THIS IS A POEM FOR MONSTER GIRLS WHO HAVE NO STARS IN THEIR SKIN, ONLY FIRE AND IRON AND SCALES
Denocte is a dream to her. It is woodsmoke and incense, street children and Caligo’s statue staring accusingly. More: it is moonstones against cobblestones. It is the glint of magic, of almost-magic, of firelight and embers. It is stars and ribbons and a celebration just slightly unhinged, on the precipice of desperation, of drunkenness. A sorrow-like rage. It is life crying, live, live, live and it is enough, enough, enough. It is crowning forest of masts at the docks, with sails surrender-white, and the smell of the markets, and dancing for a crowd that changes every night. It is ribbons in her cropped mane. It is gold paint chaffing her skin. It is running to the mountains and back, every day. It is a question: do you know what it feels like to be alone? It is a queen that can transform the ground upon which she walks.
It is the feeling of hunger, and discontent, and how beautiful it is to see such things in a world that would as soon have you feel rage, rage, rage, or ugliness. And although Denocte was many things, it was beautiful most of all. Magical. Especially at night.
Boudika wanders the streets like a mare erected in the spirit of the place. Restless, energetic, haunting. Her flanks are streaked with the gold of her last dance, and with her mind she turns a card over and over on itself. Her mind is a rush of thought that acts as haphazard as movement, as birds taking flight. She thinks: she had spent the first eight years of her life surrounded by companionship. She had lived with her father, then the academy, and there had always been friends there. Next, barracks. And after the barracks, the prison, where Orestes was only inches away. She had never been alone before Denocte. Boudika had never been lonely before she had boarded a sinking ship, before she had drowned. And now the loneliness was all she felt, and in it was a perpetual question, a what if, what if, what if—it felt as though she were always changing shapes, as if she had somehow become the cobblestones beneath, or the wooden planks of a wall. She is there. She is watching, she is seeing, but no one is seeing her.
The loneliness of that realisation is unbearable. Boudika is alone and the feeling gnaws on her like a wolf without a pack. How many nights had she lain awake tortured by sinking ships and the cries of ghosts? How many nights had she recollected her undeserved procession through the streets of Oresziah, her condemnation—
And there she stops her thoughts, before they consume her. There are lanterns above her, bright with firelight. Children stream by, laughing, playing with some sort of ball. There are adults shuffling toward the Night markets, and others toward the taverns. She stands outside her destination, a little ways off, for quite some time. It is darker down the street that leads to the desert-like palace; the effect is unnerving, with the pale building and the diverse number of customers that enter. Boudika approaches the false palace, the card held more and more tightly in her mental telekinesis… until she feels compelled to press it against the scarab effigy on the door itself.
It opens to a lavish hallway. Boudika has never seen such brazen colours in her life; royal purples, and crimsons deeper than even her eyes. She enters without hesitation, head aloft. If you only pretend you belong—she thinks, and a voice speaks out from the dimness of the interior. “It is always night in the White Scarab.”
The speaker, a girl, has eyes that are a brighter green than any Boudika has ever seen. But then again—they are almost Khashran eyes, and the effect is unsettling. She cannot find her tongue. The girl continues, her eyes boring into Boudika’s own. “You have come to test your luck—“
Boudika does not mean to interrupt, but she does. “I am here to see August.”
And the truth is revealed. Her restless, indecisive wandering of Denocte—her feverish pacing. The enchantment of the streets. The aching, clawing loneliness. All of it for this—to find, perhaps, a friend.
There is a slight narrowing to the brilliant green eyes, which ought to be smooth like jade. Instead, they are sharp. “He’s a friend,” Boudika amends, hesitantly. “Very well.” Her eyes fall to the trident Boudika holds beside her, floating inconspicuously at her side. It glints in the dim light, but somehow does not seem so out of place in its rich gold. Her trident is held tightly against her body, but, perhaps, that is not so uncommon in the Scarab. The girl calls someone, and Boudika is taken away, escorted through intricate hallways toward an upper floor.
The journey to the towers is intricate and strange, if only due to the contradictory bright-darkness. It is not the lighting itself that is bright, but the undercurrent of colours that strike out vivaciously, boldly, suggesting a more sensual life. Boudika is unaccustomed to such richness. Everything drips luxury and for a girl raised on a stony island, where the wetness seeped into every pore, and the stone mildewed and the colours were forever subdued.
At last, after what seems like far too long, she is brought before a door. There is nothing special about the door. Nothing to reveal it as unique, as August’s. But, the more of the Scarab Boudika has been led through, the less familiar the idea of August becomes. Nothing about this place suggests the bread-boy from the market.
But the door opens.
And Boudika says:
“Hello.”
