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+---- Thread: [P] in the forest of the night (/showthread.php?tid=4890)
in the forest of the night - Boudika - 04-22-2020
BETTER THE WIND, THE SEA, THE SALT
than this, this, this
than this, this, this
The night is poignant with the smell of death.
Fresh death, like this, is visceral in the same way as crushed grass. The odour nearly blooms, as flowers do, a question at first and then a hard confirmation. There is only one thing that smells like this, fluids and fear, the result of things that were within now finding themselves out.
It draws her like a shark to blood; and perhaps that is an innate part of her now, an animalistic and primitive urge. Boudika finds it irresistible, and in this vein of thought she no longer understands the point of resistance. Her blood is full of vital magic; her blood sings in the night. She pads through the forest on a Bengal tiger’s silent paws. It is more than donning a skin, however; she is the tiger and the tiger’s urges; the well-practiced pause at a distant snapping twig, the curling Flehmen response to the scent that draws her nearer, nearer to the source. She is the supple dip into a prowling crouch, her shoulder blades jutting beneath loose skin and she is the frozen moment, paw upheld, tail flicking. She is the night that goes silent around her, a huntress. She is the dark stripes and burning orange moving again, and then she is the movement itself, swift and confident through the trees that become her so, so well.
Beneath the canopy, everything is dark. The chattering of night creatures becomes a blanket; but whenever Boudika enters a space, everything stills to a pinpoint focus on tigress. Boudika is consumed by her pursuit of the scent; this is the furthest from the sea she has been in longer than she knows how to fathom. But the forest welcomes her not so differently; even the boughs of the pines whisper like the sea does, when the wind rushes through them. Beneath their thick canopy, the moonlight barely penetrates; she is in Caligo’s world, a world of darkness, a world of night, on the trail of blood.
Eventually she finds it. The deer has been felled by a pack of wolves. When the pack notices her presence, they stop their feasting. In other forms, she might have only seen the floating, gleaming orbs of their eyes; but in this one she sees their full shapes, her eyes luminescent, her eyes made for this type of night-seeing. But Boudika is no scavenger. She is merely entranced by their presence, by their unconscious, natural reactions. They form a massed unit against the tigress, edging closer, and she does not bother to engage in conflict. The alpha female snarls in Boudika’s direction; the tigress lifts a lip in response, and turns to leave.
In doing so, she unconsciously lifts her head toward the breeze. Her lip curls; another Flehmen response. A new scent wafts through the night. Unfamiliar. Strange. But softer, marked by the sea, and the plains, and the woodsmoke of civilisation. Yet Boudika does not recognise it, and this raises her hackles as she melts into the forest of the night.
Boudika pursues the scent in earnest, not lackadaisically or out of mere curiosity. This is her land, by extension of Denocte, by extension of her place among the citizens of the Court. She is a protector, a guardian, a Champion—and as she lopes hurriedly through the mountain slopes in pursuit of the odour, she discovers the scent to be trailing and haphazard, clearly directionless. Boudika discovers the urge within her now is primal, possessive, beyond anything she has ever known; land is life, territory is everything, and trespassers are a threat to the most integral part of one’s being. Eventually Boudika catches a glimpse of a horse she has never seen before through the trees, wandering haphazard in the night.
The tigress is very still.
Her hunter’s instincts emerge first and foremost; her stomach is a pit of hunger, and the kelpie she has become hungers for this particular flesh in a way that nothing else ever quite satisfies—
Boudika follows the mare.
Boudika follows and follows. Until, eventually, the tigress reaches out a quiet thought from the darkness:
“Are you so very lost?” Boudika’s lips do not move; the one way telepathy is her only way of communicating when not in her first-born shape. Boudika does not mean for her tone to be so menacing; but as a tiger, she is nothing save a tiger. She drifts nearer the lone mare; a feline shape at the edge of the trees, where Caligo's light falls soft as a whisper. “There are many menacing things in the woods at night.”
