true. Percival was not a born rider, that much was clear; he rocked back and forth as he sat upon his horse, and though to the untrained eye he looked quite impressive, it was obvious that he was nervous sitting upon the beast. His eyes darted around the room, fraught with worry, and his lips were rose colored, parted slightly.
Galahad was good at reading people. He had studied and learned the tells down to a tongue darting out of the mouth to wet the lips, and he could tell that Percival was afraid to be in such a busy hall, unsure if he was doing right, and terrified that he would be thrown out of court. But the other knights only saw him as confident.
“Percival?” Galahad asks.
Percival makes a noncommittal sound, still seemingly more preoccupied with the hand in his hair. Galahad asks his question anyway.
“Are you afraid of finding the grail?”
Percival opens his eyes, and then they slide shut again. “No.”
He must be a better person than Galahad, then. “Why not?”
“Because I’m not going to find it.”
Galahad entirely removes his hand from Percival’s hair then, and Percival makes an affronted noise as he sits up.
“You don’t think we’re going to find it?” Galahad asks.
“I think you’re going to find it,” says Percival, leaning his head up against Galahad’s shoulder. The casual affection catches Galahad off-guard, as it did the first time, and as it did the hundredth time. “I don’t think I am.”
“If we find it, it’ll be both of us.”
“Okay,” says Percival, and shrugs. It jostles Galahad slightly, so he puts a hand on the small of Percival’s back to keep him steady.
“When we finish the grail quest, are we going to go back to court?”
“Probably,” said Percival. “Do you not want to?”
“I want to.” Galahad doesn’t say what he’s really thinking about, which is that it will be a relief to no longer be holy, and he would like that very much. Percival seems to understand something of it, though not the whole truth.
“Why? Are you thinking of getting married when we return?”
“Absolutely not.”
Percival smiles, dimples on his cheeks. “Oh, but don’t you want to, just like the rest of the knights?”
“Lancelot isn’t married,” Galahad points out, and then: “Do you?”
“I probably should,” says Percival, his smile fading. “Once the quest is over, I should probably start doing all the real knightly things.”
Galahad can’t think of anyone who is more of a real knight than Percival. He says so.
Percival just laughs. Then he turns Galahad’s question back on himself, which is horribly unfair. “Are you afraid of finding the grail?”
Galahad shrugs with one shoulder. He doesn’t mean for the words to come out of his mouth, but they do anyway: “I want to go home.”
Percival’s smile is always beaming. “You’ll get there.”
Percival
It has been six hundred and seventy eight days since the two of them first set out, and only Galahad is counting. Percival knows it’s been a long time: he can see the differences in himself, the way his armor changes fit and grows rusty. But he doesn’t see the need to count like Galahad does.
He’s accepted, by this point, that his devotion is to Galahad, not to the quest. He thinks he might have known that from the very beginning, but then the devil came and kissed him wearing Galahad’s skin, and now he knows for certain.
He hasn’t told Galahad about that particular temptation.
He’s told him about all of the other temptations, so he thinks that Galahad knows that something is off about him, but the other knight hasn't asked, and Percival isn’t going to tell. What would he say, anyway? That he didn’t even question the mirage, so desperate was he to believe it true? That the devil had soft lips and put his hands in Percival’s hair the same way as Galahad, only pulling harder this time than Percival was used to? That he returned the kiss so eagerly that both him and the devil stumbled backwards and the laugh the devil gave him was the most carefree Percival has ever heard Galahad sound?
He intertwined his fingers with the false Galahad as naturally as he does every night with the real one, and he wonders whether Galahad already knows that a false version of himself tricks Percival, and he wonders if that is why they must sleep with hands tied together over an open sword.
He wonders, when Galahad is asleep and has a white-knucked grip on Percival’s hand, if there is a version of Galahad who would do the same as Percival, kiss a phantom out of desperation for an impossibility.
He doesn’t think so. His friend is as pure as Christ himself.
In idleness, he thinks of how priests give their wedding vows to the church, and how lucky they are, that they may marry something so holy, yet his own devotion is a sin. He asks confession with every hermit that they meet. He never gets a satisfactory penance.
He thinks that it’s killing him, this desire, that he’ll never find the holy grail with this torment facing him each day, and then Galahad smiles, and it’s all erased.
Galahad
It is on the seven hundredth and forty second day of their travel that Galahad works up the courage to tell Percival about the apparitions.
“The devil wears your skin,” he says, because behind Percival’s head is an apparition he knows to be false. He doesn’t bother telling Percival about it; by the time his head turns, the evil will be gone.
The devil has been playing a new game, recently: he no longer pretends to be a real encounter. He appears manifold instead, at the edges of woods, as a face in the fire, at the top of a hill, flickering in and out of the sunlight. Galahad thinks that this version of assault is worse, because he cannot recognize it and send it away: instead, he lives with a constant background buzzing of evil.
