The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
His magic ascends the stairs ahead of him, rising up each step slowly, slowly, waiting for its master who climbs slowly. He places each foot upon the next step only after pressing his toe to the edges of the stone, knowing where was safe to stand and where was not.
It is a long time before Tenebrae feels the rush of cool air sweeping down the spiral steps. He has heard the view is magnificent here, but it will be wasted upon his sightless eyes. Yet never once has the monk questioned whether his slow, laborious climb is worth it. He thinks it is, for up there, at the peak of the tower, he will hear words of awe, descriptions of her beauty of the flowers. He will hear Elena’s vision in reality.
Why does he come, when this is her festival? He knows he is not justified to be more furious with her than she with him. And none are more justified than Boudika. Instead the warrior monk longs to know the earth again, to hear of its beauty and imagine the sight that might meet the festival goers. The air is so full the scent of delicate tulips. Children cry out in awe, grown ups laugh, breathy, the sight stealing the air from their very lungs. Tenebrae stands amidst them, near the high wall over which keen onlookers gaze.
Tenebrae does not look out (what point is there?) but he listens and he knows the flowers are winter and spring and summer and autumn. They are a sea of colour painting the meadow more beautiful than ever before. He smiles, a quiet smile, small and happy, even through its deep sadness.
He listens for so long that in his mind the spectators create for him a masterpiece of beauty with their words. Of course it is a beautiful sight, it was made by Elena. He would not doubt it for a moment. It is why he has come, why he climbed with bruised knees and an aching, repentant heart.
He might have been content to leave then, he even turns to go, except that a woman speaks and says, Azrael. Tenebrae’s head moves toward her voice and hears the murmuring answer. “Azrael.” He says aloud, enough to draw the other man’s attention. Tenebrae’s smile becomes a stranger thing, a darker thing. It is no smile at all, but a cut of pain across the black eternity of his mouth. “I might have guessed you would be here.” The monk does not say he is pleased to meet him atop the tower, before Elena’s flowers.
By all accounts, it had been a pleasant day. The birds were singing, the flowers were bright. Elena was busy, but Azrael was doing fine with entertaining himself, watching children run around with cries of glee as they danced and tossed blossoms in their wake. All around, there were pleasantries being exchanged and friendships being formed in this time of peace. And pride swelled in his chest as he watched Elena as she flurried about, greeting the guests and leading groups of them from place to place while sharing stories of her home.
Meet me at the tower, I’ll join you in a bit… He’d planted a kiss against her brow, ensuring that Elliana was busy with the other children and safe, before turning and leaving her to the guests. Up, up, up he had climbed, until he stood in the tallest peak of the citadel, staring down at the festival-goers and taking in the full beauty of Elena’s planting. She had truly outdone herself, he mused with a smile, listening to the appreciation of those who gazed upon the beauty of the flowers, making notes to share their stories with her later.
Azrael is lost in the pleasantries, making small talk and introducing himself to those around him. They talked of mundane things – of spring, music, flowers. But then, there is a voice behind him which sends chills down his spine. Anger is swift, brash words biting through his mind. But Azrael is anything if not composed. He takes a steadying breath, turning to gaze upon Elena’s lover, a thousand accusations on his tongue. For a moment, he is silent, sizing up the man he had once called brother as they’d gazed upon the night. Perhaps in a different lifetime, under different circumstances, they might have been close – for the similarities between the stallions were as striking as their differences. Where Azrael was the starlight and Tenebrae the shadows, both were vassals of Caligo. Both called her kingdom their home. But the two could not be more conflicted.
I might have guessed you would be here. Azrael’s ears lace back against his skull, even as he grits his teeth to project a level and civil tone. “I must admit to be surprised to see you…” His voice is cold and even, not welcoming or inviting, but quietly disapproving. “Why are you here, Tenebrae?”
While it was true that Azrael held no claim over who came to the festival, the very existence of the fallen monk was enough to raise his hackles. Jealousy crawled through him, wondering what would happen if Elena knew… would she turn to him, or stand in shock? Determined for her not to find out, he resolved to stall Tenebrae from finding his beloved, or even more than Elena, from finding the child he now saw as his own. For blood was not thicker than loyalty now, and Tenebrae’s very presence threatened all he held dear, and the fragile hope they’d begun to spin together.
The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
Azrael’s ears fall like towers upon the tangle of hair atop his poll. The line of his jaw grows as rigid as a mountain cut hard upon the horizon. His words are shards of ice. They pierce into Tenebrae’s guilt and jealousy. The sight of Azrael, is lost to the monk. But the sharp of his words, as they cut themselves upon his teeth, are painful to hear.
