I
have been here before, Boudika thinks. Those are the words she wants to say, as she closes the distance between them, as she examines the stoicism of his face and the hardness of his body. His posture is militant, tense, and this too she recognizes. I have been here before, she nearly whispers into his ear. Let me help you. Let me guide you back. When Boudika had first arrived in Novus, she had nothing left. She had given her life, her soul, her body to a cause that no longer wanted her that, in the end, betrayed her. Boudika had lost everything that had made her herself. She had thought there would be no salvation from that; no return.
“Tenebrae,” she says his name so, so softly. “Have you ever thought that, perhaps, because you have paid for everything in pain that you were not on the right path? Life—life doesn’t have to be that difficult. It doesn’t have to be so full of loss.”
She is soft against him; warmth and empathy and a question, in the back of her mind, that wonders why, why, why. He does not deserve it—and yet he has apologized with the whole of himself. He sacrificed something essential and, more importantly—he told the Order the truth.
I have seen those in love, how they argue, how they weep with hurting one another—even the smallest of arguments.
Boudika might have smiled, but he cannot see her. Her touch is gentle as she removes the bandages, and she makes no change when she takes in his eyes. She had expected them to be white with blindness, or gone entirely. Somehow, this is worse. They possess no light and hardly any life—staring into them is the same as staring into pitch blackness. But she only reaches out with a telepathic hand to stroke his cheek, to hold his face and not shy away.
Boudika, she can bear this. “Maybe we can learn together,” she whispers. Her voice barely rises above the crash of the sea behind her. “Not everything has to be that way. Love does not have to hurt.”
There is silence for a moment, and then he says: I will, but please teach me how. Payment for redemption is all I know, Boudika. “First, we can never lie to one another. Not again. There’s redemption in trust.” There is a moment, briefly, when Boudika wonders when he turns away if he is going to reject her. If this is too much—if his betrayal of the Order has broken him beyond repair. Then, he says: I will wager in hope. Their breaths mix, and Boudika closes the distance between them enough to brush her nose against his cheek. She leans her weight into him, so that they are nearly chest-to-chest. The space between them becomes a pact of quiet, of promises.
But is there any hope left for us? Do you love me?
She does not want to answer. She does not want to answer, because the last time she told a man she loved him he broke her in all the ways someone can. He betrayed her truth; turned from her; let her die. She does not want to answer, because despite her words there remains a part of her that believes love a lost cause; that understands people hurt one another no matter their best intentions.
And yet, she has not been able to stay away—she has been unable to think of anyone else and so when she answers, her voice holds tears and pain and an inevitability. It would be easier, she thinks, if she could deny it.
But Boudika does not have the strength; and if she is to wager in hope, she can not begin with lies, or apathy.
“Yes. I do, Tenebrae. I love you as the sea loves the shore.” Ebbing, flowing, pulling away and then rushing back—and yet, inevitable, inescapable, a fact of life.
So tell me how to be in this world
Tell me how to breathe in and feel no hurt
