THE SEA SPEAKS MORE HONESTLY
TO THOSE WILLING TO DROWN
It is always the darkness that tries and keeps them separated, blooming up like flowers, like a thousand incomprehensible shapes. In this way it nearly reminds Boudika of the sea; caressing; hungry; all consuming. It wants so many things at once and colours her with dark, dark, dark—or is it that it robs her of the light? And just when Boudika thinks she has pushed him too far and his darkness might consume her after all, he laughs aloud; the sound is rough and for a moment, inexplicably, she is reminded of Vercingtorix.
Boudika does not expect the memory; it shocks her, however, because the correlation is not that they are similar. It is that she finds the sound incredibly attractive, and for a moment she is not a kelpie, she is not a creature of the sea, she is a girl remembering what it felt to have her heart broken by the only man she had ever given it to. That is why her next comment emerges in such a snarl; it is why she is left wondering what is different about a monk.
And all I have learned is that women are never, ever worth it.
I do not know how to dance. You pick the wrong man, Boudika. Just when she believes she has pushed him too far—and perhaps, herself—his mouth nearly brushes hers. The almost-gesture strikes her more utterly than if he had made contact; it runs her through with extraordinary tension and it feels as if she is on a hunt, as if she is stalking the reeds tiger-like and silent for more than a meal—
Boudika knows he is nothing like Vercingtorix. In his piety, he will forever be different; in his piety, he will forever be safe. And the thought is just enough to take the carnal edge from her actions; it is just enough for Boudika to lean her shoulder into him, soft rather than threatening, and she realises in doing so just how badly she wishes she could be touched. In her new form, in her new experience, she has been afraid to make contact of any kind; she has stayed from her few friends and been wandering, wraith-like, the woods and the sea.
If his tension has faded, so has hers. I have pomegranates for you, too. Boudika does not expect it, but he presents the anvils. His voice is more a growl, a groan, than what it had been before; and she sees in it her own slipping control reflected. She is not hungry as she had been moments away. I should throw them away. I should leave you. And immediately Boudika says, “Please don’t. Please.” Her voice is uncharacteristically raw; the impulse of the comment leaves her embarrassed and very girl-like her face flushes.
If the sea were there, she would run to it. She would have the water caress her until she no longer wanted the touch of another creature; she would keen to the deep and wait, poignantly, for an answer. If the sea were nearer, she would become the surf, the waves, the hunger of the limitless beast. She would not be a woman; the salt would not feel so far from her skin. Everything is too warm; the fire; the dancers; and before the danger had been in her teeth and now, she realises, it is all in him. Do not play games with me, Boudika.
She does not mean to; but she is split between wanting and knowing, already, how these things end. When Boudika looks at him now her face is not split with an animal’s hunger; the feral, nearly unhinged wildness that had been visible mere moments ago is replaced with something tender, and young, and vulnerable.
Boudika thinks of Vercingtorix and his betrayal. She thinks of Orestes and his voice, velveteen, it is in your nature. She thinks of Amaroq and his disappearance. And the thing bursting in her chest is a wild, heady fear; the fear of life on the edge; the fear of wanting what could be knowing reality and want rarely coincide.
Finally, breathless and rugged, she says, “I wish you could swim with me, Tenebrae.” Boudika does not meet his eyes. She stares at the pomegranates; she lets the crowd of dancers swallow them and, perhaps, their audacity is not so unlike the sea. Music rushes in her ears and everything smells of flesh and sweat; the fire gleams in places where Tenebrae’s shadows do not reach. But between them their space seems silent, subdued; the darkness makes it a private affair. And Boudika says, “I do not play games. I simply don’t know how to give my heart away.” And for a moment, transient and ephemeral, she is not the complicated intricacies of her past, or her becoming.
She is just a woman.
And in that moment, admitting her vulnerability, she has never felt so alone.
@Tenebrae
