let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
The snow grows thick upon his back, settling into the grooves of his whiplash scars. Spring cannot reach her green fingers up the mountain to this height. So the vegetation grows more sparse and the winds grow louder, stronger, ever more frigid. As frost begins to feather along his torso, settling into the grooves of his jaw and ribs, a part of him might begin to wander if it was worth it. But always, she is worth it and, of course, he would find her here.
Thia drives on through the bleak blizzard. Her form this day is a mountain cat, black as a panther. But she takes no material form, remaining as shadow in ordee to glide over the snow. She waits for him, still breathing out his every step. Ever his partner, his guide. Tenebrae sees nothing, white eyes unhealed despite his attempts to heal them. Caligo's magic lingers within them, destructive, depriving me of sight. A punishment that resides, always.
Eventually, the ragged path levels off and bends around the mountainside, opening up into the sacred temple. He once stood guard here, a young and foolish monk and warrior. It was where they first met, where they first shed each other's blood. Silence greets him and he stops just within the temple's open mouth. He listens, Thia silent at his side.
Ah, there it is. The soft breath of air pulled in, pushed out through slumbering lungs.
Tenebrae turns to that soft, whispering sound. He is silent, his shadows filling every corner of the temple, billowing, calling out for the light of the girl who slumbers. Beside his eyes, he looks the same as he always has. Young, only just out of adolescence, barely over 3. Immortality was always a curse and oh how he wishes he could see her too. Has immortality kept her frozen too? He is sure she is as cursed as he, for two souls as bonded as theirs could only ever be as cursed as each other. And Tenebrae was so terribly cursed.
He stops when Thia says, when he is above the slumbering mare. He can see her red, her gold, her light in his mind's eye. She is more beautiful there, he thinks, he hopes. Yet he lowers his lips all the same to brush over her brow, to remember the contours of her face, the heat of her skin. "Moira," the once-monk murmurs, voice rough, broken with disuse. He breathes her name against her skin, letting his lips run to her temple, lightly to where her eyelashes still press together. "Wake up for me. I cannot be here alone." And oh, how his voice breaks at the last, shattering and with it, his shadows obliterate.
we never had to force love we were drowning in it the moment we met.
Weightless, floating, she slumbers uninterrupted in the forgotten remains of a forgotten temple on a forgotten mountaintop that is only climbed for passage, never exploration. A pale light blankets her, protecting the woman from the snow that whispers through tattered doorways. When she came, days and months and years prior, they were not so broken. They were, at best, rusted and injured, but never had they been so…shattered. Only hinges hid there now, a ghastly reminder of the two beings now left in this holy place and their great and terrible gifts. Moira does not bother with the living world, not waking, not flinching, not bothering to peel open her eyes that are so very heavy with the weight of the world, of the loss, firmly pressing them down any time she tried.
So she had let Neerja run wild, her dear heart and fierce companion. The tigress, to her credit, only left to eat and returned each day, each night, to watch over the woman as she slept away her immortal days. Timeless, ageless, linked inextricably with Tenebrae it seemed, she was doomed to the same fate of forever. The kiss of an eternity did not dare push strands of white or grey into her curling locks. Only let her hair grow out once more, the only hint of time passing since she had first lain there.
About her, the once-monk will find dust undisturbed by anything save the paws of Neerja. And when he bends his lips to press against her brow, the shield of light flares brightly, blinding even to a blind man, reaching out to feel him, to assess the threat. When it finds the darkness she knows, the darkness she’s held and that has held her, it falters and then blinks out. Velveteen caress across her face, golden eyes remain shut as she breathes out. This is a world she is not ready to face again. Bexley. Asterion. Cain. Michael. And Isra and Eik. Goddess she hurts. Her soul bleeds out, screams. Reminded again and again of the time she lost Estelle. These are wounds that would bleed forever.
