Boudika walks across the land bridge. Something in her belly aches, and aches, and aches. Her teeth are sharp against her gums and she is yet unaccustomed to their bizarre weight. Perhaps she returns to the island because it is the last place she was with Amaroq, and there is a part of her that regrets—more deeply than she will ever admit—that she never asked his name. Instead, Boudika can only think of him as the water horse—the one that turned her and then… disappeared.
The changing of the seasons marks the passage with more dispassionate resolution. He is not coming back. What had been at first been anger toward his abandonment of her transforms again, into loneliness. From loneliness it became despair. He had not abandoned her. This she knows, in the way every pack creature understands it is nothing without the pack, the pod, the herd, the pride. There is something wrong in his absence, something that greatly unsettles her. Of course, Amaroq had promised nothing; but there was a part of her that had wanted more, a teacher, a, a—
Boudika does not finish the sentence as the sea sings against the bridge, and the strange island opens up in the distance. She cannot finish the thought because to do so would break her heart. The fact the island is not what it once was finishes it for her, regardless.
When she reaches the island, Boudika is forced to confront her worst fear, provoked by August’s admission that he had seen someone asking for her in the markets. Vercingtorix. The name is painful in that it is both full of betrayal and nostalgia. Could he have killed him?
Boudika knows he had, if only because there had been a note sent to her by a raven in a script she knew to intimately.
It was simple.
You are one of them.
V.
Her teeth are there, still. She refuses to feel guilty for them and abandons the bridge, leaping into shallow water to make it ashore. Boudika has never seen such snow; it hurts her eyes. She allows it to distract her as she walks along the shore of the island, gazing inward distractedly.
It is not long before the faeries find her.
They are minuscule orbs of light, with some kind of telekinetic agency. They pull at her mane and tail, and sing archaically in her ears. Boudika does not know what they say, only that there is something mournful in it, something that causes the ache within her to echo.
She bares her teeth at them and lashes her tail. They do not leave her alone. After a moment, she tosses her head and begins to run. Despite all their magic, they either can’t or wont follow. Boudika stops once she is alone again, on the edge of the frosted sea.
Boudika is full of anger. It coils in her, a viper, an adder, ready to strike. She dives her hooves into the waves; dashes them against the crest; rears and crashes down.
With her teeth bared and seemingly alone, she roars at the sea and in that desperate snarl there is something that begs
why, why, why?
The world answers her with a sudden flurry of snow. It bites at her face and tangles in her mane; the cold stings her very lungs, but she screams again, hoarser than before, more demanding.
And still, the only answer is the sky, the waves, the snow.
It feels strange to be back on the island given how it disappeared not too long ago. She remembers all too well the rumbling of the earth and the way the waves angrily crashed against the shore. Equines everywhere fled by foot and by flight. There had been screaming and fear could be felt tenfold.
Now she's spent a short amount of time in this new island and all of that has disappeared. Instead, the island that emerged from the sea has transformed into a winter wonderland. The slightest breeze tosses the fallen snow up in the air and she catches some snowflakes on her tongue. Hāsta flies beside her, not impressed as usual, but Corr ignores it. With how dismal Terrastella has felt, she could use a little sunlight among the rain clouds. Especially now that the twins are nowhere to be found too. Wherever they are, she can only hope that they are safe from harm.
There is a sound nearby that catches the crow witch's attention. It almost sounds like a scream, but she isn't too sure. Even with the island's new look, the same strange, ancient magic is still present. Illusions are not unheard of here, even those done by sound.
Still, Corr decides she better check it out just in case and takes flight away from the snowy woods to the edge of the shore. She sees another standing there and instantly feels a wave of emotion. It nearly knocks her down out of the air, but she regains her balance and lands gracefully on the ground. Here it seems the seasons are fighting with each other with a blend of snow and sand. Hāsta is in her mind telling her not to bother, but she dismisses it. The situation doesn't seem dangerous (at least not yet).
