tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
Tenebrae does not know if his eyes are white any more. He supposes he shall never know, unless he asks someone. He might see if Elias would tell him what his eyes are like without the bandages. If it might ever be acceptable to remove them, or are they unsightly enough to keep wrapped up, forever?
It would come as no surprise to know that the reason the child comes to him is in wondering what his eyes might look like beneath his bandage. But that is not what she asks when she gets close to him.
The monk first hears the sounds of her footsteps and he turns toward the rustle she makes in the grasses. The glow of his crescent moon atop his brow limns the child in moonlight. If he had eyes still to see her with, he would note the way the light turns her body soft as a pastel beach beneath the moonlight. He would think her beautiful and look at her eyes that would remind him so much of her mother. Tenebrae would know then, exactly whose daughter she is, and he would revisit those confusion emotions again: jealousy, grief and relief that this child is not his.
But oh, if he had sight he would also see how her one limb is identical to his own. That… That would lead to emotions he is not ready for, it would lead to a realisation that all he felt before is misplaced, not needed.
So it is fortunate then that Tenebrae does not know that it is his daughter who stands before him, asking him to help her with her offerings. But, maybe some things are inevitable, for as he lets a smile find its place upon his lips and leans towards the child, agreeing to help her, he thinks what his daughter might have sounded like… if things were different.
“Of course I shall help you.” The monk says to the child, feeling how his magic embraces her small frame, how the shadows enjoy her presence. She must be Denoctian, he think, for his magic to enjoy her company so.
If only the Disciple had his sight, then he would see the way his shadows press upon her skin and know that she is kin. She wears his darkness, born into it, sculpted by it. Maybe neither father nor daughter know what his magic does. Maybe neither of them recognise the way in which his magic sings in her presence, the way the shadows crowd her and beg to be commanded by her and vow to guard her. Shadows slip through her blood, they pressed the golden half moon upon her shoulder, a mirror of his, turned gold by Elena’s unrelenting sunshine. Her light that drew Elliana’s father to her. A light the child holds like an eclipse: sunlight and midnight together as one.
“You shall have to tell me how to help you though.” The monk says to the child, a smile curling across his lips. “You might have spotted that I cannot see.” Tenebrae laughs lightly and then whispers to the little girl, “Are the flowers as beautiful as they said they would be?”