Percival looks concerned when Galahad mentions how the devil appears to him, and for a moment, he wishes he had never brought it up. Then Percival blurts out “He shows up as you, too!”
A knot in Galahad’s chest begins to unravel. “How often?”
Percival’s cheeks go red. “Almost every time,” he says.
A shared evil feels better than a lone one. “I suppose he thinks it’ll be easier to play on us that way, strip us of our rationality. How does he appear to you?”
Percival is now refusing to make eye contact, though Galahad cannot fathom why. “What do you mean?”
“He always appears dying to me,” says Galahad. He is more inclined to share his experience now that he knows Percival has a similar apparition appearing to him. “He always appears bloodied and dying, and when he doesn’t, the phantom--” Galahad stops. It is one thing to admit he cares about Percival, and another thing entirely to name the specific mannerisms that draw him to Percival. He does not want to admit that he has learned to hate the best parts of Percival; his smile, his laugh, the way he dances with a sword. That would only make his friend feel guilty.
Galahad looks up, and Percival is rather green in the face. “Dying?” he asks.
“Yes,” says Galahad. He chooses his next words carefully. “He preys on my fear that something awful might have happened to you.”
Behind Percival, the false face of his friend is leering. Galahad puts a hand on Percival’s shoulder, to convince himself that the real and the false cannot switch places if he blinks.
“He does not appear dying when I encounter phantom versions of you,” says Percival.
Galahad thinks that makes sense, and tells it to Percival. “I am more easily able to separate an apparition from reality-- he has discovered my instinct to help you. Perhaps he does not need to rely on such base instincts when tempting you.”
It sounded less rude in Galahad’s head, but now that the words are in the open, he has to live with them. Percival doesn’t seem offended, though, just confused.
“How do I die?”
That seems to Galahad the least important part of the conversation, but he humors Percival nonetheless.
“A spear through the side, most often. I found you sick on horseback once.” He says the one thing that stays consistent throughout the deaths. “It’s never quiet.”
“Oh,” says Percival, and then doesn’t share a single thing about how the false Galahad appears to him.
Percival
It has been exactly one hundred days since the false Galahad kissed Percival, which is to say that it has been seven hundred and seventy eight days, and Percival still can’t stop thinking about the kiss.
To be fair, the problem isn’t the kiss itself: it’s that Percival is still hopelessly in love with Galahad. He knows perfectly well that the false does not act in the same way as the true, and if he were to kiss the real Galahad, it would not go the same as when he kissed the apparition.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t think about it.
He wonders about it daily, in fact, and then Galahad wonders why he has become so tight-lipped, and is aggrieved that he has done something wrong, which he hasn’t. It’s Percival who’s done something wrong.
The worst part is that if Percival told Galahad, he thinks that Galahad would probably be kind. He would give a very good explanation of why this is the devil’s work, explain that if it ever happens again, now Percival will know that it’s out-of-character for him, and then look at Percival with that perfect, pitying gaze.
Which would quite possibly be the most tortuous response to the entire situation, so Percival keeps it to himself.
It comes up again each day, though Galahad doesn’t know what it is. He asks Percival if he is upset with him, and Percival wants to scream that he isn’t, it’s the opposite. He cares too much, and if he lets Galahad know that, it would no longer be Percival pulling away.
The quest is a wretched thing, Percival thinks, and then he prays to be absolved of that thought.
Galahad
Galahad is still counting days. It has been nine hundred and ninety nine. This means it will probably be a good day, but as with all things, that is subject to change. He calls Percival over and mentions the importance of the number three. Percival listens with rapt attention, and then asks what’s going to happen.
“Something good,” I hope,” Galahad says.
“Perhaps we’ll meet a hermit or a holy man on the road,” says Percival. Galahad knows he is still thinking about the hermit that he met on the island, the one who sailed with white sails, and, as Galahad heard it, was the one to dress Percival’s wound when he drove his sword through his own thigh.
“Maybe,” says Galahad. For his own part, he is still thinking about the time spent sailing with Lancelot, and the many adventures he had with his father.
Lancelot is not a good man, is what Galahad learned. He still loves him.
Here is what Galahad knows about his father: He loves the queen, and he has let it get the better of him, something which led him into mortal sin. Galahad didn’t ask for details. He also knows his father is quick to anger, an anger which has not been turned against Galahad, but is something he is frightened he may have inherited. Lancelot goes for his sword when things are uncertain; Galahad is trying not to do the same. He knows that Lancelot has gone to confession, has been doing penance for the sins that he committed, and Galahad is proud of him, but he has also recently found himself using his father as an example of what he does not want to become.
It is a complicated thing, the two of them have.
Lancelot did not raise him. He is as much Lancelot’s son as Mordred is Arthur’s son, or as Percival is Pelles’ son, which is to say that he is not his father's son at all. He is as unlike Lancelot as he can be in everything except looks, a quiet, mild-mannered boy, who would not fall into mortal sin with a married woman, and finds that he has killed barely a dozen men on the quest, though he would have killed more had the Lord not pulled his hand back.
