EVERY HEART'S A HURRICANE, EVERY SOUL A STARLIT SEA
When the body falls into the water, Boudika looks up.
It is a predator’s instinct that does it; the comprehensive sensitivity of a beast that hunts to eat. She cocks her head where she rests among the sea-grass, watching. The current breaking upon the rocks creates a flurry of foam and flotsam; but the girl’s body catches in a backdraft, a drift that carries her from the rocks and deeper into the sea. Of course she is struggling. Kicking, and floundering, and beating her wings—yes, wings. Boudika observes the ineptness of a thing meant for flight now in the sea; how heavy must those feathers become, she wonders, when salted and soaked, their protective oils washed clean by the unwanted baptism? Even beneath the water they fill like sails meant for wind; but there is no wind, only those tumultuous currents. The girl is dragged down, down, down, down—
Boudika waits a moment more, deciding. There is no need for her resurface; the air does not burn in her lungs. She feels infinite and strong; merciless and strange; godlike.
Then:
With a powerful coiling of her muscles, the kelpie propels herself from the alcove in which she rests. It is no easy thing to fight the currents, and so she does not. Boudika rides the same one that drags the struggling mare; she tucks her body and, streamline, finds herself near enough to grip the pegasus at the nape of her neck. The touch is almost a kiss, but more: a bite. Boudika’s rowed, leopard-seal like teeth find purchase on whatever available flesh she can find.
The flavour bursts in her mouth; but Boudika does not focus on it. She rips Charlie upward and out of the downward current into a more neutral part of the sea. They have quickly, quickly been dragged from the rocks and the shore; Boudika allows air to escape her cracked jaws and the bubbles go up, blood-streaked. She follows them with her eyes and, then glancing at the pegasus, jerks her chin toward the surface.
After what seems like an eternity, with Boudika helping if necessary, the two reach the surface. The emergence is nothing exciting for the kelpie; she keeps her face nearly level with the profile of the water, only briefly disoriented by their distance from the shore.
“I will take you back.” There is something sweet in her voice, a note full of tired longing. Unless…… you’d rather stay...
