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 looks toward Caligo’s mountain, to where his goddess resides and his brothers uphold their vows. Unlike him. Unlike him.
Tenebrae is close to falling upon his knees in penitence. Already confessions are ripping through his mind, slipping through nerves, reaching, reaching for his tongue. He prays that absolutions follow.
As he fills himself up with prayer, to fill in and push out all the places where his new sin resides, he hears her pacing, pacing, pacing. He does not turn, though he can see her. He can imagine the power of her step, the fire of a sunset sea within her gaze.
Yet she comes to him. He hears her approach, how the sand whispers, how the sea inhales its tide and pauses. The beach stills to magnify her approach. The moon spotlights her and all is set for the moment she draws near to him and Tenebrae turns his head. Away.
But Boudika is a hunter. She steps and steps and steps, following, following, following, until all he smells is sand and salt and sea and blood. Then she steps closer still, until he smells nothing of sand or salt, but the jasmine upon her skin, the chalk of coral reefs and the salty tang of seaweed.
The heat of her skin is as pressing upon him as his shadows are upon her. The shadows that hold him, reach out to cocoon her. Boudika reaches for his neck, for where her bite lies open for her. The monk does not look at her. He does not move an inch, but braces for the bite.
Still hungry? His shadows wonder, of him, of her.
But her teeth and her tongue do not come to taste his blood. But muzzle does and oh he twitches at that touch. Yes! A part of him gasps, yes this is what the touch of a girl should bring him: pain and misery and ire. But Boudika’s game is not over. Not when she trails her touch up from his wound. It ascends, trailing along his jugular, across his jaw, up, up, up to his ear. In all of their exchange, never has his heart raced so. It is a rabbit within his chest, running and fleeing. But Boudika is there and the trail of her touch is a wildfire flame to the dry wood of Tenebrae’s body.
She whispers a story to him. It is of gods and lust and so much sin. The story weaves a web about them both. It is all a cautionary tale, is it not? Of how lust can bring worlds and gods to their end. He imagines himself the god of the Underworld, desiring what he should not have. But Tenebrae is not Hades, he is no trickster to chain and trap. Even if he is a vow-breaker.
Vow-breaker. There is ash in his mouth as Boudika leaves him. The cold steps in, unbearable in all the places her words, her breath danced warm and sweet across his skin. The sea welcomes her and she returns to it feral and mythical. He still has not looked at her. Though he leaned in as she wove her words around him, as she filled his mind with sumptuous mythology.
She laughs, free and high like the wind across the waves. The ocean cradles its kelpie-girl, it washes the blood from her wound. Does it sting like his? Does it ache with remembering? They each have a memory now, a scar to remind them of how wrong they should be.
You tasted like Persephone’s pomegranate, Tenebrae.
She turns him to stone. Is she not Medusa? The Stallion does not breath, his lungs dare not draw air. Her laughter still chimes from the cliff walls. Does she mock him now? Is this her game? She plays it well. So utterly, dangerously well. Boudika has made him a sinner and now she mocks him. The Disciple trembles and his darkness bleeds like beetles across the sand. The moon weeps and as the kelpie dives at last into the sea. The monk does not look for already he is running, and his darkness is gathering like a stormfront. He flees Boudika’s game, her words, their suggestion a chastising whip across his back.
Never, never, never.
It was lust and desire that locked Persephone in the Underworld. Such sins. Such sins. Tenebrae does not stop, because to stop is to feel the burn of guilt, the ache of desire and forget the sting of a girl’s wicked bite from a monk’s foolish kiss.To stop might be to realise he already knows the taste of pomegranate seeds.
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