![[ CLOSED♥ ] NOVUS rpg](https://novus-rpg.net/images/logo.png "[ CLOSED♥ ] NOVUS rpg"){kind=logo}
+- [ CLOSED♥ ] NOVUS rpg (https://novus-rpg.net)
+-- Forum: Realms (https://novus-rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=5)
+--- Forum: Denocte (https://novus-rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=17)
+---- Forum: Archives (https://novus-rpg.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=95)
+---- Thread: [P] tell the truth but tell it slant (/showthread.php?tid=5782)
tell the truth but tell it slant - Boudika - 11-09-2020
“Truth," said a traveller, “Is a breath, a wind, a shadow, a phantom; long have I pursued it, but never have I touched the hem of its garment.”
T
he truth, she had said, can be monstrous. Boudika’s own words haunt her on a spring day that is trying very hard to be something else. It is midmorning, with rain coming down not in a torrent but a steady, miserable drizzle. The streets of Denocte are largely abandoned due to the weather, waterlogged with puddles from the night’s heavier storm. The chill in the air is more reminiscent of winter than spring, but Boudika does not mind. In fact, the cold is almost welcoming—she is glad she has the streets to herself. The absence of Denocte’s busy citizens leaves the city strangely quiet, and veiled in fog; the rain makes the middle-distance impossible to see, and bleeds the world around her of color.
The atmosphere of Denocte promises to be hiding secrets. It promises to be mysterious, cryptic, in the way that it changes her most vibrant color to shades of burgundy. She is almost someone else, despite not having changed shape. Through the fog, she watches a feral cat cross the street. She cannot hear the sea, but knows the storm was brought in by it; the distance does not seem too great and she remains in Denocte, wandering.
Boudika listens to shopkeepers and residents; the smell of woodsmoke from chimneys, to keep the lingering chill at bay. The city of Denocte has always been a place she has loved, fiercely; and it has always been a place she had never quite belonged. Only now does Boudika begin to accept that fact; that she is not so unalike the feral cat, slinking along the corners of the alleyways, a visitor, an observer. Her movements are slow and leonine; they lack the ferocity, the energy, she otherwise possesses by the sea.
She lifts her head, as if for some type of prayer. The rain kisses down her nose and mouth; she closes her eyes against the soft pinpricks.
When she lowers her face from the caress of the sky, the truth finds her.
It comes, unasked for and unbidden, in the shape of a little girl.
A girl with too-blue eyes, eyes that eat up all the gray light of the rain and remind it that, ultimately, it belongs to the sky. Eyes like a clear, summertime day or a cool winter afternoon. Between them sits a heart, but when she turns as if to continue on, a crescent moon flashes on her shoulder.
"Wait." Boudika’s voice cracks.
(Why, lately, is her voice always cracking? Why is it, in these matters of the heart, she no longer sounds like herself?)
When the truth finds her, when it comes, it is a levee breaking. It is a flood. It is a natural disaster.
And she is left asking if a lie could have been better.
If a lie could have been more merciful.
"Wait, please." Her smile does not feel as if it belongs to her. It is uncertain, and shaky, and too thin. Her voice, too, seems too thin. "I know your parents. I'm friends with them. Please--tell me, how is your father? You look so much alike."
“If I loved him, if I kept him, my child, my daughter, would be his, but she isn’t," Elena had said.
Elena had said it cooly; a hard fact.
But Boudika can only see Tenebrae.
RE: tell the truth but tell it slant - Elliana - 11-25-2020
prayed to keep my soul
T
he dead slumber, and they rise. They rise and they like to tell her stories.
There was a story whispered to her as she fell asleep, it was of a woman who was cloaked in magic to be a man. She had crimson eyes the story goes, and she was dressed in red and ebony, with obsidian horns spiraling up and away (‘like staircases to heaven,’ Elliana thought one night upon a retelling.) She was a solider, a glorious, brave, wild soldier. Maybe someone would think her cowardly for hiding, but Elli listened with wide blue eyes at her courageousness. She would listen to the story and when morning came, pick up that wooden sword and fight with all the beauty and recklessness she believed Bondike had possessed.
