tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
No one had ever been curious of his shadows like this child. Within the Order, darkness and shadow magic is all they know, it is how they exist. His peers no longer discuss the nature of their darkness, except for tactical reasons in fights or infiltration. Beyond the Night Order walls there are few who enjoy the consuming black of his magic. Most avoid the monks when they see them coming, their presence a black chasm in the streets, but for their sigils that glow atop each monk’s brow.
The girl makes him think of Elena and Boudika. The only two who have ever stepped into the dark of his magic, carelessly, bravely. There was something his shadow magic liked about each of them. An affection. But, with this child it ran deeper still. Maybe she was the descended blood of a banished monk?
Tenebrae is silent as he feels the way his shadows respond to the girl. They way they press upon her skin - not with want as they had with Elena or Boudika, not with ire as with Orestes, but with something akin to protectiveness and delight. He is sure then that this girl is born of the Night Order, but the birth of a child to a Disciple is a shameful thing. Already Tenebrae has learned to hold his tongue. His own shame binds it ever tighter. A wash of yearning slips like a cloud across the sun of his soul as he thinks of the little girl’s blood. It might have once been his.
The monk considers how his shadows have been changing. They form and unform before his eyes, without his command. He cannot see them, but feel their morphing. “It is difficult to describe,” Tenebrae murmurs, low, low and rich as whiskey, inebriated with thought and wonder. “It is almost like they are forming their own will. And they communicate with me now, they never have before.” He smiles a small perplexed thing. “I am not complaining though, it helps an old, blind man to get around.”
Beside him, the child possesses the peace of a dawn meadow dusted with winter’s first snow. There is a pleasant stillness that Tenebrae understands, enjoys. He should have known then. But he cannot yet hear what his shadows whisper along his skin and across hers. Mine.
Mine.
The truth is not yet Tenebrae’s to have and though he turns to her voice, into her gaze, he does not see Elena’s blue eyes that peer up from beneath his daughter’s sweeping, ivory hair. “Don’t let the shadows scare you.” He lowers his voice for her, “I do not think that is their intention. They like you too much.” And all he thinks of are morphous shadows. The monk does not dream for a moment how his magic and Elena’s combined into something all together more spiritual, more hauntingly beautiful and terrifying.
“I could tell you about summer, but I think some things are better lived.” His smile grows, softer, warmer. He thinks of the flower crown he made for Maeve. The flowers she so carefully picked. Tenebrae laughs softly. “I came with another little girl she is nearby and I am sure she would love to see the sunflowers too. Shall we find her and then we can discover the sunflower field together?”
Already his shadows are before him, pressing the path ahead. The monk follows them, slowly, each step carefully placed. He would lead her from the meadow, out into the next where Maeve waits for him to catch up.
