T E N E B R A E
On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells
and in my heart: all Hells
He would only ever come when night was at her deepest. He would only ever come to graze his knees across the stone at the foot of her altar. He would only ever come with adulation upon his tongue and sins held back behind his teeth.
Tenebrae bites upon his prayers as they spill like ichor from his lips. Such confessions spill like sacrificial blood at the foot of her altar. Oh how he dares to leave his confessions here, dirtied and splashed across the stone of her shrine.
Her shadows sigh in the corners and he watches them with moon-white envy. The shadows reach for him - as they reach for all who dare to step into the temple of the Night goddess. She embraces all in this midnight embrace of hers. It is cool, it is thick as pitch and soon, not even Tenebrae, Disciple of Caligo, can see into her dark.
Only the flames upon her stone table are enough to beat back her darkness. Yet Tenebrae wonders if they are not strong at all, but that the goddess lets those flames burn, in kindness. He looks at their light, so golden, so bright and where sins pressed upon his tongue as sweet as poison, now only hunger pools. The Stallion hungers for the taste of light. He years for a drop of the sun upon his lips, between his teeth. Ah her darkness makes him ravenous and he falls upon his knees.
They are knees that know this cold, hard stone. They are knees that have bent and bled and bruised for this goddess of his. His brow presses upon the mountain’s cheek, where her temple forms the cut of its cheekbone. Darkness groans about him and spills forward like a cape, prostrating itself beside him.
Upon his lips is a litany of prayer. He closes his eyes against temptation that crawls sweet and glorious through his mind. Ah, he has done nothing and yet already he has dared to look and wonder and think. Go, his brothers had told him. Go and confess and all will be well. The temptations of the flesh will ease.
But they were not Tenebrae and maybe they had dared to look too - but had they begun to wonder like he? He closes his eyes against sin and warrior girls with blood red smiles.
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