Another piece transferred from my other blog.
This is also from OC Kiss Week 2024, for the prompt "sunrise"
~*~
Brother Meregrund believed that dawn was the best time to collect herbs. They were still cold and fresh from the night air, but as the first rays of light began to reach their warm tendrils into the monastery's small garden, the began to release the their gentle fragrance, mingling with smell of the morning air. It made sense, then, that should one wish to find Brother Meregrund after Matins, his garden was the best place to look.
True enough, as Brother Hawley closed the creaking door behind him and stepped into the little courtyard, he could see the silhouette of Meregrund stooped in the middle of the herb beds, painted shades of blue in the pre-dawn light. Hawley did not announce himself, but Meregrund looked up at the sound of his footsteps, his kindly old face creasing in a well-worn smile.
'My dear Brother Hawley, what brings you out here so early? It is unlike you to miss Lauds, is everything quite right?'
Hawley cleared his throat. 'I found myself desiring your company.'
This appeared to amuse Meregrund as much as it surprised him, and he hummed thoughtfully, his smile wry. 'How very unlike you indeed.'
'Don't talk nonsense Meregrund.' Hawley groused. 'As though I do not seek out your company regularly.'
'Well, if it's my company you wish for, then you will have to help me gather these herbs before Lauds, there are half a dozen tinctures that I need young Hob to brew today and we haven't nearly enough in the store.'
Hawley eyed his wicker basket, half full already with small bundles of hearts-ease, mallow, lovage, houseleek, sage and guelder rose. Without complaint, he knelt beside Meregrund and began to collect the rosemary that grew in the closest bed, working together in companionable silence for a time.
'Will you speak of what troubles you, Hawley.' Meregrund said quietly at last.
'I fear I cannot,' Hawley replied. 'For if I start I may spill secrets no man should utter.'
Meregrund paused and placed a calloused hand over Hawley's own. 'We have known one another for forty years, there is no secret you could hold that would turn me from you.'
Hawley sucked in a trembling breath. 'You cannot promise that.'
He felt the hand atop his own tighten, and looked up to meet the ever-discerning gaze of his oldest friend. 'I can, my dear Hawley, and I shall. There is something burdening you, and it saddens me to see you so.'
The sky above them was turning lavender, a rosy blush as fair as any young maiden. 'I have so many regrets.'
'I am no confessor, my friend, but I would gladly share the weight of these with you, if you would tell me.'
Hawley's gaze roamed the dear face in front of him, drinking in every detail. Meregrund looked as he ever did, barely changed from when they had been barely out of boyhood, though now his nose and ears seemed to large for his thin face, and his eyes seemed smaller, no longer ale-brown, but pale as honey. His skin was wrinkled now too, seemingly stretching the gap of their ten years more than that, him in his garden skin sun-blessed while Hawley stayed sequestered in his library. Where his hair had once been so deep a chestnut to almost be black, now even in the burnishing dawn it was silver, thin and wispy around his head like a halo. Oh how he longed to touch it.
'It is my greatest regret,' Hawley said, voice wavering. 'That I never told you how much I regard you. I love you, Meregrund, more so than the others, more so than the Saints.'
Meregrund's answering smile was kind but tired. 'You should not blaspheme for this wretched old man, Hawley.'
'Wretched? Naive, ridiculous, exasperating and easily distracted, perhaps, but wretched never.' He said fondly.
'You did not refute the blasphemy, my friend.' Meregrund replied shrewdly.
'It has been too long since the love of the Saints came even close to my love of you, Meregrund, I don't feel that I know what it is not to blaspheme with every breath.'
'What would you ask of me, then?' He said in reply, though when Hawley answered nothing, he shook his head. 'You would not be here with me if there were not something you wish to ask of me.'
'I wish-' Hawley began, but felt the words stick in his throat. 'I wish I had told you how much it meant, to spend even a moment of my day with you. I wish I could have held your hand as more than a friend.'
Meregrund breathed a sigh of understanding, his gaze ever kind and full of affection. 'What love did you not show me, hmm? We shared meals together, we prayed together, we slept often by one another's side. We shared joy and grief, we argued and reconciled, and enjoyed one another's company. We saw summer's splendour year after year, and warmed one another through many a winter. Do not value my great love for you as anything less than what it is simply because I chose to express it differently than you.'
Hawley felt bereft, a great valley of shame and grief cracked open inside of him. They had truly lived a life together more entangled and full of love than many a husband and wife, how cruel it was that he had not seen it as such until now.
'Please do not cry, my dear, dear Hawley.' Meregrund said softly and leant forward to bestow on him a single, chaste kiss.
His lips were dry with age, but warm and soft. Nothing fervent or wanting lay beneath their sharing of breath, it was as the Saints might bestow on their flock, but lingering in a way that belied a deeper feeling.
Hawley felt his eyes slide shut as he basked for that glorious moment, the golden light of the sun setting his sight ablaze behind his eyelids. Oh, a benediction the likes of which he had never known, searing through him as sure as lightning in a summer storm. A gentle death, for he was sure in this moment he was dying. No other rapture could be so exquisite.
He brought a shaking hand up to cup Meregrund's face, but as their lips parted it fell away into nothingness. He opened his eyes as the wash of pale sunlight illuminated the empty garden around him. No longer the blue and gold of a halcyon summer dawn. The herbs were long dead, charred to black stems and ashes, the wattle fences fallen and broken. There was a wicker basket upturned in the barren soil. All around was stillness.
He touched his lips reverently as tears fell unbidden down his weathered cheeks. Perhaps this was the one blessing he got, a single confession and its absolution.
He heard his name being called from the doorway, and rose from his place on the ground to see the rotund figure of young Hob stood in the archway where the physic garden door swung loosely on its hinges, surrounded by rubble, the only part of the wall still standing.
'Brother Hawley, what are you doing out here so early, you'll catch a chill.' He said, his round, boyish face somehow more mature when etched with concern.
'Saying goodbye.' He replied, voice small and husky. 'Just saying goodbye.'
