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
Tenebrae had circled her like a planet about its sun. His orbit had closed and closed until they collided in a clash of light and dark. They were two comets meeting: their magics dancing and fighting and dancing and fighting. The Stallion and this mare are fingers of darkness and fingers of light that grapple and grip and twine their fingers together repelling and then drawing in, in, in.
He stands tall above her, illuminating her in the silver of his eyes. It is a light she does not need. Not when she glows like a divine pyre. She is the boldness of flames licking out into the dark. Her wings flare with seraphim fire as she tips up her chin and looks at him beneath the sweeping black of her lashes.
Their eyes meet, silver to gold and moonlight to sunlight. Upon her skin is everything of Denocte - the jasmine, the smoke of bonfires, the laughter of revelry. Yet never has Tenebrae seen a girl who looks so unDenoctean. Especially with her magic that opposes and matches his, that brings light to life and gives it solidity.
There are orbs of light, bright as fireflies between them and Tenebrae’s darkness leaps to swallow them whole. Inkblots spilled across the paper, darkness bleeding across the sun.
Ah, was that not what she is? The sun? The sun come here to light Denocte. He smiles and it is a wolfish thing upon his lips. It is hungry and savage. His eyes glow, glow, glow. Brighter and brighter they blaze as he swallows down each piece of sunlight she draws. Moira makes him ravenous she reminds him of what he was made for: he is a Stallion made to Swallow the Sun.
Yet she meets his grin. She meets his smile with words that are ash and embers. They breathe firelight across his skin and his nape arches shadows pulling out into arching wings to match hers. Across their shadow wings her light sparks like lightning. He feels their sharp illumination upon his body as she moves to light him as his shadows move to swallow her.
Those wings are there for but a moment, expanding like a breath, and then gone as if he exhales and all the shadows tumble back to press in close upon him.
“I am a Disciple of the Night Order.” Tenebrae says with a voice rich as whiskey that waits for the spark of her embers to ignite his words, his voice. “We protect the temples of our goddess and this night is not for worship here.” Low, low is his voice, deep like the dark the presses in and around.
Still their magics battle, still she illuminates him as he shadows her. Still their magics tangle and untwine. The shadows relish the fight of her, and yet, as they darken the lines of her, drawing her in stark relief, they can feel the emptiness of this girl. They whisper to him of how she burns bright and wild outside, within she is a wilderness ravaged by love, broken and unwound by love’s great, bruising grasp.
Yes, yes it is easier for the Disciple to stand and call himself apart - untouched and kept free of the chains of love that bind and wound. It is easy, easy. “Do you dare to challenge a Disciple of Caligo?” Tenebrae asks her and upon that feral curve of divine black lips is a beautiful wild that hopes she might say yes.
His shadows prowl forward like a panther, weaving midnight between her slim limbs. They whisper along the skin of her knees and ankles, Yes, yes, yes.
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