the deeper unsatisfied war beneath
and behind the declared war,
and the rubble of beautiful, patiently
workt moonstones, agates, jades, obsidians,
turnd and retrund in the wash of
the tides, the gleaming waste,
the pathetic wonder,
words turnd in the phrases of song
before our song ...or are they
Boudika presses her forehead against the cell bars until the rust on them streaks her bald face in grime. There is a repetitive dink, dink, dink as her horn taps against the bars of her prison. She thinks she is alone, and in her first night of misery—imprisoned by her own people, by the people she had served, fought for, nearly died for!—her mind turns angry circles on itself.
How had he betrayed her?
What had she done, to earn that betrayal? Tears well in her eyes as she thinks of the nights they had shared, late, discussing strategy or their fathers or their dreams. She knew everything about him! They were everything but lovers; they were deeper than that, they were companions, and she knew he felt the same. She had been so certain, when she told him that she was not Bondike, had never been Bondike, but always Boudika—yes, she had been so certain he would not be bothered by the change, by the minute difference between a masculine “e” and feminine “a”.
Boudika simply didn’t understand why it had to make a difference.
The tears flow in earnest, now, as she glances out at the moonlit sea. The prison stands above the ocean on the cliffside, made of black cliff-rock. It is the second oldest building on Oresziah, after the church, covered in lichen and runic symbols. The windows beyond her cell are barred rather than glassed, and the cool wind howls angrily into the cellar where she is kept. Boudika shivers and ruts her head against the bars. She knows she should think of escape but she knows, more intimately, more personally, she doesn’t have anything to escape to.
A sob wracks her body.
“My people say tears are simply the ocean in our bodies trying to get back to the mother sea.”
The voice shocks her from her reprieve—Boudika starts, her eyes flicking anxiously around the cellar.
She is a fool for not seeing the silhouette in the cell next to her.
She is a fool for forgetting that he, The Prince of a Thousand Shapes, was also imprisoned.
He looks at her through the bars and she sees the blood streak down his forehead from his Binding. An ornate sun has been burned into his flesh with gold and copper wiring, and the wiring itself still rests upon his brow like a crown. He is the king of the desolate; the King of Losing Everything.
“I—I don’t understand.” It is all she can manage.
His sea-eyes glitter, almost mischievously. They are gem-bright even in the dark, in the same way the sea shines even in a black night. “You will, one day.”
— — — —
By the time they make it to the cave, Boudika has no energy left. Unlike Tenebrae, Boudika did not have to wait for monks to punish her sins; the sea did it gleefully in the form of waves that rose, mountainous, above them. With each terrible crash Boudika, with a powerful coiling of muscles, rocketed them to the surface once more. This process was repeated again, and again, and again, until what must have only been an hour or two became a lifetime of atonement. She has now crawled, half-drowned, into the cave nestled deep within the cliffside. It offers far more shelter than the land would, in such a storm, and she knows it intimately. It is the cave she has sought refuge in time and time again, upon discovering her new powers, upon neglecting her role as the Night Court Champion of Community—
As Boudika thinks it, she is filled with even more remorse. What does that even mean, anymore she wonders. Her actions would suggest that it means nothing.
She lays at the entrance of the cave silently. Her eyes are closed, and her mind is a repetitive rush and whir of the waves, the crashing, the thunderous boom of the storm. Boudika feels as if the weight of it rests evenly across her shoulders, until she remembers that is where she bore Tenebrae’s weight. Somehow she breathes out and sea water sprays from her still-soaked nostrils. She transforms from a crocodile into a mare and stumbles, somehow, to her feet.
The transformation feels like how she imagines it would feel to push something opaque through the heart, something leaden. It feels heavy and as she begins to walk toward the back of the cave—it winds, deep, deep into the cliffside—Boudika experiences a weariness she has not felt since the last time she went to war.
It makes her wonder if, perhaps, that is what is waged between herself and Tenebrae. Perhaps they are at a war of sorts, one she has never known. Is it a war of wills? A war of… Boudika doesn’t know. Even looking at him in the darkness fills her with embarrassment and shame. The resonant echo of the crashing ocean reminds her of it, too. There is a part of her that believes if she is what she acted as—a monster—she should have killed him, to be true to herself and her nature. She should have drowned him for his refusal to… to—
To what?
And she remembers Amaroq beneath the magic water of the island, the way they had been suspended there in the ribbons of Boudika’s blood as she became him. A water horse. Even as she thinks it she feels as hollow as the cave they inhabit. Even as she thinks it her chest aches ferociously, and her eyes well again not with sea water but tears. Luckily, it is dark, and she is still leading him further into the shelter.
At last, Boudika reaches the end of the winding cave. The hard purchase of stone has given way to softer, black sand. She cannot see in the absolute darkness, but has frequented the cave often enough to know the exact location of the flint. The last time she left the cave she had arranged the fire starting materials neatly, for easier access, and it was useful now in her absolute exhaustion. With trembling telekinesis, Boudika reaches for tinder and flint and starts a small, small fire in the dark. Within a few minutes, she feeds the fire with wood stashed upon a deep, drier nook in the wall. Eventually, it is light enough she can see Tenebrae across from her, and the cave reveals itself as a simple dwelling safe from the storm outside. Still, his face seems marblesque, carved beautifully from rough stone into something smooth, and furious.
With the fire the space between them begins to warm. Boudika had not realised how thoroughly she shook, how deeply the cold reaches into her bones. She stands before the flames and continues to feed them, piece by piece of wood. She is ravenous and disgusted at her own hunger; her stomach churns and self-deprecatingly she thinks, perhaps if I were still civilised, I’d have kept meat stores in this place. But she has not. There is no food, no fresh water, only the howling sea to keep them contained.
It is more and more difficult for Boudika to look at him squarely. She thinks of her reaction to him, when he had asked, show me. She cringes at how deeply she had misinterpreted her meaning, how vulnerable she had made herself with her confessions. Boudika opens her mouth to speak several times, but refrains, and the tension between them stretches taunt as a bow. She understands he must also be exhausted, but each glance at his face reveals the puckered and still bleeding wound her teeth had wrought. Boudika swallows heavily.
“Can you do anything besides unmake things?” Vercingtorix demands. “Can you do anything besides hurt those around you? Your father was the only one… the only one—“ he cuts off. The rising sun shines too brightly through the windows. It catches on the metallic accents of his face and turns his eyes to a raging, too-deep green. Boudika cannot look at him, but it doesn’t matter. He cannot look at her, either.
“Why didn’t you just—“ his voice cuts off tiredly. He leaves.
It is the only time he visits.
Boudika torments herself over what he had meant to ask.
The silence becomes unbearable.
Her voice is small, and girlish, and terribly uncertain when she says, “Tenebrae.”
A long pause. The storm cracks outside. The water swells at the distant entrance, and she hears it lap, lap, lapping against the stone.
“Tenebrae. I am sorry.”
It is understated, simple. Boudika has never had usage for apologies because, even when genuine, they never repair the damage. Her father is the one who taught her that, by never apologising for anything. He had made her what she was, with his prayers to arcane gods to disguise her as a boy. Boudika almost wonders, with the storm, if those pagan deities had followed her even here. If they still own her.
"Speech" || @Tenebrae || Eeeee sorry this is all over the place and a literal mONSTER POST
beautiful, patiently workt remembrances of those
long gone from me,
returned anew, ghostly in the light
of the moon, old faces?
For Thetis, my mother, has promised
me a boat,
a lover, an up-lifter of my spirit
into the rage of my first element
rising, a princedom
in the unreal, a share in Death