@Elena "speaks" space for notes
RE: in the forest of the night - Elena - 04-26-2020
and bury it before it buries me
It feels to heavy to carry sometimes, and there are times, that Elena will swear she can feel her bones bending beneath it. She carries them with her, an unbearable weight, but one she carries all the same. But she is nothing if not her parents’ daughter, and so she will always put one foot steadily in front of the other.
Sometimes, she doesn't feel like herself any longer. She doesn't recognize the face that greets her in the water. The beat of her heart will sound foreign in her golden breast, hollow, quiet, broken.
She knows this now, she knows it and she hates to admit it. They had been silly, foolish, naive, ignorant, simple children. There, sitting in the grass staring up at the clouds making meaningful shapes from meaningless tufts of white against a cerulean sky. They had thought themselves so untouchable, that danger could never brush its wretched hand against their soft, young, supple skin. Each of them so believed that they were safe within the walls of their valley home. Tragedy, it had already reached each of the girls, and that had to have been enough, in their lives, there had to be no more. They had held hands and whispered secrets in each other’s ears, shared a handshake meant only for the other, daisy chains strewn up in the valley. Nothing could touch them, the orphan girl and the child from a family torn apart by war. They were free.
They had been so wrong, just neither of them had been able to see it.
Elena had been too soft, and the world had punished her for it with hard edges and sharp corners.
She cannot help but think of them. She had told herself she would not, but this had been a lie. They permeated her thoughts even as she tried to stop them from living there, they were not unwelcome, but she thinks that perhaps her thoughts should be directed to other things. To set a broken bone one must carefully…
Starlight, bone fires, sea breezes, dancing, constellations, blue eyes.
It was always when night would steal upon the land, when her mind should slow to a lazy crawl, when exhaustion raked at her eyes that she would fall victim to them. She had no defense against them.
Perhaps this is what has driven her through the mountains from her seaside home. She could stand their absence, all of them, because has grown accustom to people leaving, but tonight, tonight, this loneliness is heavy, and she feels the gravity of it pulling her downwards like the infamous apple from the tree.
It is then the stench reaches her and all of Elena’s nerves go on overdrive. She forgets the men (the dancing, the constellations, and blue eyes.) And runs, she runs with panic in her blood, charing her limbs forward. Death, is what the stench says and Elena is so tired of death that she cannot remain behind to see anymore. She is reminded of stories of Bloodvale, of Underworld’s land she had been trapped in, of Tunnel and his forest he had told her to return to. All of this sends a striking fear directly into her chest. It is only when a distant voice reaches her that she stops, slowing down, realizing, again, she had been foolish. “You give too much rein to your imagination, Elena. Imagination is a good servant, but a bad master.” It is Marcelo who speaks to her, with that sound, steadfast sense of logic. Each breath brought a sense of clarity to her, cleared the haze that lodged within her. Those winter blue eyes calm.
She continues to walk through the forest that still feels mysterious but she thinks of the star man and the light he had taught her to see.
They lied you know. When they said little red riding hood came across a wolf in the woods.
It wasn't a wolf at all—but a tiger.
She feels another’s thoughts reach her own and Elena’s blue eyes drift around the trees trying to find the source. “That is something I know too well,” she says out loud to the mysterious voice. She sees a feline outline and a name rises to her lips, even as she speaks it she knows it isn't it, the voice fair too feminine. But this is magic, Elena has been plagued by it far too many times not to recognize it. “Litotes?” She asks, the lion shifter the Elena had saved. “Who are you?”
Sometimes, she doesn't feel like herself any longer. She doesn't recognize the face that greets her in the water. The beat of her heart will sound foreign in her golden breast, hollow, quiet, broken.
She knows this now, she knows it and she hates to admit it. They had been silly, foolish, naive, ignorant, simple children. There, sitting in the grass staring up at the clouds making meaningful shapes from meaningless tufts of white against a cerulean sky. They had thought themselves so untouchable, that danger could never brush its wretched hand against their soft, young, supple skin. Each of them so believed that they were safe within the walls of their valley home. Tragedy, it had already reached each of the girls, and that had to have been enough, in their lives, there had to be no more. They had held hands and whispered secrets in each other’s ears, shared a handshake meant only for the other, daisy chains strewn up in the valley. Nothing could touch them, the orphan girl and the child from a family torn apart by war. They were free.
