let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
He comes upon that first night of the festival, as the pregnant moon hangs low within the sky. She whispers to the half-moon sigils upon his brow, his shoulders. They twinge and glow in answer and that is how the blind man knows there is a full moon within the sky that night.
Tenebrae's blinded eyes are silver as the moonlight that soaks his skin. They swirl with feverish light, unabashed sunlight that still burns the magic out of his eyes. Once he had been great among his brothers, a true Disciple of Caligo, but now the once-monk wanders quietly, no longer Denocte's Regent, merely a blinded boy.
Thia prowls ahead of him. She is black as pitch, her body formed from his shadow magic. In his ears her voice directs him, her black eyes his eyes. In the distance a song strikes up, instruments fill the air with a melody and the air is filled with laughter and want.
He should not be here. It was a festival where he danced with Elena for the first time. It was a festival where he danced with Boudika then told her he had slept with Elena. Then he was blinded and cursed, cast out as a monk. Oh, Tenebrae, such a fool. For all his body has not aged, for all that he walks as a young man, a warrior honed for battle, his soul is weathered, it is old and wise. Regret has bent him. Tenebrae has become crooked.
Beside the bonfire light, that seeks to bathe him in red, to warn any who look at him - Sinner! Sinner! - the Denoctian's shadows swell. Black creeps and smothers the bonfire light. Darkness consumes him and Thia slinks back to him, shifting from panther into smoke. What do you want, Tenebrae? She breathes to him.
And he laughs, low, rough, ragged.
For what does he not want?
So the blind man waits, in darkness, beyond where the dancers swirl and perilously close to where the holy offer their spring prayers up to their gods.
The festivities worried at her soul like the pounding of the endless sea upon an empty shore; relentless. Perhaps she had overexerted herself in offering the one precious skill she owned, opening her sacred space to all the passersby and all the energetic junk that came with them. The confines of her fortune telling tent had been like a cage, forcing her to within that tenuous boundary between casual acquaintance and intimate knowledge of all one’s secrets. There was no pulling back when you crossed that threshold.
A shiver rippled across her hide, the kiss of night a welcome touch to the unsettling warmth against her skin. The majority of festival goers had moved on towards the bonfire and the promise of moonlit lovers pulling each other close to chase the early spring chill away. Nefertari could think of nothing less attractive in that moment, the idea of writhing bodies and heightened emotions fueled by wine and loose tongues.
No, she would not be attending the dance; not until the night had passed into the wee hours of the morning, and those hot tempers would have faded to soft embers and she could enjoy the peace that came with Caligo’s moon.
The mare cast her golden sight to the clear skies, grateful for the swath of stars that twinkled down at her. The darkness soothed her frayed nerves and as she released a great sigh, her dancer’s canons moved her towards the heart of the festival. She resolved to keep her distance, for the noble blood in her could hardly resist the atmosphere of intoxication and revelry; the clairvoyance would see to it that she kept herself in line. After the day’s arduous task of reading fortunes for the curious of Novus, fielding questions from those who came with good nature and those whose intent was to heckle her into admitting fraudulence, she was exhausted. There would be little left in place to protect herself, the walls she had erected so carefully now nothing more than brittle bone.
Skirting the edge of the bonfire, the Solterran watched idly as couples pulled each other close and friends toasted. A smile played at her lips, a fondness for the excitement of it all creeping into her bodice. At her heart she was a socialite, an entertainer, and even though the berth she gave the dancers was for her own good, there swelled a significant part of her that begged her to throw caution to the wind.
People exhausted her, but they also fueled her, quickened her blood and summoned brilliant visions to dance before her eyes. As much as her gifts had been a curse in her youth - and truth be told she was still young, no matter the weight of her soul- they had also given her boundless opportunity. At the very least, they sufficed an excellent parlor trick to those who did not know better.
Nefertari settled herself at the far end of the bonfire, the light of the flames licking at the shadows of her pelt, a futile attempt to coax her in closer. From the darkness her audits pick out a throaty laugh, low and broken. Deep grief coloured that sound and it pulled at her gut, sharply. The mare turns, honey-gold eyes searching the deep nothing for signs of origin. Caligo’s blessed moon does not reveal this secret, as much as her vision probes for answers.
The only indicator that she’s not simply hearing shadows whisper is the prickle along her spine. The clairvoyant senses something in the darkness, an ache that she cannot quite identify, other than it is not her own. Her elongated ears strain forward, watching and waiting.
