tenebrae
The work of the eyes is done.
Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
The monk sighs softly. Luvena was not the first to believe his punishment was too much. “We each put different weights of responsibility upon vows.” He looks toward the middle of the room, the tilt of his head unfocussed, his eyes unseeing. “The vow to Caligo… to chastity in the pursuit of ones pledge to Caligo are vital, important ones. If we are not complete or true in our devotion to Caligo then we are not monks at all. We have no right to be in the Night Order if Caligo is not at the center of our everything.” Tenebrae pauses, his darkness letting loose the sigh he does not make. They reach around the room, touching the objects and furnishings she has scattered throughout. His magic has grown a curiosity he cannot yet feel, though he has begun to sense the way his shadows move - in ways they never have before.
“I wanted to stay a monk, after everything. The cost of that is a monk’s sight. It wraps us in Caligo’s darkness helping those who have strayed to know Caligo’s totality.” For so long he was ashamed. For so long he feared that the secret kisses upon his skin would be discovered. He hid love of women that grew in his heart. It bloomed like roses, its thorns of secrets pricking, choking him. It is a relief to sit here now and open up his misdeeds like a book, its open pages exposing all his misdeeds before the eyes of others.
He may be blind, but it is a relief to no longer live a lie.
Tenebrae laughs lightly, softly. It is a low rumble, akin to a purr in the cool dark of her room. “I can well imagine that. Just do not get too close to death, because one day it will catch you and hold you fast. None of us will be prepared for that day.”
He might have drifted off then, lost in her words, her thoughts of her past, but for how she stumbles suddenly, how emotion suddenly breaks through her words as sharp to his ears as whip across his back.
Her boys.
Slowly the monk lifts his head from where he looks, vacantly into the room. An ear twists toward her, his head turning as if his eyes remember how to find her. “You had children.” It is a statement and yet a question also. In his voice is the longing of a man who dared, for a moment, to entertain the thought that he had a daughter. That thought… that short moment of belief opened up for him a longing he did not know he possessed. He was wrong, he has no family still - but, but to believe for a moment that he did… That was joy - and terror.
Despite he knows a monk should not have children, Tenebrae cannot help but feel that freshly awoken desire for his own blood, his own love. “What is it like?” The Disciple asks, softly, to ask is no sin at all. So he dares to and settles a keep ear in her direction.
Down, down drops his head, his breath pushes from his lungs with the depth of her question. It fills him up, reaching in to the uncomfortable parts of him that writhe against such a prying query. She does not mean it. He knows.
“If you made that mistake twice, maybe you were following the wrong gods?” A pause, and then, “They say that if you are earnest in your belief that the grace of your god is enough to sustain you and keep you strong in faith.” He smiles, a dark, sardonic grin. The shadows flood in upon him, as if they know that his thoughts turn to blasphemous things. “Maybe I am following the wrong god.” He whispers into the darkness he shares with Luvena and her alone.
