which serenely disdains to annihilate us
The longer Boudika remained on the island, the more it felt as though it were made for her. A type of purgatory, wrenched up from the sea by a terrible god to punish her for her sins. Ins one ways, it felt as though she had been returned to the bars of prison; as if she could only stare forlornly out a slatted window. Boudika had to remind herself, it was Tempus. Novus’ god. The god of time. The statue erected upon the island would leave no doubt, of that. And was time such a terrible god?
In some ways, perhaps. But in some ways, all gods were terrible. That is what she thought of, in the darkness of the island’s night, where the moon’s light could not quite reach, and the star’s seemed colder than usual. Boudika stood on the beach’s edge, staring out toward the ocean that was undulating in the colours of non-precious stones. Clear and bright like moonstone, deep and flecked with teal and red like blue jasper, glittering with streaks of yellow like lapis lazuli, or trapped stars. Then hard and dark like rough sapphire. Then smooth and bright and the green-blue of turquoise.
It sang to her in a voice sweet and pure. In a voice sharp and melancholy. It sang to her, the grief of widows, the grief of sailors drowned, the triumph of navies, the predatory cry of the orca and the silence of the shark. It sang to her, and always, Orestes’ voice with it, telling her, beauty is but the beginning of terror. A poem. A poem, his people loved. A poem, he had shared with her, when he saw the adoration in her eyes that she could not hide.
Boudika stepped forward, up to her knees in the water. It felt strangely warm, and the salt tingled along her legs. Beneath her hooves she could feel the island’s perpetual heartbeat, one she was not certain was real, or merely imagined. The night was strangely silent, as though the strange birds of the day were forgotten, just for a moment. She closed her eyes and raised her head, ears pinned against the breeze, against whatever the ocean would throw at her.
She loved it, because it felt like Orestes’ island.
She hated it, because he was not here.
And all the time, she hoped the relic would be spat out by the sea.
@Open !
