i have been wearing the ocean all day
Boudika surprises herself in how much she has missed him. He makes her smile easily—unexpectedly, easily. And she does so now, because they are both older, and perhaps a little wiser. But they are also only mortal, and that comes with certain limitations of ability.
I’d hug you if you weren’t soaking wet. Have you always been part mermaid? She laughs aloud and presses forward; Boudika’s past shyness has been forgotten in these situations, and emboldened, she hugs him regardless. Wet or not.
“No,” she admits, still smiling. And then, more seriously: “I was Changed, but—it was important for it to happen, to me. I asked for it.”
The memory of Amaroq and her outside of the island after their chase—it will remain one of the most important of her life. The kiss of his teeth into her skin beneath the crystalline waves. The way, after, nothing would ever be the same again. She had to become someone else to survive.
“And you, August? How have you been changed?” Her eyes, too, remain mischievous. The night, the setting, the sea—none of it matters. In her world, and her life, such encounters seem perfectly normal. But, just as his eyes had suggested something deeper, so do Boudika’s. It has been a long time since they have seen one another. “Are you doing well?”
Or, do you need a friend?
Because she has.
@August
