There's a reason I don't leave Denocte. Okay, maybe several reasons. For one, it's more comfortable. Especially compared to living in a desert (I don't understand how anyone can live in those conditions). Also while I don't know every single Court member, I recognize most of them. I also know pretty much every inch of the land and every alleyway of the markets so it makes getting around much easier. As soon as I leave the gate, it's like a foreign world to me. The last time I did, I met some psycho on the island so that was it for me.
Or so I thought.
For whatever reason, I'm drawn to the mountains where they say others pray (and sometimes speak) to the deities. I had been told that the journey is difficult, but I had shrugged it off thinking I'd be fine. Well, I'm not fine but I've gone too far to turn back now.
The path up is certainly difficult. I can feel the air thinning and the ground looks so far down from up here. I wish I had wings so I didn't have to worry about this so much, but at this point, I'm too stubborn to not finish the trek. I don't need a rumor to go around that I'm weak and couldn't make it. The several stones that come loose beneath me aren't doing much to keep me calm and neither is the snow covering everything.
When I do finally make it to the top, it's pretty I guess. It looks like everything had been carved out of the mountain itself and it's like nothing I've ever seen. The stone columns loom above me and my hoofsteps echo as I take my first steps inside.
I'm not really sure what to do at this point because it just feels empty besides the moon above. It washes the stone in its moonlight, making it all look almost ethereal. I know that many come up here to worship, pray, ask for guidance, etc. Me, I guess I don't know why I came here. I just felt compelled to.
So I walk to the center and take a seat, looking at everything around me. This place looks ancient with all the overgrown plants and moss covering the pillars. There must've been countless others who made this same journey up here so I almost feel out of place. I've never been a particularly spiritual individual. I've just had some moments where they've felt like encounters with Caligo, or close enough.
"Uh, hi," I say, clearing my throat. My voice also echoes off the walls and I don't really like it. "Caligo." As if "she" didn't already know I was talking to her, but just in case I guess. This feels too awkward.
"It's me…" I trail off and question if this is even worth doing. I'm not expecting her ghost to manifest in front of me and talk back. In fact, I'm not really expecting anything from this. Maybe it'll just be good to say that I bothered to come up here and do this, even if I don't entirely believe in the point of it.
"I don't really know what to say, just… maybe some pointers would be nice. You know, like you usually do. Or I guess it's more like you throw me in situations I hate." I think to the colt I saved from frostbite and that feeling burning into me like she was watching to make sure I followed through. Then that same thing happened when Bram was getting attacked by that gryphon. "You know I'm still bitter you paired me with a wolf of all things." I can't help but laugh. My need for revenge against wolves is long gone, but for a while it was a struggle having my bonded be the very creature I grew up hating for decades.
"Would've been nice to get a warning light that Al'Zahra was a waste of time though…" I grit my teeth. I don't know if many believe the deities have a hand in a lot of this stuff, but the bitterness is strong. I will always have a hole in my heart from loving such a woman. More strongly, I hate myself for letting me be so vulnerable. Of course I had my heart broken, I fell way too hard for her.
And now I have Maeve.
My daughter. I love her so much, even if it doesn't always seem like it. I know without Al'Zahra, she wouldn't be here.
I sigh.
"If you are listening, or are there, I don't know. Just…" I feel so silly talking to the air and shadows, but I can feel desperation setting in as I think about all the dangers in this world. "Help me protect Maeve, okay? Give me the strength or whatever. She… means a lot to me."
And that's when I hear the steps of another, but all I see is a silhouette. I narrow my eyes and try not to get too ahead of myself. It simply can't be Caligo. It's impossible.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
How often has he come here alone since that night with Elena at the lake? How often has he come weak and struggling and begging for answers. If the answers come, he does not hear Caligo’s voice or see her works around him. The Disciple flounders, like a fish out of water, choking, dying.
This day he stands, swathed in the shadows, breathing in the darkness of the temple. The light filters in, moving across the floor with the passage of the sun. It now rests upon the green moss, crawling up a stone beam. It glows and before it dust mites swirl a beautiful gold in the mellow light.