“Hello,” she breathed, feeling momentarily foolish for the open call, an invitation for those with dastardly intentions to approach. She cannot shake the feeling that she is not alone, and if Caligo will not enlighten her, then so be it. She’ll find out her damned self.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
She slips out of the crowd and the air fills with the static of star-strewn magic.
Tenebrae does not see her, yet he hears the sigh of her breath and the whisper of feet light as a dancer's. She does not move toward the revellers who move like an ocean to the music of the band. Instead she moves toward him, her every step growing louder, until she stops. Too close.
The static of her fate-magic plays across his skin and reaches out (as his shadows reach out for her) grasping at his soul to turn it like a card waiting to be read. Tenebrae does not need her reading to know what lies in the stars of his fate:
Desolation.
Sin.
Despair.
Loneliness.
It was his curse. One bestowed upon him by a goddess who took the sight from his eyes as punishment. Yet all the same he wonders at her magic as it reaches forward, weaker now, soon to be made stronger. Like a youngling creature it surveys him and his shadows.
That billowing darkness he wears wars with the bonfire light across her slim body. Always his darkness swells. The reach of his magic is hungry as it seeks light to consume. The bonfire hisses and spits in irritation and the starlight blinks.
In the quiet before she speaks, he listens to her breath, the sigh so much like the wind. The firelight licks along the edges of her ribs. she is so different to he, he who is swallowed up in perfect darkness.
His half-moon sigils glow at his brow. What irony, he would think, if he knew how her body bears golden eyes like he bears his silver-star sigils. She scent of her is sun and Solterra. The very thing he was made to consume, to war against, once, when the age of the gods was so different to this one. The energy of light upon him stirs the hunger in his gut and soul. Even before she has spoken, Tenebrae tilts his head toward the sound of her breath. He is little more man than Disciple of Caligo in that moment. Even disgraced he is still one of Caligo's Stallions.
His shadow magic seeps across her golden eyes, their intricacy, the weaving gold. Hungry. Hungry.
Hello?
She says at last and his ears twist forward, lazily, to catch her word. A solitary word, spoken in question. But she does not step into his darkness as other girls have: Elena, Boudika, Aspen. Maybe the fact that she doesn't is safer for them both, for her and for him. With her magic pressing static across his skin he asks her from the darkness, his voice rough, low, "Do you not like festivals, prophet? Since you come and stand here, away from the revelry..."
The query from the darkness startled her, and the mare’s breath caught in her throat. It was a rare thing for her gifts to be recognized before she had a chance to introduce herself. Even then, most thought of her as a purveyor of parlor tricks and good times at best, a charlatan at their worst, similar to one particularly sour client she spoke with earlier that day. The mare had good reason to be wary of her, however, and Nefertari couldn’t find it in her heart to hold it against the woman.
This open acceptance of her talents, however, was something else entirely. Her skin twitched, shifting uncomfortably under the weight of that perfect darkness, a shroud for whomever or whatever she was speaking with. Though the festival continued on mere yards away the joyous music and revelry faded into the background, the pop and crackle of the bonfire the only distinctive sound that remained on her registry.
Well, if this strange being was so pointed about her gifts there was no need to hide them. No need to play coy, no need to dress it in colourful language and pretense. There was something almost freeing in that realization and the dusky mare forced herself to relax, finally letting loose the breath she had strangled in her chest.
“Only when I have to encounter more than a fair share of disingenuous types,” she answered to the deepening shadows. Even Caligo’s bright moon could not pierce the darkness as it lingered overhead and the woman had the sense enough to know that this shroud was some sort of magic, even if it was of a caliber far beyond her own.
“I’ve had my fill of drunken stupor and false enlightenment for the day,” Nefertari stated simply, turning her gaze from the prickling shadows at her side and towards the dancers moving about the bonfire.
“I find Caligo’s moon to be a…” she paused, mulling over the next words to say, struggling to describe her feelings towards the goddess of her home court. “Salve of sorts, to the rawness of people. She is blessedly grounding; steady and illuminating. I find more comfort in her presence than I do among party guests, even if I am far too much of a socialite for a true clairvoyant.”
Her golden orbs found their way back to the tingling shadow, peering into their depths. “Though if you are going to engage someone in conversation, it’s considered polite to at the very least make your visage known.”
