HERE IS WHAT THEY DON'T TELL YOU: ICARUS LAUGHED AS HE FELL. THREW HIS HEAD BACK AND YELLED INTO THE WINDS, ARMS SPREAD WIDE, TEETH BARED TO THE WORLD. (THERE IS A BITTER TRIUMPH IN CRASHING WHEN YOU SHOULD BE SOARING.)
The silence would have unnerved her if it were not a tactic Boudika had used herself, in the past. Certainly. She would have been squirming beneath the silver woman’s gaze; uncomfortable as the silence grew, and grew. For those eyes bore into her, and they were glacial; eyes that belonged not to the sea but to stone, unmoving, unamused. There was a predatory smile to accompany the stare. All teeth and, also, ghastly—not unlike the creature her ship depicted with so little tact. Boudika’s anger simmered; but anger was, perhaps, the wrong word. Was it disgust? Was it intrigue? The emotion rolled within her stomach, and more than anything, it seemed a little righteous. But Boudika could not be righteous; Boudika knew this, more intimately than any other truth. You have no right to feel this rage.
“An interesting reputation you keep, Silver Captain.” But Boudika had not heard of her reputation. The word “captain” was spoken with the tight regard of a soldier for a general, with no intonation or expression to suggest sarcasm. Merely a straight face, apathetic—or—murderous? Boudika did not know the woman’s name. She knew nothing else about her—and yet, what Boudika knew was enough. The ghastly carving remained in her mind and it soiled her trips to the docks; to Boudika, the silver captain was a much a part of the myth as the ship itself. She did not need a name, or an identity; the carving preceded all of that, spoke louder than any words the woman might share. Explained. Reckoned.
The knife hung in the air.
Her eyes settled on it, in the way water would before a storm; so, so still. What existed within her then was something primordial; something feral. It was years and years of seeing knives or fangs and knowing that survival could hinge on a nanosecond reaction, on a reaction that was not thought but pure, visceral physicality. And so her eyes were indifferent but burning; her eyes were a tiger’s eyes.
There was nothing more violent than a knife suspended, a knife ready to sentence. You have no right to feel this rage.
But Boudika was not afraid. There was little left in the world that would unsettle her; unnerve her. Only the sea in a storm. Only the sea on a calm day, beseeching. The woman was smiling in a way that should have been terrible. She was smiling in a way that ought to have evoked something in Boudika; but the huntress cocked her head, and a lion paced behind her eyes. The Captain's expression was one of ugly cruelties, and perhaps that only emphasised Boudika's dislike. She disdained cheap smiles; malevolent smiles; and the thought drew Amoraq to her briefly, violently, but it was not the same.
Boudika returned the trick; a long silence, a rotting silence that ended with a vague answer. “I don’t want anything.” I want to burn your ship. I want to never share my love for them; my hate for them. But those were things she could not say. And to see the anger in her eyes as hate would be a mistake; it was jealousy, insipid and unsuited for such a proud creature. Possessive, disgusted. “I think there are better ways to show a myth, or a story, or a killing. That’s all.”
Her voice came out light, airy; and now the biting tone was there, in full. “There is no tact.” For a moment, brief and pure, Boudika wondered if the captain saw her as a pacifist. A naive and ignorant girl. It would not be a lie, in the moment—but if her entire life had been stretched out, observed, it would certainly be misleading. She had finished a genocide. She had slaughtered—by her hand or not—the everlasting Prince of a Thousand Tides and somewhere, in the dark sea, she imagined he rotted at the ocean floor bound in iron chains and covered in gold. An entire species of water horse; forever condemned; forever dead. She knew the ones that remained were Bound in slavery far from the sea, with muzzles of gleaming metal.
To see the carving was to see a tiger cartooned; to see a beast brought low, disrespectfully, ignorantly, and her people had always accomplished such feats only through the glory of hard-wrought metal and the blood of their own children. To see it shown so cheaply was a disgrace. “And what is it you captain, Captain? Where do you sail, on your pirate ship?” A hope, iridescent and foolish, rose in her: Oresziah? and already Boudika knew she did not want a woman such as this anywhere near her homeland, as traitorous as it may have been. At the thought of Oresziah, her anger deflated--the twisting monster of her jealousy was slain.
Perhaps Boudika felt so strongly because she saw herself in the woman's cool eyes. They are monsters, she had believed for so very long. There is nothing beautiful about them, except in death.
And then there was Orestes. Orestes, with a soul larger than life could contain. Orestes, with his reincarnations, with his old, old heart. Orestes, who was the sea. Orestes, who had forgiven her. Orestes, who she had loved when he sang. And in her mind was the last song, the lost song, as her head fell below the waves and her world went dark. In her mind, was the song that lead her to Novus. And her stomach twisted because once, once, she had hated them too.
THE WAX SCORCHED HIS SKIN, RAN BLAZING TRAILS DOWN HIS BACK, HIS THIGHS, HIS ANKLES, HIS FEET. FEATHERS FLOATED LIKE PRAYERS PAST HIS FINGERS, CLOSE ENOUGH TO SNATCH BACK. DEATH BREATHED BURNING KISSES AGAINST HIS SHOULDERS, WHERE HIS WINGS JOINED THE HARNESS. THE SUN PAINTED EVERYTHING IN SHADES OF GOLD. (THERE IS A CERTAIN BEAUTY IN SETTING THE WORLD ON FIRE AND WATCHING FROM THE CENTRE OF THE FLAMES.)
@Locust
