A lifetime ago, Boudika had been a dancer.

It is hard to remember now. It is hard, even, to imagine. Walking down the black beach, Boudika reminisces those days; she remembers waking up on Solterra’s coastline and wondering how she had survived. She remembers finding her way to a meadow, somewhere, to listen to an old, old stallion tell her Novus’s tale. She remembers the first time she entered Denocte and thought, I have no skills except for war and, at the time, she had been tired of war.

She remembers the fires, and Abel. She remembers Isra like one remembers god in their dreams. 

She remembers performing every night, dressed in golden paint as if ready to answer the drums of her homeland’s war. She remembers the nightmares, and running every day from them until her sides heave. She remembers her disdain for the sea and the way it seemed to follow her.

She wonders if things would have been different, had she not met Amaroq. She wonders but does not ask the question to herself, knowing the truth of it. She was meant for this, or else Caligo would not have blessed her with Orestes’s own magic. Boudika looks at the moon; the bright orb that gleams reliable, consistent, overhead.

The beach is quiet at night in a way it never is during the day. There are no gulls careening overhead; no sandpipers that busy themselves about the shoreline. It is only the waves, and she walks along the precipice between sea and land, admiring Terrastella’s cliffs in the far distance. They cut out against the sea; the land says, you will not meet me and the sea says, yes, yes, yes I will, just give me eons, just give me forever. 

Boudika only smells the salt. Only feels the sand. Only casts her eyes out toward the horizon; and in doing this she sees the silhouette of a dragon flying. The image strikes her as strange; and then Boudika things, Isra? in a question both hopeful and knowing. No, the silhouette is too small to be fable, and anyway, Isra has gone to a land beyond Novus to fight another mad king. And so, more out of curiosity than need, Boudika slips quietly into the water. Caligo’s bright presence overhead empowers her; transforming is not effortless yet, and the pain rushes through her the same time the cold water of the sea washes overhead. But then Boudika has shaken herself from the confines of her equine self and she is a long, sleek tiger shark. Her senses are immediately assaulted; she senses the vibrations in the water; somewhere far off she can scent blood.

But Boudika swims with the primordial ease of an apex predator; she swims with the ease of eons, a history written into the heritage of her form. Her instincts carry her where she wanted to go; beyond; beyond; beyond; where the dragon had touched the sea. 

Nearing the location, Boudika discovers a maze of jagged rocks. They barely peak above the surface of the waves; but beneath them they are cavernous, eaten at by salt and currents. Great holes open up that she swims through. Her sudden appearance scatters a school of fish; Boudika would not have been startled, if not for the fact she does not believe she is what frightened them. A great shadow passes overhead, temporarily blocking the illumination from the moon; Boudika practically pivots in place and descends with a handful of powerful strokes from her tail. Above her the silhouette continues to swim; and she recognises, now, the shape belongs to a kelpie or hippocampus.

There is no aggression in Boudika as she swims after the water-bound equine at a lower depth. 

Perhaps there is still an element of her that relates to, and understands, the art of dancing.

Is that your dragon? she asks, a voice and a voice alone. As a shark she continues to swim, corded muscle and curiosity. There is something sinuous about this kelpie; something frightening. Inexplicably, Boudika wonders if the other mare has always been as she is, or if she had been made. 

"Speaking."

Yes it is. And who are you? 

For some reason, the question surprises Boudika. Perhaps it is because in this form thoughts of self are distant and slightly more abstract; it is more about the constant propulsion of water across the gills, the plethora of sensationally cues from the water. The foreign electro-sensory system of a shark, detecting even the faintest of electrical field; the muscle contractions of prey; pressure changes; the coming and goings of storms. Her world, in many ways, was expanded exponentially and—

Already, she is distracted. 

Boudika steels herself. With a thoughtless flick of her tail, her shape transforms: she sheds her shark skin in favour for that of her kelpie-self. In the water, Boudika ascends so she and Lucinda are at a more level height. The woman is dark, and scarred, and one that Boudika has never seen before. 

“I am Boudika,” she answers plainly. “And you?”

Despite her calm exterior, Boudika feels—a strange excitement. She has not seen another kelpie since Amaroq transformed her, or she encountered Anandi on the cliffside in the storm. And both of them had been familiar. They had been known. This woman is a stranger, and yet—her mere presence seems to fill a void in Boudika, and answers the call of her loneliness.

It is difficult for her to drop her barriers, however, or depart from weariness. After all, they are both predators, in the same sea. And friendship does not come easily between those of similar nature’s. 

@Lucinda