Elliana did so love this story. She asked for it again and again. Until she could picture Bondike so clearly in her mind that she painted her. This was the second time in her life she hid a painting from her mother. That ghost told the story again and again, and it was only near the end that she realized who it must be speaking. Only the love of a parent could speak such tales and in such beautiful and delicate detail. And so she painted a picture of a father’s daughter, for the daughter’s father that was no longer here. A present to them both, even if it was a present she could never give.
She wishes she could peel herself away from the swirling shadows on this rainy day. But the fog, the way it drifts around them, she thinks it beautiful. Her mother taught her sunlight, her father taught her starlight, but who oh who could teach her about these shadows and why they stand there breathing.
Elli wanders the dead streets. Everyone is tucked neatly away (‘like bodies in graves,’ comes the voice of Isolt inside her head, it is something she thinks that she would say.) They lift their heads to kiss raindrops at the same time, though they will never know this, and maybe it is this that triggers such a chain reaction, like water finding the ground, the ghost story finds Elli.
It is in the form of crimson eyes.
Like blood?
Maybe.
Or maybe like roses blooming where they shouldn’t.
She smiles and turns, those blue eyes sweeping underneath shadowed eyelids before the woman’s voice reaches her. She stops. Her voice breaks and Elli is disappointed if just for a moment. But she remembers there is courage in showing the crumbling pieces along with those that stand steadfast. Elliana stands before the war hero now, peering up at her, having imagined this moment for so long. Her words still flutter inside her ear. How is her father? They look so much alike. She thinks it is a lie. She has found many faces staring back at her in the mirror, but none were ever her father.
“It is nice to meet you,” she says, too calm, too easily when the woman reaches her. She does not reveal what she knows. It is not her duty to tell the secrets of the dead, no matter how many stories they tell. And the dead, oh they were such eager story tellers, to those who will listen. She should smile wider, offer her some warmth her mother was so good at providing. Though, Elliana offers her only a simper of a smile on her face. She looks a lot wiser than she is, than she will probably ever be when she speaks to Boudika. “We should probably get out of the rain. You look cold.”
@Boudika elliana speaks
elliana
—
« ♡ »
—
« ♡ »
RE: tell the truth but tell it slant - Boudika - 11-30-2020
“Truth," said a traveller, “Is a breath, a wind, a shadow, a phantom; long have I pursued it, but never have I touched the hem of its garment.”
T
he girl turns and glances toward her. Boudika realizes her mistake as soon as she does. Her eyes should be sea-blue, sky-blue, the sort of blue that aches to look at for too long. A blue containing too much light, too much depth. Like Elena’s.But when Elliana meets Boudika’s eyes, she can only remember Tenebrae when he had been unscarred. They are winter blue; the vibrancy of Elena’s eyes meeting the ghostly paleness of Tenebrae’s. Winter blue, a sky bleached of color by the cold. Winter blue, a sea frosted with ice and made grayish by the overcast snow.
It occurs to Boudika she should not have reached out. The truth had been deniable before; there had been enough room for doubt, a lack of assurance. She hadn’t known, not for certain. The girl could simply have been any young daughter of Denocte and, instead, she sees similarities that cannot be denied.
The scene strikes Boudika as something from poetry, or a novel. The girl is smiling as she walks toward her through the fog. The girl is smiling quietly, almost as if she recognizes her. It is nice to meet you, she says, and her voice, too, is the winter sky. For a child, she seems unexpectedly well-spoken and calm; and Boudika, in the face of this composure, reels to regain her own.
It is a mistake.
A mistake.
Boudika does not speak again. Perhaps for fear of her voice breaking. Instead, she nods in agreement and begins to walk down the street. There is a shop-owner who sells teas and pastries, and in the cold drizzle Boudika is certain he is open. It seems a strange thing, to think of food, but when they enter the small shop the warmth is welcome. “Would you like anything?” Boudika asks, quietly. “I don’t want to keep you from whatever it was you were doing. I’m simply not in town often and—I don’t know any other time we would have met.”
