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
If Tenebrae had known how Azrael dreams of Elena, he would have not been surprised. He thinks she would indeed be capable of turning a man’s dreams into ones that dwell upon her. But then, he thinks that all girls possess such magic. It is with renewed effort that he keeps himself from them - that he prays harder, longer. Tenebrae fills himself up with duty, he trains his magic and his fighting skills until sweat gleans across his skin and his lungs hurt with the effort to draw breath. It is in those moments when his mind is filled and his body too exhausted to think of anything beyond Caligo and rest. It is then when he forgets temptation, his blood is no longer a roaring sea in his ears that calls him to return to it. He fixes his gaze upon the sun and remembers what it is to hunger.
This is one of those moments: Tenebrae is running. He flies amidst the fog as though it were the clouds up in the sky. But there are no clouds there this night, they do not veil the stars and to look upon them is to see their plentiful lights. They twinkle like dust, so great are they in number.
Moonlight and starlight shine down, but none are enough to pierce the thick darkness that shrouds him. The starlight reaches close and is swallowed up by the Disciple’s ravenous magic. The shadows billow, a shadow of night surging through the trees and out towards the waterfalls.
His breath comes in blasts of smoke draconic. But the warrior is far from a dragon. His half-moon sigils glow and it is only when his lungs feel fit to burst, when every breath is a burning agony that Tenebrae slows. His shadows shrink, down, down from where they climb through trees and flare out like a rippling balloon. They grow smaller, more intimate as they form about him, fitting to his torso like armor.
A man stirs beside the place where Tenebrae stops. The monk had been stood, drinking in the the first rays of dawn light cresting above the top of the waterfall. Slowly he turns his white-bright eyes upon the man who rouses and gleams. Still the vestiges of sleep cling to the dreamer’s form in that faint glow. But his magic is not enough to paint the golden girl beside him here in this place of waking. Elena’s fae-smiles and her sun-spun skin that Tenebrae longs to taste, remain hidden and lost to sleep.
It is just as well.
Brother.
The monk does not stir but wonders what this stranger knows of brethren kin when he does not bear a sigil of brotherhood upon his torso. This man is no monk, it is obvious in his appearance and so Tenebrae says nothing but looks to their surroundings, to this strange island who shifts and changes as she pleases. “It is the island’s innate magic the remnants of the god, Tempus’, ire.” Though the island changes her face, her body with the seasons, still she keeps memories woven in to every rock and tree, flower and leaf. Only a few strides away is the clearing where Boudika stepped into the dark of his shadows with blood upon her smiling lips.
If you want me, come to the sea.
He turns from the waterfall and the pool at its foot, though a part of him thirsts and may never be sated.
“I assume that this your first time here?”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
