A restless fury existed within her; a fury that seemed insurmountable at times, and docile at others. A candle-stick light that lit, occasionally, to a self-consuming inferno. Most nights, Boudika danced it away in a flurry of powerful limbs and glistening skin. She thought of the dances of her home-island, the thrum of hummed songs deep in throats and the darkness of the firelight as she was taught, as a mere girl—disguised as a boy—the art of the warrior dance which, when performed, was to demonstrate the complete and utter control of a true fighter, the a-a-a-ah-oh-ashahahah-oh-a-o-a-o-a-ashahahah-khash’ran-an-an-a-oh-a-oh-ah of drums and many voices, all together.
Yet that memory had been, somehow, defiled. Infiltrated. And now she remembered it with Orestes’ voice overlaying the scene, his seal-gray muzzle protruding into her own prison cell. Through the iron of the bars, even as they scalded him. The sharp slit of his nostrils, the reptilian, primordial glint of his eyes, and he whispered the words, a guttural hum, a-a-a-ah-oh-ashahahah-oh-a-o-a-o-a-ashahahah-khash’ran-an-an-a-oh-a-oh-ah with flashing, sharp teeth. When he had said it, the firelight was gone, replaced with the sense of the cool and crashing waves—of iron, burning, burning. When he said it, there was an aura of gravity not even her own people could conjure. ”Don’t you see, Copperhead?” he had whispered. ”Your people stole the words from us; you stole many things. Our dances among them.”
And now her memory involved a partner to those dances, an intricate crusade of in-and-out battling, feigned, between an equine and a shape-changer. Although the dances she performed as an entertainer of the Night Court were often borrowed from the cultures of Novus, Boudika always felt called back to the dances of her girl-hood—compelled, even.
These were the thoughts that occupied her upon her walk through the biting snow which, to Boudika, was yet another affront of a land that was not her land. It did not snow in Oresziah. It rained, and it rained often—but rarely snow, and the omen of it was often viewed as bad. But she trudged through, half-believing whatever ill-omen was deserved, if given. Her head was held lower than usual, her coat duller, somehow, in the soft winter light.
And then, from her peripheral, she saw a tawny form. Normally, Boudika would have continued; but there was something in the slant of the shoulder, the stance of the limbs, and Boudika felt as though she had stumbled upon an Atlas. A bearer of a great burden. Her head turned sharply, half-way to predatory—and then she forced herself to slow from the habit of intense reactions, intense decisions, and meander toward the stallion. Each step awkward, jerky, forced. Boudika cleared her throat awkwardly, and rather than ask what was wrong, asked the only thing she could think to ask. ”Why are you standing in the snow?”
Her tone came out sharply, the words forced and hurried.
It came out all wrong. Boudika had meant to say, how can I help you? That is not what she did say, however, and she merely stood by with an impassive face, accepting her mistake. This is why, she thought to herself, acidly, you don’t talk to people here. Because, Boudika knew.
She was a jackass.
