Predictably, Brother Æthelwine was doing something stupid. He was drawing himself fucking Brother Wulfric from behind in his sketchbook. Brother Æthelwine was lying on his stomach with the sketchbook flat on the bed, clear for everyone to see exactly the sinful filth he was drawing. Abbot Gunter ran over and grabbed the sketchbook. He slammed it shut. 

“Hey!” Brother Æthelwine went white when he saw it was Abbot Gunter who had interrupted him. “Sorry, sir. I–”

“Your mother is here.” Abbot Gunter nodded towards the Queen of the Forest. “You are to rest. I will be taking this.” 

“Please don’t look inside,” Brother Æthelwine whined pathetically. 

“Do not tell me what to do.”

“I’m not telling you, I am imploring politely…” Brother Æthelwine trailed off as he saw the wrath on his abbot’s face.

“Greet your mother.” 

“Hello Mum,” Brother Æthelwine said weakly.

The Queen of the Forest raised an eyebrow and stared down at her son, a neutral expression on her face. She held out her hand to Abbot Gunter. He did not hand the book to her. She slowly turned her head and glared at him. Abbot Gunter glanced at her hand. While he did not want to submit to the Queen of the Forest, he also did not wish to be struck down with elfshot either. After a few tense moments, Abbot Gunter handed her the sketchbook. The moment’s hesitation would not seem like obedience, but like a kind gesture. (The Queen of the Forest saw it as hesitant obedience.) 

The Queen of the Forest flipped through it, her face slowly going from neutral to disgust with each folio she laid her grey eyes upon. Abbot Gunter and Brother Hywel peeked over her shoulder. Folio after folio was disgraced with pure filth, often of  Brother Æthelwine and Brother Wulfric, but sometimes of people Abbot Gunter was grateful he did not recognize.  The most detailed drawings were of  Brother Æthelwine fucking Brother Wulfric in his full, hairy glory. There was one folio entirely dedicated to a spread labeled “Wulfric’s Cock” and extremely detailed line drawings.  In unison, the elven Queen of the Forest and the very human Abbot Gunter and Brother Hywel looked up at Brother Æthelwine. 

The Queen and the Abbot’s disgust was obvious. 

Brother Hywel looked mildly amused for a moment but resumed a neutral face when he noticed his abbot’s disgust. 

 Brother Æthelwine’s face was bright red and he grinned nervously. 

“I, uh, I–”

“You can explain yourself to your mother,” Abbot Gunter said, his voice shaking with rage, “We will have a discussion about this later.”

The Queen of the Forest closed the sketchbook. She handed it to Abbot Gunter with the tips of her delicate fingers like it was a snot covered rag. He started to leave with it in his hands, but stopped. He opened it again. He held up a folio–one where Brother Æthelwine’s head was in between a man’s legs–to the light. Some light passed through the expensive and delicate calfskin, illuminating the material. More fury flooded Abbot Gunter’s body.

“Who told you that you could use vellum for a sketchbook?!” He shouted. 

“That is what you are angry about?” The Queen of the Forest asked incredulously. 

“We are a humble monastery,” Gunter said stiffly. “Vellum is valuable and should only be used for works that glorify God, not this blasphemy.” 

The Queen of the Forest pursed her lips together. She turned to her son who shrunk down a bit. 

“You can talk to your mother as I scrape your filth off the community vellum,” Abbot Gunter hissed. “Brother Hywel will supervise your visit.”

“She’s my mother! I’m not going to do anything untoward!” Brother Æthelwine protested. 

Abbot Gunter flicked his hand in a dismissing gesture and left the infirmary. Brother Hywel closed the door and stood by the wall, his eyes watching the elves with amusement. Brother Æthelwine rolled his eyes. 

“Don’t you judge me!” Brother Æthelwine pointed and then winced.

“I’m not judging the contents,” Brother Hywel said. And he wasn’t. He’d be a hypocrite otherwise. Granted, he never drew obscene art, but when his Theo was still alive, he certainly participated in breaking his vow of celibacy repeatedly and with minimal guilt. 

Cartimandua sat on her son’s bed. 

