the great object of life is sensation - to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
He is getting the wrong idea about her, maybe, from all her answering smiles - but he’s a keen enough eye to notice the hesitance, and anyway, it’s long been part of his nature to put people at ease. It made them more pliable, more likely to open up, easier to eventually manipulate. More than that, he genuinely enjoys it, and there are no ulterior motives for him this bright cold morning. What had begun as a simple intent to assuage her guilt over colliding with him (though he really ought to have been paying better attention, not listening to the wind call his name) had bloomed into something that felt like, if given a little more room, a new friendship.
August can always use another friendly face.
Now he slants another arch-browed look at her, his smile more subdued but undeniably present, as though as much a part of him as the tattoo on his shoulder. “I wouldn’t go so far as to call a shipwreck luck - oy! Templeton!” For out of the corner of his eye flashed a little dragon of crimson and gold. Closer attention revealed the creature had been chasing one of the over-sized magpies, as attracted to the markets for their food and shiny trinkets as everyone else. At the sound of his name (or at least, what August called him) the small beast looked around, weaving like a scarlet thread over to the pair.
“Boudika, meet Templeton,” he continues, as smoothly as though there’d been no interruption. He huffs a breath at the dragon, who huffs a puff of smoke back, and gestures toward the basket of broken bread bits. “Give him one of these - though I’ve already fed the bugger today. You’ll have his heart forever.” Once the introductions are made August ambles on, dragons at his heels and birds overhead, part of the weaving, half-frantic dance of the docks. At her question a curved ear slants toward her, and he weighs his answer for only a moment. “Some would say that’s my most important job. But I’m also a…manager, of sorts, at a gambling house in town. Here we are.”
Indeed, before them is a dark wooden stand, above it a plain sign adorned with the painting of a braided loaf. Tending the stall is a young chestnut stallion, only just out of his colthood, dusted with flour and smiling broadly, if a little puzzled to see the palomino again so soon. “Hello again, Talan,” August says, setting the basket back atop the table. “I couldn’t stay away. Same as earlier, please, and whatever my friend wants. Also, if you can think of anyone who could use the rest of these…” He indicates the scuffed and broken bread, which Talan takes with a knowing nod. There were plenty of hungry foals in the lower city who could use a bit of breakfast.
As he passes over payment and the baker readies his second purchase of the morning, August turns back to Bouikda with a grin more sly than any yet. He fishes from his satchel one of the strange, simplistic cards for the White Scarab - black and matte, stamped with the beetle-and-sword. “Come visit sometime,” he says, passing it to her, and winks. “But you’ll have to find it for yourself. That’s half the fun.”
BUT THERE'S CHAOS BREWING UNDERNEATH MY SKIN, TECTONIC PLATES GRINDING AND CRASHING IN AN EFFORT TO RATTLE MY BONES.
Boudika was, perhaps, twice as glad to meet the small dragon if only because it meant she no longer had to dwell on the story of her past. She feared if they continued to speak of it—the shipwreck, her coming to Novus—that her small lies would become larger, or worse, betrayed by truths. The most guilt-ridden of all: it may as well have been me that killed him—would never be spoken loud, she kept it so deep within her, so strangled, that the words themselves could not quite form in her mind. They only existed around her heart, with a leaden weight that kept her awake most nights, on the perpetual edge of drowning. But no. No, there was a glorious, bright little beast in front of her—crimson and gold, like royalty, and he peered at them with bright expectant eyes. “The pleasure is all mine, Mr. Templeton.” For effect, Boudika bowed in greeting, but not without a mischievous glance toward August. "
And: the waves were crashing somewhere in the distant, and everything she was flooded with the fear the sound evoked. But no. No, no. There was a dragon begging for bread, and her mind reached not for a memory but for the crumbs, tossing what would amount to a handful at the jittering, brilliant creature. And Templeton gobbled them greedily, lashing his tail and ducking his head as other jewel-bright dragons approached for scraps. They, at once, held the mystery and majesty of a cat—but more, more, more, and Boudika did not have words for it, even as she turned away. Her heart, for the first time in a very long time, welled with something like hope. She could learn to love small, shining dragons. She could learn, perhaps, to love the marketplace of Denocte.
