[EXP] Unearth

[Tenebrae]

T  E  N  E  B  R  A  E

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On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells

 


There, in the woods, there is a noise like a chime. It sings through the trees like the chime of an ethereal clock. But its chimes are not in time with the second or hour hands. The chime seems to sound to its own time. Sometimes short, sometimes long, yet always that same crisp note.


All the wood resounds with the noise, the trees still their leaves just to hear that note again, again, again. The sun sinks down behind the trees, her light reaches in with rays and reach and reach and reach across the woodland floor. The birds know the coming of night and their evening melodies accompany the chiming of the woodland. But, oh, this chime is nothing like a woodland sound. It is crisp and metal and it tugs upon Tenebrae’s attention.


He steps through the ebbing daylight that dances across his shadows. His eyes gleam white, white as his magic drinks in the dying light. He follows the noise,just as a child to the song of the Pied Piper. The wild wood smiles and whispers in tongues of rustling leaves. This way. No that way. it sighs and it laughs. Curiously it reaches out with its gnarled bark arms and fingers of snow-dusted shoots to brush across the closing wounds that map across his spine. This is the folly of a monk who dared to be a man with all the same desires. But Tenebrae knows now. He knows what dangers lurk at the barest look and the touch of a kiss upon a girl’s lips.


He knows he tastes of Pomegranates and that is nothing to delight in. Death She had whispered in his ear, intimate and angry. Ah, death he thinks, is what comes of broken, life pledges. And so he sighs and remembers that girls and kisses are death - to him, at least.


Tenebrae is content with his darkness that curls languidly about his torso and to search for the strange sounds within the wood, forgetting the pain of his whip-scarred back and his kelpie-bitten throat. Sure and dark and dangerous, he moves silent as night through the quietning wood. His darkness is the black of ink, it paints him ebony and then darker yet. He is one of Caligo’s Stallions and the night comes crawling quicker to him. Ah he feels how the sun rushes to set. He tastes its embers upon his tongue and thinks too of the Solterran King and his sun lion. All of Tenebrae is charcoal and ash and moonlight and consummate darkness.


The Disciple does not stop until the noise sings louder, louder. Then, from a secret corner of the trees a great stone tower appears. With moss covered stone it reaches up toward the sky where snow sits upon the ledges of its windows. Its windows gaze out through and over the top of the wood in which it nestles. It is silent, still and derelict. All of the tower is a memory, a lingering shell of moss and stones and faded dreams.


But, the tower has a voice and it chimes again as a droplet of snow-water tumbles down, down, down from a ledge and onto a metal cup, tarnished by time. Ching… and all the hums with that sound. He wonders how many others it has drawn to its resting place. In the distance the brook meanders her way silently through the wood. It is a lover’s tower, it can only be where fairytales are inspired. But Tenebrae is no fairytale creature. Ah he is sinful and flawed, dark and bloody a canvass of lashings and beatings. He possesses eyes that look too much and a soul that leads his heart astray. Ah Tenebrae is a wretched monk. Yet he stands as a warrior at the foot of the tower and dares to step through its crumbling arch.


Yet the woodland speaks. Underbrush cracks and the Disciple stops and his darkness blooms and ascends. It rises like wings great and deep and dark. It begs to make knives or swords and yet Tenebrae does nothing but turn his star-white eyes toward the source of the sound. His half moon sigils are the brightest moons this coming night and the burn brighter, brighter and he drinks in the dying light.


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All and any are welcome but this is exp earning so i hope no one minds too much if i aim to get 4 posts completed for this and may therefore post out of order xDD <3

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[Noctiilucent]

Girl in the fire, do you pray when you're on your knees...

The creek laughs and giggles with glee as night descends upon Novus. It is the time preferred by most of Denocte's citizens. A time for wolves and magicians to commiserate. A symphony orchestrated by an unknown entity slithers through the woodlands as the black cloak of night falls upon it. It is a chime that cries and beckons like a banshee, and there are whispers and sighs from the forest as if the sound is an exhale of relief. Daylight has abandoned the sky until all traces of light have dissipated, all except the one who was forged from the Ashes of the Sun. Her golden hide is like a lantern in the black of night that bleeds through the trees. Her azure pools peer out into the night, as she swears she can hear the laughter of woodland nymphs as they scurry beyond the trees. Noctiilucent exhales the night from her lungs, the ash that she collected from the demons and ghosts that scorched the very core of who she was. The chill of winter is a close friend of the night, of the moon. The same air fills both the lungs of winter and night. Caligo, as Denocte calls her. The moon has only adopted her, and yet she is no devout maiden of Caligo. Noctii can still feel her presence, it is like a thick cloak she cannot escape. There are no claws to pry the cloak from her bodice to free her. Visions of horrible gnashing teeth and the howls of wolves sound at her heels. They encourage her to throw herself towards the source of the symphony of wind somewhere deep in this wooded grotto.


So she does, she throws her bodice into the cry of the winds in the trees. It is not the call of the chime that entrances her so, it is the message she swears she feels in its lonely sound. The message tells her that she is home, it speaks to her. It is a sound she cannot deny, nor make sense of. The Denocte scholar wonders if the chime has the same effect upon anyone else who hears it. Her heart races in time with the steady thrum of her hooves in the winter snow. The ash and worry from the day escape her lungs, the precious ash is stolen by the ravenous breath of winter for she is never sated. Each step takes her closer to the origin of the sound, each step she takes excites her to learn the truth behind this message she can feel in her bones. The message that devours her sorrow and disbelief that she belongs in Novus. Noctiilucent does not care if this is her mind simply conflating the sound to hold some precious meaning. It is when she sees the tower covered in moss that her heart begins to pound harder. It seems so ancient, and lonely. The chime rings again, and her eyes sweep from the peak of the tower to the base. Beneath the tower stands another creature, one who is decorated with sigils of Caligo. Noctiilucent is not sure what they mean, but this equine is not the first she has seen to bear such markings.  Shadows curl in swathes around his body, in an intricate dance that she can only admire from afar.


Noctiilucent does not feel apprehension to approach this man, not when he bears the very sigil she has fallen in love with. Since the day that Reichenbach invited her home. Their breath flowed from the same space, in more than one sense. All of these were assumptions that she made. The Denocte scholar did not know if he belonged to her court, but her curiosity had already won this battle. The woman made of golden and ivory seas approaches him in the few moments of silence before the chime rings for them again. "How many others do you think this chime will speak to tonight?" She whispers to him, her words carry wonder in them. There is no fear for her in this endeavor, even if there should be. "I wonder what the gods have in store this time... Should we go in and find out?" She whispers to him again, but her frame is alive for the first time since the island. This is yet another adventure she can bring back to Isra. "I'm Noctiilucent, by the way. From Denocte."
 

Words: 737 | Notes: I hope this is okay! | Tags: @Tenebrae

... Or do you wait and watch as it bleeds