Tenebrae does not move from his position of devotion. Not even when Morrighan comes in, her dark eyes wide, curious, pained. She takes a seat, her gaze drinking in the temple. Discomfort sculpts itself in the hard set of her spine, the tightness of her muscles. Her gaze is restless, searching, drinking in the strangeness of this place. Oh Morrighan, Tenebrae thinks as he watches her from the darkness, You fit in here more than you know. It is a place for even the faithless.
He looks away as she settles, he hears her prayer, but only as mumbles, secret confessions to be shared only between the Regent and Caligo. The monk does not strive to listen neither will he dare to ask of her what her prayers were. He listens to her soft mumblings and it is something like a hymn, a litany. His eyes close and he gets drunk upon the melody of her voice as it echoes in the darkness. Tenebrae asks Caligo to listen, if the goddess is listening at all to a monk such as he.
After a time he moves, his spine, still raw with the wounds he inflicted upon himself. They are red and raw and hot. They remind him he is not worthy, that he has sinned and made his vows to Caligo worthless. He moves and does not pretend to be as pious as he should. The monk walks toward the centre shrine and lays a jasmine flower at the Caligo’s black marble foot. He turns from her and feels the way her cold black eyes rove over his exposed wounds. His shadows draw to cover himself, yet if it was the goddess, she would see them, even in darkness.
Tenebrae moves to pass Morrighan, yet stops beside her. He bathes her in the silver of his gaze. “Morrighan,” He says softly, warmly, hushed in the hallowed nave, “welcome. I am glad you are here.” The monk lends the Regent a small smile. “Shall I let you pray in peace?”
It's not Caligo, but Tenebrae. I'm not sure if I should feel relieved.
I feel indifferent about the monk. He seems… okay, although I will never understand his customs. My belief of Caligo is… complicated, but I would never devote my entire life (my entire being, even) to her. I don't think any deity is worth that, especially not one that isn't a clear, tangible being. Even if I think I've seen her before, those could easily be figments of my imagination.
The man comes up to Caligo's statue and places a flower by her stone hooves almost as an offering. There is a flash of red when the moonlight hits him just right, but then he's covered mostly in shadow again. I blink, unsure if I saw correctly, but he appears wounded. His tone and posture don't make it obvious.
I look at him with what will likely be a familiar cold gaze. He says he's glad I'm here, but I'm not sure what that means. I just poured my heart and soul out, perhaps more than I have to anyone, and lucky for me that he had been lurking in the shadows.
"How much did you hear exactly?" I press him, trying to hide my fear that he may have heard everything. "And don't lie to me."
I almost want to tell him to beat it and leave me alone. It's what I do to everyone ever, but I don't. I honestly don't know why. Maybe this place has some kind of magical hold on me and my tolerance.
"I wasn't praying," I correct him, rolling my eyes. Praying would be something he'd do with his knees to the ground and maybe his face to Caligo's statue. For one, no one knows who's exactly touched that so that's pretty gross. But last I checked just talking didn't count as praying. Or did he hear up to the favor I asked? Great.
"I don't really care what you do, I guess," I say, torn between my usual grumbling and just shrugging this off. Although, part of me still feels concerns that those were wounds I saw. I don't ask about them (yet). Maybe the monks are more violent than I thought.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
How much did you hear exactly? Morrighan asks as she watches him. So many have thought her cold, yet as Tenebrae looks to her, all he can think is how the blue of her eyes are not the icy depths of the sea but the hot heart at the base of a flame. Morrighan burns, brightly fiercely.
“I heard nothing,” Tenebrae says, honestly. “What is said here is between you and Caligo alone, just as what i say here is between myself and Caligo. I would not dare listen in.” He sees the way she bites back a myriad of retorts. Displeasure ripples out from her body. The monk remembers the woman he met beneath the reflection of the stained glass, her body bathed in a pool of kaleidoscope colours.
I wasn’t praying. She corrects him, but the monk merely smiles for this is an area he is more experienced in. “Praying is just communication. It can be done in art or song or dance or writing, or a conversation.” Gently he sighs and his gaze drifts about the temple, where stained glass windows gleam holy and beautiful. He sees the red, so much like his wounded heart, so much like the blood that spills from his spine - tears for Boudika, for Elena, for him. He feels every movement and it reminds him how he is not enough - not enough of a monk, not enough of a man, not filled with enough respect for the women he loves. What has he done?