None of the hatred Lancelot has for his mother, or the refusal to raise him, or even acknowledge him as a son in the eyes of the law stops Lancelot from asking Galahad to pray for his soul.
Galahad puts Lancelot in his prayers less than he should, and more than he wants to.
He wonders if, when he meets his mother, who he has been told is one of the grailkeepers, he will love her more than Lancelot. He does not think so; it was the nuns who brought him up on Latin and holy chants, not the court of Arthur, which he feels a blessing, after walking the halls of Caerleon.
Percival does not feel the same: Galahad asked him. To Percival, his mother’s castle was a prison, and he was always more taken with errantry than with homecoming. Galahad cried when first he was deemed too old to reside with the women; Percival left without turning back to see his nursemaids weeping.
They are very different in that respect.
Despite that, Galahad is enamoured with the way that Percival moves through the world, always running to the next destination, while Galahad lingers, not wanting to move on when he has found a good thing, or at the very least, a peaceful thing. Those are not the same, but they almost are, and Galahad has contented himself with peace for most of his life. Asceticism suits him. It’s all he knows.
“Would you ever return to your mother’s castle after the quest?” asks Galahad. He knows the answer.
“I would barely return to Arthur’s castle,” says Percival. “Certainly I would not content myself with ruins.”
Percival
Day one thousand and forty three, and Percival thinks he’s beginning to understand the appeal of asceticism. Certainly he understands it better than he did when the quest began, still at the start of his training in Arthur’s court, eager to prove himself by obtaining the trappings of a knight. The scarcity he was used to certainly did not endear him to owning little, at first, though the scarcity he grew up with was manufactured, not a product of any true destitution. That did not make it any less real to his childhood senses.
Being away from Camelot means he can think better. It means he has nowhere to hide, something that he finds both relieving and terrifying. When at court, he could retreat, there were quiet places, and though voices were all around him even in those places of respite, it still felt easier to lay idle.
Errantry leaves one no time to lie idle, and barely time to think. There is no space to perform personal rituals, either; Galahad’s eyes are always on him, so brown they might be black. He feels watched, not judged by Galahad, but the judgement comes from his own soul.
He is not happy here, nor is he peaceful. He is constantly ready to move.
Galahad tells him this is a good thing: they must not become content in their search for the grail. Percival thinks it is a personal flaw that can, on occasion, come in handy: He is pushing them forward with less than noble intentions, but the intentions do not seem to dull the usefulness of his instincts. That is a dichotomy that makes him uncomfortable to reckon with, yet he will endure it for Galahad all the same.
He will endure many things that are unendurable for the sake of his companion.
Galahad
It has been a thousand and eighty nine days since he first left Lancelot, which is three years. He thinks about him less now, more often than he should. It is easier now to content himself with other things than when he had first met his father.
What child does not seek to have a father? He wonders, and then he amends it: It was not a father that he looked for, but a singular, mortal figure to put his trust in. He wonders if it’s blasphemy, just like he wonders if everything is blasphemy. Perhaps all of mortality is seeking imitations of the lord, he thinks, and then a different line of thought strikes him, wondering if that desire is how the devil gets his claws to the weak. If that is so, he thinks that there must be trouble brewing for him more so than for any other knight. Percival occupies his mind day and night, more often than Lancelot does, more dangerous of a temptation, too. The devil feeds on evil thoughts, but more than that, he feeds on the reluctance to forsake those thoughts, which is where all temptation is brought to fruition.
Galahad has some things which he cannot bring himself to deny, not even for the sake of his quest.
One of those things-- people-- is tending to the fire as he tests their bowstrings, and the familiarity of routine pulls at his heart in a way he has learned to hate. It is a necessary thing, this rote repetition of roles, formulated by too many days spent together. When they are not at a monastery or a chapel, which Galahad wishes they were at more often, and it is not because he is longing for soft beds in a stone hall, Percival tends the fire. Galahad feeds the horses. They do not hunt either one, both sworn off of meat for their own sanctity.
The fire is not necessary, is the thing. If there is no meat to cook, and they are constantly riding by the coast, set upon by seaside winds, there is no need to kindle a fire each night. It is, at best, frivolous, and at worse, reckless indulgence. If he were a good christian, he would stop Percival from lighting the first tinder, but warmth brings him comfort the same as any man.
Galahd feels set upon by his own mortality. It is a crutch, something others may lean on, but not him. He has been chosen, and whether a blessing or a curse, it is his to bear.
He should tell Percival to put out the fire.
He does not.
Percival
Percival kisses Galahad on the thousand, one hundred, and ninety seventh day. He doesn’t mean to, but he can’t take it back once he’s pressed his lips to Galahad’s. Galahad kisses back, is the thing, and so it’s a good five seconds before Percival realizes that he shouldn’t have done that, and Galahad shouldn’t have done that, and he’s ruined one of the only real friendships he has among Arthur’s knights. There’s a beat of silence when the two of them pull back, both beet red, both looking surprised.
