tenebrae
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?”