“If you intend to talk to a god,” He finishes lightly, sadly, “then however you do it, it is a prayer.” She neither tells him to stay. Nor to leave. But Tenebrae goes anyway. Slowly he moves to a darkened corner of the temple, where a ring of candles gleam upon a stand. From below he picks up a candle and returns to the Regent. “Here,” He offers the candle to her. “I know you can make fire from nothing, hold it without effort. But take this, if you wish and light it. It is smaller, weaker than your magic - like the smaller, feebler parts of ourselves. The ones we hide from each other, our insecurities and worries. Focus those smaller, weaker parts of yourself into the flame, let it hold them, become them. Then, when you are ready, blow it out, extinguish those worries, let the darkness consume them.”
He claims he didn't hear anything, but somehow Morrighan doesn't believe him. It's so quiet here and any sound there ends up being just echoes off the walls. Surely he had heard some of it, if not all. She narrows her eyes.
Then he explains all the different forms praying can take. She supposes he could be right, but Morr still doesn't want to admit that's what she was doing. She's never been the religious type and still doesn't consider herself to be. Plus, she doesn't really expect to get an answer back (even though that would be a lot easier). Maybe she's not sure why she's doing this at all (is she just desperate?).
At first, it looks like he's leaving after all as he walks away to the corner. Then after a moment, he comes back with something. When he offers her a candle to help make her worries go away, Morrighan isn't really sure what to say. It seems a little silly, but Tenebrae seems to mean it. At least conjuring fire here will feel like the only real thing that's happening. So, she decides to take it. If anything, it's because she knows the man won't make fun of her for following through with this.
The Regent closes her eyes and follows the monk's instructions. She thinks about her weaknesses, what she doesn't like to show to others, and focuses on that while thinking about her flame. Within seconds, she can feel the warmth of the fire igniting the wick and flickering about in front of her. Morr thinks about Maeve and how deeply she loves her daughter, but also how scared she is for her and how much she wants to protect her. She thinks about how she doesn't want to fail as a mother or teach any of her own bad habits to the young girl. She thinks about how fiercely she loves and just wants to share that with someone else who understands her. This is about how far she gets because she realizes if she thinks any more, her anger might spill out (or worse, sadness).
Finally, she opens her eyes and blows out the flame. It doesn't make her feel especially more relieved than before, but maybe it'll make Tenebrae shut up about the praying thing.
Morrighan looks at him again and those marks. "Did your praying lead you to do that to yourself?" Monks didn't make any sense to her and probably never will.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
He knows she does not believe that he heard nothing of her prayers. It is there in the way she watches him (as Morrighan watches most things): suspiciously and carefully detached. Tenebrae’s star-bright gaze trails over the contours of her pale face. He aches for his Regent. Maybe that is why he is not surprised when her prayers stop suddenly. Her blue eyes fling open, there is a current felt and yet not addressed. She turns from her prayers and the emotions that pool beneath the surface of her skin. Morrighan turns into him and Tenebrae merely watches her with compassion warming the edges of his soul.
Feel He wants to whisper. Feel everything and do not be afraid. The monk longs to whisper to her. Just as he goes to, as the impulse swells within him, Morrighan changes the subject. She mentions his wounds across his spine. Did your prayers bring you to do that?
“Yes.” Tenebrae says with only a moment’s delay. “It is penance for my sins.” He says nothing for a moment but looks to where the smoke of her extinguished candle rises like prayers before Caligo. “It brings me closer to our Night Goddess.” For I have strayed. Again that silence falls, its weight crackling with the static of what goes unspoken. His eyes trail over her cheeks, her eyelashes. He commits her to memory, the parts of her she has hardened and the parts that remain soft, soft enough still to hurt, soft enough to stay beautiful.
You know nothing of duty or discipline. He hears Boudika’s words and they cut him afresh. Everytime he remembers her the memory of her slays him. The effort to stay within the Order, to forget the call of the sea, like a siren in his ears, is too much. But he disciplines himself. “What do you know of duty, Morrighan?” Tenebrae asks low and small and vulnerable as a lamb. And then, quieter still so it is a mere whisper in the space between them, ‘will you teach me?”
The Regent's expression will likely make it seem like Tenebrae has seven heads. His answer isn't what she had been expecting (although, she's not really sure what she expected). She can't imagine how harming yourself is any way to solve anything, especially to get closer to Caligo. Somehow Morrighan doesn't believe that the gods really care that much about what they all did down here. Still, the monk seems very sure of himself.
