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[adelstan-a]

moby dick, pt. 2.

dialogue prompts from moby dick by herman melville. (disclaimer: there’s a lot of paraphrasing. these men are VERBOSE.)

the higher you climb, the colder it gets.

are you a believer in ghosts?

i try all things; i achieve what i can.

real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it.

god, what is the matter with me?

i’d rather be killed by you than kept alive by anyone else.

what’s made in fire must belong to fire.

dignity and danger go hand in hand.

the higher you rise, the harder you toil.

how can you endure without being mad?

i look deep down, and i believe.

i’m immortal on land and on sea.

live in the game and die in it.

i never said i was a brave man.

look through my eyes if you have none.

there’s no way to stop me singing but to cut my throat.

let’s have fair play here.

have mercy on us all.

i take that for a sign of good luck.

i am darkness leaping out of light.

i’ve changed my flesh since that time, why not my mind?

it’s easy to be sensible. why won’t you?

is there no other way?

you have pretty red hair.

the greater idiot scolds the lesser.

the gravedigger made music because there was none in his spade.

i will never desert you.

weep and i’ll murder you.

we never rest.

what do you see?

do i look very old?

i seem and feel intolerably old.

stand close to me. let me look into a human eye.

it’s a solemn sight. an omen.

i am all splintered to pieces.

all good angels are mobbing us with warnings.

do you feel brave?

i never think, i only feel.

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“I told you before and I will tell you again, my god is Odin, the all father. I know you told me, only I don’t believe you.”

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athelstan’s desperate prayer of ‘come into me again, lord—ravish me, open my eyes to the truth of your presence’ and the psychic damage that it does me

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thinking about how much athelstan has travelled since childhood—

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vikings has so many plot holes i can just pick whatever i want

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also i am telling you that athelstan does have all the makings of a sage in ac lore, like to the letter

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How I’ve waited for you my friend.

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annoys me when people make the ‘i don’t want that twink obliterated, i want him with me’ joke about ragnar and ecbert attaching themselves to athelstan–like yea okay but let’s not forget that athelstan is a remarkably valuable tool to men like this. he is widely travelled, deeply intelligent, and informed of many cultures and systems of knowledge. he is also a gifted polyglot who can speak, and !! read and write (where applicable, an exceedingly rare skill), in many languages, including the various popular dialects of old english, middle gaelic, old norse, old french, latin and medieval greek. his role as a prized and gifted scribe loaned out to great men, as well as a witness to many powerful political courts, have given him a sharp insight and observational awareness. he speaks well, if too eagerly, and he knows how to talk to powerful men and women, to appeal to them, appease them and convince them. while not ambitious in nature himself (unless one sees his natural curiosity/desire for knowledge as an aptitude for ambition, which i personally do not), athelstan is invaluable as a tool to those who do have great political ambition.

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"my father once told me that respect for truth comes close to being the basis for all morality." from basim

dune prompts.

      athelstan smiles, a small expression that warms his face. the other man does not mention family. the monk is honoured to be told even a needling truth. he does not mind basim's needling, his provoking questions. his blasphemy. the light of his smile is in athelstan's eyes when he asks with genuine affection, "your father was wise, then? as you, basim."

      there is quiet in this corner of the rectory, near the well grown all around with box and blackthorn. the others do not wish to be too near to athelstan—like a bad animal, they tolerate his presence without acknowledging it. his scars remind him of the dangerous potential in their own failures. so, too, do they give basim his berth, even if the bishop welcomes him. they are afraid of him. of his foreignness and his treacherous questions that they are not equipped to answer, every one a trap. as is his tendency, athelstan walks willingly in—plainly submitting to the danger.

      "conflict arrises from what men must agree upon as truth."

      athelstan has his habit in his lap, wearing only his white tunic that is usually beneath it. the hem of the roughspun sack cloth is torn and he is at work mending it with quill and thread borrowed from the storehouse. basim is seated near him. not so near as athelstan would like, if only to be closer to the comforting resonance of the man's voice. it has a pitch like chant. athelstan feels it in his chest when basim speaks.