They had been so wrong, just neither of them had been able to see it.
Elena had been too soft, and the world had punished her for it with hard edges and sharp corners.
She cannot help but think of them. She had told herself she would not, but this had been a lie. They permeated her thoughts even as she tried to stop them from living there, they were not unwelcome, but she thinks that perhaps her thoughts should be directed to other things. To set a broken bone one must carefully…
Starlight, bone fires, sea breezes, dancing, constellations, blue eyes.
It was always when night would steal upon the land, when her mind should slow to a lazy crawl, when exhaustion raked at her eyes that she would fall victim to them. She had no defense against them.
Perhaps this is what has driven her through the mountains from her seaside home. She could stand their absence, all of them, because has grown accustom to people leaving, but tonight, tonight, this loneliness is heavy, and she feels the gravity of it pulling her downwards like the infamous apple from the tree.
It is then the stench reaches her and all of Elena’s nerves go on overdrive. She forgets the men (the dancing, the constellations, and blue eyes.) And runs, she runs with panic in her blood, charing her limbs forward. Death, is what the stench says and Elena is so tired of death that she cannot remain behind to see anymore. She is reminded of stories of Bloodvale, of Underworld’s land she had been trapped in, of Tunnel and his forest he had told her to return to. All of this sends a striking fear directly into her chest. It is only when a distant voice reaches her that she stops, slowing down, realizing, again, she had been foolish. “You give too much rein to your imagination, Elena. Imagination is a good servant, but a bad master.” It is Marcelo who speaks to her, with that sound, steadfast sense of logic. Each breath brought a sense of clarity to her, cleared the haze that lodged within her. Those winter blue eyes calm.
She continues to walk through the forest that still feels mysterious but she thinks of the star man and the light he had taught her to see.
They lied you know. When they said little red riding hood came across a wolf in the woods.
It wasn't a wolf at all—but a tiger.
She feels another’s thoughts reach her own and Elena’s blue eyes drift around the trees trying to find the source. “That is something I know too well,” she says out loud to the mysterious voice. She sees a feline outline and a name rises to her lips, even as she speaks it she knows it isn't it, the voice fair too feminine. But this is magic, Elena has been plagued by it far too many times not to recognize it. “Litotes?” She asks, the lion shifter the Elena had saved. “Who are you?”
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Boudika (Sorry, this is clearly a sangria post.)
RE: in the forest of the night - Boudika - 05-23-2020
BETTER THE WIND, THE SEA, THE SALT
than this, this, this
than this, this, this
L
itotes? she asks. Who are you?
No.
Not Litotes.
But the woman was already aware, or would not feel the need to ask for Boudika’s identity.
The tigress does not speak again but steps back into the darkness; it becomes her, in the way the night becomes all killers. Her pads feel out the tough, ridged forest floor; beneath them the leaves do not crunch so loudly, nor do the branches snap. The chorus of the night’s nocturnal creatures remains silent as Boudika treads a quiet, tightening circle around the mare.
Boudika wars with herself in that dark space. There is an abyss that opens wide in her soul and screams, and screams, and screams. Boudika answers after an impolite length of time,
No, she whispers. Not Litotes.
Then, with resounding confidence and, perhaps, a feline’s arrogant offense—How could she mistake me for anyone other than who I am?— the tigress says: Boudika.
And she is night and shadow and the apathy of many carnal urges; this is her land and this trespasser comes bearing scents of another court. Boudika thinks, disjointedly, of Antiope’s forever-open gate. Boudika remembers the land of Denocte no longer bars the entrance to the city.
Yet—
she hungers.