He watches her and she watches him. Besides her ever growing confusion of his faith, there is a bigger question lingering between them. What "sins" did he commit? It seems unlikely that a man like him could do anything worse than the things Morrighan's done in her life. In her mind, she remembers the many years of war and bloodlust. Back then, it had been more than just a love for fire.
Tenebrae beats her to it with a question of his own and Morr is slightly taken aback. His voice is quieter now, like asking her this is from deep within his soul. How funny is it that such a man feels he can confide in her, and she to him? (Is this what friendship felt like?)
"I mean, I don't worship Caligo like you do," she says, although it feels more like a confession. If anything, he probably knew this anyways. Morr can't help but glance up at the statue of her for a moment. Maybe she doesn't worship the deity, but she can't shake off the feeling of being looked down on sometimes. It made her feel crazy and vulnerable.
She hates it.
"I'm loyal to the Court and those who respect it, that's my duty," the Regent explains, feeling a little more confident in herself now. It's what feels right to her, not living in fear because some deity might not like a choice that she made one day. Fuck that. "I wouldn't restrict yourself. Life is made for living."
Morrighan can't wait any longer to ask; her curiosity is too great. With how bad the wounds are, it's as if he killed someone.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
The look that is upon Morrighan’s face, he has seen so many times before - but this is the first time he sees it upon hers. He suspects it will be the first of many. He watches as incredulity and suspicion sculpt her face in arched brows and a deepening frown. She does not believe how whipping himself could bring him any closer to his goddess. (He has begun to wonder too. For, no matter the number, the bites of the whip leave him only feeling numb. Was this what losing your religion felt like? A slow slip into apathy and disbelief? It is a pool he dreads falling into. One he thinks he might drown within).
Morrighan says nothing and he is glad. The monk knows why and how the whip should help, but he does not wish to divulge more when the words might taste as nourishing as ash upon his tongue. Tenebrae wishes the self-flaggelation would bring him some absolution. He truly does pray so.
The monk asks his Regent of duty and she starts, tentatively with Caligo. It was not what he meant. Yet he smiles, small and encouraging. She looks to his goddess but Tenebrae does not. He knows how the obsidian statue behind him is beautiful and impressive. How it looms out of the shadows, resplendent. No matter its beauty, it does not bring the non-believers to their knees in converted piety.
A moment passes for Morrighan, another darkening pass of thought across her expressive eyes. What did she think? He wishes to know, but he does not ask. She tells him of her loyalty to Denocte and all who believe in her. Then, oh then she tells him to live.
He is silent for so long. The glow of the half-moon sigil atop his brow reflects light upon the stone floor, the marble pillars of the temple. “I have put another before Caligo and in so doing broke my vow as a monk and as a Disciple of the Night Goddess.” Now he looks to the statue, his light gleaming white and bright across her chest and throat. “Would you put love before the people of Denocte? Would you break with your duty to them in order to love what you should not?” The words hang as intimately as if he whispered them through the slatted screen of a confessional. But he does not expect absolution from Morrighan.
Yet all the same he waits, to listen to her thoughts, curious and frighteningly hopeful.
So, the monk didn't kill anyone. Morrighan didn't think he had, although it would've been an interesting surprise. Perhaps it's wrong of her to want to laugh because he so obviously is hurt by this (literally, by all the whiplashes on his back). In the grand scheme of things though, it's the smallest thing someone could do and, in her mind, doesn't mean he should face such horrible consequences. Technically she's put many before Caligo since her time joining the Court, but of course joining the Night Order will never be on her bucket list.
His question to her is heavy. So heavy maybe, that he feels that he has to look up at his precious deity and for whatever reason, Morr does the same. She doesn't know if she's doing it to follow his gaze or if she expects to see some kind of expression from the statue. That glare from the statue in the markets still haunts her to this day, but that had been different. It feels like ages ago when she felt colder than she does now. How different she had been then.
So, would this version of her put love before Denocte and her duty to the Court? She thinks to Al'Zahra, the only one she had opened up her heart to. It had been a one-sided love, a love that blinded her and threw her into so many different directions. A love that made her feel like she wanted to set the whole world on fire, but soon more out of anger than passion. It shattered her heart and now she's built back up her walls even stronger than before. She tried to forget it, all the mistakes she made, in many different ways. When none of them worked, somehow she still felt numb.
