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
He bleeds and she bleeds, each of them ripped open by their encounter; together they are exposed.
Yet it is Boudika who holds him to the sand, her teeth a vice within his throat. Sharklike she grasps him and from her mouth she feels the fleeing of his blood. He feels its white-hot trickle as it runs down the grooves of his throat. The tide washes in, reaching, reaching for its kelpie-girl and her second prize.
Each place where she pierces him is blistering pain yet Tenebrae is supplicant beneath her hold. He waits with his heart thundering within his chest. Does Boudika feel it where her teeth sit over artery and vein?
Her chest bleeds, he sees the crescent moon glow crimson at her breast. The irony is not lost on him and along that slender curve the moonlight smiles, turning her blood to glittering rubies. Her moon begins to weep its blood-bright tears and Tenebrae watches it until it trickles from his view.
The monk still smiles, though it is more a grimace from the pain of her hold, as he waits, waits, waits to see what her next move is. As he lies, he wonders why he is so still, why he waits quiet as a lamb in this leonine girl’s jaws. He craved a fight, did he not? He craved her attack, to see the beauty and strength of the kelpie she has become. Yet now he does not fight, not when he sees the crescent moon across her breast.
Maybe it is because of the way she trembles? The way she seems both dangerous and fragile in this moment. Their want connects them - it was his kiss upon the corner of hers, it is her teeth within his throat. He wonders if she will kill him. Does she tremble with the indecision of it? He lies still, wondering, waiting, instinct gathering in his limbs, his chest, his soul as suddenly her grasp tightens, tightens, tightens. He will not die at her hands, but neither does he fight her, he waits, waits, wondering.
She spits him out like dirt. His wound is gasping with the loss of her teeth, her hot breath and the cold air that replaces her - or maybe it is him who gasps and groans and chokes in his breath. Boudika rears back, a hoof striking beside his head. Sand sprays up her limb, across his face and she stalks away. Behind her he rises, through the tearing pain of the bite across his throat, through the lungs that grasp frantically at air, through the ire - a rage he cannot explain, that he has no name for.
Riled and leonine, Boudika paces as if he cages her, but he is no mere spectator. He lunges after her and his shadows rally. Tenebrae stalks her as if he were he silhouette; her moonshadow Disciple. He feasts upon her fury and lets it be as gasoline to his.
Ah but then she speaks. The words rip from her snarling lips and they are worse than the bite upon his throat. The Disciple tracks her, ominous and black, as hungry as she was. Within him his magic blooms, it rises ravenous as it swallows down the light about them. Darkness comes thick and abysmal deep. There, there is the fire in her eyes and he wants to swallow that too. She makes him thirst and no longer is it merely for fighting.
Each word is a whip across his flesh, a reprimand for a reckless man too trained in war and religion and not enough in life or women. If he flinches, it is hidden in the darkness he makes. The darkness that at least knows better than to touch her now, though it tracks her, reaching above, around, behind - but never meeting the black, black crimson of her skin.
He smiles, not with a game, no longer with delight. It is a smile as ugly as hers. IS this what they make each other? Ugly and broken? They bleed for each other and the sand paints their exchange upon its moonlit beach in white and crimson-black. She turns as wild as the sea, more mythical as he watches her and never has he beheld a creature that looks as other as he so often feels. Her nostrils are fine slits though they gasp at the air, her ears are fallen towers that crumble long, long into the feral tangle of her mane. Her lips peel back, back and her teeth glow white with his blood. Her lips- lips he now knows.
Do not make a game of my nature… She snarls as wicked-wild as the sea.
A game… a game… Suddenly Tenebrae recoils as if struck by the tsunami of her words. He peels away from her - away from the wound upon her chest, the gleam of blood upon her lips, the way she stalks feline across the beach. The spell shatters.
“It was not a game.” He murmurs, rough as gravel, even as he wonders, was it? But the memory of her lips upon his, the sharp of her teeth feels more than a phantom. He wanted a fight. No, he wanted more. The spell eekes away and he is left raw and exposed. He does not turn back to her but looks to the mountains, to where the Disciples live; He looks to Caligo’s seat. It was a game and he was as foolish as Adam. A fool to think it was ever about the want of the sun and not about lust. The ache of her bite mocks him, a righteous scar of punishment to warn a foolish monk of his vows.
Are you so tired of your discipline that you bring your boredom to my life? Oh her words are well timed and now he flinches. Now he feels the full gravitas of what he has done. He hears the sand as it bears her, still stalking, still hunting behind him. The seal lies forgotten.
Hunger still blooms wanton within him. But it feels rotten and he resists, resists, resists. He does not turn to the warrior girl, the kelpie-girl, no matter how he longs to. He has made his vows nothing in the wake of her. He was foolish to ever think he was in control.
The sea speaks to him as it does to her, shh, shh, shh it sighs as it makes a mockery of his anguish. Tenebrae stands as any Disciple should. The darkness gathers to him, it adorns him, shrouds him. But he is fallen, he is sinful. Boudika. Oh wild, savage, hungry, Boudika reminds him of that.
“I am sorry.” He murmurs, his head turning slightly so she might hear above the sea and from where he stands, chastened, not looking.
I am sorry. Those words are a whip across his back. He is sorry for him, for her, for the sinful part of him that does not feel sorry but glows bright, bright like the sun. He should swallow it, he should, he should… “Your nature was never a game.” He smiles and laughs a grim, grim laugh as rough as stone. “I am just a foolish man who hungers for more than the sun, Boudika.” Tenebrae confesses darkly, darkly, her name like a dangerous religion upon his lips.
“You never said what I tasted like.” The monk murmurs.
Does he taste like sin?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
