BUT THERE'S CHAOS BREWING UNDERNEATH MY SKIN, TECTONIC PLATES GRINDING AND CRASHING IN AN EFFORT TO RATTLE MY BONES.
Boudika felt more and more as though she did not deserve his ease, his friendliness, or even the thoughtful silence that stretched between them. It did not carry the weight of awkwardness, for which she was glad. He had made her laugh again, shortly, I promise no one here hits as hard as you. Boudika did not believe him, entirely. At once, she felt foreign in her own skin—and as if it were the only skin she’d ever worn. The skin of not quite. The skin of barely-belonging. But still—he was so light, so golden that the smile on her face felt wholly natural.
Their descent was a welcome one and, eventually, the world in front of her was so unlike the world she had come from that Boudika did not remember it. Those names that had berated her mere moments before were chased back by the onslaught of what could only be described as Denoctian. For a blessed moment, her thoughts and memories vanished. They would return, she knew. They would return with a vengeance, when she was alone—the haunting of a woman scorned, a woman betrayed, a woman guilty of every crime accused. She could not escape for long. Even as she spoke of it, her arrival at Novus, it seemed for a moment… far away. But let me assure you, you made the right choice. Boudika cracked another uncharacteristic smile, broad and sharp. “I was lucky, I suppose.” And she meant it in more than one way. The siren music was in her ears—the seas whispers, the silhouette of Orestes singing and, then, nothing but that haunting melody.
In a way, the distance of her own past, the sudden and stark apathy regarding it… as though it were nothing but a history… it unnerved her. For a moment she felt something other and as she spoke of Caligo, of the Night Court, it was a verbal admittance that she truly belonged to them.
Boudika could only smell the heady spices of the market. She was focused on the gleaming moonstones of her path, and avoiding the dragons that weaved quickly through her hooves. Her ear flicked toward August as she listened, intently, to his own story. A bit of envy flashed through her. Envy for a comfort, a belonging, she had never possessed—even at the height of her life, it had always been a lie.
But she could not blame him, for that, of all things. This stranger who was too-kind. “What is it that you do for the Court?” Boudika asked, and then added, almost coyly: “Besides fetching bread, that is.” Boudika could smell it now, in the air—the thick, yeasty smell of it baking. A multitude of grains and flours, and even the sweetness of pastries.
THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE IN-BETWEEN GOOD DAYS. TO BE A SELF-CONTAINED HURRICANE FLOATING ON CALM WATERS. TEETH GRITTED, KNUCKLES WHITE, TRYING TO HOLD IN THE STORM INSTEAD OF MAKING WAVES.
@August