But then there was Maeve. Now, it's always Maeve.
Would she abandon her Court for Maeve? Would she abandon her duty as Regent and otherwise to Antiope for Maeve?
If it was for her own good, yes. Always.
She blinks, realizing she had been looking at Caligo's statue this entire time. Its expression hasn't changed.
"Love is stupid sometimes. I thought I loved Maeve's other Mom, but I had been tricked… blinded I guess. Not that it ever steered me away from the Court, but it did lead to some stupid choices. But then, it led to Maeve. I never thought I'd be a Mom and some days I still don't know how I'm going to do it, but I would do anything for her. Whatever it took to keep her safe," she confesses. It makes her feel uncomfortable and exposed, but somehow in the end, it's cathartic. "Even if it meant I had to put her before the Court, I suppose. I hope it doesn't come to that, but she will always come first."
It's unknown to her that Tenebrae has a child out there, so it's also unknown if her words will have any impact on him. Still, she feels confident in her answer and that it'll never change.
"Now if you love someone and they don't love you back, forget them. Just, maybe do it in a healthier way," she adds, thinking back to her many nights at the tavern. Maybe in some way that had been her way of punishing herself just as Tenebrae was whipped. Yikes, she thinks, comparing herself to a monk hadn't been what she expected to be doing today.
let everything happen to you, beauty and terror, just keep going, no feeling is final
Would it change Morrighan’s opinion of him to know that, he had killed? Serving Caligo, defending Denocte, it all came with the understanding that violence brought death. Tenebrae was a warrior monk, of course they wished to avoid death, but they were trained for it all the same. What he was not trained for, was love beyond that of his goddess. What he was unprepared for was a love that seemed to sink so deep into his bones and soul that it seemed to surpass even death. Tenebrae thinks, then, that love might have been the most dangerous thing of all. The sins he had committed in the name of love…
When he tells her of his transgressions, the firelight across Morrighan’s face reveals how her face smooths. How there seems to be… what? Humour? It lingers there and Tenebrae gazes, he cannot help but think how she should look liek that more - even though her humour is not what he wants, what he needs.
But that look is gone as fast as it comes. The monk blinks slowly and their gazes part. Morrighan looks upon the statue of Caligo and Tenebrae does no longer. He cannot bring himself to. Especially not when Morrighan speaks of love and her daughter. Her words reach in to him, draw out some truth. The monk still does not know what it was that passed between Elena and he. It felt like love, like ruining, excruciating desire. He made foolish mistakes for it. Ones he will pay for for the rest of his existence. Blindness, loneliness, loss…
Then Morrighan speaks of her daughter. Maeve. Tenebrae smiles, the curve of his lips feels lighter, a balm when he thinks of the little phoenix girl. How she feared the magic Morrighan wove, but also how much she loved her too. He never questioned it would not be returned, such deep love that would bring Morrighan to put nothing else before her daughter… “I have met her, Maeve,” he says lightly. The Disciple looks up to his friend (for he cannot think of Morrighan as any less now), “She is a testament to your love and care. A delightful little girl.”
And he thinks of Elena and her daughter. The daughter he feared once was his. It was a blessing she was not (no monk should have a child, no father should spend an eternity unable to see his daughter). He was relieved the little girl was not his but… But it hurt to know she wasn’t all the same. That even whilst he was with Elena, loving Boudika, Elena was doing the same in turn, her second love, a deeper love with another man. Their child… Tenebrae thinks of how Morrighan spoke of her child, how close he once thought he was to that. Then, the shame of realising how much he might have wanted a daughter.
Forget them.
Tenebrae turns to Morrighan and laughs lightly, despairing. “How, Morrighan? She is in my heart, my bones, my skin. She has changed my body for her and I… I am shattering within for my want of her and I cannot look at myself without being reminded of her.” But maybe that would be easier soon, when his sight is gone, when he never has to look upon his body again and see the scars of her teeth as his throat. But he will never stop feeling them, where she kissed him, held him, touched him as they danced.
“You say forget her like it is easy.” The monk whispers. “Tell me how. How did you survive Maeve's other mother?” He groans, breaking like a ship over the rocks of his love.
