![[ CLOSED♥ ] NOVUS rpg](https://novus-rpg.net/images/logo.png "[ CLOSED♥ ] NOVUS rpg"){kind=logo}
+- [ CLOSED♥ ] NOVUS rpg (https://novus-rpg.net)
+-- Forum: Realms (https://novus-rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Forum: Denocte (https://novus-rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=17)
+---- Forum: Archives (https://novus-rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=95)
+---- Thread: [P] (FALL) A memoir of love and death (/showthread.php?tid=4229)
(FALL) A memoir of love and death - Tenebrae - 10-26-2019
and in my heart: all Hells
Pumpkins cackle with their jagged, candle-lit smiles as he passes them. Some hang from the gnarled arms of tall trees, others lie like lamps along the paths. The moon is slumbering in the sky, dark clouds broiling in as a storm gathers out at sea. A hallowing wind gusts its way through the markets, trembling candles and tugging at decorations. Upon it rain begins to fall, thin as drizzle, as soaking as the sea.
Tenebrae feels that cold kiss of rain, how the damp gathers along the contours of his spine, how it turns his silver skin as dark as smoke. If he were not lazy, if his fellow disciples were beside him, they might make a shelter of their shadow magic. Yet this night Tenebrae is alone and such magic is a far cry from him.
Yet the shadows are a part of him and they gather together, shrouding the warrior from the firelight. The darkness is keen as she swallows him in black, keeping him from the watches of the Night.
On and on the Night Order monk moves, until he gets to a sea of candles. A sea of firelight that reaches out across the cliffs and on into the sea that gleams purple-blue with its deep night hue. Ther Tenebrae stops and there his shadows recede. They fall away until they drape across his back like a cape. No more do they billow, no more do they fight back the light of the candles, but succumb to their illumination.
Tenebrae looks and wonders just how many souls are here, each lit by a small candle. They number the stars that scatter above their heads. They number the living who gather to remember them. A girl stands near and how he should not look - how he now knows better!
But he looks. He sees and he recognises how her body is toned. She is the light to his shadow. She is the press of ivory bone, strong and sculpted and unyielding. Upon her limbs two swords glint with steel smiles that cut the air with their sharp lines. Ah, real weapons are like stangers to him. Never had he needed a weapon of metal when all of his are shadow forged - black and savage and as sharp as his magic demands. His weapons are whatever he desires them to be and always are his shadows willing and obedient.
But never has he held a sword of steel. Never has he touched the sharp lines and the cold metal. The Disciple moves to her, his gaze upon the sword that sings from its place upon her slender limb. He begs to ask her with his deep-spirit voice. He longs to demand of her what a weapon like that feels like to weild. Yet he does not. He does not reach to run his lips along the metal, but stands beside her and asks instead, “Have you lit a candle for your dead?”
Never does he stop to think she might not grieve - for what warrior enters into battle and returns unblemished and unbroken by loss? Tenebrae could light a hundred lights and still it would never be enough.
@
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Castalla - 11-02-2019
Of all the battles I've fought
Of all the lives I've taken
Of all the people I've lost
Hunting on Halloween provided the perfect distraction, forcing her mind to focus on the land, on the fear of her people and the smug blood lust of monster hunters. It stopped her from dwelling on the souls that lay the other side of the veil, the touch of those lives that she had lost. But here, now, in Denocte, there was no such distraction and death seemed an ever present shadow.
Castalla wanted to see the way the night was aflame with candles and lanterns, the way Night Court citizens meandered the streets in joyful celebration of the ghostly holiday. But she was oblivious to all but the soft touch of the past on her shoulder, the caress of memories against her marred skin. Each scar was a death, the cut of a weapon by one who inevitably found themselves dead by her hoof. But it was not those that weighed so heavily on tonight- no those memories rarely ever lifted from her shoulders. Instead it was the weight of the souls she had lost, the souls she had been unable to save, the souls who’d given themselves in battle besides her. Away from the crowds, from the lantern-lit streets and bustling markets, a memorial was nestled among the shadows that danced with the flickering flames of tiny candles. Each representing someone somebody had lost. There were not enough candles for her dead. Nevertheless Castalla lit one, one for the soul that lay most heavy upon her shoulders, that walked besides her that night, invisible and intangible. And gone.
The voice that snakes from the darkness startles the femme, though she does not let him see that. It was as though he’d emerged from the shadows themselves, silent as the night unless he spoke from besides her. One audit flicks towards him, though her gaze remains fixed on the twirling flame of her lit candle.
“My dead are too numerous.”
