It howls, that melody of the sea.  It howls and roars, pulling at feathered fetlocks and wind tousled hair as the man walks the exposed borders of the beach.  For the time being, the water's violent waves are willing to recede and bare to the eyes of every being what rests beneath it.

(For the time being, the wolves are quiet, but they are anxious; they are ready.  Inherent predators, they wait and prowl along the margins of his mind, waiting and watching.  Something stronger rests inside of him now, however, and the wolves dare not challenge it.

Not when it could possibly be something they want.)

Burnt eyes stared out into the wild expanse, feet running an endless pace that led him back and forth before the thunderous sea.  The call of it, that broken melody that he has fallen into the arms of countless times before now, is more alluring than ever.  To sink beneath it all, to allow the water to fill weary lungs and weigh down a man that already carries the weight of thousands upon his withers.

It truly is an enticing thought.

The sand beneath him is ruined, unable to be prepared until the tide returns and mends the path he has drilled into the beach.  No matter how deep it might become, though, he is not hindered.  He is drawn elsewhere, beyond the sight of physical eyes, and it would take more than just the damp grains below him, ones that attempt to slow him down, to bring him back.

Where he is, where is mind might be, no one can truly know, but it isn't here.  Not when here has nothing for him.  What little he had was gone now, last to the ravenous shadows that seemed to tail him everywhere he went.  He wasn't safe from it within the safest of his mind, or out in the physical world.  It howled and ripped into muscles before cracking every bone he had in his body.  Drilling into his very core, it ran in perfect harmony with the demonic wolves that already claimed such a place for themselves.

In the abyss that was his heart, he ached.

There was no time to grieve, however; no such possibility when what had been tamed by her did its best to regain what ground she had cultivated with her own hands.  It wished to ravage the neatly laid rows in which she had planted all of her tender affection that had gently come to completely consume him.

Now, the threat that it might be destroyed was on the horizon.

His jaw clenched, teeth grinding together as an unfamiliar wave of distaste coursed through his veins at that thought.  Every single thing that came together to create him was afraid of such a possibility coming to life (everything but the pack that lurked in his mind, alongside their newest inhabitant because they wanted to ruin him; decimate him).

(They wanted to leave him on the ground, breathless and drenched in sweat, gasping for breath and consumed with so much fatigue that his legs would not be able to support him as the tide came back it.

And they could do it—had done it many times before now.  Besides, there was no patch of red fur or freckled white to stop them.  Oh, they could do it but... the wolves were curious about their newest resident.)

An agitation that hadn't been felt by him for years twirled around his heart, making him irritated and causing a faint sneer to turn down his lips.  It made his muscles tense and he turned to pace back the other way, the sea winds continuing to pull at the choppy tresses of both his mane and tail.

The trinkets in his main tinkled from time to time, the bolt in his forelock normally more than enough to draw him away from himself.  Sadly, it couldn't this time as it bounced the side of his face.

It would take something more to get him to stop looking out into the sea (where he hoped to find a spot of fiery red, or hear the call of his name fall from beautiful lips) and stop pacing.  What that was, however, he didn't know.

Not like how he knew that, for the first time in quite a while, he was truly and terribly alone.




Speech, @ Anyone!

The sea, the sea

is singing.

The pitched waves roll up against the cliffsides of the continent, and along the coast; they lash at sand and rock and earth and say, come to me come to me come to me. 

Calyndar, 

do you hear her?

She is singing to you, to you.

Somewhere out against the surf a trio of gulls dive beneath the surface, attracted to some flurry of activity beneath the tumultuous waves. Then they are ascending again, violent, their screams echoing out above the thunder of the waves. 

Calyndar, 

do you see how restless you have made her?

You pace, to and fro, and wear solid tracks into the sand.

She wants to soothe you and each wave reaches closer, closer, but cannot. Because she also wants you to suffer.

She always does, the sea. She sends out the wind to caress you, to pull you. Come closer, come closer.

Those final thoughts are not the sea’s.

They are Boudika’s, from where she rests among the surf, a transient shape that bucks and rolls with the waves. She has learned this weave-and-bob well, this swell and deflation, the way to ride the waves as if she belongs to them.

(It is because. She does belong to them.) 

And she has been watching, hungrily. It is the water horse in her. It is the sea. She will never be sated and forever that hunger manifests in different ways; all to often it is for horse-flesh, but she has yet to succumb to the urges. She merely teases the idea, as one does an unrequited love; it makes her suffer, and the suffering is delicate and somehow pleasurable. Yes, Boudika would be a liar if she did not think of all the forms she could take to kill and consume. Yes, Boudika would be a liar if she were to ignore the way her muscles tremble with restraint and the saliva pools in long against her teeth and is then lost to the sea. 

It is only when she is certain that she can control these urges does she emerge. 

First, Boudika is a speck of red—her mane where it lashes in the froth of the waves when she surfaces, her head emerging from one long break of surf. She snorts out salt water and mist. Then, it is her bald face catching the glint of light from the clouds; she is whiter than white, stark as bone, where that uneven mask covers her crimson face.

