He wakes early, earlier than anyone gives him credit for.
The sky is still dark as he slips from the Scarab, and the air has a midwinter bite. But this near to the bay it is as temperate as anywhere in Denocte; tangible on the air is the sharp clean smell of pine and the almost metallic scent of a winter sea.
There is a fresh quilt of snow across the cobblestones and August relishes being the first to lay his tracks across it, though a pair of crows scolds him from a beech. He laughs back at them, then dips down an alley with a flick of his tail. His route is familiar as an alley-cats' when it steals from its mistress’s house, and his eyes are as keen; if there were any onlookers but birds it would be clear to them he knows where he’s headed.
As always August pauses when the narrow path spits him out into a wide street at the crest of a hill; it is not just the sea-breeze that suddenly whips at him that makes him catch his breath. No - it is the sight of the dock, all those jutting masts, a proud forest that rose and fell like breathing. His lungs fill like billowing sails, his eyes shine bright as the sun as it crests the horizon.
He might have stood there forever if a little jewel-bright dragon hadn’t darted up, snapping at his heels.
“Rude, Templeton,” he says, but he is grinning when the creature snorts a curl of smoke and leaps up to rest between his withers. With his passenger he walks on, down the hill between the buildings like a drop of sunlight until he stands amid the market stalls.
He is still one of the few on the streets; Denocte is a city of late nights and therefor late mornings, especially in this part of town. But the sellers are beginning to set out their wares, and another handful of dragons have joined him, multicolored jewels in the morning, following him like ducks follow a man with bread.
And it is bread he buys a moment later, exchanging a bright coin for a few loaves still warm from their clay oven. He might have spoken longer to Talan, the baker, if it hadn’t been for the clamor of the little dragons. “You’re worse than hens,” he tells them, but he crosses to a breeze-blocking tree and tears the first loaf into chunks, careful to be sure each dragon gets one.
August knows he is far from the only soft-hearted patron to feed the resident dragons - they do not know what hunger is - but he can’t begrudge them for it. He is a survivor, too, and anyway they make him laugh, they way they snarl and hiss like cats and lounge like tiny lions.
The city is starting to wake up, now, and the gulls and horses are all gabbering away, sharing the morning’s news, when he begins to wind back toward the Scarab with his basket of fresh bread. Each stride possesses the easy carelessness of a man well-comfortable in his place (and his body), and so when he freezes and swiftly turns his head it is almost startling, like a buck breaking for the treeline.
He thought he’d heard his name. That alone is not strange - August knows half the Night Court, and has his whole life - but it had sounded like his mother who’d said it.
I SEE NOTHING. WE MAY SINK AND SETTLE ON THE WAVES. THE SEA WILL DRUM IN MY EARS. THE WHITE PETALS WILL BE DARKENED WITH SEA WATER. THEY WILL FLOAT FOR A MOMENT AND THEN SINK.
His eyes were quicksilver grey in her dreams, and they danced with all the changing colours and scenes of a mirror, not quite sea, storm, stone, scalding brass, nor seething flame, but all, and none, and then quicksilver grey. In her dreams, they reflected her own face, the white blaze, the brilliant chestnut—and her mind was seduced by it, as she saw herself, in his eyes, as she wished to be seen. She wore the armour of her people, light chainmail, gleaming copper helmet, horns adorned in glittering gold paint.
But in the dream, they were being wed, and her reflection in his eyes changed—the armour became the white pelt of a fierce sea-bear, draped across her back in a cloak clasped by Khashran fangs. The teeth, sharp as a razor-edge or whetted blade, bit at her flesh and darkened the edges of the cloak to red, red, red. And then his eyes were red, the true crimson of her people, and Boudika could not see herself. The fact filled Boudika was panic and crashing anxiety—but it appeared as though she were the only one gathered who saw.
The wedding alter, decorated with white petals, became a sacrificial stone beneath her hooves. The stone of the old Oresziah, when they were half-the-sea, when they had battled for a foot on land from the Khashran. Vercingetorix was keening his apology in a Khashran song, and the waves somewhere were beating the cliff, and her blood was dripping upon the black stones—the song was a fever pitch, louder, louder—she was sinking, sinking—
Boudika awoke, her head throbbing with the music of her last performance, her last dance. Her mouth tasted like bitter salt and she discovered, in her slumber, she had bitten the flesh of her cheek. How long had it been? For how many hours? Boudika knew her night had been repeated, like all her other nights; to fall into tumultuous slumber and then be awoken to tumultuous reality, with a chaotic and savage dream to keep her occupied in-between.
