I MUST GO DOWN TO THE SEAS AGAIN FOR THE CALLS OF THE RUNNING TIDE, IS A WILD CALL AND A CLEAR CALL THAT MAY NOT BE DENIED; ALL I ASK IS A WINDY DAY WITH THE WHITE CLOUDS FLYING, AND THE FLUNG SPRAY AND THE BLOWN SPUME, AND THE SEA-GULLS CRYING
He had named her Copperhead, when they stripped her of her identity.
Orestes said none of his people had such intricacies; there were no copper water-horses, but palominos, greys, blacks, whites. He said she struck, when she struck, with the poisonous intensity and self-assured confidence of the snake. He said she was brilliant for her fire, for the way she brandished her head like a crown, a self-prophesied right for reigning. He had given her a name, after her people had taken hers. Orestes had given her a name, when there had been nothing left of her.
It had been like this since the beginning.
Boudika was nothing without them. The disappointment he was not here filled her with rage, grief, bewilderment.
She could dance, she could sing; she could fight mock battles upon a fire-lit stage and leave her story in the froth of her very sweat. She could cry out, keening, in a song beautiful and terrible, but worth only applause—a performance. She was an empty player; a doll-like figurine, with the physique and scars of something other, something that could not quite fit the mould of pacifist. Boudika’s grief was an intangible, foreign thing, in a realm where she had become a ghost of her former self—it howled within her, an empty cavern, screaming for the sea. And she sought it viciously, vibrantly; she left her heart dashed out on the paving stones after each and every performance. She ran herself to exhaustion. She learned this new land’s prayers and begged their dark goddess to set her free of her old land’s curse.
But she was here again, and for the first time at Novus, Boudika felt closer to completion. Something had been retrieved upon the edge of the shore in the form of a slippery, shark-like predator; a creature that fixed her with his eyes, and tugged at her with his enchanting beauty, begging, nearer, nearer. A creature which she looked past, blindly, searching for more—and her ears filled with his words, the disappointment turning her heart to lead within her, sinking, sinking. But Boudika could not tear her gaze from the crest of waves in the distance—where was the dark head, so proud, so fierce, fighting the surf? Where was the supple, beautiful shoulder—the sheen of dark dapples, then the piercing gaze?
It did not appear.
Instead, the strange predator was moving and she was reminded of her role in his world; as prey. Boudika’s eyes fixated on the kelpie, brought abruptly into focus. The mare exhaled sharply, angrily, nostrils abruptly flaring and ears abruptly pinned. His magic reached, but not far enough, and turned the wet sand around her to a thin sheet of ice and frost. Boudika half-reared and came down atop it in a hard crash, and the ice splintered beneath her hooves—the sound, the cracking, reminded her of ribs broken the same way. Illogically—or was it logically?—she was furious at this creature, she was furious at him for being the wrong monster.
”I am,” she affirmed, proudly, and Boudika was abruptly a general’s son—she was Bondike, firm and strong, her voice whetted like a knife and as deep as a dropping stone. She did not fear this kelpie-creature, this thing of ice and salt, this thing that smiled like an eel, and she stepped closer—ankle-deep in the waves, eyes molten, her hide twitching with the bite of the cold. ”But I am looking for a friend—“ her voice broke on the word. A lie, a lie, a lie. They were not friends. They were enemies, and she was this stallion’s enemy, with his too-long mouth, his too-many teeth. ”And he is like you. He has a thousand shapes and swims in the sea and hunts like a shark. He would call himself… he would call himself…” The words were delivered with a desperate, fever pitch—and Boudika reeled them back in, furiously, shaking her head, snorting.
Hollow thing! she wanted to scream, at this stranger. But more, she wanted to face the sea and scream until her voice turned raw, her throat bled, her words became nothing but guttural approximations. How dare you! How dare you make me love the sea! How dare you make me feel at home with things that would kill me rather than lie! How dare… how dare… But this kelpie did not care for these accusations; this kelpie was hardly the same thing, as her Khashran, and the fact they were her Khashran only enraged her more.
He would call himself… And Boudika did not know, because he had a thousand shapes, a thousand lives, and she had Bound him to just one. ”—Orestes. He would call himself Orestes. And he would be grey and black and he would want to make you not alone, no matter how different, no matter how you are a thing of ice.” And more, still, she wanted to answer this stranger’s siren call—she wanted to step toward his beauty and his danger, this creature that was a dealer of death, and the only allure that kept her from doing so was the allure of another, stronger song, and it bespoke the same tragedy as a whale singing alone. It was the smell of the sea she could not shake; the clinging of salt to her skin, no matter how thoroughly she washed; it was her dreams of drowning and sinking ships; it was a stretch of volcanic beach, brutal cliffs, and the hush, hush, hush of--
Boudika, involuntarily, had stepped closer.
I MUST GO DOWN TO THE SEAS AGAIN TO THE VAGRANT GYPSY LIFE, TO THE GULL’S WAY AND THE WHALE’S WAY WHERE THE WIND’S LIKE A WHETTED KNIFE; AND ALL I ASK IS A MERRY YARN FROM A LAUGHING FELLOW-ROVER, AND A QUIET SLEEP AND A SWEET DREAM WHEN THE LONG TRICK’S OVER.
@Amaroq
