BETTER THE WIND, THE SEA, THE SALT
than this, this, this
than this, this, this
You aren’t, are you? Boudika. Forgive me.
It is her asking for forgiveness that makes Boudika want to devour her whole. For her prettiness. For her naivety, travelling alone, at night, in a woods that would devour her if Boudika didn’t. Or perhaps it is pride, that drives this stranger. There has always been an overlap in Boudika’s mind, between innocence and arrogance.
It appears when Boudika transforms from beast to girl. Elena smirks; the expression is either confidence, or bravado. And isn’t that what the wolf said? Boudika returns the smile, but it is humourless; the gesture merely exposes the length of her lips and the bright flash of her teeth in her too-long, too predatory mouth. “No,” Boudika says. “The wolf never says anything at all to somehow who cannot howl.”
Then the smile is gone. “Yes. I can.” Not yes, I will.
But Boudika does not focus on that particular. She turns with the same deftness as the predatory cat she had been moments before, and leads them back to a more cleared trail. Boudika does not feel the need to speak for several long moments; only her body does, in the perceptive turning of her ears and the leonine, predatory curl of her tail. At last the copper-headed mare turns to ask, “And why are you here at night? You’ve yet to give me your name.” The words fit strangely in her mouth, as if they are too large, too foreign; Boudika has not spoken for longer than is appropriate, she thinks.
And yet, even as she speaks—even as she plays the part of civil—she sounds distracted. Her attention is drawn back to the world beyond the trees that hedge the trail. Yes. The chorus of nightlife surrounds them; the hot scent of life envelopes them. Beneath the tree canopy, the heat of day seems to linger; the wind whispers its own language through the branches of the trees. Boudika wants to answer it; she wants to pursue all the scents it brings.
And then, of course, the soft smell of the mare beside her. Flesh, and blood, and Terrastella. She looks like sunshine; in another life, Boudika would have dwelt on that. Not in this one. Not when she wants to act out on each carnal delight in her mind, and it is only the memory of civility that makes her refrain.
@Elena "speaks" space for notes