      "in all great and honest conviction, i know there is a kind of truth. i have seen it, felt it. been under its sway. i have been called to believe strongly even in those who i know lie—because in the passion of their conviction there is truth, even where all else is measurably false. what you describe... is faith, is it not? we know truth through shared trust. trust and faith are active and reactive, subject to change in most, not absolute. so too is respect."

      he is focused on his task but still athelstan's brow knits and his eyes flick errantly upward time and again, seeking basim's face. he is caught by it, longing to indulge, to immerse himself there. there is knowledge behind basim's eyes, knowledge that athelstan wants. it is his great weakness in life, his worst sin outside the fickle tenderness of his in-born heart. so easily moved. so easily broken.

      "then—morality is a kind of faith. we must believe in it, or it has no real power in our lives." the statement has a blasphemy that moves in many directions, enough that it would fluster the bishop badly. but basim is not a man easily flustered. basim goes about, prodding the brothers with his impossible ideas. brothers who, though they have that name, are as a strange to athelstan now as though they were birds and fish all being made to fit in the same confused and unnatural nest.

      "if morality is faith, then the law is its ritual. it is an act of worship. as a monk dedicates his life to the worship of god, a just man worships justice. that would be a comforting thought to those who believe they they act in the right. but—" athelstan knots the thread and draws the tail up to his mouth where he severs it gently between his teeth. the hole in his habit is closed up. taught to mend in the monastery when he was very young, athelstan's stitches are neat, even beautiful. "it allows for men to make idols of themselves and their institutions all the same."

      the monk sets his habit in his lap and looks earnestly into basim's face. he tries to think of basim's father, his mother. those he may have loved, once. those he may have lost. there is something there he cannot name. a feeling like fear or reverence, or perhaps too eager an adoration, rises in athelstan's throat.

      "in god's absence we invent him, basim—such is our loneliness."

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Jesus did not seek victimisation; the Son of God did not come to us in order to be crucified, but since he comes to be a totally loving, totally human human being, it was inevitable that he would be crucified.

Herbert McCabe, Law, Love and Language

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athelstan truly is good and pure hearted, his purity is a beacon, a visible and visceral beacon that draws people to him, yea he killed people and defiled churches and denied christ (3 times) and yea he broke his vows of chastity and all the other ones too and he’s too curious and blasphemous and worships /all/ idols to love in his heart but god forgives him and there’s nothing y’all can do about it

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also do you ever think about how ragnar put athelstan in the position to be sacrificed to the gods as a test after using him to further his own knowledge—a test of athelstan’s purity and devotion to his god, which athelstan passed after a priest of odin publicly declared that the gods would not want him because he was still a christian in his heart, forcing another to take his place to avoid the gods’ wrath

and then how he is put in the position to be martyred for denying christ, and then is again snatched back from the hands of god by ecbert, who orders him cut down from the cross because he wishes to use him to (again) further his knowledge rather than let god have him

thinking about how both of these men (hubristic men, men who will gladly sup with the devil to achieve their earthly goals despite both very much believing in god/gods) eventually love athelstan, how they will later on literally argue over whose fault it is that he died, argue over who could have better protected him, who he belonged with when like—

y’all both refused to let god/the gods have him, y’all both refuse to accept that maybe his fate was with god and not !! with you

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athelstan was crucified as an apostate, he was crucified after the manner of christ. the scars he bears from that are more than the large marks where the nails were driven through the palms of his hands and through the tops of his feet—he was also publicly flogged and beaten quite brutally before transporting his cross (which he was not able to do in total, he had to be dragged most of the way up the hill while the bishop’s soldiers carried the cross on which he was to be mounted). he has scars across his back, sides, and over his shoulders from the whip. though he was tied to the cross as well as nailed, the damage the nails did to the bones and tendons in his feet takes nearly a year to heal and will never be fully erased. he does, however, and somewhat (literally) miraculously recover the full and delicate use of his hands as an artist—his gift as an artist is not reduced, if anything the process of recovery and the fact that he sketches and scribes through that process makes him more adept and aware than he was before

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