Then Percival decides to run. It’s not the most mature decision, or the best one by any measure, but he’s overwhelmed and doesn’t think the real Galahad would have done that and he’s also a little bit turned on by the whole thing, and so he decides to cut his losses and leave completely before he can do anything else stupid, and ruin Galahad any more, or the worst thing, find out that it was a devil in disguise, even though he awoke fingers intertwined with this Galahad.
He can hear Galahad calling after him, but he doesn’t listen.
He keeps running into the forest-- it seems a different forest every day, and though he knows the woods of Wales like the back of his hand, they shift and mutate to bring new adventures.
In such a state of turmoil, he fears what he will find within the thick coverage of the trees, but he is more afraid of what Galahad’s reaction will be if he turns around to return, so right now, the thankful prayer in his heart consists mostly of a gratitude that his horse was already saddled.
He rides for near two hours into the thick of the forest where he cannot see the sun and the ground is covered all over by at least a foot of loam before the first apparition appears, and it is a Galahad telling him that all is forgiven. Percival makes the sign of the cross as an instinctual thing, and the creature’s face twists in fear and agony before disappearing into the darkness.
The apparition makes him pull up short on the reins of his horse, though, suddenly cognizant of how hard he has driven the beast. Its sides are heaving and both the rider and the charger are in need of water.
There is a stream nearby, as there is always a stream nearby. Percival cannot afford to forsake kindness, but he is also learning that anything that might be from the lord could also be from the devil.
His horse drinks from the stream easily. Percival, who has no other options, does so more warily.
He stays on his knees after he drinks, switching easily from riding to prayer, which is of utmost importance in the forest. He has prayed the rosary three times, lost count and started over twice, and added saint Jude and saint David when he felt like he was reciting words more than meditating on the mysteries.
It is halfway through another repetition of the creed that he feels a hand on his shoulder, that of a maiden.
Because it is a maiden, and because he has learned well from Galahad, and most of all, because it is in his mind to pray, he crosses himself twice before he speaks to her, and she repeats the sign. When he is assured that she is no devil, he asks what message she might bring or what quest she might have for him.
“Will you draw me water, good knight?” she asks.
Percival obliges. He does not see a reason for her to dirty her dress, and she has produced a cup which is a pale imitation of the grail, but nonetheless seems similar. She seems so alike to a devil, and Percival wonders when he started associating devils with maidens, seeing beauty and assuming it to be satan.
After he has filled the cup, and after she has drunk it, she tells him a parable which he does not have the mind to focus on. It suffices to know that he has done right by filling her cup. He asks for directions back to Galahad, which she gives, and which indicates that Galahad has not moved camp since he left. Percival does not want to return, but neither does he want to stay out in the woods at the mercy of angels and devils. He leads his horse back to the clearing.
Galahad
Percival is gone for the thousand one hundredth and ninety eighth day after kissing Galahad. It is the worst day of the entire quest.
No doubt, Percival expects him to pack up their camp and leave, but Galahad isn’t going to do that. He spent much of his time trying not to be found, and now that he has been found, he is not going to give up Percival’s company.
He does not think about the possibility that Percival will not return to him.
Instead, he starts to kindle the fire, which is usually Percival’s job, and hums the Kyrie to himself as he does so.
It’s lonely, without Percival. Galahad made such a point of avoiding the other knights when he began his journey, and now it is but a day and he is starved for companionship. The lord punish him for it, he cannot survive on his own, nor with only the holy spirit to support him in his journey. He needs Percival.
Guilt. This is why Adam fell, that drive for human companionship so strong that the Lord had to make new life out of a rib, and with Percival gone, it feels no less like a bone was pulled from him. Is this why love is formed the way it is, he wonders? The reason that there is no desire stronger than the one to curl yourself up in the chest of another person, become that missing rib from so long ago? It all feels very much like a conjunction come out of a platonic dialogue, but Galahad finds that disparaging his own longing does not serve to remove it from him. Instead it sits sticky like tree sap on the inside of his chest and he thinks that he needs to cough it up before he can even begin to heal.
So instead, he hunts.
Eating meat is no evil, but it is something he has avoided for the better part of the quest, sticking to a hermit’s diet for the sake of keeping his mind clear and holy. His mind is no longer holy, and it would not be clear, not if he prayed a thousand rosaries to entreat the lord for focus. So, he hunts. He is in desperate need of a sin.
He is in luck: there is a hart moseying by the edge of the clearing they have set down in, and it is clear the creature thinks it is safe, for Galahad has shown no signs of aggression to it in all the time he has resided in the clearing: yet the minds of humans do not work along such logical pathways. It is anger, not necessity, that brings the beast down.
Galahad thinks he sees fear in the eyes of the hunted when the first arrow hits, striking the spine. A bad shot, but the animal falls with a cry, wounded and alive. He pulls another arrow from his quiver and draws the bow back, but there is a twang and then a sudden pain on his cheek, and his bow string is no longer whole. Galahad’s first thought is to find Percival’s bow to finish the job, but Percival is still missing. He must complete his kill with a sword.
