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 is soft and limp within his grasp. He shatters at the sight of her. Sharp shards of obsidian glass slice deep into him. The monk bleeds a cacophony of emotions, each one more potent, more consuming than the other. They each steal the breath from his lungs, he has known what it is to sink to the bottom of the sea and yet this drowning, this swallowing grief kills him more slowly, more awfully than he ever thought possible.
Elena is everywhere. Before him, within him, twining herself into his heart. Yet he is shattering, for it all seems too late. A hatred blooms deeply within him. It is dark and fetid and ugly. It seeps into the weakest parts of him, manipulating, twisting his insecurities with its gnarled fingers.
Tenebrae.
That is what she whispers after she looks at him for so long that the world falls still and deathly silent. The monk can no longer hear the sound of the tide that had rolled up the beach and lapped at her limp body. It calls Elena back into its watery depths but Tenebrae had already lost one girl to its deep. He is loath to lose another, no matter how the sea-water already gleams in Elena’s bright blue eyes.
Her bright blue eyes. Oh.
They are darker than when she first opened them. His fae girl’s gaze turns to murky midnight. Her eyes become pearlescent (as the vast galaxies above) when moonlight descends and softly limn the edges of them.
Elena rouses more with every moment and yet it does not ease the clawing in his chest and in his soul. But Tenebrae was ever the fool to think that he might find calm so close to this Terrastellan girl. His remorse still spirals, even as she lies still and small upon the beach. Though the earth now holds her, Tenebrae knows they are both still drowning.
There is nothing else for him to watch when her gaze is riveted to his. With every passing moment that he seals his gaze tighter to hers, he watches the way a maelstrom builds behind her eyes.
The air tastes of magic, commanded by the mystery that swirls within her gaze. It is sweet upon his lips, tasting of stars and crimson-gold sunsets. Her lashes are dark and he counts each one, even where they cling together, still wet from the sea. The ground him, yet she is pulling him in and his grasp is failing until Tenebrae is falling into her.
She rises suddenly to press her brow to his. He groans a strangled and desperate sound. Elena’s touch is salvation and a living, thriving life that sears its way through his being. It reaches the cords of divine shadow magic that hold together his existence. Her fire twines through the darkness and moonlight at the very essence of him. With her brow she blots out the half moon sigil atop his.
Elena extinguishes every part of Tenebrae that he thinks matters, until it is only her, her, her.
And even that is not enough for it is not just her magic that lays itself across his lips. The taste of her skin is there, sweet as caramel. She is within him and without. The girl is a drug. The monk sees it now. The way she is in his blood, his heart, his soul, the way her eyes echo all the emotions that brew terrible and jumbled within him. She steals them all, along with his heart, his breath, his holy vows.
Now his name upon her lips. Tenebrae. He looks to where her mouth cradles it. His eyes close against her every intrusion into his being. Yet he cannot blot her out because she is still there, reaching deep into her chest as well at his. Does she find his heart there? Trembling and fearful of what she does to him? It clings tightly to a god, a god, a god… What was her name?
“I did not catch you.” The strangled confession is sour upon his tongue. He breathes the confession across her face and the shadows press it into her cheeks, her throat, her chest. “I was too far away and when I saw it was you… You were so deep, Elena, I thought you were dead.” The monk presses a kiss against the groove of her throat. Now it is not just her taste upon his lips but the feeling of her life pumping vibrant and alive, alive, alive.
Why? his fae-girl asks and he can feel the way the word reverberates through her slim body. Her magic has pulled from him every last piece of truth he has tried to hide. Elena exposes him as she whispers,
Why did you do this?
Though his shadows curl against her against him. He has nothing with which to hide himself. Not any more.
"Do what?" The monk asks, needing to hear it, needing her to ask what he has avoided asking himself: Why a monk is in love? And why with a kelpie and a fae-girl?
"You are magic now." He feels the way she exposes him, the way his emotions seep from him to her. Tenebrae watches the way they settle within the deep pool of her gaze - that pool in which he still finds himself, drowning. He brushes his lips over her eyelids, the windows to her magic - a magic he cannot hide from.
"I did not mean to fall in love with you," the Disciple breathes in apologetic sorrow against her skin where they cling to each other upon the beach, across the sea that reaches to the bottom of the cliff.
The cliff from which he did not catch her as she fell.
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