The call brought her to heel.
After all, was discipline not simply instant, willing obedience to all orders? Was that not the phrase that had been drilled into her, over and over, during training? Instant, willing obedience to all orders. Discipline. And this call was an order. It was one that sung to her in her sleep; that visited her dreams, phantom-like and keening, in the shape of ghostly horses. Come back to the sea, it begged. There is magic there…
When she heard the whispers of the new island, Boudika had only danced away the contemplations. She refused to listen, at first, to the possibility of something so whimsical. An island that appeared after a volcano erupted, after a wall of ivy sprouted from a sea, and the only way to reach it is a long, twining volcanic path… If only she could continue to scoff and disregard those whispers; if only the curiosity did not sing inside her like a bird, caged by her very ribs. Go and see, go and see, go and see so finally, Boudika went, and Boudika saw.
She walked the narrow line of the volcanic path, her crimson eyes adverted downward. Boudika did not trust the ocean around her, and ever innate instinct that she had been born with, every instinct drilled into her felt betrayed. This was not natural. She was surrounded by the very substance that contained her greatest enemies, and her greatest fears.
I could Make you he had promised. And then the singing bird became a hawk and took flight, was her soul so elated—and fearful—at the prospect. But she banished the thoughts. Her odyssey ended when her hooves met dry sand, at last, and the anxiety she had experienced dissipated into that irresistible pull of curiosity. Perhaps… perhaps she could simply walk to the end of the island, and keep walking. Perhaps this somehow linked her to a new continent entirely…
Or worse, perhaps it linked her to her homeland. Did the old gods not say they spat Oresziah from nothing but teeth and bones? Perhaps this was a new island, born with the same old magic…
Boudika’s thoughts were drawn away. She saw a bright flash of colour farther down the beach and she pursued art at a trot, reaching the edge of dense foliage. There, a dark stallion stood and he turned to face the noise of her approach.
Careful. I think they bite.
At first, Boudika did not know to what he referred—and then her eyes were drawn back to the jewel-bright colour, and the two birds stared back. They were unnerving, and almost predatory. Boudika blinked and returned her crimson eyes to the stranger. ”So do I.” It seemed the thing to say to a stranger on a strange island.
After a long moment, staring at the birds, Boudika spoke again. ”How much of the island have you looked at?” Boudika asked. The more she stared at the birds the more uncomfortable she became—and the less alone she wanted to be.
IS A WILD CALL AND A CLEAR CALL THAT MAY NOT BE DENIED; AND ALL I ASK IS A WINDY DAY WITH THE WHITE CLOUDS FLYING, AND THE FLUNG SPRAY AND THE BLOWN SPUME AND THE SEA-GULLS GRYING. 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.
