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
The night feels cultish and wrong. It seems like a strange dream as the dancers flash by with torches and hair that swirls like the skirts of gossamer dresses.Yet they are nymphs and elves, goblins and all the strange and beautiful things Tenebrae thinks might emerge upon a midsummer night. Yet this is no dream. This whole evening is sacrilegious. It is no place for a monk, and yet, here he is, stood deep amidst the revelry; he stands bold beside a girl whose teeth hold fast and deep within his soul.
The darkness chatters her disapproval within his ears, as it contorts and weaves with the lamps the dancers carry. The lamplight shines upon Boudika’s lips and somewhere he thinks he hears the ocean groan with want of her return. He would do well to caution her to return.
He turns as the stallion leaves, watches the way his sun-bright body slips out of the darkness of his magic. Tenebrae yearns after him, he sways like metal caught in the lure of a magnet. He might have gone, he might have let himself fall drunk with rowdiness, but for her.
That ominous, unnamed feeling still festers within him. It twists and tangles within his gut. It trembles its way into his muscles and rattles his bones liek the railings of the fence he contains it within. It spawns rebellion, this feeling of his. It is what has him standing here, it is recognised in the glow of Boudika’s gaze. She knows, she knows. His lips draw into a line, sharp as a knife.
The air crackles between them. Static leaps from dancer to dancer. The air is pregnant with tension. It gathers in the spaces between his flesh and hers, along the line of their gazes, locked upon each other. Maybe Tenebrae does not breathe for his lungs begin to burn and maybe he does but the air between them is acidic with warning.
Boudika steps closer and his pulse roars ocean-loud in his ears. Darkness breeds in the space between them. It blooms along the crimson of her skin, it contours her face. The white of her cheeks are a moonlit glow. She is a wraith beside him, dangerous in her beauty. His nape curls in toward her, his brow centimeters from hers, his mouth, millimeters. When will Caligo come to bring her wayward son to heel? His smile is growing and his laughter is rough and lazy like the morning. He forgets gods and altars and holy things as his gaze lowers to hers. The whip-ragged skin stretches along his spine but he does not feel it. He does not remember the price he pays for this.
If I’ve learned anything from men, it is that they rarely satisfy you. Boudika snarls, leonine. Now he knows why his lungs burn. It is Boudika, her breath like acid, her tongue laced with it. She is not just teeth and strength but a wicked tongue encased within the slim frame of a wild woman. She drives him mad. He knows she speaks in response to the golden stallion, but oh she burns Tenebrae too!
“And all I have learned is that women are never, ever, worth it.” If the acid of Boudika’s words is like gasoline, Tenebrae’s are the spark to ignite them. His words burn across hers with dragonfire. They scold skin and hearts. Desires turn to ash in the wake of the inferno. Caligo is reaching within him, grasping his soul, pulling it out, out from Boudika’s teeth. Her Disciple remembers.
Tenebrae blinks, as if rousing from slumber, as if drunk. And maybe he was, drunk upon lust, upon a girl he cannot, should not have. Boudika coos in his ear, her words like a caress along his cheek.
A dance. That is what she asks him for. The question curls itself about his throat, lingering upon his scar where her eyes once had. “I do not know how to dance.” For Tenebrae was made for different dances - those of blood and vengeance, righteousness and holiness. Not this, not this midsummer-like frenzy that calls his body to move with music and light. “You pick the wrong man, Boudika.” He says, even as his lips ghost along her lips, up and over the corner he once kissed. The monk wants her to remember.
And he wants her to forget.
Her words are a demand, yet he does not move. He stands as if he were before Caligo’s temple, a guard upon his duty. Until she lets him claim her. How can she flay him in one breath - mark him (and his gender) unsatisfying, demand he dance with her in another and then call him her keeper in yet another? The pomegranates are hot in his grasp, could he chain her to him now? Boudika is as wild as the sea, she knows no bridle or chains to keep her contained.
Mine. Mine.
When did they come to this? Ire and fear and want mix heady and wrong within his veins. They gather dark and broody within his gaze, his eyes dim like shadows pool across them, like he has not drunk enough, he has not faught enough - like his magic slips, slips. “I have pomegranates for you too.” He says low, dangerous. The arils appear between them, in that small, small space they leave. Each one gleams like a heart - a dozen of them. They beg to be given. “I should throw them away. I should leave you.” He muses and lifts his gaze from the seeds to the kelpie stood too close. He can smell the sea, can taste the salt upon her skin. “Do not play games with me, Boudika” Tenebrae groans, just a man.
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