There is no light to blind her; no jewel-bright flowers dangling from her lips; no gleaming trident, no sword of shadows. For the first time in her life, it is only her; it is only her, and there is something girlish, nearly innocent, in the way she stares at him with wide, thoughtful eyes. Boudika is unsurprised when he does not face her with fear; she is unsurprised when his shadows dance, almost playfully, along all the hard, sharp angles of her mouth. It pleases her, even, to be faced with such courage; it reminds her a bit of her own humanity.
Hello, warrior-girl.
Boudika thinks about playing coy; about dancing around the question he asks. But her new nature will not allow it. Her new nature causes her to flick her tail, toss back her head. “When the endless day broke, shadow-caster, and I swam beneath Caligo’s bright moon.”
In her mind’s eye there is Amaroq beneath the waves; there is their dance of teeth, flailing hooves, of bubbles cascading backward toward the shimmering light above. In her mind’s eye, she breaks the surface, she shares her name and something as old as time blooms in her new birth.
But Boudika never saw him again; after the island, he could not be found.
There is bitterness there, soothed only by the whispering shush, shush, shush, the cool lap of waves against her white-dipped ankles, the way the breeze does not chill her to the bone. Then there are Tenebrae's shadows; searching, darting; nearly caressing.
Why does she not mind, the touch of the darkness? The scent of blood, leaden, fills her nostrils; but even with a full stomach there is something dangerously enticing about the beat of his heart, steadier than it ought to be. Boudika is nearly offended as she steps over the carcass, toward him. There is no fear, hot and nearly sensual. (She’s learned, in some dark and animalistic part of her self, just how sensual fear can be; just how it calls her, opening up chaste and willingly, even in its unwillingness.)
“Perhaps you don’t, Tenebrae.” Boudika uses the voice of a coyote cajoling a dog from the warmth of the fire; teasing, tempting, dark, dark, dark. Boudika licks the blood from her lips, from her teeth. Her smile edges down, down, down. There is something leonine about her even now; her tail lashes her flanks and Boudika laughs, too. She is close enough to tempt herself; but in the nature of all predators, her lazy confidence suggests disinterest.
Don’t run she thinks.
I could not help myself.
But Boudika knows he won’t. That is why she presses the issue; why she steps closer again, dragging a hoof lethargically across the soft, wet sand. Boudika could nearly touch him now. If she wanted. If she trusted herself not to be overwhelmed by the heat of his skin, the way all salt—sweat or blood or both—wants to return to the sea. This is why she asks in a voice as achingly full as a wolf’s howl, “Do you still believe I won’t hurt you?”
@Tenebrae