Then, a shoulder—and two. Her striped haunches and a lashing, leonine tail. Boudika exits the waves in a thunder; the water sloughs off of her like a second skin. She cannot help but toss her head. She cannot help but buck and rear and then settle into an impassioned canter that slows only when she is near enough to speak. 

She thinks, you were not alone.

Only a man who believes he is abandoned paces in such a way. Only a man who believes there is no witness.

Boudika does not bother with pleasantries. 

“You’ve nearly worn a canyon into my shoreline.” Her voice comes out high and bright. Her mouth tilts into a smile; on anyone else’s face, it would have been friendly. On Boudika it splits her face in two with rows of shark’s teeth. “What troubles you?” 

Once, Boudika would have said, this is a dangerous place to pace and think.

Once, Boudika would have warned, you should stay away from the sea.

Now Boudika thinks, 

come closer, come closer.

The water horse trembles, and trembles, and it is the sea on her and behind her and the way the coastline always feels on the precipice of storm, of breaking. She stands at the war of worlds, where the sea meets the sand, where the ocean asks the land to concede and the land refuses. For now. 

Come closer, come closer.

Oh, how she hungers. It is in the depth of her eyes. Boudika paces, back and forth, a shallow line in comparison to his track. She cannot stay still. Her socked legs dance against the sand; she tosses her head. The gulls continue to scream. Everything is movement. And he is dark like a shadow is dark. There is just enough storm in the air to make Boudika want to take him. 

 "Speech." || @Calyndar

even gods, though they were born

in our own heads, died out to myth

He has had many thoughts within his mind that were never his own—knows intrusive, acidic things well for he was fed them since he was but a young man.  He has felt the need to do as they say many a time, but he has also learned how to ignore them for how can one not learn such resilience when exposed to such things all his life?  The wolves have always savagely snarled at him to do things no one should ever, and he used to willingly head their call.

But no more.

This resilience does not mean he is oblivious, of course.  After all, the wolves of his own making still reside within him.  He can still hear them lurking within the very depths of the chasm that cleaves him in two, eyeing the newest resident that wishes to feast upon what the wolves have only ever played with as a predator does its prey.

So yes, he hears it, but he does not answer for the only thing that can soothe the beast of old is a woman of short stature, whose snowy coat soothed his scorched, scarred skin with every single delicate touch.  No violent wave could do it—even if such a thing could lead to something.

Something that, even in death, he would never forgive himself for.  For while he was hopeless and filled with despair now, he was also determined.

Determined to find her, that single patch of white he could bear to look at.  To find him, that weaving speck of mangled fire that kept him company.  He would find them.  He would search until his blood stained whatever ground he found himself on.

He almost believes he has found the latter when he spies a speck of red within the cool, desolate waves of the sea.  Having stared at the water as intensely as he had been, it was hard to miss.  It causes him to pause, manages to do what the trinkets in his hair cannot.  His hooves cement themselves within the blemished sand.  What little spark of hope that kindled to life inside of him, though, is quickly doused by a heavy blanket of disappointment as he comes to see more.

Comes to see someone he could hardly care for.  His heart aches once more.

His ears pin back harshly against his poll and he resumes his pacing.  He does not watch the emergence of the crowned eater as they rise from the frothing depths of the sea.  He ignores all as he now finds himself incapable of caring whatsoever.  At another time, one before the separation from his beloved, he would have never dared to resume his movements but Calyndar is no longer that man.

He is now equal parts apprentice of Satanael and lover of Edda—two opposing forces that result in a compound that leads to erratic, unable to be estimated, results.  This is why, whenever the other -with teeth that might have given him pause any other time (besides, he has stared down those with sharper)- finally comes to stand a few paces away from him, he does not react as one might expect.

'You're shoreline?' He nearly asks as he comes to a stop at the end of his well-worn trench—on the far opposite side of where the stranger stands.  He doesn't find himself capable of returning the abnormal smile they give him.

What troubles you?

The acidic thing inside of him, that thing of old, doesn't like that question.  He can hear the calls, but the Satanael's trained slayer was never one to take kindly to such prying questions.  That was the other's first mistake.

Neck arching, dislike radiating through him at the other's inability to remain still, the scarred man remains completely still.

"You have some gall to walk up to someone you don't even know and ask such things,"  he retorts.  As if he would reveal anything to a mere stranger when even Edda herself -his other half- knows the only the bare minimum of the atrocities that ail him.  She knows only what she needs to, to understand why he acted as he did before they were separated.  "My troubles are my own—sorry."  His troubles always have been and always would be.

He feels the need to resume pacing, but he refrains.  "The 'canyon'," he begins, "will be gone with the rise of the tide.  So will I.  No need to be overly concerned."  He states, knowing well enough that he could never leave a lasting imprint on, of all things, sand.

Then, abruptly and uncaring, he speaks up again.  "Mind telling me why you care?"  About the sand, about his troubles.  Even through the opposing mixture that inhabits him now, he knows he isn't entitled to any answer.  Not when he didn't give the other one.  However, that doesn't mean he won't try for one.

The dark thing, the once alpha to the wolves inside of him, waits.




Speech, @ Anyone!