cover me when darkness bleeds in
cause it's all I've ever known
It seems like something out of a dream as Morrighan approaches the new archway. It feels like forever since she had last stood here among the ruins with Antiope. They looked on at what may as well have been the remnants of war, bloodshed and death. It was a past Denocte that Morrighan had never known and would prefer not to know.
Now, what stands before them is a new beginning. It must have taken some serious magic to pull it off, but she can't deny that it's a stunning piece of work. All the way down to the intricate details in the stained glass windows and the way the moonlight filters through them just right. It creates an even more spectacular reflection on the ground. Slowly, the Regent moves to stand in its path, the colors overlapping her grullo paint coat.
She looks up at the full moon through the glass and isn't quite sure what she feels. Appreciation? Longing? Confusion? All of the above? She has come so far since being thrown here and she can't help but wonder if the saying is true. Did everything happen for a reason?
The Night Court back then had their own battles to overcome. They destroyed them and the gate that kept them confined. Now this reformed Court with their open gates stands as a symbol for them all. As much as Morrighan hates leaving the safety of Denocte, it still feels like a relief.
She exhales, not realizing she had been holding her breath for some time.
On my body, the grace of shadows and in my heart: all Hells
The archway is a generous artist this night. Its brush is fluid and filled with paint. It paints Denocte’s subject in starlight and moonlight. It limns them in silver and then, when they stand within the glow of Antiope’s new stained glass archway, the number of colours are tenfold.
He is a man used to a world of black and greys. He is a man for whom the only colour of any meaning is the gold of the sun. it makes him ravenous. Oh to eat of the sunlight, to drink it down like whiskey until his nerves hum, numb and intoxicated.He was made for a holy war. A war found in the places of the universe where sunlight and the black between stars grapple and twine and twist. So, with all that in mind, maybe it is no surprise that he stands watching the way the archway paints with the water of the moon. Men and women bloom like meadows and galaxies beneath the glow of the archway. They twirl and they laugh, they sigh, so full of the beauty of this great masterpiece.
Even Tenebrae’s eyes are monochrome. They glow whiter than the moon and as bright as stars pulled nearer to the earth. His gaze is unblinking - they are only stars this night that do not twinkle. He drinks in the beauty of this night from his place upon the periphery. This is the fact of Tenebrae is it not? He is always destined to be here, consumed by shadow, breathing the words and sacraments of his goddess. For a moment, for a daring, rebellious moment, he thinks of Antiope’s gaze in the throne room. It was a flare of wondering, of questioning, why? She did not seem convinced and he dares to consider if there is any point at all? When was the last time he saw Caligo? When was the last time he was before her upon his knees?
He does not know. But what he does know is that to turn from her now, well, it would be the most perfect agony. A rending of his soul. And maybe that is why he stands here now beneath the Summer Moon and is not stood knee-deep within the sea calling, calling for a beautiful monster.
A girl stands, apart from the others. The archway paints her as generously as it has all the others. She becomes living art, it breathes for her, even when her lungs have closed tight. She holds her breath, deep deep within her body. It is in the pull of her blood, the struggling of her soul. He moves to her, because she stands alone, because her breath is tight in her lungs and her stories gleaming in the shadows of her silver eye.
Tenebrae arrives and is not surprised when she exhales. When the archway coaxed her lungs to let go. The word breathe dissipates upon his tongue. She does not need his words when her lungs are unwound and her soul loose. It rises, it ascends, with her breath through colour and night and stars. She holds his full attention. His dark is voluminous, yet he holds his shadows back. They yearn to draw in dark across her skin and accent the myriad colours that pour across the curves of her body.
He stands beside her for a moment, a silent sentinel who looks up to the moon carved into the top of the archway. “That was a great sigh,” the Disciple says at last and lowers his gaze to light across the lines of her face. “Does your soul feel any lighter now?”
cover me when darkness bleeds in
cause it's all I've ever known
Morrighan is hardly ever contemplative. If she's lost in her thoughts, it's a swirl of emotions usually ruled by anger. It's the fire in her that's always fueled her temper and she wouldn't have it any other way. Especially now that she's gotten her abilities back after first arriving in Novus, she'd feel too lost without it.
So when she feels a gaze on her and realizes she's no longer alone, that's when her temper rises like the heat at her hooves. There is no fire yet, but Tenebrae may find himself coming face to face with it if he tests her at all. For now, she keeps it at bay and clenches her teeth.
The monk is a mere acquaintance to the Regent, but she's vaguely heard of him. She never paid much attention since he didn't seem to pose any threat, just worshipped Caligo more highly than most. Whatever really, as long as he didn't say anything stupid.
