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
It is a relief to look up and watch the bird that casts his moonshadow upon the ground. It swoops over Tenebrae and the girl who stands beside him. Her presence is a press against his side, she is a darkness in the corner of his vision. Yet still he does not turn to her, temptation is thick upon his tongue, it is impulse bright within her muscles that yearn and yearn to look and see and behold.
He watches her bird that drifts like a ghost. So often it passes the moon, as if this bird is Icarus, fallen in love with the moon instead. Tenebrae does not blame it, for it is better to live in moonlight than in the sun. Oh, oh how he thinks and yearns and fights the desire within him. This desire, the desire to swallow to hunt and fight against the sun - this desire is easier. This is what he has been created for. Tenebrae is a Stallion Made to Swallow the Sun and his eyes close, letting the wash of violent delight slip like ice through his veins.
But she speaks. She speaks and she chastises (he thinks, until he hears the longing in her voice) and Tenebrae is holding her in silver before he can stop himself. He holds her in the white light of his glowing eyes and sees the silver light of hers. They are as starlight bright as his. The dark of her skin is made ever more so by the midnight low light. This creature is black ink, pooling before him into the shape of a girl. Her flowers are frosted silver in the moonlight as they sit in a crown atop her head.
She is as fine boned as a sparrow, her wings like a dove. They move as silent as an owl and as she shifts, imperceptibly so, her feathers brush his side. He catches a breath and somewhere within him laughter echoes low and ironic. His knees still ache for the hours he spent repenting and in one moment he knows he shall return with ever greater sins pouring black from his tongue.
“I am sorry,” He begins and tries to forget the first touch of a girl - so accidental, but it burns him like embers. It solders itself into his memory and with a smile he hopes to cast it aside - a passing moment. He remembers the girl in the mountain temple, how broken she was, how empty from love’s great ravaging. Suddenly that touch is easier to bear, suddenly he is assured that he will not fall.
So Tenebrae dares to study her, to map upon her face all the places where the starlight touches and darkness is banished. He sees the longing in her pool deep gaze and he says again, “I am sorry, I meant it only of myself...” The girl is stronger than him, she does not look upon him but keeps her gaze resting on the thick curtains that shroud the witch within. “I wonder only if they can tell us of the day to day... I know my fate already, Caligo has seen to that, but I do not know the details of it.”
Tenebrae trails off, his voice mingling with hers until they are smoke over amber liquor. They have been stood together too close, too long. He can feel the heat of her skin, reaching out like the sun to warm every piece of him it dares to touch, his stomach, his shoulder, his hips, his neck. But it is easier, easier. So he says, so he says.
She sighs and he realises he has not stopped looking at her, that still he holds her in starlight. He looks away but it is like tearing himself from life. Oh he aches for not living and looking. “Have you asked her?” He says and thinks of Caligo. For it is only ever her. But she smells of more than Night. She smells of sea-salt and medicines and wild-flower meadows. “Who is your goddess?” Tenebrae asks, his skull tilting. He is regarding her again, studying the lines of her face, the curve of her throat - all the ways she may not be Denoctean. Can he tell if she is or not?
No, of course not.
“Do you think she holds any truths for us?” He asks, looking back at the tend, meaning the shed-star who stands beyond, consulting her stars. Tenebrae would swallow them all if he could. Steal their every ray of light.
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