A part of Tenebrae crumbles with this meeting. Another part rises up in its place. It is a tower of ire. Its foundations are hurt, its bricks are grief and its mortar, jealousy. The monk’s head twists away, yet he listens, fixated upon the man’s voice. Darkness seeps, as polluting as oil, into the space between them. It sticks to Tenebrae’s jealousy and billows like smoke from the fire of his anger.
The monk does not know how their jealousies come from different origins. He does not know how he stands as a threat to Azrael’s family. A family that, by blood, is actually Tenebrae’s. His blindness should act as a caution, but the monk is rapidly learning that his piety has become little more than a razed forest. There is no part of his life that stands tall with holy piety any more. His love has turned him into a stranger, even to himself.
In the darkness behind his unseeing eyes, Tenebrae sickens with the painful twist of his stomach, the sharp jab of jealousy that tears him into pieces. He should not want a child as much as he does. He should not feel an ounce of envy that Elena loved Azrael even as she lay with Tenebrae beneath the stars.
Worst of all, Tenebrae should not feel jealousy when he has sought to pledge all he is to Boudika. What is it that makes him so incapable of being content with his lot? Shame comes like tar. It paralysis him with its unyielding truths and pours them down his throat like a bitter tonic. He would vomit, if he could. If he thought it would be so easy to rid him of himself and his own terrible wants and desires.
Tenebrae deserves nothing. No woman. No child. That is what his shame whispers in his ears. That is what he hears and recognises. Azrael is the more deserving man.
Beneath his bandages, the monk’s eyes press tightly closed, blocking out his shame, blocking out the feeling of his body dying in the light of his terrible wants. It seems, not even blinding was enough. What is left for him now?
The monk takes a breath, listens to how the children play outside the darkness of his entombing body. He hears the sound of laughter and awe. It seeps into him like a balm. Turns a wretched man into something, slightly, better.
Azrael’s acrimony washes against the monk and he prays. He prays for his tongue to be restrained, for his ire to ebb and his humility to bloom.
But he forgets his piety is a barrel running dry.
“I am escorting Morrighan’s daughter. She longed to see the flowers,” The words come out cold as the shadows that rake themselves like claws along the stone parapets. But then it comes, a prayer answered, or maybe, merely just shame, exhausting the anger and jealousy from his body. “I have not come to cause issue with you and Elena. She chose you and I chose another.” It felt easier when his shame exhausted him to the point of numbness.
Tenebrae is glad he cannot see Azrael, to know what hatred, what hurt moves there clouding out the friendship they once had. “How is your daughter?”
The child, he does not say, that I cannot help wishing was mine.
But it is easier, he knows, that she is not.
Tenebrae takes a breath. “I am sorry, brother. For everything.”
I have not come to cause issue with you and Elena. She chose you and I chose another.
In his quiet admission, Azrael knows that the shame and admonition Tenebrae heaped upon himself was punishment enough. As Azrael stands before his once-rival, the shed-star is struck by the look of him. Though young, Tenebrae looked like he aged far more than he should have. His coat lacked the glow it once held, his body thin in places where it should be rounder, his cheeks sunken, and his eyes wrapped tightly with gauze. He quirks an eyebrow, the bite in his voice softening some in pity, for the creature who stands before him is every bit as broken as Azrael had felt the day Elena had told him all which had transpired. That day, his heart had shattered into a thousand pieces, and he’d wondered if warmth would ever fill his soul again.
Was that what Tenebrae felt now? Azrael wondered, as a sigh escapes his lips. For the man cannot stay angry for long, the red in his mind diminishing some as his edge fades away. It simply wasn’t in his nature to hold a grudge, however warranted – for as hurt he was at the sight of the monk, Azrael knew he had to be a bigger man. He owed as much to Elena. In forgiving her, he needed to leave it all behind them – only then could the two move forward in any semblance of a stable relationship.
So while perhaps Tenebrae deserved nothing from Azrael and Elena, the shed-star shows him grace.
He shifts aside so the monk can stand beside him, flinching only slightly as the other’s shadows reach for his light. For a moment, the two stand quietly, until Tenebrae asks about Elliana. The question gives Azrael pause, as he remembers his suggestion to Elena. A man has a right to know, Elena… this is not something you should keep from him It wasn’t his business if she’d decided to hide the truth. It wasn’t his place to tell.
