tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
Are you Tenebrae? You’re late.
The monk’s name rings out across the crowd of gathered skaters. He turns to see a girl pale as a fawn standing before a man. The stallion stutters, confused. “N-No?” His head tilts as confusion twists through his bright gray eyes. He is holding two mugs of warm chocolate and looks keen to escape back to his actual date.
A soft sigh curls from Tenebrae’s lips. It rises like white smoke from a snow dragon’s maw. He moves toward the girl, his darkness drinking in moonlight. It reaches out ahead of him and presses upon her skin. “I am Tenebrae.” The monk says from behind her. He does not know how she has already struck their date off - a date. How could it be anything like that when he is vowed to his goddess? Though he has made a mockery of his vows.
He glimpses up, away from her for a moment, drinking in the bright lights, the smiling faces. He listens for laughter, hears it and searches for his source. Tenebrae drowns himself in the vision of this night. His hours of sight are few now. Only a solitary night lies between him and eternal darkness; an eternity in Caligo’s black. An eternity to remember who he is vowed to. An eternity to remember and honour only her.
He drinks the girl in, with her pale skin. He imbibes her beauty and yet only wishes she were someone else. Elena, Boudika. One last look… but Boudika was right, he was not worthy to look upon her, nor Elena. Not now. An eternity of blindness seems almost welcome now, guarded from temptation. He is a man resolved and a monk repentant.
“You must be Isabella.” He says lightly, but he does not smile. She expects a dull monk and this night she will likely get one, so sober is he with what is to come. But ah, he glances away, out across the beauty of the Lake. He would drink in the splendour of everything for his one last night. “Have you skated before?” The Disciple looks to the ice and back to her. “I am afraid I have not. You may need to catch me.” He smiles, merely mechanics, the light is gone from his eyes.
