oh, but sweetheart,
i am a goddess
i am a goddess
A
dove always seems to swoop near enough her now, awaiting her next words to be sent to some partner or another. Most often, they now go to Tenebrae where once they would have gone to a King sitting alone, left to stare at an ocean with too heavy a crown upon his beautiful brown head. Now, the white and grey bird flutters as shadows grow nearer before dawn, its nerves increasing even if it recognizes the monk who approaches. Often enough, she'd been sent to deliver messages to just this man, yet still there is an apprehension in her, a feeling of being so alone having to travel so far from her nest, from her flock. Moira notices this, looks to her little writing dove, and blows at her, sending her back to the aerie where she would wait further messages, socializing with her flock once more and saving up energy for the next long trek. The Emissary turns her head then to watch as lights flicker out in her friend's presence, his shadows gobbling them greedily, hungrily. Oh, but she remembers a time when they were much greedier, hungrier, choosing instead to devour everything she had just as she made his shadows flee with her own light. Two faces of the same coin. Golden eyes light up, relieved to find something other than prospective trouble on the horizon, and her face splits in two, a gentle grin to ease him into her company. Quiet was always their forte. If they weren't screaming and growling, snarling over the same bone they both wanted, fighting and lashing out until one or both lie exhausted from the overuse of their powers (divined by the gods or not, Caligo's chosen son and Solis' bastard daughter or not), they were quiet. He anchors her regardless of her storms or sunny days, he pulls her close to him with just a breath and she does not feel her heart flutter for the nearness of a male as it might were he some golden man with white hair, or some dark knight promising sweet nothings, or some old king she cannot help but love and mourn. No, Tenebrae is tranquility sliding onto her skin, pushing away the prickles and coarseness of her left always to worry and worry until she'd die.
"Monk," she replies gently, her voice cooing and caressing him as only she knows how. Then, he breaks, he looks to shatter just as she did. Entirely in pieces, he pulls and pulls. It is not a request but a demand, one she kindly accepts and follows close by his side.
One might think them conspirators or more with how she presses into his side, into his shadows, so familiarly just to feel the way his blood pounds and his nerves dance with indecision and pain. Was she this warm when she burrowed canyons into Venoror? It's possible. Moira remembers so much of the emotions and so little of the physicality of herself that night and does not reflect too long upon it when looking to the past for introspection. Instead, she simply offers herself as a house, a temple of comfort, a sanctuary when Tenebrae is weary, when he's taken so much and is ready to burst, when he's drowning and can't find air.
How he drowns before her now, how he swallows the moon and comes back begging.
Concern beats within her breast for her friend as she watches him bow, watches him fall down crying. This is not the silent, sturdy monk that she knows, this is not Tenebrae as he had been: young, naïve, so full of love for his goddess that he could do nothing but all that she asked, desired, demanded. Something happened, she guesses, and she wears the face of an angel, resplendent and redolent, a willing shoulder for his tears, a locked diary for his sins. "I am here, Tenebrae," she whispers unto his brow as she leans forward. Slowly, softly, dark lips press against his forehead and she wreaths him in light, puts a halo over his brow, wrapping around his ears. In their little alcove, the light is faint but beautiful, a sliver of the moon meant only for him. It sits there and glows and glows and glows, casting the lashes upon his back in stark relief.
She cannot help but trace them, knowing they are not inflicted from another, but from himself. Gods above the turmoil he should feel to do such a thing. She wants to wash away those tears, she wants to bandage them and care for him until they are gone, erased. Instead, she whispers, knowing what he needs, feeling it deeply in her bones, "speak, sweet child of Caligo, and I will be your ears. Confess to me your transgressions and sins, let them fall from your shoulders so you would not bear them so nobly and painfully alone. Tell me your troubles, Tenebrae. Now." Her voice grows hard and soft, more of a hypnosis than anything else, lulling him into her comforting embrace as a phantom hand brushes the tears from his cheeks, gently traces down his nose and then wipes the tears from his lips before they can fall.
She waits, patience and forgiveness already written in her bones.
{ @Tenebrae "speaks" notes: }
