oh, but sweetheart,
i am a goddess
i am a goddess
H
e would flinch when her brow touches his, when her wings and light wrap them in their own cocoon. Skin both lunges and withdraws from the press of her own, and she would weep for him if he were not already crying enough to drown the world. Shame is a heavy weight, like too much honey stuck on her tongue, it is not sweet any longer as it should be. The pain of his bleeds into the atmosphere, pulls starlight down to be a cloak as she bleeds with him. At last, at last his croaking, shattered voice finds hers. When he is not screaming, when he is only flesh and blood and bone and sinew prone upon the ground, when she is level with him and finds his eyes hiding from her own as he begs an answer she doesn't quite know how to answer in a way that he wants...yet, Moira takes a breath, and then another. She does not knit her brows together to think, does not look troubled or weary or doubtful at all when she answers in kind. "You would be Tenebrae, my friend," and it is cool water spilling from her, lapping at his legs buried in the sands. "You would be lost until you are found, a ship with a broken sail." Perhaps this is not what he wanted to hear, and she knows it likely is not, but she continues regardless of these thoughts. "It is not easy to leave all that you know, all that you were born to, and dive into depthless waters that would rather see you drown than surface...I do not have the right answers for you, and I think you know that, Ten." She knows...
Moira Tonnerre knows what it's like to abandon everything she knows and charge headlong into something different, something new. Was that not the very thing she did for her cousin, for love? Still, looking back, Moira knows she would do it again. Although Estelle is still not with her, she would have left no matter if Moira stayed. And without Estelle, the Estate would have been intolerable, it would have become a stain upon her soul, a wound festering and pussy until she bled out onto its cold, pristine floors that would reflect nothing but her family's disgust. 'At last, at least she won't breed,' they'd whisper to her corpse.
No. Even if she could have changed it, Moira knows she would have done the very same thing over and over.
His breath is deep and hurting, scratching his windpipe, banging against his lungs, and she can feel her light beg to flee, to run from the suffering it sees. The phoenix holds firm, she does not drop their shell, their little protection from the world that would wrap vines about their feet and then about their throats until they were made into limestone statues left to watch the waters come and go. Tenebrae asks her for a command, and she knows he does not mean it, should not mean it. If there are tears in her eyes, they could be easily mistaken as the starlight reflecting there along the bottom line. Her own words a hoarse, but they are sincere as they thread themselves into his world as simply as the sun. "Is that what you truly want?" she asks him.
With a shake of her head, dark hair tumbling and pulled by the wind, Moira at last sighs and stands. She towers above him as he kneels, as he seeks guidance from someone who is not her. The monk's tears still stain her cheek where she brushed against his skin, his words still carve hollows in her ears and bounce around. Will they ever fall out and find a grave to lie in? These are more questions she cannot answer. So she does not. Moira Tonnerre does as she always has: she keeps moving forward. With a voice like a goddess or like death itself, she tells him "With or without your temple, you are still a mortal man. You are still bound to the same mistakes as any other who is given flesh and a beating heart. We all fall... What will you be when you rise?" She challenges him harshly; it is not soft coddling which he needs, it is not forgiveness. Even if it were, the phoenix could not give that to Tenebrae, she is not the being that he wronged.
Gold eyes demand his look up, demand he meet her where she stands, hoof to hoof, nose to nose, breath for breath. Her heart urges him to stand, her magic reaches out to press into his legs, to splay along his belly in encouragement. But that is all she does.
Only after a moment, two, when she counts the space between her heartbeat and her breaths, does Moira stop, drop her light, and wait.
The rest is up to him. This is not her battle, not truly.
{ @Tenebrae "speaks" notes: when he tells of of Elena next is when she'll break that baby bubble too! she a reminder for me <3 }
