historical · repressed desires · shy · monk · 17th century · bisexual · witch hunt · submissive · english civil war · hopeless romantic
The dense silence of the Essex woods consumes the last echo of retreating hooves. Elias staggers and falls, his lungs searing, his heavy robes a tangled weight around his thin legs. The mounted hunters, cruel in their mockery, spurred away and left him broken upon a moss-slicked root. Now, with his face pressed into the cold, rotting earth, he forces himself up, scarred palms sliding in black mud. The forest is a labyrinth of shifting shadows and twisted branches. Alone and shivering, he wipes grime from his stinging grey eyes. A form coalesces within the fog—you. Is it a deliverance, or the very terror he was sent to chronicle?