These thoughts cloud in his mind as Azrael clears his throat to swallow the lump which had formed there, blinking away emotion, unable to make eye contact with the monk. “Elliana is an old soul, with an artist’s heart and her mother’s kindness. She is bright and curious, if not a bit introspective and reserved.” He speaks of the girl with pride and fondness in his words, warmth filling him in a way he never thought possible, each and every time he thought of her. For Elli was all the best parts of Tenebrae – a fitting legacy, albeit a hidden one.
He calls Azrael brother, and not for the first time, the shed-star is struck by how different their path might have been, if the golden girl had not come between them. While it wouldn’t be possible for him to forget, Azrael did have it in him to forgive… so he would try – he would try for Elena, and more, for Elli. To be the father she needed, Azrael needed to practice the compassion he would teach. He needed to walk the walk, and to find a path toward harmony, however great the personal sacrifice.
He flicks a glance at the male once more, questions nagging in his mind about the blindfold which stretches across his eyes. But Azrael is too polite to ask what had happened, knowing it wasn’t his business. So he begins to explain what he sees to the blinded stallion, as patiently as a parent might guide a child. “The sun is low now, the stars just beginning to sparkle in the east. Night is a strange thing, for despite all which has happened, the stars continue to rise as they have for thousands of years. Everything seems so inconsequential, on the scale of the universe surrounding us.”
And this too would pass – the stars would march onward, ambivalent to their strife. “I’m sorry too,” he whispers low and quietly, for only the monk to hear.
The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
As Tenebrae stands, a man changed upon the parapet of the Dusk Court tower, he does not know how secrets are kept from him behind Azrael’s tongue and teeth. Secrets that will irrevocably change him ever more. Maybe it is a blessing then, that his hurt and ire abate like a monsoon running dry. Maybe he is a storm lacking energy, flickering low into nothingness.
Or.
Maybe… Maybe he merely does not know the depths of his energy. That the things he has done, the punishments he has born, have not tapped deeply enough within him to know how deep his reserves run. But those secrets will. He will know it when they come. They will arrive upon him like acid rain, chased by a tsunami of drowning grief.
Tenbrae does not know how the truth begs itself to be spoken, where it presses against Azrael’s conscience. Instead the men let themselves be filled upon the qualities of their daughter; belonging to one by blood and mystery and the other by love. Maybe Tenebrae could also be bound to his daughter by love, if only he knew her.
The monk feasts upon the tidbits Azrael feeds him about Elena’s daughter. He does not listen as a father would, filled with pride or love. He listens as a shamed monk and a man who wonders what might have been, if the child was his.
“She sounds like you and Elena,” The Disciple says with a small smile, absent of any insincerity. “I have never known anyone with a soul as old as yours, Azrael.” Tenebrae thinks he should hide his hurt better but his trying is a futile thing. Already he has begun to reflect upon how easy it would be to merely succumb to the rapids of his feelings, let them carry him where they may.
But that way lies danger. He knows. He has experienced similar before.
And then Azrael describes Elena’s creation and the night’s sky. Even as his brother’s words paint a beautiful portrait, Tenebrae cannot help but see condescension in the tone of the shed-star’s voice. Forgiveness, freedom of jealousy, Tenebrae realises, is not so easily achieved.
I am sorry too
It is the final straw and the monk breaks like metal corroded by too many, nameless emotions. “I am blind, not a child, Azrael. You can save your condescending tone for Elliana.” As Tenebrae turns away from the other stallion’s voice, he cannot help how it feels like slashing a knife through the beautiful picture his friend created of the night.
12-07-2020, 10:43 AM - This post was last modified: 12-07-2020, 10:43 AM by Tenebrae
“Your darkness will consume you, Tenebrae.” he bites back on a sigh, falling silent and letting the words hang between them where kindness could not. For all his brokenness, the shed-star wanted to try and mend bridges… but clearly it was not yet time. He has nothing to say in response to the suggestion of being patronizing, for the apology had been sincere. He was sorry – for all which had come to pass. Truly, Tenebrae had made his own bed, but the punishment of taking everything from him was not a fair response. The monk had lost his lover, his child, his sight… and the world still seemed to be working against him.
For that, Azrael is sorry.
