tenebrae
The work of the eyes is done.
Go now and do the heart-work on the images imprisoned within you.
~Rilke
The beach is moonsoaked. Silver lies upon the top of the sea and shines like diamond light over the crowns of all those who drift along the beach. Though the searches for trinkets and shells was a daytime activity, still there are those who come and pick their way through the dark, night-painted, objects littering the beach. They hold them up to firelight and let the flames reveal their identities.
Tenebrae listens to them all. The sounds of children blowing into shells that cry out like ships at sea. It is a mythological noise, he theinks. One that belongs between the leaves of leatherbound books and upon the tongues of those who gather round the logfires upon the sand. He has heard their stories too, those of ghosts and gods, mermaids and kelpies.
Kelpies.
He is looking out to where he hears the sea sigh. He looks, even with his unseeing eyes, like a man yearning. He should look more like a monk, he thinks.
Maybe Morrighan finds her new Regent like this, caught by the seduction of a sea he cannot see. Though he listens to it, as a mermaid who has lost her tail and found herself landlocked with legs she can barely walk upon. He is learning how to be a man blind. The Disciple and Regent is learning what it is to live on without his sight. The pulse of grief twists in his breast, throbbing like needle pricks. Boudika and Elena have taught him well, to know what grief is, how it stings, how it weighs one down…
Morrighan comes. He knows the way she breathes, the way her body parts the air and her feet touch the ground. Tenebrae has already learned the song of her feet upon the earth, the rhythm of her footfalls. The smoke that clings to her skin, a whisper of fire beneath her skin, plays across his tongue and she smiles, warmed by the embers of her. She is a glow he might always turn to. “Morr,” the monk welcomes and reaches his muzzle towards her (where she parts the air with her breath, her body).
“I am proud of you,” her Regent murmurs, low and warm as whiskey. And he is proud of her, it is there in his moonlit smile that tips up small (for neither of them have ever enjoyed grand gestures). “I hope you will find quiet time too, tonight.” For heavy is the crown, Tenebrae thinks.
