T E N E B R A E
On my body, the grace of shadows
and in my heart: all Hells
and in my heart: all Hells
There is a storm gathering out at sea. It illuminates the edge of the world with flashes of splitting lightning. Charged waves, made rapid and strong by the blowing winds and rising static, push against his chest. The salt water laughs in his ears, back, back, it seems to say, you do not belong here its foam words fizzing across his chest. Fickle, the tide pulls out and twines itself about his limbs, tugging, tugging.
His skin grows dark, painted darker yet by the shadows that bloom beneath the belly of the thunderclouds. The storm looms like a wall and its voice is the howling wind. It is sirensong in his ears, breathing its saltwater breath along his cheeks. Come the sea’s new voice groans with storm-ragged fervour. Tenebrae takes another step into the wild water’s gathering deep.
The beach, the sea, the sky, the cliffs are gashes and brushes of greys and blacks. Terminus sea is a ragged scar painted onto the edge of Novus’ portrait, such is the virulent storm. Her song is ripping skies and wild water, of galloping winds and rising surf. He is not far out, not yet, not yet. His feet still know the bottom of the sea, though the sands shift and the waves break across his chest.
If you want to find me, come to the sea, she had whispered into his skin as if it were a prayer. Such blasphemy, such want. So of course it is now that he stands amidst the sea with her name cradled upon his lips as if it were a sacrament. His curious shadows rise into the sky, lured by the dark wall of the storm. Their tendrils unfurl like wings, like his soul ascending from his expired body. But Tenebrae lives! He feels his vibrant heart ricocheting in his chest, resounding like the crashing of the waves, the roaring of the storm.
Every sharp point of a wave he thinks is the pinnacle of a horn and he turns to look at her, to embrace her with want, to feel the skip of his heart. But it is just the waves that meet his white-bright stare. And maybe that is the truth of them, for that is why he is here, is it not? To want her, to desire her, to crave her and yet… to give her nothing. Because, what has a monk to give a girl except... nothing at all?
“Boudika.” He calls out into the storm, into the sea that writhes below. “Boudika,” he calls again for no chant can be whole with just one name. ”Boudika” he says again as the lightning splits the sky and shines electric bright in his eyes. Oh his shadows rise up, up into the ragged sky and out across the ocean. Does she feel the way his shadows seek her?
“Boudika” he says the last like a heartbeat stopping. He has nothing to give her, nothing at all. But oh, she is here.
He watches her rise from the chaotic ocean, crimson eyes, crimson skin. She is blood in the water and it is his. His shed with the pieces of him she has bitten away and the pieces of him she keeps behind that lovely, violent smile.
The water pushes them together until they are breast to breast, until his muzzle brushes beneath her salt-slick mane and he inhales the wild sea girl. Then his lips are at her ear, “Dance with me.”
And the storm makes landfall.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