Her voice is soft, sombre, a hoarse rasp that was a far cry from her usual sumptuous fortissimo. Blinking away the memories that surfaced in her mind’s eye she collects herself internally, rising slowly, though gracefully, from her knees to turn to the steed besides her. His skin is a sky of stars, christened by the mark of a moon upon his shoulder; the Wolf cannot help but see how he would fit in among the Night Court. Castalla is not sure if she, herself, belong among the court- she is a wild creature even if her powers are diminished and the call of her wolf near silent.
“No matter where you travel, there will always be so many dead.” Uncharacteristically melancholic, she gestures with an elegant swing of her head to the tempestuous flames, a beacon among the shadows of sorrow.
@Tenebrae I apologise this ended up so long, please don't feel compelled to match it, I don't usually write this much xD
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Tenebrae - 12-16-2019
and in my heart: all Hells
Candles warm the midnight and around their glowing tongues his darkness dances considering, toying, feline.
My dead are too numerous.
Tenebrae stirs from where he watches the flames and the numbered souls whose once-lives glow bright before him. He wonders how they all went - whether death was slow or long, gentle or cruel. Slowly he turns his gaze upon Castalla. She is gold, lit by the firelight that dances as dragons across her skin. It paints her in shadows and appears as if the darkness does not know how to truly touch her for it skims across the pale of her skin and draws only caramel darkness into the contours of her body.
How shadowed is her soul? Is it like his? Swathed in black and clad in armour thick enough to resist the piercings of loss and living that fly as arrows toward its core.
The girl rises from her knees, where dirt still clings and stains her as holy, as penitent. She moves, sleek and lupine and all Tenebrae can think then is she has not knelt for long enough. Her joints are not stiff with cold and being bent upon a hard surface for hours. He has not prayed enough today, his knees do not hurt, his back does not ache.
The young Disciple sighs, his eyes close. Sweat is cool upon his skin, the aches of fighting and training still whispering in his limbs. He may be the holy one, but next to this girl, gilded and clean and perfect, she is the holy one.
No matter where you travel, there will always be so many dead. Tenebrae nods at her truth. His sigils blink their lament. “It is a universal truth.” He agrees with her. Where there is life there is death. “It comes to us all.”
And some deliver it. He does not say and idly begins to wonder, of the candles here, how many are lit because of him? How many will be lit because of him? The shadows gather as a shawl. They shroud him in melancholy dark and whisper of goddesses and sun gods and the darkness within his DNA.
Tenebrae is not made for anything more than lighting candles.
Slowly he pulls his white gaze from the candles. He turns his smile upon the girl and breathes smoke between them. It stirs restless. “My name is Tenebrae. What is yours?”
His eyes follow the golden light that pours like metal into the intricate curves of her face. He watches where moonlight dances with firelight until all is sunlight and starlight. She wears both like a bridle painted upon the angles of her cheeks, her brow, her nose. Tenebrae snaps his gaze away and thinks of wolves as the wind howls over the candles. It mocks him with knowing and slowly his gaze returns to the girl and the shadowed parts of her that howl with more: more than horse. The moon croons where she hangs beckoning and lupine his lifts his skull up toward her.
Wolf, Wolf, Wolf...
Tenebrae knows nothing how how the moon plays them both this night.
“You are Denoctean aren’t you? Have you always lived here?” His question is small and wondering. Though he was made here, though his father was a Stallion forged by Caligo Tenebrae knows nothing of what it is to be born Denoctean.
@
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Castalla - 12-18-2019
I will not hear those screams again.
The soft glow of candle light beneath the cold eye of the moon sets a macabre scene and Castalla cannot help but succumb to the air of hushed melancholy. Shadows dance a slow, morose waltz as they meet the flickering flames in a deadly tandem for the former did not exist without the latter. Once, Castalla had been the shadow and Skender the light. She, unable to exist without him. Or so it had felt. Among their people, there was nothing stronger than the bond between lovers and it is said that when one dies, the other will follow. But that innate survival instinct that had kept the Wolf alive all these years had steeled her from succumbing to her broken heart. Instead she had found ways, each more reckless than the next, to put herself in danger. Yet, the fates were cruel in keeping her tethered to life when she might drift off and see Skender once more.
Or perhaps it was not fate. Perhaps it was the souls, the ghosts, of all those she had killed. After all, her history was a bloody tale of pain and death that would make even the most hardy sick to their stomach. Though she took lives in the name of justice, with the intention of saving innocents, she still took them. Her lips were still stained with their blood.
Where some might seek penitence for such sins, praying endlessly to distant gods and aloof deities, Castalla shied from such faith. She believed. Oh she believed. But she would not get on her knees and ask forgiveness for her sins when she would only commit them again once more. No, there was no saving her soul.
