PEEL BACK MY SKIN, REVEAL HARD FIBRES, BITE MARKS, SCARS FROM WIND AND RAIN. LIFE IS PAIN—I WON’T TELL YOU ANY DIFFERENT. JUST THAT SOMETIMES, AVOIDING WHAT YOU FEAR ISN’T THE ANSWER. SEE? ALL THESE YEARS MY BRANCHES SANG WITH BIRDS AND MY LEAVES DRANK SUNLIGHT—I HAVEN’T MISSED MUCH. MY HEARTWOOD HARDENS SLOWLY OVER TIME—FIRST TO THE MUSIC, THEN, TO THE LIGHT.
Welcome home.
There are two almost-monster girls meeting in the darkness of a pariah goddess.
There is an excommunicated soldier turned champion, a once-slave turned queen, held together in the foyer of a dark castle.
Outside metal forms leaves of grass and inside white ivy crawls up the wall like so much lace.
And Boudika thinks:
Yes.
Something within her breaks, something inconsequential and sad. There is a feeling within her chest like a growing pain, and as the Night Queen tosses her head like a lioness Boudika bows hers like a bull. Yes. More fiercely this time. Boudika recognises the break within her is the last barrier, the final stand. Yes, this is home. And admitting it has the same effect as releasing a great and terrible burden. Boudika sighs, and that great weight is gone. Her head lifts and she says, quietly: ”I would like a tour very much."
Isra has not waited for her; but Boudika’s legs are already carrying her forward into the dark hallway of which Isra speaks. Boudika’s eyes search for magic, for transformation. She does not know when the magic became so holy to her, but it has, and within her there is a desperate urge to see more. For now, Boudika is met with darkness and an intimacy like the womb. She hears Isra’s steps and her own echo across the stones and, together, they sound like many instead of two. The silence is at once profound and foreign; Boudika, when straining, can hear the steady draw of Isra’s breaths.
It has been a very long time since she has been so close to another. Her mind briefly thinks of the dangerous temptation of Amoraq’s proximity, how his body sings to hear like the sea, and Boudika pushes the thought away. Different. That is different. That pull was like gravity. This was easier, the familiar caress of a river around a stone.
It is even darker within the castle than the night outside; Boudika finds herself sticking closer and closer to Isra's side, unfamiliar with the castle that will become her home. Surprisingly, there is no melancholy or malice within the shadows. Instead, the darkness provides a quiet blanket, a protective cocoon. It strips from Boudika her earlier contemplations. In this moment, there is only Isra, only Boudika, and the dark pitch of night.
”How much of the castle have you transformed?" Boudika wonders, aloud. She remembers the ivy from mere moments ago, and feels a hope within her chest as fragile as a songbird. It amazes her that Isra is capable of changing objects into other things; in breathing life into the inanimate; with sheer will, altering the image of the living. It is something she wished she could learn, but Boudika knows little of magic. “I know we talked about your magic once, but I can’t remember. Were you born with it?”
Boudika’s voice sounds strange to her own ears and after a moment, she realises why: there is no false depth, no masculine roughness. Her voice is light, nearly singsong, and Boudika hardly recognises it. There is a girlish hope within it, one she has not heard… in all her life.
