BETTER THE WIND, THE SEA, THE SALT
than this, this, this
than this, this, this
And yet the wolf has always been able to draw little girls with red cloaks into its grasp without saying a single word.”
The irony rests just beneath the surface of their conversation; it gnarls itself into the opposites of their very selves. Perhaps it is fate, they meet as they do. It must be fate that splices them upon the crosshairs of so many intimacies. To Elena’s comment, Boudika only ghosts a smile; a slight flashing of shark-like teeth there and gone in bright display. Boudika might express just how wolfish she could be, if only she knew: if only she knew of their shared affections, or that sometime in the future Elena would meet Boudika’s old companion and burden him with confessions.
If Boudika knew that, the fresh scent of Elena’s skin might become even more delightful; the thrum of a pulse at her throat would no longer be a mild distraction but, perhaps, a target.
Or, maybe not. It is a realm of hypotheticals, of “what if’s” and “unknowns.” Boudika walks in naivety, listening to the girl’s voice and the forest around them. Elena. The name, too, sounds soft. But Boudika has never met a woman without a bit of sea in her, without a bit of salt, and wildness, and brine. So that when she turns to face Elena again, it is wicked-sharp and devil-bright.
The golden girl says she doesn't know where she is going. But that is not Boudika’s concern. She might have left then, with the mare on the trail pointing toward the Arma, but Elena adds something else:
And you, do you have someone waiting for you tonight, Boudika?
The question finds Boudika unguarded. It is the first time she truly looks away, without Elena even in her peripherals. Boudika faces the deep, dark forest. The question flays her. It is not only Tenebrae who is absent, but Amaroq too; and the vast night opens up before her less like a blossom and more like an abyss. Water horses are not meant to hunt alone; nor wolves; nor lionesses. “No,” Boudika says softly, before stepping off of the trail. There is something guarded to her expression, then; something less predatory and more vulnerable, a girl beneath the veil of beast. “But I don’t need anyone.”
Her mind always, at this point of loneliness, returns to Orestes and his imprisonment. How his brow had bled, and he had bore the burden with the patience of a saint. Her mind always returns to Orestes, last of his kind, and wonders if her loneliness is penance or simply a way to understand the depth of his loss.
Boudika does not turn back when she says, “If you continue on that trail, you will reach the mountain, and the stars. Watch out for wolves, Elena.” It does not take long for Boudika to embrace the darkness and turn back toward the sea.
@Elena "speaks" space for notes
