Listen.
Listen, listen.
The sea is singing. Do you hear her?
A mare stands on the seashore. The surf laps at her ankles; foam twists about them, enticingly. And out the ocean darts, back and away, to the dark and mysterious depth that contains everything. Then: a pause. Then: she comes back, sweetly, licking at the mare's ankles and hooves.
The moon is not full; it is somewhere between, bleeding the light from everything. Beneath her silver brilliance, Boudika is only two colours: black, and darker black. Her face and legs are the only thing that differ. Her face and legs; they are the colour of bone-white death, the same shade of a blanched face, the colour of fear.
She stands listening, listening:
To something like a heartbeat,
to something like a song,
to something fathomless,
ageless,
eternal,
forever,
more.
It is a conversation with a god. Her ears flick forward, entranced. The sea goes shush, shush, shush against the shore. She steps forward—
it bats at her knees, now.
Further, further,
at her chest.
With a keening wail, she dives beneath the surface.
— — —
When Boudika emerges, the seal’s life-blood drips down her chin. The thing struggles in her jaws but she spits it on the shore where the sea sings a eulogy.
She stares at what she has conquered; what she has killed. And does her blood not rise to meet the ocean’s crescendo? Does it not rush in her ears, in her mind?
Listen…
Listen,
the sea is singing, the waves against the sand, a shush, shush, the crash of water against the shore. Listen, listen; the sea is singing! There is death beneath the surface. There is a monster outside the waves, with flanks heaving like a tiger’s, dark and striped and slick with salt.
Boudika senses him as she feasts. She senses him, as if through a dream;
does he know how heavily he breathes, or the intimate tempo his heart?
She does.
Does he know his body smells like salt, sweat; meat..?
She does.
Does he know he is answering the song?
A cloud passes over the moon.
Boudika raises her head from the carcass. She says, in a voice that rushes with the tide, “Hello again, shadow-caster.” Her mouth is a ghastly grin.
Can you hear it? Can you hear it?
@Tenebrae
