tenebrae
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
It is natural that the first place he would come is here. As if it knows the woodland shrouding the entrance parts, branches lifting like gnarled arms upon the wind. Leaves point like fingers, there. Though he does not see them. Thia gathers her darkness at his ear whispering the steps he should take, directing him. His sight was never restored since the Night Order punished him for his transgressions. Still his eyes are milky white, dull, not filled with light as they once were. His ears twitch, listening to the rustle of leaves that whisper to him below Thia's directions. Obediently he goes as directed, stepping over root and vine and rock. The Night Order gate of hewed stone swallows him into black.
Of course they would have never welcomed a disgraced monk back warmly. The air from the brethren is as cool as the air that clings to icy, mountain walls. His breath is frigid, the ice freezes his lungs. Tenebrae blinks, pointlessly, and turns from them. Down, down the spiralling steps he treads, down into the gut of the mountain where the smell of herbs and ointments rise. Thia whispering still in his ear. She directs him to an old friend, a healer, talented.
"Can you heal them?" He asks, rough, ears tilting to catch the sounds of his old friend's movements. The silence is long, painful. Thia breathes, irritated and his shadow magic blooms at her irritation. Claws climb the walls and the once-monk murmurs for her quiet, her calm. Deflated they shrink, the walls no longer squealing like splitting stars.