She cannot stop herself.
Why can she not stop herself?
Everything... reason, decency, tact. These things tell her she should not engage. She should turn away. She should send her home. And yet, horrified, Boudika continues on. Her mouth does not feel like her own. Her words, they do not feel like her own.
The thing, in this moment, that does belong to her is the heartbreaking resentment building in her chest. Why lie, Boudika wonders. Why lie Elena?
And then: does Tenebrae know?
RE: tell the truth but tell it slant - Elliana - 11-30-2020
prayed to keep my soul
W
e never turn out the way we expect to. The pictures children draw of how the world is seem free of depth, lacking the shading of experience, the depth of secrets and hurts that that form the tapestry of real life. The drawings are painted, erased, shaded, erased, drawn again and again, reshaping and recreating with every image given.What colors will you bring Elliana, Boudika? Will it be a painting of wild beauty? Or will you keep her in dark charcoal?
Elli does not see herself reflected in Boudika’s eyes, she just sees red, red, red. Like battlefields she has never seen, will probably never see, if because she has a heart not made for war, not when she hears so many tales of those who were killed because of it.
She is no empath like her mother, but she is a sensitive girl, enough to see emotions flittering on Boudika’s face. Her father was the one who taught Elli how to navigate the world, how to hold it in her palm like a pearl and watch it shine. And shine it does upon the woman’s face. With questions and curiosity. Elli is too young to be aware of what passion has done to her, if she knew the truth she might understand why she looks at her like that. After all, her parents were the very embodiment of how destructive passion could really be.
A nod. It is enough of a response, for a quiet girl who knows what it is like to leave words behind in favor of deeper thoughts, it is enough. Elliana follows her down the street, her mother has not reminded her enough to not follow strangers. Or, Elli has not listened enough. Sometimes, in those late night hours, it is so hard to hear with all the voices clamoring beyond the grave to be heard.
They enter the shop and Boudika’s quiet voice reaches her. She spends many long moments staring at the surface of the puddles outside, each individual ripple drawing her attention, claiming her until the moment they fall back into stillness if only for a second, before another drop strikes it. “Tea,” she says suddenly, not peeling her blue (too blue, too too blue) eyes from the water droplets meeting the earth in a pitter patter fashion. “Please, with lavender,” she says then turning eyes to look upon Boudika once more. “Aren’t rainy days just perfectly splendid?” She asks the woman. “Someone told me once, it’s the earth’s way of crying, but I don't think so.” She does not expand further. She is not so much like her mother, so free with words. If her mother’s words floated like butterflies, freely from flower to flower, than hers were like honey bees, buzzing in a hive of secrets thoughts and wonders. “I wasn’t doing anything,” she comments, looking at her once more with a tilt of her small, delicate head, her shoulders roll in such a fashion to flash a crescent moon upon them.
“And what were you doing?” Elli asks. “If not in town often, why today?” She leans closer. “If you know my father, why have you not asked him how he is?” She pours the questions out just as hot water pours from its kettle. Poor too much and it will overflow. Ask too much and—
“Do you wanna know a secret?”
@Boudika elliana speaks
elliana
—
« ♡ »
—
« ♡ »
RE: tell the truth but tell it slant - Boudika - 11-30-2020
“Truth," said a traveller, “Is a breath, a wind, a shadow, a phantom; long have I pursued it, but never have I touched the hem of its garment.”
B
oudika has never known a child, not truly. Her father did not speak with most of his family, and her mother’s family had wanted nothing to do with them after she passed away. She had no nieces, no nephews, no cousins. And her friends had been too young for children, when she had left—when she had been imprisoned and sentenced to death. So, she has never known a child. Her only frame of reference is what she remembers of herself, at this age, and what she remembers is that they are not so different—
Boudika remembers being severe. She remembers when her father first shorn her mane and she had looked in the mirror, after, at the hard lines of her face and neck. Her eyes had been too large, and too brutal—and Elliana’s eyes are too large and too haunting, as if they have already seen too much of the world.
