tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
The air is cool within the rooms of the keep. Winter wanders her fingers along the stone walls, fingertips rubbing raw, frost left her wake. All across the monastery his brothers light merry fires to stave off the chill of the coming season.
As Tenebrae walks he feels the cold sinking through his shadows, pressing upon his skin, reaching deep for his bones. Already fatigue has claimed his muscles, making them stiff and sore. He had trained harder, more desperately in the last few weeks. But guilt dogs him, settles with his shadows in the corners of his silvered gaze. It is in the stiff line of his back, the scars of new whip marks across his spine. He had avoided the infirmary, keen to stop the potential for any questions.
His shadows lie thick as cloth across his spine. Beneath their cool touch the hot, worried skin of his whip-wounds feel more bearable. Despite their deep bite, Tenebrae moves as if he has not trained for hours or chastigated himself within the confines of the sacred temple. Damp still clings to his skin from his shower. He noted how the water sluiced red from his skin and swept away into the drain. If only he could wash away his sins so easily.
Anxiety darkens the lines of his face, marks him tortured, fracturing like his soul and his heart. He is sure they will one day find him, broken into pieces, swept across the sea. The sea comes to him in his dreams. It drowns him in Boudika’s gaze. In the day he is reminded of Elena as the sun pours down through the boughs of the wood. Yet his nights, his living are torture and sin. To love is punishment enough, to love two is catastrophe. Only now does he see what a fool he has been.
Tenebrae walks the halls a lesser and ailing man. Yet when he turns the last and sees Luvena at the end, his eyes fall upon her smile, trickle upon the joy that gleams upon their soft skin. The sight of her banishes the sorrow and guilt that darkened his face. “Lu,” the monk murmurs as he reaches her. His lips tip into a smile as his muzzle reaches, pressing gently into the curve of her neck. The heat of her skin is warm and welcome, the scent of herbs and medicines cling to her with incense from the temples. “I told you not to work too long in the infirmary.” He laughs low like whiskey. A smile licks like flames along his mouth as he draws away looking to her.
Tendrils of shadows dance in the dappled light that bathes across her skin. “I am well,” He lies. It comes easily, soft like a sigh. It is agony to feel how well he lies. He wants to breathe, no, i am not well, and fall at her feet, his knees bruising upon the floor as he repents his sins into her breast. He does not. He stands and smiles and feels how his darkness blooms like blood along his bruised heart and soul.
“Tell me,” He breathes deftly turning the focus from him, as if he does not ail. “Are you well? What can I do for you?” His eyes trail over the light that falls upon her face, the delicate gleam in her eyes. Give me some of your light, Luvena. I beg.
But he smiles and makes himself forget how terribly he has broken his oaths.
