tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
Maeve is giggling. It brings a smile to the monk’s lips to hear such a joyous, playful sound. It is a welcome respite from the thoughts that he is here, in Terrastella at Elena’s flower festival. On the journey over from Denocte, a part of him had grown too loud to ignore. It was the part of him that grew restless the closer they came to the Dusk Court as it asked why he was here? Why in Terrastella where the memories of Elena are so bright and inescapable and why with Maeve, when all he can think of when he hears her voice, feels her moving beside him, how he could have had a daughter too. It brings the taste of grief to his lips again. It is a bitter, unwelcome taste upon his tongue and in his soul.
Yet when the Dencote child laughs, the sound is a balm to his soul. He wonders if the laughter of children is enough to heal all wounds of the heart and soul. Tenebrae cannot remain hurt when Maeve is laughing.
The petals of the flower tickle against his shoulder and Tenebrae smiles as he turns to it. His lips touch along the delicate edge of the midnight purple petal. “Thank you, Maeve.” He says softly. He inhales the scent of the tulip, so much stronger than the gentle perfume that rises from the plants around them. “I can smell them. They smell beautiful, don’t they?” The bandages around his eyes chafe, but the monk does not lift them. At first, it had been some strange, cruel twist of nature than had him instinctively trying to remove the bandage in order to see. Yet always, he was met with nothing but impenetrable darkness. His body has blessedly forgotten such a reflex. Now he merely feels its scratchy texture, worrying the finer hairs along his nose and cheeks.
“You will have to describe them to me.” He says lightly to Maeve and laments that he will no longer see her grow up, into her long limbs and into a young woman, already so well regarded in Denocte. He knows she will flourish amongst its ranks.
“What is your favourite flower here?” Tenebrae asks her lightly. “Maybe we can make you a flower crown to wear that you could show your mother?”
