Moira Tonnerre, you feel it in a way that makes you tired to your very bones
Down, down there she should have been. A whisper among the crowds. A flame for them to see with her burning smile and sunset skin. Moira is so much a part of Denocte and so unDenoctian just as the monk first thought - jasmine clings to her like a second skin; art pulses in her blood, demanding to be shown to the world, demanding to be seen; yet she goes away. Away. Into the hills where darkness claims her. Caligo's fingers, his magic, it is a sap upon her spine, sticky and sweet; as irritating as a salve and not wholly unwelcome.
She is fearless as she watches his moons grow and grow, their appetite unending, their reach impossibly far.
Everything she makes is swallowed, and when it is all gone - shattered like her hopes, her heart - she does not mind the darkness that follows. His smile is distant, elsewhere, somewhere in a dream that she cannot see. Unknown, just as Tenebre is unknown to the healer-girl, the artist-girl, the red crowned girl with scythes for smiles and diamonds for eyes. Multifaceted, impossible to know what next she should do (what she would do).
"Solitude." Simplistic, soft, the answer seems so obvious that a child could have discerned it. Perhaps, were she not such a roiling mess inside, or were she another, an incredulous look would have flashed across her face. When it does not pass, when there is only stillness on her surface, but she is an ice storm waiting to freeze and burn the world. You are so cold you burn, Moira Tonnerre. Always remember that as a Tonnerre. You are dangerous, a weapon, a diplomat, a perfect being crafted by your ancestors. So often Anselme Tonnerre would tell her this as he tucked her in, ignoring the tear-stains and scent of fear on her skin after days out of the house.
He would remind her that she is Tonnerre by blood.
Not that she was special.
Or powerful.
Or enough.
But Tonnerre. And tonight, that is good enough. It is enough when his sickle smile does not disappear, and instead his spear is almost readied. Before his breath is drawn and words are spilled, she tilts her head back, letting half-light cascade down upon her in streams of silver and dreams, and she sighs. "Sorrow. What difference does it make with a dagger to the throat or heart?"
Golden eyes are closed, lips seal once more as she gathers herself, ready for him to strike, ready to thread that moonlight upon her skin into armor and scales. Always, always must she be ready for the humming of another's to stop, for their backs to turn, for their teeth upon her throat. So she is, in silence, mentally preparing for a battle that she is unsure will even come. Then, "How does it feel to conquer?" like the smoke below, her voice, too, fades with his night angling at her.
She does not pull moonlight into threads, nor the colors from above into a muted display upon her skin.
In the moonlight, she is ethereal and holy.
In the moonlight, she is Caligo's creature just the same as he.
In the moonlight, she is Tonnerre and she is lying that she is numb.