It unsettles Boudika; but not as much as childish exuberance might have. Surprisingly, the silence between them does not feel awkward, and when the girl says, tea, please, with lavender Boudika orders it without missing a beat. A smile flits briefly across her face. “And whatever pastry you have that is most popular.”
Aren’t rainy days just perfectly splendid? Boudika wants to smile, but does not know how the girl will take the flash of her too-long teeth. So her lips only upturn at the edges. “They are beautiful,” Boudika agrees. “But rain is only rain.”
The shopkeeper hands over the tea and pastry, and Boudika leads the girl to a small corner. There is a fire burning in the fireplace, and the warmth radiates into the room. The cushions are plush and vibrantly colored, and the entire shop smells of tea and coffee and baking bread. They sit, and Boudika presents the goods but then glances out the window, fearing her own mistake.
She should have remained quiet. She should have let the girl return to the street. She should have let her disappear like the ghosts she talks to.
And what were you doing? If not in town often, why today?
“Fate,” Boudika says simply. The red mare does not elaborate.
She regards the girl quietly, for a moment. The truth is not hers to share, no matter how—even now—anger burns within her in the same way coals smolder. “Some people drift apart. I have not seen him for quite some time. I live in the sea.” She is not speaking of the man Elliana believes to be her father, but her father by blood. By the man who broke her heart.
Then:
Do you wanna know a secret?
Boudika cannot help the way she smiles. The girl is somber, curious, bright-eyed. She reminds Boudika a bit of herself, in a strange way, if the war had not taken so much from her. “Yes. Tell me.”
I have one for you, she cannot help but think. It seems too cruel, however, and she is ashamed.
RE: tell the truth but tell it slant - Elliana - 12-11-2020
prayed to keep my soul
G
lacier blue eyes watch as the woman orders and she hums quietly under her breath for a moment. Elliana has no way of knowing the storm that brews along the edges of her family. She has no idea of the hurricane that’s about ready to hit. “I’m not usually allowed sweets before lunch,” she says truthfully to Boudika. “But perhaps if we share,” she says. A loop hole that does not quite make sense, one that children create because the world to them, doesn't make much sense. Unfortunately, this will hardly change as they age. The world finds entertainment in the lack of sense it submerges itself in. “To some, maybe, but I imagine the flowers must think otherwise,” she says, her voice like a ship in the night. She sounds too wise and too childish all at the same time. Elli watches it again with blue eyes until the tea and pastry is brought to them. “Thank you,” she says politely as she follows Boudika over into a seating area. Elli takes a sip of the tea, a small bite of the pastry, another sip, another sip.
Another sip.
Silence is not uncomfortable when there is tea to be had. Her GiGi taught her this and so Elli sits in the quiet with ease. “So you believe in fate?” She says with mild surprise, catching and digging into the singular word spoken by the woman. She takes another sip, wants to tell her just how surprised she is. “You told me I look like my father,” she says then almost shyly, not believing the statement to be true. “But I am no shed-star as Azrael is,” she tells Boudika in a gentle enough way as if to let her down easy for thinking such things she knows are not the reality. “I am just a girl from Dusk.” Just a girl from Dusk she believes, no more, no less. Just a spirit talker. No more, no less.
In the sea.
Not by.
Oh the tales of adventure she must have! What ships has she seen pass by? What fish have swam up to her to say hello? What buried treasure has she discovered? What sailors has she kissed?
Take me with you when you go, she almost wants to say. I want to know what the dead say beneath the waves.
And the rooms grows hushed as Elli moves closer to her, her breath is lavender and secrets, in her eyes are rippling raindrops and untold stories. Stories Boudika already knows. Yes. Tell me. Tell her. She should tell her I already know your name, I already know your story, I already know the great deeds you have done. But not yet, not yet. “We are going to be just perfectly splendid friends,” she tells her. Another sip. “Only if you want to be.” Another sip. “Did the fates tell you that?”
Some secrets cannot be shared too soon.
And Boudika knows this better than Elliana ever could.
@Boudika elliana speaks
elliana
—
« ♡ »
—
« ♡ »