Though of course, he manages to.
His question is obscure, but maybe monks study the souls of others. "No," she answers flatly. "Is it supposed to?" Quite frankly, she'd like him to mind his own business when it came to her soul. He'd likely find nothing but fire anyways.
She finds herself looking back up at the full moon before turning to face the monk. "What brings someone like you out here? Besides sneaking up on the Regent?" Part of her wants to ask if it was praying to the moon or Caligo, but she refrains. Really the only thing she knows about monks is that they pray a lot, so it might not be too far off.
On my body, the grace of shadows and in my heart: all Hells
He sees the way ire straightens the supple bend of her spine. The soft curves of her grow sharp as pointed corners. The touch of Morrighan’s blue gaze is the burn of ice upon unready fingers. Tenebrae blinks and marvels at how swiftly, how easily, her pensive manner dissipated. Now she burns as embers. Is her fire crimson as that from a dragon’s maw? The monk thinks it might be something altogether different and more wonderfully terrible: an ice fire, swirling in the midst of her blue, blue gaze.
Slowly he breathes and despite the promise of her burn he does not look away (though his gaze softens). The thick fan of his eyelashes press close upon his cheek and then lift in a lazy yet thoughtful blink. The stars cast their light into his eyes and into the half moon sigils that blase atop his brow, his shoulders. Their celestial glow bathes her and battles with the festival firelight. Together with the colours of the archway, they illuminate her into something more ethereal than that which her anger paints her. Morrighan is real, flesh and bone, Tenebrae could touch her and know how real she is. Her anger makes her ever more alive, ever more vibrant, as the night strives to turn her into a god.
The Disciple is not surprised when her reply is flat. The words are a blow caught and dissolved by the billowing of his shadows. He smiles. A small thing. It is bathed in darkness and, if she looks closely, she might see it. The curve of his lips paints no mockery across his features. The glint of his eyes possessing only something as ethereal as the light across her torso, making her transcendent. “No.” He replies. It is the same word as she chose, yet delivered with none of the blunt force. He does not possess her ire. His own is inky black, a terrible force made for swallowing suns. It slumbers. It rarely speaks.
“Your soul does not have to be lighter. Some are forever weighted and hurting. That does not make it right or wrong. Some just simply are.” His voice is nightshade, low and liquid smooth. Still he has not taken his gaze from the Regent.
At her next comment his smile grows larger still. He laughs a low chuckle that rumbles fleeting delight into his bones, his blood. “Are not all the citizens of Denocte welcome to a festival, Lady Morrighan?” The monk asks as he finally turns his gaze away and follows the paths of revelers across the Court. “I was not sneaking upon you. Not intentionally but you seemed lost in thought, maybe that is why my arrival was a surprise?”
cover me when darkness bleeds in
cause it's all I've ever known
There is something about his presence that makes Morrighan uncomfortable. Maybe it's the way he stands so calmly, like he's carefully contemplating something. How can anyone be so calm? She is too used to the fire in her heart and lungs to ever be in such a state for long. Her spirit is too restless for that.
He speaks in a philosophical way, maybe as all monks are, and it makes her want to groan. She doesn't know what her soul is like, but it's probably full of fire like the rest of her. Everything in her is always flaring and burning at once. Does that mean she's weighted and hurting? She doesn't like the sound of that.
Tenebrae laughs and for some reason it seems unusual. She almost takes his response as snarky and her expression clearly shows her disapproval.
"No," she says, which seems to be their shared word together for the night. "I was not lost in thought or anything. I was just looking at the gate." It's an excuse, but what did he know? Suddenly, she feels exposed, like he may have an ability to see into her soul and tell for himself.
Her eyes fall back onto the stained glass and the moon peering behind it. "At least this is better than the mess the old regime left behind," she grumbles, referring to the stone ruins and bones she remembers coming across with Antiope. Perhaps that is what inspired her to order it all to be rebuilt. For that, she's thankful. Morrighan isn't exactly an art connoisseur, but at least now it didn't make them look like trash. It's a reclamation, a rebirth.
On my body, the grace of shadows and in my heart: all Hells
The air seems to crackle around Morrighan. Tenebrae wonders, if he looks close, if he might see her amber sparks lighting the air. If this woman is fire, then Tenebrae is the smothering smoke she leaves in her wake. He is not sure what that means for him, yet it whispers into the violent parts of him. The ones calloused by fighting and wielding black magic and obsidian weapons.