Deep down, he knew his slight should be against Elena instead of Tenebrae. What fault was it of the monk, that his lover was torn between two men? He wondered briefly if the man he’d once called brother was as blindsided as he, when Elena had told him of another. Her words had sent his mind reeling, sickened with the though of another’s lips upon her, of another’s touch lingering in the darkness. He cannot understand why she toyed with both of their emotions so, making each fall irrevocably in love, while taking her time to decide between them. But despite all which had happened Azrael cannot punish the golden mare. He is too blinded by his own want of her.
They stand in the silence, day turning to night. The stars rise from the sea, but they bring him little joy. Instead, the dreamwalker clenches his teeth together until the muscles in his cheek begin to twitch. His eyes are cold, demeanor aloof, hope extinguished as he stares below at the field of mocking flowers, their shining faces too bright for his bitterness. “You should go,” he whispers low to Tenebrae without turning to look upon him. For it was clear the two would make no headway toward peace tonight.
He needed to be alone with his thoughts, to let the moondust kiss away the anger from his face, to feel the wash of cool sea breeze over his mane. He needed to drown in the silence, without Tenebrae standing as a reminder of their indiscretion, still too raw to forget. And he needed her, real and warm against him, reassuring him all over again that she would choose him and follow where his light would lead. For only Elena’s sunlight could chase away the stain of Tenebrae’s shadows, and the black curl of jealousy in his heart.
The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
His eyes close against Azrael’s words. But his teeth press tight.
There, there in the darkness, locked in the tomb of his body, the window of his eyes shuttered up, Tenebrae writhes.
“What makes you think my darkness has not already consumed me?” The monk asks, though it is no question at all. He is already swallowed down in Caligo’s black, in his deep remorse, like a bottomless well. There is no light left within him, except that which others place there: Maeve with the fire that terrifies her, Morr with the fire the defines her, Moira with her light that glows bright enough to end the world and Elena with the light of her soul, more beautiful than the sun. Then Boudika, with the flame of her hope…
They are all there, lighting the parts of him that he cannot. He moves into each of their light and watches how it beats back his consuming shadows.
If the monk and his shadows are silent, where the monk stands still, his shadows do not. They gather to prowl in the space between the two men. They flare up like wings, beating the air in anger and despair.
The irony is that both men stand, jealous and dismal, broken by the smile of a girl as light as the sun. Elena, with her blue, blue eyes and her touch that sank deeper than his skin and bones and muscle. She sank herself into his heart, stitched herself into Tenebrae’s soul. But as he stares he sees how Azrael has it all. His eyes tell all, Tenebrae thinks. If only he could see them, the monk could reach in and draw out the shed-star’s soul and heart and see how both bear Elena’s marks, like fingerprints, moulded by her love.
You should go.
He should.
He should leave and not look back. There is nothing for him here. And yet there is everything. Tenebrae turns within a word, moves slowly through the crowd and leaves. It is silent, an almost gentle retreat. Without the monk seems placid, unbroken, nearly serene. Within, oh, he is a storm, a wave gathering. His soul rocks like a boat, loosed from its moorings. He leaves with guilt and sorrow burning through the fabric of his being.
There is nothing more for him here.
That is a litany his heart tries to make itself believe.
But his shadows know. And they turn and crawl back the way he has come. They loom like night before the shedstar and vow their voice is coming, their claws their teeth, their sentient being. The cry out in Tenebrae’s magic, in his DNA, but he cannot understand magic, not until it has a voice, not until it cries out that Azrael’s daughter is not his at all, but theirs, theirs, theirs.
What makes you think my darkness has not already consumed me?
Azrael does not answer, for he knows there is still light in Tenebrae. If there wasn’t, Caligo would have burned him where he stood instead of just taken his sight. Morrighan would have tossed him from the Night Court as an outcast, never to return. But in this moment, Azrael sees only black anger and the rot of jealousy. He cannot see past the shadows, so he tries not to look at all, disdainful of the man he has become in all of this.
He stares straight ahead, feeling the monk leave his side but not ready to go, closing his eyes and trying to lose himself in the peace of the stillness. Now, there is nothing but cold wind against his face, teasing away the anger, smoothing the lines in his face until his breath grows steady and his body shivers with regret. He sighs then, mourning the life which might have been. Where they could have stood side by side, neither one consumed by such hate and greed. Where he stood with Elena, every day in the sun, carefree and none-the-wiser.
But it was a world without Elliana. He had to remind himself that the gift of Tenebrae’s child was the only good to come of this, that the blessing of his child would never have been. And so the heartbreak is worth the pain, he decides, standing for a moment longer before leaving this place and the bittersweet memories behind, longing for the peace of home and his stars once more.