Galahad does not prefer to hunt with his sword: it is messy, and inefficient, and most of all, though Galahad would not breathe a word of this to anyone save Percival, he does not like to see suffering up close. The deer is twitching its hind legs, trying to escape, dragging itself with pained groans when Galahad finally reaches the edge of the clearing where the first arrow hit.
He does not hesitate when he brings the blade down on the creature’s neck, slicing it’s head off in one clean stroke.
Galahad dresses the meat and hangs it from a nearby tree, high enough to keep wolves but not giants away, and he does not light a fire. He has quite lost his appetite, now that he has collected the meat. He lays his sword out, naked, between himself and his broken bow, and falls into a fitful sleep, the corpse of the deer above him.
Percival
On the thousand, one hundredth, and ninety ninth day, Percival comes back to their camp and says absolutely nothing about anything that he might have done two days earlier, which seems like the best course of action. Galahad also says nothing about it, so Percival thinks that maybe they can move past the entire thing.
They can’t, of course, but that’s Percival’s fault, just like the entire mess that they’re in now started as Percival’s fault. He wishes he could still make eye contact with his friend, treat him the same as before, but there’s a reticence that he didn’t previously have.
He was not a strong enough man to stay away, and besides, the forest spit him out like it spits out all the unworthy: On his knees, begging for another chance.
Humiliation is a sign of the Lord's love, but it is one Percival would rather not wear, heavy around his neck like a shackle. He hates himself for introducing this strife between the two of them, and he wonders why God made humans to live imperfectly, if he was capable of making something better. He knows that somewhere in the wooded glen, there is a hermit reading treatises to answer his question, but he is not there, and they are not here, so he will eat deer meat and wonder why Galahad picked up a bow the moment he departed.
Anger. It has always been Percival’s purview, but he can see it bubbling under the surface in Galahad, imposed over by fear, rather. Percival, for all his flaws, has never been afraid of his own anger, which might be a flaw of its own. He does not reckon with the effect of his anger, nor its origin.
Galahad knows too much about the origin of his own anger, and that is what scares him, Percival can see it. He wishes there was something he could do to fix it, but he is always looking for ways to fix Galahad’s private problems. If he is not helping his friend, there is little reason indeed for him to indulge in such a quest in the first place. He will not find the grail, after all. That honor will belong to another.
Galahad
Day one thousand two hundred and twelve is the day that the Devil perfects his visage of Percival, which is to say that it is the day he finally tricks Galahad. He doesn’t know how this apparition worked: he checked the fingernails, and the hair, and Percival walks with a limp now, so he can’t check the gait, but everything else is consistent.
He comes back to their camp while Percival is setting up the fire, which is normal, and Percival grows red and refuses to make eye contact when he notices Galahad, which is also normal ever since they kissed, though Galahad wishes it wasn’t.
“Good fire,” he says, which is what he’s been saying for the past week, and Percival smiles slightly, just like he’s been doing for the last week.
He sits down too close to Percival, because he misses the way that Percival used to show him casual affection: a pat on the back here, a jostle to his shoulder there, a hand in his hair as they spoke about what they would do when they returned to court. Percival scoots a little further down the log and pretends like it's not a reaction to Galahad’s proximity, which is also normal. This time, though, instead of accepting the distance, a tiny “please” slips out of Galahad’s mouth. Barely loud enough to hear. Maybe the real Percival would have ignored his entreaty entirely, but Galahad has no way of knowing.
“Sorry,” says Percival, no intonation, and still not looking at Galahad. He doesn’t move closer.
“I’m not mad at you,” says Galahad. The truth is that he wishes he could kiss Percival again and he has been thinking about it as he falls asleep, but such admissions would only hurt them both, or worse, lead them to sin. He says the closest thing to it: “I miss you.”
Percival glances up; his eyes are radiant through his eyelashes. “I didn’t mean to do it, I just…” He trails off. Galahad is hit with a wave of affection and pity at the same time, and takes Percival’s hand in his own.
What he wants to say is I would have let you were we not on the quest, but he stymies that impulse and says instead, “Please can we just be back to the way things were?” It feels sickeningly vulnerable, like pulling teeth, and he almost wishes he hadn’t said it the moment the words are out of his mouth. Despite that, he takes a risk, and puts his hand in Percival’s hair, because he knows that it always makes the other knight instantly pliant. It works, and Percival drops his head onto Galahad’s shoulder.
The physical affection was something Galahad was starved for. “Maybe after the quest, he whispers. It’s such a quiet admission, barely even breathed out. Percival shouldn’t be able to hear it, and yet he responds.
“Can we? After the quest?”