She hungers as the sea hungers, fathomless, inevitable. The endless entwinement of life seeking to devour other life, the self-fulfilling prophecy of mortality. In the dark, the tigress licks her chops and reminisces all the kills that have come before; the way that flesh parts so readily beneath the crushing force of her jaws, cleaved more efficiently than any sword or knife could manage—
And there, the pulsing jugular, the vulnerable haunch, the way her instincts cry, and cry, and cry for action.
Instead Boudika transforms somewhere in the darkness, in the undergrowth, and emerges a woman with an appetite only slightly more satiable.
“If you are lost, little girl, I may lead you from the woods.” Her voice is thick with the same silence that exists within the forest in the wake of a predator’s shadow.
@Elena "speaks" space for notes
RE: in the forest of the night - Elena - 05-29-2020
and bury it before it buries me
She knows it isn't him. (And there is a part of her that is grateful.)
No.
Litotes was back in Beqanna, she believes. Just the thought of that land sends the feeling of dread into her heart. That land had never been good for her. Hyaline, even with its mountains, Elena realizes, was only hiding the shadows that had eventually found her in the forest. (Shadows that she found, shadows that she could have ran from, but had stayed even she knew it was wrong.)
Like the shadow boy of Denocte, little girl?
No, she lies to herself, nothing like him.
And she had tried to face that evil land had, tried to face it all because she promised Lilli she would not leave her. But left all the same she had. Left, gone blind, gained her mother’s eyes, built a fire in her chest from kindling and lost sparks. Found Novus, discovered the ocean of Terrastella, found shadows and stars. Now, here she is, with this not Litotes shifter, in this not Beqanna land.
Glacial blue eyes look onto the feline, the wearer of the voice. The voice that is like a sensitive prick of a needle against her nerves. But she cannot help the way her eyes flitter to the darkness around he, she cannot help the way her stomach clenches, thinking she might see him, one of them. But it is darkness and darkness alone that she finds spread before her like a twisted, shadow version of her beloved ocean. She should concentrate. To set a broken bone one must…
“You aren’t, are you?” she acknowledges.
“Boudika,” she breathes. “Forgive me,” she says with a smile. A smile, if you can believe it. Elena has not learned her lesson. She sees those with scowls on their lips and hunger in their hearts and she offers them nothing but her warmth and her light. Lilli had told her she had always been fire, and maybe, maybe it was time that Elena start believing it.
And maybe she hungers too, but Elena is starved for things like affection, like love, like happy endings. She seeks to devour all the things she doesn't have. It is why when she sees hunger within Boudika’s eyes it is not fear that reflects her own, but empathy. She knows hunger, Elena has been hungry her entire life. As so many orphans are.
She goes from the tiger to the horse. Elena smirks. (Always in the face of danger.) “And isn't that what the wolf said?” She says and she is so fearless. Elena has always stood taller when she should tremble, she has laughed when she should cry, and softened when she should steel herself. She has seen far scarier things than wolves in the night stealing baskets from little girls in a red cloak. But Elena raises her hood and offers the wolf her friendship. “Can you take me to the mountain?”
No.
Litotes was back in Beqanna, she believes. Just the thought of that land sends the feeling of dread into her heart. That land had never been good for her. Hyaline, even with its mountains, Elena realizes, was only hiding the shadows that had eventually found her in the forest. (Shadows that she found, shadows that she could have ran from, but had stayed even she knew it was wrong.)
Like the shadow boy of Denocte, little girl?
No, she lies to herself, nothing like him.
And she had tried to face that evil land had, tried to face it all because she promised Lilli she would not leave her. But left all the same she had. Left, gone blind, gained her mother’s eyes, built a fire in her chest from kindling and lost sparks. Found Novus, discovered the ocean of Terrastella, found shadows and stars. Now, here she is, with this not Litotes shifter, in this not Beqanna land.
Glacial blue eyes look onto the feline, the wearer of the voice. The voice that is like a sensitive prick of a needle against her nerves. But she cannot help the way her eyes flitter to the darkness around he, she cannot help the way her stomach clenches, thinking she might see him, one of them. But it is darkness and darkness alone that she finds spread before her like a twisted, shadow version of her beloved ocean. She should concentrate. To set a broken bone one must…
“You aren’t, are you?” she acknowledges.
