HERE ARE GIRLS LIKE LIONS. HERE ARE GIRLS LIKE HOWLING WOLVES. HERE ARE GIRLS WITH SUCH BIG TEETH! HERE ARE GIRLS WHO'LL PLAY TUG O' WAR WITH YOUR HEART OR YOUR WISHBONE OR YOUR THROAT, OH. OH, HERE ARE GIRLS WITH BRIGHT EYES AND CLAWS LIKE DRAGONS. HERE ARE GIRLS WHO CAN'T BREATHE AIR, ONLY FIRE.
The first thing Boudika noticed about the fire girl was the colour of her hair—electric, tantalising, and unreal. There was something about it that seemed to belong to a storybook, unique even for the strange standard of Novus. From that alone, Boudika identified her—the fire dancer, the dancer who Boudika had been told can swallow flame. The dancer with pink hair and scarlet horns, adorned in trinkets. Boudika, now plain, felt strangely out of place even in her own guild, at her own bar. Her flat was one floor above her, where she slept secluded in a small room. There was a smile on the other mare’s mouth, but Boudika did not match it—she simply observed, quietly, waiting for the moment the other woman chose to speak.
That was a good performance. Boudika had never heard a compliment sound so insulting and for a moment, just a moment, it disarmed her. “Thank you,” she replied, stiffly, and took a drink. The fever of her performance vanished abruptly. As it was, the fever she felt was a fickle elation that she rarely found the time or means to enjoy much longer than the initial performance. But the quick way it vanished, abruptly, so easily frightened… it left Boudika feeling more hollow than usual.
Again, her eyes were on the luxurious mane, the sparkling eyes. Boudika knew she was not beautiful in a conventional means but there, sitting at a bar, her mind became her own worst enemy. It was one thing to know it, and another to see it in comparison, next to someone who appeared so naturally to be a dancer, or performer. Boudika was fierce; she was graceful; she was muscular; she was commanding. But none of those things equated beauty in the natural sense; no. Boudika found her beauty made others want to conquer her, or squelch the fire in her eye, or skin her hide. Her beauty incited violence because it was not beauty: it was primal, as a mountain, or a forest. And what did people wish to do with those things? Those sentiments equated to violence, powerlessness, unpredictability; they wanted to climb, to cut, to understand that which could not be understood. Boudika wanted to leave the conversation there; she turned her face away, she took another drink.
But Boudika used to have very long hair, and she remembered this with a sudden sharpness. The memory had been suppressed for many years. It had been her one pride, her one distinguishing factor, and in a secret part of her heart, it had been because it was her only claim to femininity. It had been because, glorious and silken, she could imagine herself as unhidden… despite it being tightly braided and kept back for battles and training, despite the fact the other boys wore their manes similarly. Then, one day, her father heard a comment about his son with the long mane; he heard a comment about the femininity of it; and he called her home from the academy for the weekend, and cut it with savage austerity. “You do not get to be beautiful,” he had said, cold, clipped, as the brilliant copper locks fell in ringlets to the ground and Bondike stood, silent and disciplined. It was a matter of sacrifice, she had thought. It is a matter of privilege, she had thought. And her father said, softening only slightly, “You do not get to give them a reason to doubt you.”
Boudika sipped at the edge of her glass, suddenly feeling the fierceness renewed. Beautiful women had always unsettled her, perhaps because she had never had the opportunity to be one. She had never socialised with them. Before Novus, her society had kept her utterly segregated—and this came to her with sudden clarity. That, in a nd of itself, was a certain strength. Men were worse. Men would always be worse. She had heard them debase a woman to mere body parts; objectifying them into a state of completely vulnerability. She had seen what they were capable of, and snide words would never compare.
”You’re the fire dancer,” Boudika stated, turning more fully to address her. ”Impressive. How does one learn a skill, like that?” Boudika’s words were not sharp; simply candidly conversational. Her brow cocked, and internally her stomach writhed as though full of snakes. But she knew, she looked fierce. She knew she was no master of words, no master of social etiquette, but there was one thing the world had never taken from her, and Orestes had said it best:
She was a lion. And something, existing brightly within her crimson gaze, offered a sharp challenge.
HERE ARE GIRLS WHO CARRY KINDNESS AND KATANAS IN THEIR RUCKSACKS BECAUSE THEY NEVER KNOW WHICH THEY'LL NEED. HOW DO YOU TAME GIRLS WITH WILDFIRE LIMBS? HOW DO YOU HOLD DOWN GIRLS WITH HURRICANE HANDS? OH, YOU CAN'T. HUMBLE HUNGERER, YOU'VE JUST GOT TO HELP THEM RISE.
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