Galahad wants it, and he wants it more than he’s ever wanted anything else. It hits him with a force he didn’t know desire could hold, especially because he is someone who has been slowly and methodically pushing down his desires for years. He’s made a lifetime out of asceticism, and he’s finally found the one thing he doesn’t want to renounce.
“I don’t know,” he says, which is the closest he can say to yes while still searching for the grail. In his heart he knows that the answer is affirmative, and he also knows that he can’t let Percival push any further for that answer, because it would ruin the both of them.
“I would,” says Percival. “After the quest, I mean.” Galahad is desperately searching for something to say back to Percival that doesn’t betray himself or push Percival away when he sees a figure standing at the edge of the copse of trees.
This is when Percival returns and sees himself. Galahad can see both Percivals; the one who’s hair he’s got his hand in, and the real one, freshly back from the forest, his hair filled with twigs and a bruise on his cheek. Both look guilty, like they’ve been caught doing something they shouldn’t have.
Galahad makes the sign of the cross immediately, and then starts coughing uncontrollably. There is a thick black smoke surrounding him, and he’s on his knees, tears spilling from his eyes. The tears are not of despair, but of fear.
He feels, not sees, the hand on his shoulder, and makes the sign of the cross twice so he can convince himself that it’s no longer the devil.
“What happened?” asked Percival.
Galahad clings to the true Percival like a man drowning and does not say anything, just burrows his head into Percival’s stomach while he sobs. Percival gives up on trying to get any useful information out of him, and instead just rubs his back while he hiccups and cries, pulls out a waterskin for when Galahad is feeling well enough to drink.
It feels like hours, but in reality must be only minutes before he lifts his head, still refusing to let go of Percival. “Say something,” he says. He doesn’t feel well enough to talk, and he loves Percival’s voice.
He can hear the frown as Percival begins speaking. “I don’t know what to say. What happened?”
“Please.” Galahad chokes on another sob, because apparently he’s not done getting snot all over Percival’s good shirt.
“Okay,” Percival says, situating Galahad so that he’s got both his arms wrapped around him, his head over one of Galahad’s shoulders. Galahad is sitting in Percival’s lap. It feels like the way someone would hold a baby, humiliating if it wasn’t so comforting.
“I woke up early this morning and went into the forest because I saw a fox, and it was completely white, but it kept evading me. I followed it for a while, until I didn’t know where I was, but it couldn’t have been far, because I was on foot. The sun was at the top of the sky, and I saw a little abandoned chapel that the snake had gone into.”
“Inside of the chapel, the white fox was sitting on the altar, smiling at me. There was meat where the eucharist would normally go, and the fox was tearing into it. At first I thought it might be the body of the Lord, but then I noticed that it was rotten and putrefying.”
“I watched the beast for a while, fascinated by its methodical consumption of rotten meat, and then it looked up at me, its snout covered in blood. What had been beautiful at the beginning of the journey had transformed into a bloody animal, nothing more.”
“It bared its teeth, and when I turned around, there was a maiden dressed all in black, and--” Percival paused-- “She wasn’t a devil, I crossed myself and everything to check. She said she could lead me back where I was supposed to be, and I asked if there was anything she needed in return, and she told me that I needed to check on you, and that she was the sister of one of the nuns from the yonder town. She assured me that she had no evil intentions, but had been sent a message by God to retrieve me, and had done so. So I followed her, and she led me back to you.”
Galahad felt calm enough to speak, his head cleared from the story that was obviously a representation of the temptations he had faced. “That was the first one I’ve fallen for,” he said. “The first apparition of the devil, I mean.”
“It looked so alike me,” said Percival, and he was not successful at keeping the jealousy out of his voice.
“It acted so similar,” said Galahad. He made no motion to remove himself from Percival. “I could not tell you two apart.”
Percival does not ask what he spoke of with the devil, though Galahad can tell that he is dying to know.
“It wanted--” he stops. “I wanted---” he stops again. “Please don’t leave,” is what he says, instead of recounting the event to Percival.
“I won’t.” He holds Galahad tighter.
“Even though--” he cuts himself off. Words do not seem to be helpful, this evening. “I miss--” and then he stops again, cursing either his brain or his tongue for not being able to form the words properly.
“I will not leave you,” Percival repeats, and his words feel like a vow. Galahad allows himself to be held, the sin of comfort be damned, and he cries. He remembers next the dawning of the sun, still held tightly in Percival’s arms.
Percival
“How many days has it been?” Percival asks, because he now knows Galahad well enough to expect an exact answer.
“One thousand three hundred and eleven,” comes the answer. Things have gotten better between them: They do not speak of the kiss, nor of each other’s false selves which appear when their companion is not around. Percival is not sure if he is glad of this, but he is certainly glad that they are, if only briefly, back to normal. Though the devil may try to work evil, he has only brought them closer together through the trials.
He thinks that it was maybe his fault that ninety nine days ago, Galahad broke.
There is no other word for what happened: Galahad broke, and he has not been the same since, though the way they speak to each other has gone back to normal.
