It is the first time she has ever been kissed.
That is the thought that runs current-smooth between her actions; as he spins away from her and she marvels at her speed, her quickness. As Boudika marvels at her ability to catch him anyway, and press him to the sand like a sacrifice she remains this: a girl who has never been kissed before this strange shadow-caster, daring her.
There have always been barriers between her and the things she loves, the people she loves; there has always been duty, more firm than any physical prevention. There had even been the bars of prison; the weight of her own guilt. Reasons to refrain; reasons to turn away. Perhaps Amaroq had been close, by splitting her open and letting her taste the sea. But even he had not…
Tenebrae had, like temptation incarnate. There ought to be a barrier between them now; but she holds his throat between her teeth like one might clench something half-gone, something too good to let go. His blood is unlike anything she’s ever seen; it is like the blood of a god, dripping hot—hotter than normal—between her teeth, and streaming like liquid sunlight might.
His forelegs have battered her chest; his hoof has torn a crescent-shape mark across her breast, not so unlike the sigil he bares. It drips, drips, drips and is blacker then black.
Yet the Disciple laughs where he lays.
Tenebrae had the gall—and she trembles, still, with want that no longer seems to affect him. Was it a game, she wonders? Had she fallen for it anyway?
Why is she still trembling?
Perhaps it is because he does taste good; and her answer is another sound like the one before, neither moan not gasp nor sigh nor scream but the sea, ragged against the shore. He tastes like her becoming; he tastes like sunlight feels; he tastes like the calm sea; he tastes like salt, want, need. Perhaps it is because where she holds him between her jaws she can feel his pulse and that they are connected, one life into another; perhaps it is because the way his grey skin parts for her is its own kind of religion. Perhaps it is in that Boudika knows, ominously, one bite is not enough; she needs more, she wants more, with a kind of desire that pains her.
Boudika feels the prick of the trident —her eyes role toward it. Now there is anger brewing within her; he has stolen her own weapon, and for a moment the irony strikes her with a bone-deep bitterness.
Have you forgotten? a snide voice asks her. It is her own. That you were once a killer of your own kind? Have you forgotten your own nature?
Boudika watches it, watches it; she flexes her jaws; shifts them just enough to apply a threatening bit of pressure, more, more, until his breath becomes a strained gasping. Boudika has only ever experienced one thing more beautiful than this moment, and it was her own becoming.
Yet—the anger rises, and rises, and rises like the tide does. Slow, and then all at once. She spits him from her jaws and rises in a rear, all in one fluid motion. Boudika stamps at the sand near his face and draws away, lips peeled back into an ugly snarl. It is lit by his own blood.
“Would you like to know, shadow-caster, what it is like to swim in the deep? Where light is a memory? The ocean already swallows the sun; there is no need for you.” If he had missed her fire, it is here now. It is raging in her eyes. “I have spent a lifetime killing more than seals. You forget I have been many things before I have been free. And I will not have you make a game of my nature.”
Boudika is ugly now; her nostrils are thin slits and she already half-belongs to the sea. She pins her wickedly long ears and bares those wickedly long teeth. “Are you so tired of your discipline that you bring your boredom to my life?” Boudika paces and angry, restless line; her tail lashes; her flanks heave like a tiger’s mid-hunt. She does everything she can to not think of what it had felt like to have his throat between her jaws.
She hates the way her mind goes back to the press of his lips against her teeth; and how the memory feels like the branding of mockery. The sea goes, shh, shh, shh and Boudika spits his shining blood from her mouth. Suddenly she steels herself. Suddenly she is as hard, sharp, and apathetic as the edge of a gleaming blade. “Or is it that, try as you may, you cannot devour the sun?”
@Tenebrae || “speech”
