This night was full of wonders and delights. He came wild and reckless. Tenebrae stripped from his body all his shadows, all the things that mark him as a Night Order Disciple. Yet he could not take the glowing sigils from his body. This night he longs not to be a monk but to be like all the others here. Able to slip into the crowd to relish life in all the ways they do.
But a child met him, a girl with ribbons of fire wrapped about her small throat. She ran wild and free through the streets. He looked to her and thought of Boudika. Was this what she would have been like if allowed to be herself? A girl, with no expectations placed upon her, no rules to make her fight.
He stays with the child until she leaves, disappearing with the same vivacity as she had come. Then he wandered through the bustling streets full of revelry and the laughter of the festival. The delight sank deep into his bones. It unwound his muscles until he moved, a prowled. His mask did not give him away. It was painted on in golds and crimsons. It sprawled across his brow, jaw, lips and nose. It reached down his throat. It was elegant, dangerous, it was nothing like a monk of the Night Order should wear. So it is no surprise when through the crowds he finds her.
Tenebrae and Boudika gravitated together, two planets colliding, two oceans meeting, the moon and the sun in an endless dance. She had asked him once, if he could think of her as the sea. Would it ever lessen the guilt he feels, to think of her as part of Caligo’s moon and creation. He holds that image, for maybe he always had. Maybe that is why he kept going to the sea where he knew she would be. Stepping out into the waves and calling her name across the open waters.
But she is here, so far from the sea. Yet the monk goes to her, as if she possesses him. She is a siren call, crying out to him over the sounds of the festival. He moves, spellbound, enchanted. SHe looks so different, her horns painted, as if made of waves of gold. Across her body are tribal patterns that bend over the soft curves of her body. Boudika moves as if caught in a tribal dance that is rung out by the peeling bells woven into her tail.
He comes to her, lured in by the sight of her and the siren song of her bells. He says nothing as he draws level but feels his muscles unwind as their bodies touch, hip brushing hip, shoulder brushing shoulder. They neither say anything, what do they need to say? They walk as one and his lips reach, tracing pattern after pattern. What he does not voice his touch whispers all across her body. Beautiful. He draws the word across her body. He inhales the salt of her skin, the smoke of the bonfires, the perfume of the stalls. In the salt and smoke he is drawn back to their cave. Gods.
She trembles, nervous and bright. His cheek brushes hers, he knows even the mask no longer fails to protect him, not when he is beside her and his sigils glow bright, bright, bright. They betray his vows, they rage out like torches declaring his sin. “They might see me.” Tenebrae breathes low for her ears, “They wouldn’t understand.” He says of the monks and and her, his girl of the sea. Just the sea.
Whether she heard him or not, he does not know. But suddenly they are stumbling down an alley that narrows and narrows until they have to press through and they will not leave each other untouched. They cling together and bump together, laughing until darkness swallows them whole and their touch does not matter for they have become one.
They emerge from the alley into a courtyard. It wraps about a fountain that sparkles. Diamond water cascades through the air into the pool. All above them, looped between buildings, fairylights hang, glowing with a warm light. It is silent here, the buildings fending off the sounds of the festival. There is nothing but them and all the courtyard stills for the monk of shadows and his girl of the sea.
Tentative, shy she presses against him and he to her. Boudika drinks in the scents that cling to Tenebrae’s winter skin. “Me either.” He confesses. Their relationship has been born of violence, yet the cave, where they first learned they could touch and not strike.They learned then that the press of skin upon skin has turned to something innocent, something purer than it had ever been before. “But we can learn.”
Boudika backs away and for the first time since he found her this night, his body feels cold without her. But he does not go to her, not when she gazes at him with her eyes that darken to the colour of wine. He is already intoxicated by her. His heart trembles in his breast. Together they are nervous, together they are wild. Together something binds them deep, deep, so deep he barely recognises it, yet it influences him. It pushes him toward her, over and over. It birthed the jealousy that bloomed in his gut. He does not even know how much to fear losing her, not yet.
He thinks of the first time they met. She had sworn away violence before that. Yet she came to him with blood stained across her lips and a delightfully feral smile upon her lips. Tenebrae delights in the savagery of his sea girl. Yet to see her dance upon land, away from the sea (for he knows how she dances there), will be an entirely different experience. “Yes.” He breathes when she offers to dance for him. “Then can we dance together?”
|| "Speech." || @Boudika
when is a monster not a monster?
oh, when you love it
