to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
For August the moment is returning quickly to normalcy. It begins with the way her glance settles on him and darts away - the kind of look he is well used to, and preferable to outright staring. For his part, he is less shy about the way he watches her, though now it is less to search for injury and more to sate his own curiosity. She is elegantly and powerfully built, distinct from her spiraling horns to her stark knee-high socks, and her eyes are as bright as sparks struck from flint and breathed to life.
Even if they are, at the moment, full of embarrassment.
“All except my dignity,” he answers with a half-grin, “but that was questionable to begin with.” Some - and here he thinks of Minya, with her impeccable posture and her disdainful pout - would say he had none in the first place.
When her gaze moves from him, he allows his to linger on her just a moment more before following it to the true loser of their collision. Her words, so solemn, curve the corners of his mouth, though he quickly smoothes away the expression to graveness. “Yes,” he says, matching her tone, “but every battle must leave something for the crows.” As if in response one flaps nearer, alighting on the snow then strutting toward them, its dark head bobbing like a buoy. August does not show it away, but he does begin to gather the loaves again, though he leaves the broken pieces for the birds.
August does not expect her to answer yes, not when he doesn’t know her either, but something in him still tolls like a shipwrecked bell at the answer. He does not like to be hearing things - especially not ghosts - but he lets none of his unease show when he turns back to her. “No,” he says with a laugh. “I just could have sworn someone called my name-”
He would have said it then, but she speaks first, and he settles back with a grin. A dancer - he could have guessed that. Despite their initial collision, the lines of her body and the care she took in moving it spoke to a gracefulness specific to those who used their bodies - in dance, and in battle. “Boudika,” he repeats, enjoying the way the vowels roll of his tongue like waves. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, though my body may disagree. I’m August. I…” It is unusual for him to falter, when he is so used to the current of conversations, and he blinks his quicksilver eyes before continuing. “-fill many roles. Like bringing rolls.” Nor does he usually have to resort to bad puns; perhaps he is more shaken by the blow than he’d realized.
It would have been easy, then, to ask where she danced, to tell her he would like to see her perform and joke that he hopes she possesses more grace on stage - all things true enough to him, though they felt like little lies in the process of getting to know someone. But again she speaks first, and he shakes his head, his pale hair settling like snow over the sloping plane of his shoulders. “No need. If it’s a little soggy today, then no one will ask me to fetch it tomorrow.”
It only takes a beat for him to change his mind - a vision of Minya’s mocking, but more than that another moment to study Boudika, a pause in which all his natural curiosity comes winging back like a flock of birds after crumbs. “On second thought, my compatriots can be very frightening and easily disappointed. If you’ve the time, I’ll take your company back to the market as payment enough.”
@boudika |
