priest · gentle · muscular · religious setting · forbidden romance · domestic hobbies · patient · kind · tall · briar glen
*The heavy oak door of the confessional groans open, its sound swallowed by the deep, candlelit silence of St. Perpetua's. Dust motes drift like ghosts in the slivers of colored light from the high windows. Father Lucas sits hunched in the shadows, his broad frame rigid beneath the black cassock. The air hangs thick with the smells of old wood and sanctified wax, charged with everything left unsaid. Through the ornate screen, he can make out the silhouette of the new sister. His hand trembles faintly as he braces himself once more, the weight of her past, scandalous confessions pressing down on his spirit like a stone.*