Rising from the ground, turning to the steed she spies his blue-white gaze, the fire dancing in his pale eyes. He is forged of muscle, beneath the star-spun coat and there is a sombre understanding in the moonlit depths of his oculars. She wonders if he is a warrior like her, though it is far less obvious. Her body is littered with scars- dress her in silk and it may hide the tales of her history but it would never change her nature. She was a wolf, a weapon. For ever and always. And it was written on her skin.
It comes to us all. A sad smile plays across the mare’s pale lips as she glances away for a moment. Death had come to her far too much in her life. He stalked her like scavenger seeking to feast on the corpses she left behind. He courted her like a lover, forever calling for more, more, more.
“Castalla. It is a pleasure to meet you Tenebrae.” She dips her heart accordingly but only manages the small smile that is still painted across her lips. Tonight was not a night for joy and happiness it seemed. She watches as he turns his shadowed face to the moon, its figure marked upon his forehead as it is on his shoulder. But tonight the light of the moon is a cold one, as though Nysa were not watching, not smiling down from her starry perch. Perhaps the goddess had abandoned her here, seen her across the ocean only to leave the woman in this new land.
“I have not. I travelled here only recently.” The steed smells of moonlight and stardust, of the Night and her people and Castalla can only assume he is of the Night Court. “Have you?”
@Tenebrae <3
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Tenebrae - 12-18-2019
and in my heart: all Hells
Among their people, there was nothing stronger than the bond between lovers and it is said that when one dies, the other will follow. It is a shame Tenebrae does not know this piece of lore that winds like gossamer thread through the darkest truths of Castalla’s previous community. If he had knowing the monk would have likely used it as yet another cautionary tale against looking at girls.
Ah, he sighs, deep like the ocean. There is an emotion that stirs within him. It is great like a behemoth and yet it does not disturb the shores of him. Maybe it is grief, Tenebrae dares to name it. Yet maybe it is something that should not yet have a name. A part of himself not yet to be understood. So instead he shifts, restless, weary with training. He feels the ache of his joints the light groan of his muscles as he moves them in the night air that cools with the whispers of winter.
She is quiet, this girl beside him. Quiet in the way that all wild creatures are. He turns to Castalla, for he is still brave, he is still foolish (he is not yet bitten) and drinks in the sight of her pale skin. Still the candles adore her, still sadness paints her as a statue in the deepest of the woods. Yes, she is the quiet of the wolf, the lonely howl in the deepest of night. And, just like the wolf, her eyes are gilded with strength, they are unbowing. Her gaze is sharp as the claws she keeps hidden. Castalla is dangerous. As dangerous as him. Tenebrae knows that death does not just creep from the darkness but the light also.
That cold winds sighs between them and he might have shivered, if he were not used to the mountain tops where snow flurries and the wind howls like the look in Castalla’s gaze. He would think of her again, when he is up there and the west wind blows. The light of his crescent moon sigil glows upon her brow. It pours out silver-light into a diadem that seems to slip from her poll. It makes her seem fallen but all tenebrae can think is how they are all fallen. He just does not yet know how far he will go, how deep his punishments will cut him, how long he will have to kneel uttering his penance before his Night Goddess.
Castalla has begun to smell of woodfire smoke, of extinguished candles and sea-salt air. Each is fleeting this night. Each ascends like souls, like prayers up to the realms of the gods. Is that where they are? He wonders, though he no longer looks up, but as the diadem of light that slips, down, down as his gaze trails down the many scars that mark her face, her throat, her shoulders.
His shadow magic sighs for her, for that sorrow in her gaze. It shift to let moonlight shine into her gaze. That darkness, that Tenebrae calls she (for it is the darkness he is wed to), reaches up toward the girl he watches. It dances over her scars, it maps them out one by one and Tenebrae wonders what story they weave, what tales, terrible and joyful they keep.
Tall, tall he stands with his sigils that glow as they watch the moon tilt her way across the nighttime sky. “I am not new,” The Disciple murmurs, whiskey rich. “I was not born here. Though my father was. I came when Caligo called the Stallions back.” Darkness blossoms like buds across his tongue, it adorns every word that pours past his lips. The candles tremble with its rousing and at last, when he has looked too long, when the monk has wondered too much on the beauty of girls and the weight of the Night Order vows, then Tenebrae looks away and it is something like fleeing.
@
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Castalla - 01-02-2020
@Tenebrae <3
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Tenebrae - 04-17-2020
and in my heart: all Hells
The candles flicker in the breeze together. Their light dances warm and bright beneath black of the endless sky. Each lit candle was a soul, the flickering of its light a memory of the life once lived. Like a tattered film the memories play out in light across the bodies of those who pass by the place of remembrance. The Disciple wonders how many of those who pass by carry the grief of souls gone before them. He wonders how many keep their hearts whole - surely none were unblemished. Surely some were split open and still unhealed.
