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
She turns to him, as a flower turning toward its sun (but that is, of course, not what Tenebrae is to her). If he had known what she thinks, that men only lead to trouble, he would have laughed dark as pitch. He only recently told Boudika that women were never, ever, worth it. But every day, every minute that passes and carries him further from his goddess he thinks his words might have been a lie. Ah, such words the three of them were fed: that men were trouble and unsatisfying, that girls were, quite simply, never worth it.
Yet here they are: girl and boy in a sea of the, dancing together, laughing together, caught in revelry together. Maybe they were worth it and maybe all of them were trouble.
Tenebrae knows nothing of where this fae-girl came from, or how she captured the sun within her skin as she has. He knows nothing of Underworld lands, but if he did, he might wonder if there were gods there who trapped girls with pomegranates too. The only things the Disciple knows of are hours spent in prayer, his forehead bent, pressed upon the cold stone, his knees bruised with his piety, his soul as dark as Caligo paints it.
At last his shadows reach for the girl and Tenebrae wonders why it took them so long. They explore, one moment like fingers and the next like the gossamer of a dream, along the slant of her cheeks, the groove of her throat. He does not dare to think what it might feel like, to touch a girl like that. He has only ever known violence and it is easier that way. That is what he was made for, trained for.
The sun-girl is moving, out from the shadows of his magic, out into the gloaming, out into the galaxy of dancers. With his bright eyes he watches her go. She leads him out to dance amidst the planets, into this place that is like fighting and yet there is no violence here, except for that of the wildness of love and lust; comets colliding, stardust blinding. And these are things he knows so little of, so grounded is he.
The dancer-girl (for she seems to be so many things) asks him what other things he is made for, breathless as she does. What steals the air from her lungs? The night? The stars? The anticipation of dance? The mysteries of girls are as fleeting to him as the breath from her lungs. He does not smile at her but gazes at her, darkness steeling along his cheeks, sharp as a sword. There is nothing soft about him as he stands here in robes of darkness his sigil moons glowing as he swallows the light from her skin. “I am made for gods and suns and war,” the Disciple says upon this battlefield of want and grace and beautiful, melodic chaos.
He does not smile and this is not the time for it because she is making him move. Her daylight body moves close to his but always there is the gloaming between daylight and moonlight and he steps back. The space between them is liminal, filled with stars and the setting sky. Tenebrae keeps them chaste, for it is all he knows. He stole a kiss once and that was crime enough. The sea beckons him again and it is a weight in his soul, his god-filled soul. Divine deliverance is all that can save him now.
He mirrors her, her hips, her feet, her limbs. It is like fighting and yet the only music is the song of instruments upon the wind. There is no violent clash of metal here. He moves, he dances and he is only a warrior moving with all the learning of battle to sharpen his steps. He is the grace and violence of a swan. Tenebrae moves with her, because of her, until, like the sun loosing her planets into orbit she says with a look framed with dark, burnished lashes, Lead, tell me where to go.
So he does and they move like satellites until the battle ends and then he stops and does not ask how he moved (not when their knees collided, their shoulders, their hips - he would have laughed, if he were not making sure they did not touch again). Tenebrae only says as the music fades, “See? I am made for things more violent than this.” He watches the fire spark along her spine, “You owe me your name now, Terrastellan.”
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