The new Galahad is more fractured, quieter, like a rabbit instead of a lion. It is fear, there is no other word for it, and though Galahad has always been afraid, the fear is less surface, deeper now.
It makes no difference what Percival says: that he has always fallen for the temptations, that he cannot tell the true from the false, Galahad thinks that he is supposed to be different. He made the mistake of mentioning it once, and Galahad snapped back at him, “What use is the fruit of the tree if I can no longer trust my own discernment! You are innocent. I ate from the tree of good and evil, and I do not even have my faculties about me.”
Percival is not sure what sin Galahad is speaking of: Surely he has not done something to merit a comparison with the fruit of the tree of good and evil, yet Percival is both inclined to believe Galahad and also expect him to be dramatic at the worst of times. He cannot ask his friend to elaborate, for that just puts him in a foul mood.
Galahad is in a foul mood most of the time, but Percival’s laughter makes his lips lose their tightness, so Percival laughs whenever he can, especially where there is nothing to make merry about. He keeps a catalogue in his mind of how to cheer up a hopeless Galahad, and does so often, making sure to keep a physical point of contact with Galahad at all times, for that is all that can convince Galahad that he has not become an apparition of evil in the space of time it took him to blink.
Now, he has Galahad’s head in his lap, stroking his hair while chattering about nothing at all. The ever-present frown lines pinching Galahad’s eyebrows have softened, and he muttered something about a headache he has not been able to lose, so Percival is doing his best to rectify that, and his offer to pray to Saint Anthony about it was met with a laughter Percival misses.
“You cannot entreat him to help you lose things,” says Galahad. “Try Saint Jude.”
“No, I will ask Mary,” says Percival, because it is too tender a thing to acknowledge the quest as a hopeless cause.
“Ask her, then,” says Galahad, and it takes Percival longer than he would like to realize that Galahad is asking that they pray together.
He drags out the prayer longer than he needs to, because that is another thing he has found that eases Galahad’s worry. Galahad will listen to him pray, but not speak. He will look at Percival only when he is genuflecting and making the sign of the cross, and never when he is sitting. Percival must be holy or he is not pleasing to Galahad, and Percival cannot understand what has made his mundanity so horrible. Perhaps he was never cherished, only the evidence of a creature made by and for God was a fitting traveling companion for the purest knight of all.
Not that Percival blames him. He does not find himself worthy of Galahad’s companionship for his own part. It is a hanging on of the coattails, for him, and though it is wretched, it is more than he ever has deserved.
Galahad
It has been one thousand, four hundred, and ninety days, and Galahad can’t take it anymore. He is, despite his role as a grail knight, still only a man.
So he turns to Percival as they are eating dinner, and says, “I know that it’s a sin, but after the quest is finished, we could be like Bedivere and Kay.”
It’s the second most obvious relationship in the castle, only kept hidden by the general rule that one doesn’t talk about such things in polite company. The first most obvious relationship is between Guinevere and Lancelot, and Galahad is certain that Arthur doesn’t know about either pair.
Neither does Percival, judging by his generally confused reaction.
“Sure,” he says. “We already share rooms.”
Sometimes Galahad forgets how good he is at observation. And how bad Percival is at it.
It was already absolutely mortifying to say the first thing, so Galahad is most definitely not going to explain it. “Yes,” he says. “And we can go on quests together still, even though we already spent this quest together.”
Percival smiles-- Galahad loves seeing the dimples on his cheeks, the crinkles around his eyes. “That would be nice,” he says. “I don’t want to be like Kay and Bedivere, though,” he says, and Galahad’s heart falls so far in his chest it makes him nauseous. “I could never stay at court all of the time like Kay does,” says Percival, “Nor do I wish for you to lose a hand like Bedivere. And the two of them always seem to have either an anger or a melancholy around them that I would not wish on you or myself.”
Galahad realizes that they are talking at cross-purposes, and so he decides to align himself with what Percival is talking about.
“No, I suppose I would not like that,” says Galahad. “But they are alive.”
To insinuate that he would like to live is a sin, he knows it. He has not learned to want to die yet, though he knew it well enough ere Percival joined his travels. He also thinks, privately, that there is no way for the two of them to return to Camelot without a melancholy shrouding them both. But if Percival thinks it may yet happen, Galahad will indulge the fantasy.
“Ah,” says Percival, and now there is a melancholy around him that Galahad does not possess. “You are one of few knights I have met who wants to live. You and Gawain.”
That shocks Galahad. Surely there are others. “Lancelot, my father--”
Percival shrugs. “I believe he leaves court as an excuse to die,” says Percival. Galahad is realizing that Percival is more shrewd than he gives him credit for. “Most of them do.”
Galahad stays silent. There is nothing he can say-- nothing that he wants to say-- yet there is a deep and abiding sadness within him. It matters not, his quietude, since Percival speaks again, heedless.
“I like you--the ones who don’t wish to die. You make me feel less silly for wanting to live the same.”
