THERE IS A LION IN MY LIVING ROOM. I FEED IT RAW MEAT SO IT DOES NOT HURT ME. IT IS A STRANGE THING, TO NOURISH WHAT COULD KILL YOU, IN THE HOPES IT DOES NOT KILL YOU.
I could ask you the same. That is all it takes for Boudika’s resolve to crumble, weaker than a dandelion-wish against the world’s affronts. So much for being kind— her thoughts began to rage in defence, when he smiled, and Boudika felt guilted for that too. But there was something genuine about the smile, something that lit up the face of the golden stallion, as though it were all he had to give and he were glad to give it.
So Boudika stayed, uncertain words on her uncertain tongue. She had prepared to answer. ”I—“ and cut off as he spoke. Her ears flicked forward, and Boudika stepped nearer, banishing the snow from her back with a rapid series of muscular twitches. Her tail flicked. She listened, leonine, attentive, thankful for his words despite her rudeness. All at once—he revealed much, and nothing. Why did he not like the city? And then, ironically, he states the obvious—that nature in this weather was not necessarily preferable.
”Me either,” Boudika agrees, the difference being that for her it was true. Denocte was too foreign to ever be her home, when her heart had been raised elsewhere—but it did grant her security, and comfort, for which she was thankful. ”You look… pensive.”
Her speech, again, was inadequate. The statement could have sounded condescending. Boudika had never been skilled in small-talk—contrarily, she found herself terrible unprepared. She had always been the General’s “son”—and a world of military tactics was direct, uncompromising, certain. Too late, she realised she should smile back—and so she did, as briefly as light in a storm. His smile lasted longer, to the point she wondered if it had hurt him—something lay behind his eyes, or was it simply her imagination, putting it there? So she returned to her blatantly honest roots.
Boudika said the first thing on her mind. “I was shipwrecked somewhere outside of Solterra, quite some time ago. That’s how I got to Novus. But I can’t get rid of the smell of the sea…” Which was true, delivered with the same matter-of-fact logic as a thorn yanked from a palm. ”Even out here. Even in the snow, and especially in the city.”
Her eyes were on him, too heavy, too heavy—expressionless, the eyes of a statue, with words that did not quite fit. She glanced away after a long moment. ”Is it something like that, that drives you out here, too?” Perhaps it was his easy smile, that drove her to such honest speech. Perhaps it was her own desperation. The snow kept coming down and as Boudika narrowed her eyes at the horizon, she discovered that she could no longer see it—just white, white, white,
And she wondered. She wondered what that meant.
WE HAVE LIVED LIKE THIS, IT AND I, FOR SO MANY YEARS. SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE WE HAVE ALWAYS LIVED LIKE THIS. SOMETIMES I THINK I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THIS.
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