But Morrighan is wild, consuming fire. He can feel it. Her presence warms his skin. He looks to her and into her gaze, beneath the black arc of her lashes. A brief look and he might have foolishly dared to think her eyes the blue of the ocean, sharp like a shard of sapphire. Yet he looks now and recognises her blue with its blistering heat. There is nothing of Morrighan that is not hot with fire and spirit.
His words are gasoline, his looks are diesel. He can tell in the way she stiffens, the way her gaze darkens, bruises, grows dark, dark with smoke and ever hotter fire. It is no wonder that the blues of the arch’s light fall from her skin like water. But the reds, the golds, oh they lick like flame along her curves. A holy fire.
Morrighan’s retort does little to brush the smile from his lips. Yet he awards her a moment of respite as his gaze drifts back to the arch for a moment. It follows the crimson and golden lights to where the painted glass glows like fire - a retelling of fire upon Denocte’s mountainside.
Tenebrae might have afforded her, her secrets. Maybe a wiser, older man would have. Yet - ‘I saw the look within your eyes.” The monk says to her, soft like embers. His gaze rests like a dove upon her. It is liquid starlight from the glow of his white-bright eyes. “It’s okay to feel. I think we all are tonight.” Then he looks away, this time his own gaze darkening with tortured thought as he looks upon the glass and thinks of a night he should not have spent by a lake and a girl who waits for him in the sea. He sees gold and crimson, sun and sea in the glass. He feels as thin as the paint spread across the windows.
When his gaze falls back to her, now Morrighan is looking back upon the archway. He thinks of their passing glances, the way they each to and fro. The Regent grumbles and though she comments on the horror of a night of dragon fire, the deaths of hundreds, the loss of his Order’s first monastery int he mountains, Tenebrae laughs. It is a low, low chuckle, soft as winter’s first sigh.
“I think the new Regime have done a lot to heal the old wounds of that mess. Though those wounds sometimes still ache, that new archway has sewn together Denocte’s soul tonight.” Still Tenebrae does not look to the archway, nor lift his gaze from Morrighan’s skin. It offers his earnest words before her fire, uncaring if it should set them alight. “You are to be thanked tonight, Morrighan.”
There is something about the way that the man sees through her that makes her uncomfortable. The only one she exposed herself to was Al'Zahra, but even then, this is something different. It's like her soul and maybe even her inner thoughts are exposed. She knows there are those out there with the ability to read thoughts and she hates the idea of it.
The problem with feeling is that she often feels too much.
Morrighan isn't used to such compliments, especially coming from a man like Tenebrae. Maybe she should feel grateful and proud and maybe she does. She just can't shake that feeling of exposure. It's like bugs are crawling all over her skin and it's triggering her flight response.
She doesn't show this (or at least she tries her best not to... who knows what magic this man possesses) but just looks at him with her two-colored gaze. It's a little softer, as much as she doesn't want it to be.
"Thanks," she says, then mutters "I guess" before clearing her throat. The Regent is quickly reminded why she normally prefers being alone. Taking one last glance at the arch, she nods to the man and begins walking back towards the citadel. "Have a good night."
And maybe she means it, even if it's just a little part of her that does.
On my body, the grace of shadows and in my heart: all Hells
He sees the way discomfort blooms across Morrighan’s face as he speaks. It darkens the lines of her face in ways not even his shadows can. Tenebrae does not know the degree to which Morrighan feels exposed. That his words may peel back the layers of armour she fashioned across herself. But he has heard enough of his Regent to not be surprised by the way she does not look at him.
Her responses are short, awkward as she seems within her own skin. To any other he might reach out, touch the line of their shoulder gently, warmly. Yet to do that with Morrighan is to incite fire. A fire that burns wildly. The legend of her fire precedes her.
Tenebrae does not touch her, yet neither does he shy from watching her. The way she stands, the way thoughts drift sharp and soft behind her amber eyes. Eventually she coughs lightly, shedding the last of his compliments, its weight sits strangely across her shoulders. Tenebrae can see it.
Then she is gone, wishing him a good night. His own blessing follows at her heels. It chases her, but whether it ever catches her or how well she receives it, he does not know. The monk remains a moment longer, looking up to where Morrighan did at her last glance. The stained glass of the window gleams - was it the reds that held her eyes like that? Or maybe the silver, the blues or the greens? He might be tempted to think it was the red, but to do that would narrow her down to fire alone and he knows there is more to Morrighan than the might of her fire.
Eventually he too turns and leaves. Only their ghosts and their phantom words are left behind to haunt the coloured light of the Autumn festival.