“Boudika,” she breathes. “Forgive me,” she says with a smile. A smile, if you can believe it. Elena has not learned her lesson. She sees those with scowls on their lips and hunger in their hearts and she offers them nothing but her warmth and her light. Lilli had told her she had always been fire, and maybe, maybe it was time that Elena start believing it.
And maybe she hungers too, but Elena is starved for things like affection, like love, like happy endings. She seeks to devour all the things she doesn't have. It is why when she sees hunger within Boudika’s eyes it is not fear that reflects her own, but empathy. She knows hunger, Elena has been hungry her entire life. As so many orphans are.
She goes from the tiger to the horse. Elena smirks. (Always in the face of danger.) “And isn't that what the wolf said?” She says and she is so fearless. Elena has always stood taller when she should tremble, she has laughed when she should cry, and softened when she should steel herself. She has seen far scarier things than wolves in the night stealing baskets from little girls in a red cloak. But Elena raises her hood and offers the wolf her friendship. “Can you take me to the mountain?”
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Boudika
RE: in the forest of the night - Boudika - 06-28-2020
BETTER THE WIND, THE SEA, THE SALT
than this, this, this
than this, this, this
You aren’t, are you? Boudika. Forgive me.
It is her asking for forgiveness that makes Boudika want to devour her whole. For her prettiness. For her naivety, travelling alone, at night, in a woods that would devour her if Boudika didn’t. Or perhaps it is pride, that drives this stranger. There has always been an overlap in Boudika’s mind, between innocence and arrogance.
It appears when Boudika transforms from beast to girl. Elena smirks; the expression is either confidence, or bravado. And isn’t that what the wolf said? Boudika returns the smile, but it is humourless; the gesture merely exposes the length of her lips and the bright flash of her teeth in her too-long, too predatory mouth. “No,” Boudika says. “The wolf never says anything at all to somehow who cannot howl.”
Then the smile is gone. “Yes. I can.” Not yes, I will.
But Boudika does not focus on that particular. She turns with the same deftness as the predatory cat she had been moments before, and leads them back to a more cleared trail. Boudika does not feel the need to speak for several long moments; only her body does, in the perceptive turning of her ears and the leonine, predatory curl of her tail. At last the copper-headed mare turns to ask, “And why are you here at night? You’ve yet to give me your name.” The words fit strangely in her mouth, as if they are too large, too foreign; Boudika has not spoken for longer than is appropriate, she thinks.
And yet, even as she speaks—even as she plays the part of civil—she sounds distracted. Her attention is drawn back to the world beyond the trees that hedge the trail. Yes. The chorus of nightlife surrounds them; the hot scent of life envelopes them. Beneath the tree canopy, the heat of day seems to linger; the wind whispers its own language through the branches of the trees. Boudika wants to answer it; she wants to pursue all the scents it brings.
And then, of course, the soft smell of the mare beside her. Flesh, and blood, and Terrastella. She looks like sunshine; in another life, Boudika would have dwelt on that. Not in this one. Not when she wants to act out on each carnal delight in her mind, and it is only the memory of civility that makes her refrain.
@Elena "speaks" space for notes
RE: in the forest of the night - Elena - 07-05-2020
and bury it before it buries me
Elena had been shown love far before and far more often than she had been shown hate. It shows in her smile, while there is broken pieces of her heart littered all around her, and ghosts in those blue eyes, there is still something in her smile that sings of color. Love was color. Hate was color. She has seen them all, others more strongly, and still others, she has never been able to make out their hue.
She saw the color and she didn’t see the color.
The color is like the memories, a bird beating against the glass. She doesn't remember if it is purple, green, or yellow.
Boudika is beautiful, with carved muscle lining her crimson gaze and a feminine touch to her otherwise commanding presence. Maybe, at another place and time, Boudika would have been better suited as a queen of the amazons that Elena once heard about. Steady, but fierce. Boudika was far too great a presence to ever slink into shadows. So unaware that the two women are chasing the same one.
