How I sliced through countless
men trying to build a
monument to the monster
I was after your body
blazed before me.
—
When she breaks the surface of the water, there is the faintest hint of sunlight on the horizon, a rosy pink blush that seeps into the sky. Water drips from her face and into her eyes and for once, it does not matter. For once, this small, sacred moment belongs utterly to her. There is no death; only the tumultuous power of rebirth, of tomorrow.
Boudika's entire life has revolved around small, sacred moments. This is one of them, where seconds are priceless, where each breath represents a small infinity. There is something still within her; it is as if a part of her soul has been screaming for weeks, months, years, and only just now has she noticed it. And Boudika only notices it because, for the first time in her life, it is silent.
Her mind recollects seconds that exist as intimately and vulnerably as a heartbeat, steady, nearly predictable, and the focus of life itself. Even as she thinks it—the beautiful transiency of it—she recognises the fragility of hearts. Yes. It is so special here, so sacred, because they are keepers of a dying secret. A dying breed. The knowledge, foreign and nearly philosophical, is something that possess her mind even as it becomes more feral, more instinctual.
Boudika knows the exact point where, behind the shoulder, the heart lies. She knows, with disciplined precision, the exact force a spear must be thrust to shatter the ribs. In a frontal assault with a trident, when jerked upward into the chest, may cleave through the dense pectoral muscle. But it will all to often catch in the bone of the sternum, leaving the attacker vulnerable to the very thing they attack. She knows the press, press, press of a body that refuses to die, to relent, to vanquish. And she thinks of this because in those moments when there is nothing but crystalline clarity and the steady drum, drum, drum of a heart that continues to beat. Rebirth. Rebirth. Rebirth. She thinks of it because she has been locked chest-to-chest with so many monsters and only now she realises it had only been her that was the beast.
Amaroq's blood is still on her mouth and for the first time she feels pinpricks of teeth at her gums. Everything is copper. Boudika feels a strange poignancy--as if her blood has field with adrenaline-- in the way that her body nearly rejects the air, too fetid, rotting with too much jungle and magic. There is something sweeter in holding her breath… something sacred in the predatory stillness beneath the waves and already she longs to return to it, already she wonders what it feels like to hunt, and rests her face low against the water so that little but her eyes, nostrils, and ears remain exposed—
Boudika would have rested in the silence of the night for an eternity. To speak, she feels, would ruin the timeless communion that stretches between them. Instead she sees, for the first time, the way his eyes are the same darkness of the sea and sky. The tangled ornaments in his mane have a new meaning, a new significance, and already there is a primal part of her that wants to know where did you earn this bit of bone, this bit of shell, this bit of sea?
He breaks the silence with the only question that would not wrench her, unwilling, from their extraordinary moment. What is your name?
She does not answer for a long time. In her pause, there is only the splash of the waves against their bodies. Building within her is a new, archaic language; a keening like whales. Boudika wants him to lead her; she wants him to teach her to be, unrestrained and unlimited, in the way of all wild things. To be an unfettered soul. To be the sea. What is your name? In that silence is his answer: the gust overhead, the lap of water, the way she lifts her head up as if to pray.
It is only when Boudika lowers it again, from the stars and the gods as their sole witnesses, that she swims close. Again, their knees brush, their legs, and she is nearly chest-to-chest with him—yes, there, where a trident could never reach the heart—so that she can press her lips and newfound teeth against his ear and whisper,
“Boudika.”
@Amaroq "speaks"
Boudika's entire life has revolved around small, sacred moments. This is one of them, where seconds are priceless, where each breath represents a small infinity. There is something still within her; it is as if a part of her soul has been screaming for weeks, months, years, and only just now has she noticed it. And Boudika only notices it because, for the first time in her life, it is silent.
Her mind recollects seconds that exist as intimately and vulnerably as a heartbeat, steady, nearly predictable, and the focus of life itself. Even as she thinks it—the beautiful transiency of it—she recognises the fragility of hearts. Yes. It is so special here, so sacred, because they are keepers of a dying secret. A dying breed. The knowledge, foreign and nearly philosophical, is something that possess her mind even as it becomes more feral, more instinctual.
Boudika knows the exact point where, behind the shoulder, the heart lies. She knows, with disciplined precision, the exact force a spear must be thrust to shatter the ribs. In a frontal assault with a trident, when jerked upward into the chest, may cleave through the dense pectoral muscle. But it will all to often catch in the bone of the sternum, leaving the attacker vulnerable to the very thing they attack. She knows the press, press, press of a body that refuses to die, to relent, to vanquish. And she thinks of this because in those moments when there is nothing but crystalline clarity and the steady drum, drum, drum of a heart that continues to beat. Rebirth. Rebirth. Rebirth. She thinks of it because she has been locked chest-to-chest with so many monsters and only now she realises it had only been her that was the beast.
Amaroq's blood is still on her mouth and for the first time she feels pinpricks of teeth at her gums. Everything is copper. Boudika feels a strange poignancy--as if her blood has field with adrenaline-- in the way that her body nearly rejects the air, too fetid, rotting with too much jungle and magic. There is something sweeter in holding her breath… something sacred in the predatory stillness beneath the waves and already she longs to return to it, already she wonders what it feels like to hunt, and rests her face low against the water so that little but her eyes, nostrils, and ears remain exposed—
Boudika would have rested in the silence of the night for an eternity. To speak, she feels, would ruin the timeless communion that stretches between them. Instead she sees, for the first time, the way his eyes are the same darkness of the sea and sky. The tangled ornaments in his mane have a new meaning, a new significance, and already there is a primal part of her that wants to know where did you earn this bit of bone, this bit of shell, this bit of sea?
He breaks the silence with the only question that would not wrench her, unwilling, from their extraordinary moment. What is your name?
She does not answer for a long time. In her pause, there is only the splash of the waves against their bodies. Building within her is a new, archaic language; a keening like whales. Boudika wants him to lead her; she wants him to teach her to be, unrestrained and unlimited, in the way of all wild things. To be an unfettered soul. To be the sea. What is your name? In that silence is his answer: the gust overhead, the lap of water, the way she lifts her head up as if to pray.
It is only when Boudika lowers it again, from the stars and the gods as their sole witnesses, that she swims close. Again, their knees brush, their legs, and she is nearly chest-to-chest with him—yes, there, where a trident could never reach the heart—so that she can press her lips and newfound teeth against his ear and whisper,
“Boudika.”
@Amaroq "speaks"
