START BY PULLING HIM OUT OF THE FIRE AND HOPING THAT HE WILL FORGET THE SMELL. HE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE AN ANGEL BUT THEY TOOK HIM FROM THE LIGHT AND TURNED HIM INTO SOMETHING HUNGRY, SOMETHING THAT FORGETS WHAT HIS HANDS ARE FOR WHEN THEY AREN'T SHAKING. HE WILL LOSE SO MUCH AND YOU WILL WATCH IT ALL HAPPEN, BECAUSE YOU HAD HIM FIRST, AND YOU WOULD LET THE WORLD BREAK ITS OWN NECK IF IT MEANS KEEPING HIM. START BY WIPING THE BLOOD OFF OF HIS CHIN AND PRETENDING TO UNDERSTAND.
Although there is no tale of recognition, the disappointment that spans the the distance between them fills with the unspoken truths of their own realities. It is almost like recognition; it is almost like two shadows meeting.The banished general’s daughter encounters the unseated queen of the desert kingdom. Somewhere there is a story in that, too. Boudika’s hope is withering flowers; Seraphina’s is a dead garden. And perhaps that is what has brought them there, at the cusp of the ocean, staring into the desolate horizon. Perhaps that is what binds them briefly, randomly. Disappointment. Boudika does not know, but the falling pitch of her voice and the dropping fever of her joy mark the two of them as one of the same.
Has life not disappointed them both? Greatly?
Yes. If any girls know of such a sentiment, it would be a queen dethroned, and a military officer betrayed by her own ethos. And that is a chasm between them. It is only by nearing the other mare, by appraising her with hard garnet eyes, that Boudika understands her mistake in its depth. There is a slant to the woman’s shoulders, an abyss that opens in her eyes, an insurmountable and unnamable gauntness that Orestes once wore, a burden, a cross, to his death. It is fate, he had said. That I am the Prince who will lead my people to despair. My destiny was to hold them at the End. To promise them a future they would never receive. It was not that Boudika knew the truth of the similarity; it was not that she recognized Seraphina as the fallen queen she was. It was merely an echo, a shadow, of something she had seen before. And it struck her chest like a drum, and in her bones resounded the old beat of war, war, war.
Descending the dune, nearing the sea at a sore trot, Boudika is determined to dislike the other mare. It is in the way she wears her burden. It is in the way the vulture descends, gifting the silver mare briefly, ironically, a pair of wings. But Boudika recognises the fallen. She recognises them because they are her people, and her resentment for Seraphina is resentment, instead, for herself. She grits her teeth. She feels the storm welling within her, like so many angry waves tossing at the sea-floor. Yes. With all her rage, her sorrow, she could smooth glass and stone. Her disappointment roots in her like a parasite, like a hunger, and she feels a rawness where once there had been strength.
Then the silver woman speaks and Boudika smirks, wryly—the expression smooth, blade-like, mirthless. It was a relative of a smile, but not a smile. Something crueler. Harder. Because Boudika wants to say there are worse things than monsters but doing so would strip the word of its very meaning. There should be nothing worse than a “monster.” But then again, Boudika has spent her entire life believing water horses were the worst thing she would ever face—until she realised how deeply betrayal can cut. How unforgivingly ignorance castrates.
“I appreciate the warning, but I know.” And then, with a softening to her smile, she adds: “There are worse things than monsters.” She cannot help herself. She strips the word of the meaning, because it is perception, perception, perception. The words come unbidden, and she owns them without lowering her head. It is the most truthful thing she has ever said. Because what is worse than a monster? Becoming one, or tolerating one? What makes a monster? Death, torture, power? She doesn’t know. But the Mad King of Solterra, with all his fearsome rumours, does not frighten her. What frightens her is not knowing whether Orestes rots at the bottom of the sea, because of her. The ocean is singing to her. The ocean is always singing, and she does not know if it is crying, or raucous, joyous. It is just a song. Apathetic to her. And her tail flicks and her ears flick and she aches to know what the waves mean when they go hush-shush-shush against the sand and silver mare.
Boudika steps nearer. As it often did, her anger deflates. It has filled her with all the fury of a desert storm and all the brevity of one. Now, she only feels tired, as she enters the sea step by disheartening step. Her attention remains wearily on the stranger and the vulture until she stands knee-deep, with just enough buoyancy that the waves buffet her, force her to stumble and then step this way or that to keep her balance.
Despite her attempts, she does not dislike the other mare. “Is it your city, he torments?” Boudika asks and as she asks it, staring out toward a horizon she cannot reach, she thinks about drowning. She lifts her head into the breeze and it washes over her, and she thinks of how only months ago she climbed from the sea chafed and confused, uncertain as to how she had survived. Her chains had been struck from her ankles and throat; the salt had left her eyes stinging and her throat so raw she could not speak for a week as she wandered, lost and childlike, through Novus.
She asks: is it your city, he torments and as she asks it her mind is hundreds of miles away, on an island that Novus is indifferent to. And on this island she thinks of the Khashran enslaved in the same bonds she had worn. She thinks of them painted gold, all their Princes dead or lost, and all their souls Bound to never be reincarnated. She thinks of Vercingtorix's face when she confessed her love; she thinks of how her next words came out stutteringly, full of righteous fear, "I am not Bondike. My name is Boudika. It has always been Boudika. I am the general's daughter, not his son--" and how he had turned from her and it had been shadows, shadows, shadows. She thinks of how it felt a little like how the horizon looks stretching before her: untouchable. How he had betrayed her. How they had sentenced her to die. How he had sentenced her to die. And Orestes, with his singing. Orestes, bloodied the night she captured him. Orestes, shark-toothed and howling as the gold seared his flesh. Orestes, saying: It is fate. Orestes, reassuring her. You are not meant to die, Copperhead.
The sea is, again, before her. And her heart aches for the genocide she committed. Her heart aches for the suffering of a city full of people she does not know. Her heart aches for her apathy, for her helplessness. For all her training to do good, for years of being a soldier to do good, it is startlingly clear in that moment she has never done a good thing in her life. And she says: "I am sorry."
But it is unclear if she speaks to the sea, or the silver mare behind her. She realises how disjointed the comment is and she amends herself, awkwardly, with a glance over her shoulder. "For your city. I am sorry, for your city." Because there is no question, with how the woman has warned Boudika against the monster.
REPEAT TO YOURSELF: "I WON'T LEAVE YOU, I WON'T LEAVE YOU" UNTIL YOU FALL ASLEEP AND DREAM OF THE PLACE WHERE NOTHING IS RED. WHEN IS A MONSTER NOT A MONSTER? OH, WHEN YOU LOVE IT. OH, WHEN YOU USED TO SING IT TO SLEEP. HERE ARE YOU UPTURNED HANDS. GIVE THEM TO HIM AND WATCH HOW HE PRAYS, LIKE HE IS LEARNING HIS FIRST WORDS.
@