She would never guess because Boudika is so unlike Elena and she is far too delicate to be left in the rough hands of Boudika. Although she is placed there all the same. Elena could leave, but she willingly sits there, sending smiles and soft glances at the tiger beneath woman’s skin.
Her smile is wide as embers burn in her eyes towards Boudika’s words. “And yet the wolf has always been able to draw little girls with red cloaks into its grasp without saying a single word.” Wolves, Tunnel, it was all the same to Elena. She had seen his growling teeth, heard his gravel voice, seen that navy skin painted with death and she had handed him her basket, asking if the way off the trail was more beautiful than the path. He told her he would bring her heartache, he told her he would bring her pain, and Elena said show me the way.
He showed her bruises on her skin, he showed her eyes stinging with tears she refused to cry, and he showed her skin trembling with fear.
“Thank you.” She says to a girl with eyes like red wine and cheeks like her father’s. It cuts Elena in a ways she wont realize until later, when the fresh mountain air has cleared from her and salt clings to her skin once more.
It is at the same she will realize something about Boudika:
She is a color. Indigo.
Elena breathes in the silence of the forest surrounding them. She shouldn't be following a stranger, shouldn't be in this forest. Boudika breathes the same thing that Elena does, and the air between them becomes taut with something unspoken and unknown—something that is entirely its own. Her heart trips against her ribcage when the woman turns to face her. “Elena,” Her voice is small, but rough around the edges. Boudika was not the first predator she had stood against. “I—,” she doesn't want to tell her. “I am, not sure,” she admits instead. It wasn't a lie, because Elena is still trying to figure out her truth.
She stares at her, cautiously then, blue eyes like winter, distant. “How much further to the mountain?” She asks her, halting her steps. “I think I can make it from here—on my own,” she says. “The stars are waiting for me there.” Not stars, no, Elena has never found such solace in the night lights, she is only comforted by one, a shed star. She smiles once more, even when danger is shaking her bones telling her to say no more and to go. “And you, do you have someone waiting for you, tonight, Boudika?”
She saw the color and she didn’t see the color.
The color is like the memories, a bird beating against the glass. She doesn't remember if it is purple, green, or yellow.
Boudika is beautiful, with carved muscle lining her crimson gaze and a feminine touch to her otherwise commanding presence. Maybe, at another place and time, Boudika would have been better suited as a queen of the amazons that Elena once heard about. Steady, but fierce. Boudika was far too great a presence to ever slink into shadows. So unaware that the two women are chasing the same one.
She would never guess because Boudika is so unlike Elena and she is far too delicate to be left in the rough hands of Boudika. Although she is placed there all the same. Elena could leave, but she willingly sits there, sending smiles and soft glances at the tiger beneath woman’s skin.
Her smile is wide as embers burn in her eyes towards Boudika’s words. “And yet the wolf has always been able to draw little girls with red cloaks into its grasp without saying a single word.” Wolves, Tunnel, it was all the same to Elena. She had seen his growling teeth, heard his gravel voice, seen that navy skin painted with death and she had handed him her basket, asking if the way off the trail was more beautiful than the path. He told her he would bring her heartache, he told her he would bring her pain, and Elena said show me the way.
He showed her bruises on her skin, he showed her eyes stinging with tears she refused to cry, and he showed her skin trembling with fear.
“Thank you.” She says to a girl with eyes like red wine and cheeks like her father’s. It cuts Elena in a ways she wont realize until later, when the fresh mountain air has cleared from her and salt clings to her skin once more.
It is at the same she will realize something about Boudika:
She is a color. Indigo.
Elena breathes in the silence of the forest surrounding them. She shouldn't be following a stranger, shouldn't be in this forest. Boudika breathes the same thing that Elena does, and the air between them becomes taut with something unspoken and unknown—something that is entirely its own. Her heart trips against her ribcage when the woman turns to face her. “Elena,” Her voice is small, but rough around the edges. Boudika was not the first predator she had stood against. “I—,” she doesn't want to tell her. “I am, not sure,” she admits instead. It wasn't a lie, because Elena is still trying to figure out her truth.