Galahad finds his voice. “You should not feel silly for that.” What he wants to say is that Percival lights up a room, that his joy is contagious and his laugh is too, that Galahad could sit by his side for a thousand years and not get tired of the man in front of him.
That is too fragile a thing, too raw. “Perhaps they should learn to live as you do,” he says, softer.
Percival
Percival can taste ozone. It is the one thousandth, six hundredth, and forty third day of their questing, and Percival started counting after the day that Galahad was deceived. It was terrible for Percival to see, and he is sure that it was twice as bad for Galahad to endure.
He thinks about it still, and can never quite quell the jealousy in his chest when he remembers that Galahad more easily touched a devil than Percival’s true self. That Galahad was comforted better by a phantom than by Percival’s own clumsy tongue.
The devil speaks sweetly, this Percival knows, but it does not make it easier to bear the knowledge that what he could not do to help Galahad, Satan did easily. He is still far from his friend, a hesitation that sits unspoken between them. He would mend it, if he knew how to.
There are times-- more often at court, but he feels it here no less acutely-- that he understands how young he still is. Ten years Gawain’s junior, and nearly forty years younger than the king, who must now be over sixty. No matter how he grows, and learns, and forces out a space to sit at the round table by his blade which can beat nearly every other but which broke when it met Galahad’s sword-- despite that, he will always be a nobody from north Wales, with an accent from the hills and his homespun wool, riding through the gate on his horse because he doesn’t know any better.
No father that he has never met will change that.
He does not wish to be anyone else, or so he tells himself when he begins to grow restless and nothing at Arthur’s court seems sweet enough for his tastes. He does not wish to be anyone else, but he does love that Galahad does not know him as a Welsh boy riding into court in red armor with his horse’s saddle cinched too loosely.
He wants Galahad back, and it is for selfish reasons, for he loves that Galahad does not talk to a Percival that has not existed since that first day at court. He wants the old Galahad back, and it is a sin, it is always a sin. He wonders if that brotherly love of Paul’s has ever existed, or if that, too, was a sin, only less obvious.
Desire has become rote, that yearning for something that does not exist except in his own head, and he thinks of knights and angels.
Knights, angels, and not knowing any better. Was that first glimpse of golden hair and the instinctive notion that such marvelous features must belong to an angel truly so much sin? He met Galahad long after Bors, but yet, sometimes, in the deepest of night at the witching hour, he looks to his companion and cannot tell the difference between god and man.
Galahad
It is on the one thousandth, eight hundredth and eighty eighth day when the two of them meet Bors. This is the number that makes up Jesus’s name plus one thousand, so Galahad is not surprised. They are riding, a leisurely pace so as not to tire their horses, when they hear a voice. Galahad raises his sword: there have not been enough friendly knights to justify immediate peace, but instead of attacking, the other knight removes his helmet.
Galahad’s sword is back in his sheath in an instant, and a smile is on his face. He doesn’t raise his visor, but Percival, who rides only wearing his hauberk, surcoat, and greaves lights up with an immediate joy.
“Bors,” he calls, loud enough to scare off half the prey in the forest.
“Percival?” A pause. “Galahad?”
Percival confirms it for the both of them.
“I did not think to find you here,” says Bors, which is when Galahad raises his visor to call out to Bors that they should travel together. He would not have been upset had Percival made the suggestion, but Percival is hesitant to act without Galahad’s approval, and Galahad is happy enough to take the lead.
“I had hoped,” said Bors, turning his horse so they were riding parallel. “Are you well?”
“Well enough.” Galahad is glad Percival answers for the both of them. He does not wish to add another sin of deception to his list.
“Where have you seen?” Bors asks, ever practical. “Only Wales?”
“We had hoped to travel north,” said Percival, “Scotland, and where Gawain is from. But we can’t make it through the forest.”
“It does not like to lose its prey,” Galahad adds.
Bors’ face grows troubled. “The forest?”
“Yes,” says Percival. “We’ll make it through.”
It sounds trite, but coming from Percival, it is entirely sincere.
“Waste no time, then,” says Bors, and they’re off.
Bors
The first thought Bors has is I promised to take care of them. The second thought is I knew this would happen. Both of them look like they have seen more than is right, and both of them look much thinner than they did when they left Camelot, though Bors is self-aware enough to know that he is reacting like a parent would. God knows he has to, if Lancelot can’t.
Despite their visible exhaustion, the boys look to be in high spirits. There is not a thing out of place on their armor, which looks nearly new despite the five years they have spent on the quest. Percival in particular seems glad to see him, and Galahad smiles, though the circles under his eyes are dark enough that they look like bruises. He looks holy, which is to say that he looks weary.
Bors’ heart sinks when he remembers he will only ever add to their burden, never lighten it. He comes to bring them forward, and forward is always darker, not least because the forest wants them dead.
He hopes the lord will spare these men-- these children-- from the pain he himself has carried on his shoulders.
He is not sure he will be a christian when he meets God at the end of the road.