There was a beach turned to metalliferous earth beneath a unicorn’s hooves. There was a sky made small by a sunset-coloured dragon’s fierce cry. There was an island teeming behind her with the riotous, visceral cries of monstrous birds. There was a monster howling at her back, a monster that forced her forward into the shoreline, hooves just dancing at the edge of the water. There was her, leonine and pacing, red and black and eyes like pooled blood. Restless. Boudika's neck craned to observe the dragon as she flew in tumultuous circles, fearless of the island’s wanton inhabitants. Don’t you know, little beast? her lips twitched. There was more than the too-blue sky above and the ore blossoming at the unicorn’s feet like sick flowers. More than magic, more than mystery. Did Time not also contain the magnetic weight of darkness?
Glancing at Isra’s eyes, Boudika could not help but wonder if it was that pull that had brought them both there, toward the hope of something good. Boudika wanted to say: your iron will kill the sea, but did not, because on another island somewhere far away, somewhere that was as mythic to Novus as the gods, there was an island that Boudika had killed with gold. What right did she have to speak of the sea?
Boudika’s eyes snapped back to the other, younger mare. She spoke aristocratically; she spoke like a fairytale. Boudika was taken aback by the comment—the dragon is not mine own—and what could have been condescending was, instead, a kind correction. Before Boudika could speak, Isra did. I could call a lot of things mine—it means I would die for it.
Once, Boudika would have died for many things. Her father’s approval. Vercingtorix’s love. Glory. Now, her tongue felt like sand. Now, the things she would die for had already come to pass—the opportunity for sacrifice was gone, stagnant. Now she would die to take it back, and the claiming, the statement of mine hung like a noose upon her. Nothing belonged to Boudika, now. My father, my companion, my islands— none of it grew roots in Novus.
A dragon rose from the sea. Boudika's silence laid upon her like chains—she had nothing more to say about claims, about ownership, because she had none. Even the ribbons she wore to dance in were borrowed.
“I am Boudika. It is nice to formally meet you both.” the dancer stated, after a slight pause. The dragon from the sea was all that the dragon above them was not; dark blues and teals, massive, and in another time Boudika would have felt afraid. But today, it did not seem so strange.
And the request was on her lips—the request was there, in her mind. Change me, she wanted to plead. Change me like you change the sand underfoot. “Can you do that to living things?” Boudika asked, at last, forcing the calmness into her voice. She gestured at the earth beneath the unicorn’s hooves with a feigned nonchalance. She thought of Abel, then—the man she had helped imprison and Isra’s cool welcome home. It had been nothing to sentence him. Nothing to erect iron bars over the windows of a bar, transforming it into a prison. But then, perhaps it was everything, to transform the very world around you.
The magic should have been stranger for her, and would have been, if she had not watched horses transform before her eyes into incomprehensible shapes. Orestes had once said, water has no shape—how can we? and the thought had remained with her, poisoning her memories of soldiering. When she revisited thoughts of water horses becoming giant squid or sharks, it was only water that she saw, streaming through the mane of a dappled grey horse, the same colour of the storm overhead.
And more: there was the sense that with each uneasy shift of her weight, Boudika was loosing time. She wanted to ask: what would you do with the relic? but perhaps it didn’t work that way. Perhaps there were no favours from gods.
WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN THEY BUILT YOU YOUR OWN NIGHTMARE? DO YOU EAT THE OTHERS OR DO YOU EAT YOURSELF? BULL'S BELLOWS SHAKING AN ENTIRE FRACTIOUS ISLAND; A GIRL IN THE SHADOWS WHO'LL WEAR STARS ONE DAY. A SISTER'S RED SWEET MOUTH AT THE ENTRANCE TO AN ENDLESS MAZE, STRING DRIPPING BETWEEN MILK-WHITE FINGERS. MERCY, SHE WHISPERS INTO THE NIGHT TERROR, EYES FLICKERING. I'M SENDING YOU MERCY.