His darkness maps her and it is almost a shame. She is pale, the scars across her skin a mirror of those upon the face of the moon. If Tenebrae ever dared to, he might say she was lovely. He notes it and yet his tongue knows the weight of that dangerous sin and he speaks it not. The observation does not turn to ash within his mouth (like so many things seem to of late). Instead, the words sit weighty and bright, something beautiful, as preciosu as a stone to be mined. Maybe one day it would be, but for now there are parts of Tenebrae that are not to be explored. He buries such observations there and welcomes his shadows as they draw themselves across her skin - like night.
The girl is war ready, her scars sharpen the soft lines of her form. There is as much of her that is violent as is soft and penitential this night. She thinks of the dead, of those by her hand and those she has lost. Tenebrae meets her there, in the darker places of their souls. Yet it is here, in the darkest, deepest parts of them that they discover their souls are both frayed and broken.
The snow blows melancholy between them. White flakes snag in the tangles of his mane and hers. In hers they seem almost grey, tainted in the pale white of her hair. Was there nothing in life untainted? Tenebrae knows he is destined to be a sinner, yet no matter how many times he cleans his deeds from his flesh, his soul, the dirt only returns, thicker, darker.
The monk turns from where snow frames the dark of her lashes and looks up toward the sunless skies. “The Stallions Made to Swallow the Sun. Caligo made them, originally, during the dispute with the other gods. When that was over she set the Stallions loose and all their sons since carry her mark. We are born to serve Caligo. When she called us back I came to serve her.” The explanation feels rough upon his tongue, it feels shallow and without weight. He does his brothers no justice with such an explanation and he sighs, still gazing at the sky. “I am a Disciple of the Night Order, vowed to protect my goddess and Denocte.”
Slowly his white glow eyes lower from the sky, where far flung stars reach out on and on into eternity. He wonders what it might be like to be amidst them. Yet he looks down, down to where the wolf stands beside him, her eyes painted with the dark of his shadows. She is a silhouette of elegance but the darkness makes her scars ever more stark. He feels comfortable here, beside her. A smile draws across his lips as the warmth of his whiskey voice fades into the night, replaced by prayers and distant music. Tenebrae studies the delicate contours of her face where his shadows do not hide her. “It was good to meet you. Maybe we can meet again because I would like to know where were you from before, Castalla. I wonder if it was it a place so full of revelry as Denocte?” And about them the festival seems to come to life, as children rub by with sugar upon their fingers and cheeks, sky lanterns lighting the night sky and dancers dressed in finest silks as they swirl in a waltz.
Tenebrae smiles to her, before he turns, disappearing into the crowds, his shadows swallowing up the night. He knows that this will not be their last meeting.
@
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
RE: (FALL) A memoir of love and death - Castalla - 06-25-2020
There were so many tales behind the scars that marred her pale skin, stories of pain and anger, legends of triumph and victory, whispers of work in the shadows. Castalla was a paradox, a woman of sharp beauty but gentle elegance- a creature refined by royalty and bred for the throne. She could entertain a court as well as the best of nobles and she could play the grand Game better than most. Yet she was a creature ravaged by war, marked by the battles she’d faced and gifted with the aggressive, enrapturing gaze of a predator. Beneath it all, beyond the pride and passion, behind the shadows and the lies, were the cracks of a shattered soul, the fragility of a flower hidden down, down, down.
Tonight there is beauty in her suffering, in the silence that surrounds her like the ghosts of her path. Tonight, despite the melancholy caressing her pale skin like the moon far above, her beaten and bandaged soul is still surrounded by the shield of her fearsome visage.
There is strength in Tenebrae’s suffering too, in the way he holds himself despite what Castalla assumes must be a heavy weight upon his shoulders. She is glad for the change of conversation, despite the sadness weighing heavy on them both tonight. Such confessions and sorrow were a vulnerability the Wolf could rarely afford. Yet there was an understanding between the two of them- the mare marked by battles and losses and the steed marked by the moon and the Night. And somehow Castalla felt a little more at ease than she would have expected.
At the explanation Castalla dips her head in understanding, recognising the power a calling like that had. There were many religious groups in Alanaris, some dangerous, some honourable but all drawn by their calling. Though Castalla cannot tell whether it’s pride in Tenebrae’s voice as he talks of his brothers and their mission. “I am sure Caligo and all of Denocte are lucky to have you and yours watching over them,” she says softly.
“I would be happy to share stories of my homeland,” the woman offers, a gentle smile softening her sharp features. “May we meet again Tenebrae of the Stallions.”
With that she watches him melt into the crowds and then, with just a glance cast at the little flames flickering in remembrance, she too takes her leave of the memorial and disappears into the shadows where the moon does not quite see.
@Tenebrae <3