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 archway is a generous artist this night. Its brush is fluid and filled with paint. It paints Denocte’s subject in starlight and moonlight. It limns them in silver and then, when they stand within the glow of Antiope’s new stained glass archway, the number of colours are tenfold.
He is a man used to a world of black and greys. He is a man for whom the only colour of any meaning is the gold of the sun. it makes him ravenous. Oh to eat of the sunlight, to drink it down like whiskey until his nerves hum, numb and intoxicated.He was made for a holy war. A war found in the places of the universe where sunlight and the black between stars grapple and twine and twist. So, with all that in mind, maybe it is no surprise that he stands watching the way the archway paints with the water of the moon. Men and women bloom like meadows and galaxies beneath the glow of the archway. They twirl and they laugh, they sigh, so full of the beauty of this great masterpiece.
Even Tenebrae’s eyes are monochrome. They glow whiter than the moon and as bright as stars pulled nearer to the earth. His gaze is unblinking - they are only stars this night that do not twinkle. He drinks in the beauty of this night from his place upon the periphery. This is the fact of Tenebrae is it not? He is always destined to be here, consumed by shadow, breathing the words and sacraments of his goddess. For a moment, for a daring, rebellious moment, he thinks of Antiope’s gaze in the throne room. It was a flare of wondering, of questioning, why? She did not seem convinced and he dares to consider if there is any point at all? When was the last time he saw Caligo? When was the last time he was before her upon his knees?
He does not know. But what he does know is that to turn from her now, well, it would be the most perfect agony. A rending of his soul. And maybe that is why he stands here now beneath the Summer Moon and is not stood knee-deep within the sea calling, calling for a beautiful monster.
A girl stands, apart from the others. The archway paints her as generously as it has all the others. She becomes living art, it breathes for her, even when her lungs have closed tight. She holds her breath, deep deep within her body. It is in the pull of her blood, the struggling of her soul. He moves to her, because she stands alone, because her breath is tight in her lungs and her stories gleaming in the shadows of her silver eye.
Tenebrae arrives and is not surprised when she exhales. When the archway coaxed her lungs to let go. The word breathe dissipates upon his tongue. She does not need his words when her lungs are unwound and her soul loose. It rises, it ascends, with her breath through colour and night and stars. She holds his full attention. His dark is voluminous, yet he holds his shadows back. They yearn to draw in dark across her skin and accent the myriad colours that pour across the curves of her body.
He stands beside her for a moment, a silent sentinel who looks up to the moon carved into the top of the archway. “That was a great sigh,” the Disciple says at last and lowers his gaze to light across the lines of her face. “Does your soul feel any lighter now?”
@Morrighan
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
