His heart twisted painfully in his chest at the sight of his companion withering from him as if he'd been struck, crumpling around his wounded heart to defend it from further harm. Alcuin knew, better than anyone, what it was like to be young and vulnerable and lovestruck. Had he not asked the same of his beloved that fateful evening? Was this not the very dilemma his beloved had hoped in vain to avoid? He wondered what he might have done, what he might have looked like, had his beloved turned him away. Hadn't he, though, in his way...? “Listen to me, mon petit. Listen,” Alcuin whispered, shaking the awful thought from his mind, lest it slice his heart in twain. His bright, shining hair fell like a curtain as he leaned nearer to his brokenhearted companion, steadying himself with an arm on each side of the boy. “Do you remember what I told you about the precept? There is no crime in it; you've no need to apologize.”
“What you feel is a gift, and not one to be taken lightly, but it is a gift I cannot accept. Our hearts are not our own; they belong to him, and only to him. He has been nothing but kind to us, but we mustn't take that kindness for granted,” he thought of what became of his mother and suppressed a shiver. “Do you understand now, mon petit?”