She stares at her, cautiously then, blue eyes like winter, distant. “How much further to the mountain?” She asks her, halting her steps. “I think I can make it from here—on my own,” she says. “The stars are waiting for me there.” Not stars, no, Elena has never found such solace in the night lights, she is only comforted by one, a shed star. She smiles once more, even when danger is shaking her bones telling her to say no more and to go. “And you, do you have someone waiting for you, tonight, Boudika?”
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Boudika
RE: in the forest of the night - Boudika - 08-27-2020
BETTER THE WIND, THE SEA, THE SALT
than this, this, this
than this, this, this
And yet the wolf has always been able to draw little girls with red cloaks into its grasp without saying a single word.”
The irony rests just beneath the surface of their conversation; it gnarls itself into the opposites of their very selves. Perhaps it is fate, they meet as they do. It must be fate that splices them upon the crosshairs of so many intimacies. To Elena’s comment, Boudika only ghosts a smile; a slight flashing of shark-like teeth there and gone in bright display. Boudika might express just how wolfish she could be, if only she knew: if only she knew of their shared affections, or that sometime in the future Elena would meet Boudika’s old companion and burden him with confessions.
If Boudika knew that, the fresh scent of Elena’s skin might become even more delightful; the thrum of a pulse at her throat would no longer be a mild distraction but, perhaps, a target.
Or, maybe not. It is a realm of hypotheticals, of “what if’s” and “unknowns.” Boudika walks in naivety, listening to the girl’s voice and the forest around them. Elena. The name, too, sounds soft. But Boudika has never met a woman without a bit of sea in her, without a bit of salt, and wildness, and brine. So that when she turns to face Elena again, it is wicked-sharp and devil-bright.
The golden girl says she doesn't know where she is going. But that is not Boudika’s concern. She might have left then, with the mare on the trail pointing toward the Arma, but Elena adds something else:
And you, do you have someone waiting for you tonight, Boudika?
The question finds Boudika unguarded. It is the first time she truly looks away, without Elena even in her peripherals. Boudika faces the deep, dark forest. The question flays her. It is not only Tenebrae who is absent, but Amaroq too; and the vast night opens up before her less like a blossom and more like an abyss. Water horses are not meant to hunt alone; nor wolves; nor lionesses. “No,” Boudika says softly, before stepping off of the trail. There is something guarded to her expression, then; something less predatory and more vulnerable, a girl beneath the veil of beast. “But I don’t need anyone.”
Her mind always, at this point of loneliness, returns to Orestes and his imprisonment. How his brow had bled, and he had bore the burden with the patience of a saint. Her mind always returns to Orestes, last of his kind, and wonders if her loneliness is penance or simply a way to understand the depth of his loss.
Boudika does not turn back when she says, “If you continue on that trail, you will reach the mountain, and the stars. Watch out for wolves, Elena.” It does not take long for Boudika to embrace the darkness and turn back toward the sea.
@Elena "speaks" space for notes
RE: in the forest of the night - Elena - 09-11-2020
and bury it before it buries me
Elena had once tried to convince herself that solitude was best. Alone meant that no one could hurt her, she could not be led into the lion’s den. Alone meant there were no hounds chomping at her ankles. Alone meant there was no lavender, no bonfires, no stars, no waterfalls, no moments passed by a hundred times until finally the line was crossed and history laughed. Yet she has been alone countless times since and still things around her hurt.
Silence bleeds from her skin, though the golden girl still manages something like a smile on her lips. Elena does not have the same beauty as the kelpie mare. Elena is more delicate, refined, a golden little bell. But Boudika, she is another beauty entirely, more raw, less polished, she is the beast of the hunt, of primal hunger. She is a predator to her core. She tastes of something other worldly and Elena wants to cling to it. Do not think Elena weak though, even when she stands next to someone so much stronger than she will ever be. The truth was, that for all of Elena’s softness and quiet nature, there was steel beneath it. She may not be loud or bright or intense, but there was an understated strength, an unwavering her own golden core.
