BETWEEN THE DESIRE, AND THE SPASM, BETWEEN THE POTENCY, AND THE ESSENCE
BETWEEN THE ESSENCE, AND THE DESCENT, FALLS THE SHADOW. FOR THINE IS THY KINGDOM. FOR THINE IS, LIFE IS, THINE IS THE--
The darkness sings and so does her blood. This is the only kiss Boudika has ever known—the semi-firm pressure of a blade against her throat, taunting, tantalising, and forever a part of her dares, and dares, and dares press harder. There are some who would call it arrogance, or foolhardiness. There are some who might consider it apathetic. But to her, it is always more, indefinite, aloof—
The gleam of a lion’s fangs mid-yawn with all it’s killing power. An orca that breaches the surface with a spray of salt and surf. A wolf that runs, and runs, and runs, forever more honed than whetted steel.
Then the fabricated blade is gone, its edge replaced by her ravenous smile. The stranger’s gaze is locked on hers and Boudika feels as though they dance, and dance, and dance—the shadows may well be fire that separate them, or stage-light, because this intimate lock is one she knows well. It is almost mesmerising. One of them must be the cobra and the other, a sparrow—but who is what? Which is which? Boudika does not know, even as she trails around him cat-quick and cat-slim, the darkness kissing her ankles and her vibrant copper.
“Should I not be accommodating?” she asks. “Should I hide behind shadows, as you do?”
Because he is there, like a sickle moon gleaming between clouds, swallowed in the darkness. Does he not know how bright he still is? Does he not know how much the light would love him, if he let it? He asks, and asks, and asks, but Boudika does not like games. She sees no reason to withhold her truths and she says, with bright pride, “Community.” Let him know how much she loves Denocte; how much she strives to overwatch Caligo’s shadowed community and offer them protection, advice, companionship.
He leans toward her, this man who gives so little, and his mouth is near her ear. For a moment she is shot through the strangeness of it; Boudika is nearly disarmed. The hostility is not there; instead it is replaced by a kind of homesick yearning, a strain for something she cannot comprehend. Would he like to be named, she wonders. Would he like to be known?
What do you think I am?
Boudika does not answer immediately. She sees no reason. Instead, the copper-headed mare allows their proximity to intensify. She leans forward to answer his yearning, her mouth pressed nearly to his ear. She whispers then, quietly, as their comfortable darkness demands: “Only a man.” Her first notions of someone demonic, someone godlike, have been replaced by what she sees him as. A warrior. Utilitarian. Hard. And perhaps, not so unlike herself. His smile, then, belongs to the sky—it is the luminescent sliver of the sun beneath an eclipse, beautiful, tragic, frightening.
The Champion can feel the darkness press closer and closer still; perhaps it is because she has spent so many nights wandering’s Caligo’s court alone, but it does not feel menacing. Boudika tosses her head and the flowers tumble about in her mane, but remain where they were weaved. She feels the touch, then, of his shadows to the petals of one in particular. “It is not much blood.” Is her answer, even as it drips about her lips like so much smudged paint.
Do you want to be scared? This is the question Boudika does not answer. Instead, she glances about him, at the darkness and the way it hovers. In its own way, it is beautiful, even as it is greedy. No, Boudika thinks. She does not want to be scared and she finds, the more she searches, the less capable of fear she is. What could he do to her that has not been done? There is nothing. The only thing Boudika feared was a broken heart and that had had its time and its place. “Are you Denoctian, shadow-caster, light-eater?” Boudika knows the answer already. She asks, regardless, and there is something predatory and sharp within her. She does not recognise him. “Why not let your shadow’s fall? I won’t hurt you.” And that Boudika promises, with a sly and nearly girlish smirk.
But things girlish still do not sit well on her, and as she thinks it one of the carefully chosen flowers falls from her mane.
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS
THIS IS THE WAY THE WORLD ENDS
NOT WITH A BANG BUT A WHIMPER
@Tenebrae
