tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
I am sorry, Elena whispers and he wants to ask her what for - for the fact that the child was not his, that she was with someone else?
The fae girl relishes his smile, treasures it, longs to beg him to keep it upon his lips. But when he thinks back, when the shock of this moment slips from his body, leaving him exhausted and broken, he will recoil from the memory of his smile, his joy. It leaves him feeling a fool. It is another reminder that he is young and foolish. At least now he has an eternity to grow wiser to the affairs of life and love.
He thinks of eternity, how his was given in the darkness of the underground vault with Elena by his side. The night Order’s magic turned them both immortal and he was content with that, with her by his side for an eternity. But, now, now all he can wonder is if her daughter is immortal too. Tenebrae can only hope that his envy, his sudden, desperate want of a daughter will be just a blink in his endless existence. He fears he might carry it with him forever. In that moment, he fears his own immortality. It is a long time to want what was never his. He will be consumed, of course he will. His learning to let go begins now, now, now.
His shadows, that clawed at her and clinged to her and pushed and pulled at her, they fall still, exhausted and penitent. They lie like a cloak across her body before falling away like silk, dissolving. It is, Tenebrae thinks, like letting go. It kills a part of him, for all he wants is still to hold her.
The Disciple turns away from her and the darkness draws in across his body, until all of him that remains is the glow of his half moon and his eyes - whose light will be extinguished. He turns them upon her, he bathes her in silver light, ensures the moon possesses her. The monk had always thought she belonged in darkness as much as light. Where in her body, he wonders, does the darkness of immortal magic turn the threads that make her into endless, unbreakable cords of silver and gold.
The name, the name, the name.
Azrael.
It comes sharper than the whip he had used to try and purge his love of her from his body. It cuts deeper than the corded thong had sunk into his back. It bleeds more. His heart bleeds, it gushes. It fills him up with crimson blood hot with agony, wet with grief.
And then, and then he laughs.
It is a terrible noise, void of joy and even anger. It is frighteningly empty but for the emotion that laces through it, turning it awful and broken. “Gods, Elena.” He breathes when the laughter abates and he looks to her. He drinks in her beauty like a man drowning, this is the last sight of her he will ever see. And she stands before him with her lips turned down, weighted by anger, resolve and sorrow. At once he feels as his shadows had been, he feels how anger and grief and jealousy are turning him into the sea. He has only the Night Order ahead of him. He has only the darkness of Caligo left for him. Is he to remain angry forever? He can carry his ire and jealousy into his tomb of darkness or he can try to make peace with it now, he can try to be the monk he was always supposed to be.
Tenebrae swallows it all down, bitter anger, sour jealousy, fermenting grief. He nearly chokes, but he walks to her as she whispers that she should go. SHe has become a doe, a frightening rabbit. He moves to her, less a wolf, a predator.
“I am sorry for what we have done to those we love,” Tenebrae whispers into her skin as he presses against her and drinks in the salt of her - her tears, her own anger? He is sorry, he is sorry for Azrael, for what they did to Boudika and to each other, but… “But a part of me wishes she was mine.” He says and smiles and laughs at the ludicrousness of it. “It is better than she isn’t though when my punishment begins.”
He could stay forever there, pressed into her skin, surrounded by the warmth of her, her body, her smile, the light of her soul. Yet, she wasn’t his. Not when she is Azrael’s family. Tenebrae steps back, too fast, for that thought is a twinge in his stomach. He gasps, as if run through by a blade, but it is only jealousy and he needs to learn to live with the pain of it, if he cannot let go of it.
The distance is sobering and he looks to her, bathed like sun goddess in the silver of his sigils. “Does Azrael know that I am the other man?” He asks, but does not think that he cannot hate Azrael just a little bit. He knows some days he will be ruled by pain, by jealousy. “What is your daughter’s name?” He asks, “I shall listen out for her.”