She inhales and the sound is ragged in her chest, like the wind rattling branches and loosing leaves from their moorings. Elena too has the sea inside her. It is the reason that even now, as she stands here, she aches for her seaside home and to hear the crashing waves. She hates her silent world here, the wind does not howl through the trees in quite the same way the sea swells.
Boudika. The name falls on her tongue, but over it rests another name, far more familiar. Lilliana. Why is she thinking of her crimson cousin when she is here? Maybe because she can feel the chill of Lilli’s disapproving stare behind her eyes. But what does she have to disapprove of? She has not gone back to the boy of shadows, she did not desire him in such a way. (Lies. All lies. She hungered for that part of him, that part that felt so impossibly out of reach.) But Boudika is no Lilliana, it is seen in the way her eyes grow wild instead of soft when she meets the blue of Elena’s own.
And then Boudika meets the forest while Elena looks to the mountains. No, neither of them are meant to hunt alone. Boudika is the water horse, diving below the deep to reach the others. Tenebrae is their wolf, howling towards the moon, sinking into shadows. And Elena, Valerio had always told her the legacies were as brave as lions, and just as loyal. They were a pride, in the way they stood by each other and in the way they raised their heads to face the challenges that came. “That’s admirable, Boudika.” She says, though whether or not she wishes the same for herself remains to be seen.
Watch out for wolves, Elena.
The palomino points herself in the direction Boudika tells her. She too continues onwards, and does not turn to face her. She believes they will not see each other again, though she also believes they have no ties than this thin string, in the forest of the night.
Silence bleeds from her skin, though the golden girl still manages something like a smile on her lips. Elena does not have the same beauty as the kelpie mare. Elena is more delicate, refined, a golden little bell. But Boudika, she is another beauty entirely, more raw, less polished, she is the beast of the hunt, of primal hunger. She is a predator to her core. She tastes of something other worldly and Elena wants to cling to it. Do not think Elena weak though, even when she stands next to someone so much stronger than she will ever be. The truth was, that for all of Elena’s softness and quiet nature, there was steel beneath it. She may not be loud or bright or intense, but there was an understated strength, an unwavering her own golden core.
She inhales and the sound is ragged in her chest, like the wind rattling branches and loosing leaves from their moorings. Elena too has the sea inside her. It is the reason that even now, as she stands here, she aches for her seaside home and to hear the crashing waves. She hates her silent world here, the wind does not howl through the trees in quite the same way the sea swells.
Boudika. The name falls on her tongue, but over it rests another name, far more familiar. Lilliana. Why is she thinking of her crimson cousin when she is here? Maybe because she can feel the chill of Lilli’s disapproving stare behind her eyes. But what does she have to disapprove of? She has not gone back to the boy of shadows, she did not desire him in such a way. (Lies. All lies. She hungered for that part of him, that part that felt so impossibly out of reach.) But Boudika is no Lilliana, it is seen in the way her eyes grow wild instead of soft when she meets the blue of Elena’s own.
And then Boudika meets the forest while Elena looks to the mountains. No, neither of them are meant to hunt alone. Boudika is the water horse, diving below the deep to reach the others. Tenebrae is their wolf, howling towards the moon, sinking into shadows. And Elena, Valerio had always told her the legacies were as brave as lions, and just as loyal. They were a pride, in the way they stood by each other and in the way they raised their heads to face the challenges that came. “That’s admirable, Boudika.” She says, though whether or not she wishes the same for herself remains to be seen.
Watch out for wolves, Elena.
The palomino points herself in the direction Boudika tells her. She too continues onwards, and does not turn to face her. She believes they will not see each other again, though she also believes they have no ties than this thin string, in the forest of the night.
so take away this apathy
bury it before it buries me
@Boudika