It is a dark, dark night.
The moon is half-full - somewhere around there, anyway - it is hard to tell, cloudy as it is. Sometimes August can make out the shine of it, a foggy bottom of a glass, a torch-glow through the trees. On and off it rains, enough to make everything damp but not to soak it to the bone. It’s chilly, but the wind is low, and the thought of the bonfires back in town is enough to keep him warm, for now.
It’s habit - old habit - that’s brought him to the sea. Ever since leaving Tartarus he’s been prone to wandering at odd hours, and ever since he was a belly-high boy he’s been prone to watching the sea. Now there’s hardly anything to see of it - a thin gleam on the water - but he listens to the waves lap, gently. He can’t tell whether the tide is coming or going, and there are no ships on the water - bad weather for it, too dark, and besides this stretch of beach has some rocks a hundred yards out or so that have caused more than one wreck in recent years. There’s probably treasure out there, somewhere.
When he first hears the creature surface - the slick of something coming out of water, and the unmistakable sound of a drawn breath - he thinks it’s a seal, maybe even a whale. August pauses in his walking and turns toward the water, watching for nothing but motion, and only when the thing moves do his eyes find it. In the darkness it’s only a silhouette, vaguely horse-shaped, and his ears twist back. He has his sword on him, but he’s out of the practice of using it.
But just then the clouds part for a moment (like a thing surfacing from the sea) and there in the moon-glow he sees a broad white face, and dark shoulders, and twisting dark spires of horns.
August squints in disbelief. “Boudika?” he shouts, and his voice carries over the water, and the moon slips away again.
@Boudika
The moon is half-full - somewhere around there, anyway - it is hard to tell, cloudy as it is. Sometimes August can make out the shine of it, a foggy bottom of a glass, a torch-glow through the trees. On and off it rains, enough to make everything damp but not to soak it to the bone. It’s chilly, but the wind is low, and the thought of the bonfires back in town is enough to keep him warm, for now.
It’s habit - old habit - that’s brought him to the sea. Ever since leaving Tartarus he’s been prone to wandering at odd hours, and ever since he was a belly-high boy he’s been prone to watching the sea. Now there’s hardly anything to see of it - a thin gleam on the water - but he listens to the waves lap, gently. He can’t tell whether the tide is coming or going, and there are no ships on the water - bad weather for it, too dark, and besides this stretch of beach has some rocks a hundred yards out or so that have caused more than one wreck in recent years. There’s probably treasure out there, somewhere.
When he first hears the creature surface - the slick of something coming out of water, and the unmistakable sound of a drawn breath - he thinks it’s a seal, maybe even a whale. August pauses in his walking and turns toward the water, watching for nothing but motion, and only when the thing moves do his eyes find it. In the darkness it’s only a silhouette, vaguely horse-shaped, and his ears twist back. He has his sword on him, but he’s out of the practice of using it.
But just then the clouds part for a moment (like a thing surfacing from the sea) and there in the moon-glow he sees a broad white face, and dark shoulders, and twisting dark spires of horns.
August squints in disbelief. “Boudika?” he shouts, and his voice carries over the water, and the moon slips away again.
@Boudika
August - -
there's a lover in the story
but the story's still the same
but the story's still the same