“Is this ultramarine for lewd drawings?” She asked. 

“Er, no?” 

She narrowed her eyes. “You don’t sound confident.”

“Well, I never know what will be commissioned!”

“Are people commissioning you to draw erotic drawings?” Cartimandua sounded skeptical.

“Well, no, but sometimes I do have to illuminate The Song of Songs.” 

“What are The Song of Songs?”

“Er,” Æthelwine glanced towards Hywel, who was still watching them. “It’s a poem Christians claim is about loving God, but, erm…yeah.” 

“Christians have poems about fucking their gods?”

“No!” Æthelwine said, more offended than he should have sounded given his mother was still under the impression he was a pagan. “We–they do not.”

“‘We?’” Cartimandua raised an eyebrow, an undercurrent of anger in her voice.

Æthelwine made a point of looking at Hywel. Cartimandua glanced at Hywel. He smiled charmingly, but she was not fooled. She narrowed her eyes. He stopped smiling and looked away. 

“You still believe in Woden?”  Cartimandua whispered.

Æthelwine nodded. “I believe in his existence,” he said carefully. Æthelwine believed Woden existed. He no longer believed Woden was the true God, or a god at all. 

Cartimandua narrowed her eyes again. “Do you believe he is a god?”

Æthelwine mentally groaned. He had forgotten how smart his mother was. He thought quickly as he did not want to deny God three times as Peter had done. 

“I can’t say with Brother Hywel so close,” Æthelwine said. “He’s pretending not to hear us. Abbot Gunter is furious at me and if he finds out about this, then he will throw me out of the monastery.”

“Would that really be so bad?” Cartimandua stroked his hair. In the short time she had seen her son, she realized how much she missed him…even if he was an embarrassment to elves. 

“Do you really want to have to find me a wife?” 

Cartimandua sucked in her cheeks. There was nothing she would rather do less. 

“You have asked me for a lot of money. I do not deem your sketchbook proof that you will use the ultramarine wisely. I will need to see your other artwork before I make any sort of donation towards your monastery.”

“You didn’t like my drawings?” Æthelwine asked, hurt. 

“Drawing erotic imagery is very human male.” 

“They’re wearing off on me.”

“Stop letting them.”

“I’ll try,” Æthelwine lied.

“Is this Wulfric a werewolf?”

Æthelwine nodded. 

 Cartimandua rolled her eyes. “We are not fauns. For the love of Woden, have some decorum. You cannot swyve every hairy being you lay your eyes on. What happened to your claim that monks take vows of celibacy? Was that a lie?”

“It wasn’t! I hate that stupid beast.”

“It does not seem like it to me.”  Cartimandua sat up primly. 

“Okay, so, sometimes when we are drunk we–”

“Shut up,” Cartimandua raised her hand. “If you want the money, I need to see everything you have created in the monastery. It needs to be good art and not this erotic trash you insist upon creating. Preferably it glorifies elves and Woden, in some subtle way.” She stood. “It is late. I am not tired, but I am sure my servants and human slaves are. We will discuss this more tomorrow.” She turned to Hywel. “Take me to the abbot. I wish to stay in your guesthouse for the evening.”

“Of course, your grace,” Brother Hywel said smoothly. “Follow me.” 

As soon as they both left the infirmary and the heavy wooden door had been shut, Æthelwine let out a groan. He wasn’t worried about finding non-erotic art. He had created a lot of it. But since his conversion, none of his art glorified Woden in any sort of way. Though occasionally he did depict elves in ways his mother would consider blasphemous to the old gods. When he could get away with it, he often painted one of the apostles as an elf. Usually he did so in manuscripts that were commissioned and sold without Abbot Gunter seeing. He tried to paint Saint Philip as an elf in the church mural, but Abbot Gunter caught him and made him change it. (Æthelwine had considered giving Abbot Gunter elfshot at the time, but he was new to the monastery and already on thin ice for painting Satan slightly too attractive.) When his mother saw his very Christian art, there was no way she would give them the money they needed.

Æthelwine could feel the ultramarine slipping through his fingers already.