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
You would be happier if you learned not to push people away.
She looks lovely as her ears fall to her skull and anger blooms like sharp thorned roses across her face. The monk does not shift his gaze from her, but lets it drink in the sight of her, resplendent with her fury, her hurt. He wonders at the irony of how he tried to hold a girl together atop a mountain as she shattered into pieces from her hurt and yet in just one turn he is the source of another’s hurt.
Slolwy he breathes, through the pain of Boudika’s bite, all the places she marks herself upon his throat. It no longer feels like his own, it is not smooth as it once was. Her mark is everywhere along his neck, her presence a deep, healing pain within his body. Boudika is a constant reminder now, their meetings forever displayed upon his body. He cannot escape her.
You would be happier if you learned not to push people away.
Oh he studies Elena. Her slim body, the way she has taught him to learn the beauty of sunlight anew - even if being beside her still makes him wild, still angry, still so ravenously hungry… He wants nothing to do with her or Boudika or any other girl he has met. He wants everything to do with them. He cannot imagine is life without them now - to know what touch felt like, an embrace for the sake of sharing something. Being held.
But he has made vows. Vows that burned out his half moon sigils and his eyes. Vows that makes him glow and pierce his body with their sharp reminders. How long had he been looking at Elena now? How long had he been allowing himself to fall into her anger, her sorrow, bathing himself within it as if she might offer him some kind of answer.
You would be happier if you learned not to push people away.
“I have to.” He says and does not like its pitiful, weak taste upon his tongue. His lips curl with distaste and he sighs, something like groaning, like frustration rising. How much more can he tell her without exposing himself so openly? Any more and he would be ripping open himself, spilling the tar of his sins upon the ground between them, staining him, staining her. They may never be able to remove the marks of this encounter from their bodies, their souls.
Elena asks him more. Of course she does.
This is what makes his eyes close, what tears his gaze at last from the vibrant fae-girl beside him. He looks out along the path he came. He barely remembers it. He feels weak with his wound again. Weak like a man carrying too many burdens. Weak like a monk losing grip upon his religion. His wound smarts. It throbs.
He takes a breath and it feels despair and anger tangle their way up from his core. When they reach his tongue he turns his white gaze back upon Elena. He frames her in star fire, in the wicked heat of the light his magic swallows. He turns her gold back upon her. She has stepped close, as she always does, as she likely always will. He does not chastise her for it. He does not beg her to step back. He thinks he might like it. Crave it. Need it.
“When we become monks, we make a vow to pledge ourselves to Caligo. To put her above all else - above each other, above the love of another, above sex, above earthly things.” Tenebrae does not put distance between them. He lets the words fill the space bwteeen he and the girl who glows as morning light upon a meadow. He looks into her face as lovely as a wild-flower. His shadows trap the words to come, anything to stop the shame of others hearing.
You keep far too many secrets, Tenebrae.
“If I tell you them, will you keep them, Elena?” The monk asks as he watches her, longing to press his brow to hers. The words breathe along her cheek, her forelock brushing against his lashes.
She asks him. She longs to understand.
He swallows deep and it is something like drowning.
“I went to the sea. To hook up with a girl there.” Then he laughs, low and coarse. There is no joy in it, the salt of irony stings his throat, “She bit me and tried to drown me.” He sighs, closing his eyes. “My brothers will have asked too many questions. If they knew...“
The monk trails off, letting his eyes wash across her face. “I would be punished.”
And all Tenebrae can think is how he should have gone there. How his back needs to know the bite of more lashes - anything to turn him from his ways.
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