FOR THE GIRLS WHO WALKED ALONE INTO FORESTS AND INTO NIGHTS, DEEP AND DARK AND ENDLESS, IN THEIR EVERLASTING LONELINESS
@August
Denocte is a dream to her. It is woodsmoke and incense, street children and Caligo’s statue staring accusingly. More: it is moonstones against cobblestones. It is the glint of magic, of almost-magic, of firelight and embers. It is stars and ribbons and a celebration just slightly unhinged, on the precipice of desperation, of drunkenness. A sorrow-like rage. It is life crying, live, live, live and it is enough, enough, enough. It is crowning forest of masts at the docks, with sails surrender-white, and the smell of the markets, and dancing for a crowd that changes every night. It is ribbons in her cropped mane. It is gold paint chaffing her skin. It is running to the mountains and back, every day. It is a question: do you know what it feels like to be alone? It is a queen that can transform the ground upon which she walks.
It is the feeling of hunger, and discontent, and how beautiful it is to see such things in a world that would as soon have you feel rage, rage, rage, or ugliness. And although Denocte was many things, it was beautiful most of all. Magical. Especially at night.
Boudika wanders the streets like a mare erected in the spirit of the place. Restless, energetic, haunting. Her flanks are streaked with the gold of her last dance, and with her mind she turns a card over and over on itself. Her mind is a rush of thought that acts as haphazard as movement, as birds taking flight. She thinks: she had spent the first eight years of her life surrounded by companionship. She had lived with her father, then the academy, and there had always been friends there. Next, barracks. And after the barracks, the prison, where Orestes was only inches away. She had never been alone before Denocte. Boudika had never been lonely before she had boarded a sinking ship, before she had drowned. And now the loneliness was all she felt, and in it was a perpetual question, a what if, what if, what if—it felt as though she were always changing shapes, as if she had somehow become the cobblestones beneath, or the wooden planks of a wall. She is there. She is watching, she is seeing, but no one is seeing her.
The loneliness of that realisation is unbearable. Boudika is alone and the feeling gnaws on her like a wolf without a pack. How many nights had she lain awake tortured by sinking ships and the cries of ghosts? How many nights had she recollected her undeserved procession through the streets of Oresziah, her condemnation—
And there she stops her thoughts, before they consume her. There are lanterns above her, bright with firelight. Children stream by, laughing, playing with some sort of ball. There are adults shuffling toward the Night markets, and others toward the taverns. She stands outside her destination, a little ways off, for quite some time. It is darker down the street that leads to the desert-like palace; the effect is unnerving, with the pale building and the diverse number of customers that enter. Boudika approaches the false palace, the card held more and more tightly in her mental telekinesis… until she feels compelled to press it against the scarab effigy on the door itself.
It opens to a lavish hallway. Boudika has never seen such brazen colours in her life; royal purples, and crimsons deeper than even her eyes. She enters without hesitation, head aloft. If you only pretend you belong—she thinks, and a voice speaks out from the dimness of the interior. “It is always night in the White Scarab.”
The speaker, a girl, has eyes that are a brighter green than any Boudika has ever seen. But then again—they are almost Khashran eyes, and the effect is unsettling. She cannot find her tongue. The girl continues, her eyes boring into Boudika’s own. “You have come to test your luck—“
Boudika does not mean to interrupt, but she does. “I am here to see August.”
And the truth is revealed. Her restless, indecisive wandering of Denocte—her feverish pacing. The enchantment of the streets. The aching, clawing loneliness. All of it for this—to find, perhaps, a friend.
There is a slight narrowing to the brilliant green eyes, which ought to be smooth like jade. Instead, they are sharp. “He’s a friend,” Boudika amends, hesitantly. “Very well.” Her eyes fall to the trident Boudika holds beside her, floating inconspicuously at her side. It glints in the dim light, but somehow does not seem so out of place in its rich gold. Her trident is held tightly against her body, but, perhaps, that is not so uncommon in the Scarab. The girl calls someone, and Boudika is taken away, escorted through intricate hallways toward an upper floor.
The journey to the towers is intricate and strange, if only due to the contradictory bright-darkness. It is not the lighting itself that is bright, but the undercurrent of colours that strike out vivaciously, boldly, suggesting a more sensual life. Boudika is unaccustomed to such richness. Everything drips luxury and for a girl raised on a stony island, where the wetness seeped into every pore, and the stone mildewed and the colours were forever subdued.
At last, after what seems like far too long, she is brought before a door. There is nothing special about the door. Nothing to reveal it as unique, as August’s. But, the more of the Scarab Boudika has been led through, the less familiar the idea of August becomes. Nothing about this place suggests the bread-boy from the market.
But the door opens.
And Boudika says:
“Hello.”
FOR THE GIRLS WHO WALKED ALONE INTO FORESTS AND INTO NIGHTS, DEEP AND DARK AND ENDLESS, IN THEIR EVERLASTING LONELINESS
@August