The certainly lies heavily in her heart, but his voice rings out. Movement over her messy hair. Warm breath against her warm skin. ”Tenebrae?” She whispers it, not daring to hope, not daring to crack open her eyes yet. Not when she listens to the ragged hiss of his breath, the same echoing loneliness in herself mirrored in those tones. ”Are you real?” She asks to the darkness. Tentatively, she moves her mouth to the side of his, huffs in against his whiskers, takes in the scent that is purely her friend despite the time that has passed. How much time that is, she does not know. ”I was dreaming,” she whispers, and her words are empty - explanation enough that she could not find their past, those they loved most, even in her dreams. They are gone… And she has almost stopped asking why they always must go.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
She stirs and the movement swirls the dust that has settled around her, on her. The dust motes rise in a swirl. Her light captures them, illuminates them as they dance their slow, slow dance.
He does not see the dust rise, but he tastes its tang upon he tongue. He does not see Moira rouse, but he feels the movement of her against his mouth. She turns from statue into life. it began with her defensive magic, that at first resisted, fought against his magic in ways it always has. But then, recognition seeped in, warm and welcome. And so darkness swirls with light as the two Denoctians meet again. His name rises between them, a question spoken through barely conscious lips.
Are you real? She asks another question. I was dreaming.
He wants to smile. He wants to make light of her words that run them both through upon the same, terrible blade. Of me? The words are there upon his tongue, begging to be spoken in jest. But he knows the truth. They are cursed to be alone even in their dreams. Tenebrae, once-monk and eternal sinner, was never in Moira Tonnerre's dream. There is no space for jesters here.
Hot breaths twine and muzzles brush as she lifts her face to him. He drinks in the smell of her, light and incense and holy stone hidden beneath her tang of dust. lowering his forehead to her brow, Tenebrae presses his half-moon sigil into her skin. It gleams at their touching. "I am here now. Real. Do you believe it?"
we never had to force love we were drowning in it the moment we met.
She does not dare hope, barely even breathes, as Tenebrae’s warm breath whispers over her eyes, her cheeks, dancing over her nose. There are scents of the sea, of his sorrow, of something that is entirely him - but even those can be faked. Suspicion is a heavy blanket, and she is not yet ready to trust her eyes, her senses, when so often they’d tricked her into thinking Michael would be just in the corner there waiting for her to finish in the kitchens; that Isra would be at the top of the stairs with a ready smile for them to sip cocoa and reminisce about their days; that Eik would be ready to laugh and offer his sea-song words to her, always calm and patient and wise, while his and her Queen’s (Isra would always be her Queen) children gallivanted about. Moira was always ready to offer them a pastry, a smile, a hint of mischief as they ran about.
The phoenix’s heart throbs as his brow presses, at last, against her own. Her eyes shutter and close and she lets her light - pulled from reflections of them on dusty surfaces, it is silver and wanting - spool out and press against his skin. It brushes lightly over his lips, his cheeks, his closed and broken eyes. Lovingly it curls up, caressing his ears, plunging down his neck, his spine, his sides. Moira pulls it back in, feeling as it feels, and lets a sigh fall at last. Petal-soft.
Between them, a tear slips down her cheek. ”Ten,” she whispers. It is half her voice and half croaking; years of silence passed her, and now she must make amends for that lost time. ”Tell me it isn’t true. Tell me they are not gone.” She would beg for them, for their return. Moira Tonnerre, lacking in little pride and so unwilling to beg for anything save that she loved, would plead with whatever half-baked god that would listen for her family to come home once more. Under his touch, she trembles, and she is not yet willing to set foot in a world where they are not.
"Teach me how to breathe again, my friend, for I cannot bear this weight in my chest.” Not even the claws of Neerja’s mind raking through her own, its spark of joy and fury a tempest beating at the walls, could bring Moira to rise. How do you live, she wonders, when all is lost again and again? What is the purpose, the point?
If you lean in close enough, you could hear her heart shattering all over. Time and time again, she burns into nothing but a memory.
02-27-2022, 10:52 AM - This post was last modified: 02-27-2022, 10:59 AM by Moira