Aside from the woman ahead, it's the fairies fluttering around her that make her slowly move forward. Perhaps they can feel the tension in the air and are trying to cheer her up, or they could be causing her more grief. Fairies liked causing mischief after all. With each foot step, Corr feels like she's trying to walk through a blizzard from how many emotions she can feel coming from this woman. It breaks her heart because she seems like a beautiful soul.
"Are you okay there, dear?" she asks, offering a warm smile in hopes that the stranger will turn around and not mind company. "What's wrong?"
Her magic is not strong enough yet, so Corrdelia finds it hard to separate herself from the anger and sadness and desperation. But she tries. She imagines the comforting smell of lavender and chamomile tea and the warmth from a fireplace. She tries to project this onto the woman in hopes it will calm her down and maybe help her open up.
the sea speaks more honestly to those willing to drown
Boudika smells her before she sees her.
It is flesh and blood and warmth, and things that make her mouth water.
Boudika smells her before the kind words, or kinder smile, reach her.
It is lavender and chamomile tea and wood burning.
Boudika smells her, and that smell ignites every visceral instinct within her new body. This ignites a new resonant scream, pinched off and pained, as a creature born with such primal urges would know how to curb them. She does not. No. She does not, because her maker has left her.
The copper-headed mare snaps her neck in the direction of the newcomer. Her eyes focus on Corrdelia, and Boudika registers that there is nothing but kindness in the stranger's violet eyes.
Something else within her sings a song. Something else drags Boudika foot-by-foot into the sea, until it laps at her knees. Seaweed tangles in her hooves. The tide drags her out, out, out, and her expression softens. Her mouth longs to form the words that will bring the storm-coloured stranger into the sea—
But Boudika does not. She stands there, looking forlornly over a shoulder, the wind whipping her mane into a frenzy. She says, “The sea is saying something I cannot yet understand.”
A long silence.
The pull of water.
The high whining of the faeries laughter. And then Boudika turns from the sea to face the kind stranger. Her mouth almost wavers into a smile, but a tiger—even one made, and not born—knows that to do so would show it’s teeth. And so Boudika does not smile.
When Boudika asks, “How long did it take you to learn how to fly?” there is nothing left but the lavender, the chamomile, the warm smell of burning cedar. There is something sandpapering her edges; something smoothing out the hunger that roars, fathomless and bewildered, within her.
There is something about the woman that Corr notices. It's almost like she's a creature out of a mythology. She is taken in by the sea, but hesitates. It seems to make her more sad.
Corr is intrigued by the stranger's next words for a few reasons. Is it her magical ability to speak to the sea? Does she have some other connection to it? A brief thought goes to Asterion, but this feels different. Corr's magic can't pinpoint it.
"Maybe the sea just wants someone who will listen. Maybe it does not need you to understand - yet," she guesses, but cannot say for sure. The water is an element she never felt an affinity with, at least not in this medium. Rainwater, sometimes, but mostly when she's collecting it for elixirs and tinctures. She'll speak to it as it makes a pat pat pattering sound against the glass of her window, but it never talks back. Unless you consider the pattering a response.
Whatever it is about the sea, it seems to be what's troubling the woman. Corr thinks of asking more questions, but she is asked one instead about flying. It's off topic, but maybe that's just what the mare needs.
"Well, it took several tries," she says, beginning to reminisce about her days as a young foal. It feels like forever ago back with Astreas and her sister Briar. There isn't a day that goes by that she doesn't miss her sister and their family, but she is also happy to be here in Novus. " I definitely fell on my face a few times, but I didn't let that stop me. Eventually I just… got it. Something clicked and I was gliding." Specifically, there had been a time that Briar got it before her and she was jealous. Then once she got it, there was the biggest grin on her face and Briar gave her a hug. A winning moment for sure.
Maybe?
Corr tries to focus on this happy memory and what she felt when she finally succeeded. There is nostalgia, but there is still some of the excitement of the moment. Maybe her magic can work to transfer this memory into an emotion. Maybe it can help this woman feel even an ounce of what she felt back then. Maybe the happiness can wear off even a little bit.
