WERE I IF I COULD, I WOULD ERASE YOUR ARMOUR
RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND, BURNISHED HEAD TO HEEL
BY THE SUN, A VERITABLE GOD
I WOULD TAKE YOUR SPEAR
AND RETURN THE LYRE
RIGHT WHERE YOU STAND, BURNISHED HEAD TO HEEL
BY THE SUN, A VERITABLE GOD
I WOULD TAKE YOUR SPEAR
AND RETURN THE LYRE
For one thinking so intimately about death, Boudika feels light. Her burdens have been left elsewhere, in another life, and in this one she does not carry with her the hardships of death. Not yet. No, for now, she only harbours memories of men who may as well be myth. She is a ship in uncharted waters; a wanderer upon a new vista. Yet, Boudika is sharply aware of the fact she is surrounded by death. Perhaps, like Charon at the River Styx, she is only meant to be a ferryman between. The thought strikes her more harshly than she intended, and for a moment she wonders at it—if, perhaps, that had always been her role.
But for now, there is a snarling tiger and a girl like a phoenix. The Emissary wears her grief as though it is not grief; she wears it as though it is a weight, leadening her eyes, pressing mournful kisses upon bowing shoulders. Boudika understands her question is too forward, but she does not try and take it back. She lets the silence stretch just as the Emissary does, feeling a hunger, voracious within her, to understand. The only grief she has ever known has belonged to her and this grief, staring at her in fire-eyes and a silver portrait, is as foreign as the land she now inhabits. There is a shift on the mare’s face, as though she is about to answer, and then—
“That is a good question.” The voice is abrasive. Boudika turns, her ears cocking forward, to assess Morrighan as she arrives. The other mare's rage is epitomised in the fire that burns at her hooves.
The silence stretches between the Warden and the Emissary, and for a moment the Champion is at a loss. The silence is too heavy for there not to be history shared between the two, and the awkward drawing of tension—taunter than the drawn string of a bow in war—is enough to affirm the fact. They share words and Boudika assesses them both, until Moira introduces herself.
Boudika clears her throat. “I am Boudika. I’m the new Champion of Community.” The title did not quite fit in her mouth the way it ought to, but Boudika discovers a warmth in Moira that was not there previously. The Emissary goes on to answer Boudika's initial question, and there is a tragedy within the story.
Remembrance. Before he was a tyrant…
Boudika nods her head, side-eyeing Morrighan as Moira shares. "I see.” The once-a-dancer thinks she understands, and contemplates sharing her own truths on the matter—before she refrains. At last, Boudika shrugs her supple, leonine shoulders. “Perhaps he should be remembered all the more because he went mad.” She looks at the portrait, then, for the first time—and she sees a man she only ever knew by name and reputation. A tyrant. Boudika knows little of tyrants; but she has known plenty fo mad men. She is intimately familiar with love, and death, and hate—and perhaps there is wisdom in mourning all of those things, and what they can become. Raum's silver eyes watch them, even in death, and Boudika wonders naively if she could have saved them their suffering, if only she had been a part of the story.
“Why do you hate him?” This matter-of-fact question is for Morrighan. Boudika knows the answer is most likely obvious, but there is a power to demanding the truth of it from someone, in demanding their reasonings. She wants to know why the painted woman burns.