But I’m also a… manager, of sorts, at a gambling house in town. The dancer could not help but arch a brow. But, quite conveniently, they had arrived at their next stop. Boudika did not pursue with additional questions, although she found his answer… strange, perhaps only because of his pause. Boudika did not speak, uncomfortable when surrounded by the bustle of morning-goers and the curious stare of the chestnut stallion. He did not ask, however, and Boudika stored the name away. Talan. Perhaps now her runs could end somewhere. At August’s too-kind offer and the stallion’s expectant stare, she gestured toward some sort of sticky bun, which the baker’s boy deftly wrapped and handed back.
There were many things she began to store away, for later. If you could think of anyone who could use the rest of these… and Boudika wondered what lay behind that loaded statement. She wondered at August’s generosity, which was utterly foreign to her. Strangers were given no favours from her people; even acquaintances were treated cooly. The kindness August expressed was reserved, on Oresziah, for the closest of friends—
Then the palomino gives her a grin that belonged not on the face of a horse, but a fox. Boudika took the card curiously, sparing only a glance at the image. She rushed out: “Thank you for the bread—“
Come visit sometime.
And the offer was one that echoed in the chasm of her loneliness like salvation might. She cleared her throat, suddenly awkward again, and uncertain. “Well…” And with brief, nearly faux bravado: “On one condition. You have to come watch me dance.” There was something almost sultry about it, although Boudika did not intend for it to be so. Boudika cleared her throat again, her head ducked slightly, and amended. “Or—” grasping, desperately, for straws. “We could even spar.”
Boudika did not know what possessed her to say that, aside from the fact it was the only thing she was good at aside from dancing, and there was nothing—and she told herself, don’t think about Torix don’t think about Torix don’t think about Torix—sultry about it. And, she realised a little late, he had quite the fighter’s build. Whatever that meant.
If she had been pure white, the flush of her skin would have been evident.
THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE IN-BETWEEN GOOD DAYS. TO BE A SELF-CONTAINED HURRICANE FLOATING ON CALM WATERS. TEETH GRITTED, KNUCKLES WHITE, TRYING TO HOLD IN THE STORM INSTEAD OF MAKING WAVES.
the great object of life is sensation - to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
Some days he wakes up and everyone he looks at is just a locked chest and he must find the key. Or be the key, as it were, with his words and the way his eyes catch theirs and the movement of his body, every gesture the next step in a dance of his choreographing. Only some of the pleasure comes from learning what’s inside, waiting in the dark; most of it, for him, is the satisfaction in the moment the key slicks into the lock and the tumbles click and turn. The right pressure, the right twist at the right time, and: open sesame.
They are both lucky that this is not one of those days, for him. That August is not working but only living, though he finds the same enjoyment in each, most of the time. The darkness gathers and recedes from her eyes, from the corners of her mouth, without a glance from him - but he wonders.
Anyway, they are swept up, now, by the current of introductions, of conversation (however one-sided, in the case of the dragon and the half-bashful boy both). August enjoys knowing, and being known, and weaving and widening the net of his acquaintances - as though there weren’t enough personalities to keep him occupied at the Scarab. Oh, but he does love people; it is, Senna would probably say, one of his greater flaws.
“A good choice,” he says, watching the sweet bun vanish under wrappings and pass to the woman, but the real reaction he’s watching for is the one to the card. He can’t help his curiosity, his love of a game (however small and simple), his pride in his questionable home and more-questionable companions. It is surprisingly easy to picture her among them.
And August is not disappointed. His brows arch first, surprise and delight and maybe just a hint of something more wicked, a silver-eyed gleam at the way the offer sounded but did not mean. He lets it slide, for now - that is another game he generally enjoys.
But his pleasure is genuine when she goes on, and now he regards her the way he would any challenger, almost the way he’d first swept his gaze across her. The hard planes of muscles, the grace in the joining of her throat and shoulders and the slope of her croup. “Oh,” he says, his grin broadening, “that’s one of my favorite kinds of dancing. We could probably manage both - though you’ve already won first blood.” Already he’s thinking strategy - she has a full hand on him, and those horns besides, but it’s been too long since he’s had a new sparring partner. When he nods, face schooled back to near-seriousness, his eyes linger on hers.
“I’ll see you soon, Boudika,” he says, “on one floor or another.” and is gone with a dip of his head and the newborn sun gleaming full gold on his back.