This was the first time, however, Vercingetorix had visited here. It was the first time she had really, concretely, thought of him. Boudika had sworn away thinking of him; Boudika forbade it, in fact. And abruptly all of her walls had been ripped in her subconscious, and she spat the blood from her mouth onto the stoned floor, seeing only that sacrificial alter. He might as well have been there with her, on the other side of the darkness, and Boudika could not bear to face how suddenly small her room felt. He was there with her, in all of his beauty and confidence and cunning, quick wit. He was there with her, his eyes blood-red, his lips hinting at a smile like they did, without every really smiling. He was there with her, dark and enticing, smelling like a home she had always imagined but already forsaken.
Wasn’t that just fucked? That the person who betrayed her was the only one that sounded safe? The memory of his scent was strong in her nostrils; and it told her body, security security security even as her mind and heart reeled, stung and hurt.
Enough!. Boudika rose, and repeated her every day habit, storing away the dream to some place she could forget it. It did not matter she was trembling. It did not matter her eyes were gummy with not-enough sleep. It did not matter her throat ached. She rose, swished her teeth with water, and left to run.
——
Her routes had become longer and more winding, and only recently had they begun to incorporate the Night Court itself—particularly, the marketplace, where she could annoying dash between early-morning vendors and the odd patron. The run began somber and Boudika could only hope that it would distract her from the dream—ultimately, it did, once she had looped outside of the Court and then returned, unreasonably drawn to the docks and the sea. She could see the crest of masts in the near-but-far distance as she ran, swiftly, toward it. It was too early for the market to be massed with a crowd, and she only saw the odd footprint marring the snow, here or there. Not enough to be concerned with—Boudika may as well have been alone.
She increased her speed, her breath coming short and quick and heavy all at once, her heart jumping with the joy of it, the sheer challenge of pushing past her limits—this was farther than the day before, and the day before that—its as the farthest she had gone since arriving at Novus! Boudika took a corner sharply, her hooves skidding on a slick batch of cobblestone, and then before she knew it she was throwing all of her weight back to her haunches, trying to skid to a stop, but it was too late—
Bam, directly into a brilliant palomino. Words bubbled, but failed—instead she only made a distressed whiny, and could only hope she hadn’t done too much damage. Boudika attempted to scramble away—but a limb was there, and then there, and oh, why did she have to have horns? She suddenly decided the best option was to stay utterly still.
”I am extremely apologetic,”and embarrassed. ”Are you hurt?”
ROLLING OVER THE WAVES WILL SHOULDER ME UNDER. EVERYTHING FALLS IN A TREMENDOUS SHOWER, DISSOLVING ME.
In a way the collision is a relief. At the moment of impact all thoughts of his mother - all thoughts of anything - rush from his head in the same manner that his breath is forced from his lungs.
Alas, it is not such a beneficial thing for his knees and ribs and basket of bread.
He had been frozen, head up, ears forward, searching searching searching, and had hardly heard the clatter of her hooves or the rush of her breathing over the intensity of his concentration. August is only just aware of a presence coming very quickly toward him before they meet, and then it is all a blur of hooves knocking against hocks and something hard and sharp glancing across the skin of his neck and a bright, muscular, warm body rather violently and intimately entangled with his own.
August is hardly aware of his squeal, except to be grateful later that nobody from the Scarab was within earshot. Only his years of training keep him upright, but it is a narrow thing, and when at last the world is still again but for their breath pouring quick and silver from their mouths he runs a quick inventory - nothing broken, nothing sprained, minor scraping, a little blood on his coat and a lot of bread on the snow. His body eases in relief.
“Not mortally,” he says with a laugh bit between his teeth like a silver coin, and finishes the careful work of disentangling himself from her. Then, at last, he is able to look her in the face.
He finds a stranger - a striking one, one that he’d remember having seen before. She smells a little of the salt of sweat and the sea-breeze, and the look in her crimson eyes is genuine concern (and mortification). August feels a grin crease his cheek. “Usually when I’m attacked it’s intentional. Are you alright?” With a practiced eye he sweeps his silver-eyed gaze across her, looking for the same injuries he’d searched himself for. Satisfied when he finds nothing serious, he meets her eye again, for the moment leaving his belongings where they lay in the scuffed-up snow.
Whatever he’d been about to say is lost when a crow peals a throaty laugh, and he remembers the reason for his distraction. His name, spoken so clearly he would swear it wasn’t said in his imagination alone.
Well, he may as well ask, even as he shares a piece of her embarrassment in the doing. “Do you - ah - know me?”
I SEE NOTHING. WE MAY SINK AND SETTLE ON THE WAVES. THE SEA WILL DRUM IN MY EARS. THE WHITE PETALS WILL BE DARKENED WITH SEA WATER. THEY WILL FLOAT FOR A MOMENT AND THEN SINK.
The collision was too much a memory of the cavalry’s call—too much a memory of bodies colliding in knee-deep surf, the undertow snapping at their hooves as their enemies twisted shapes and became something more solid, or less solid, just as teeth or knives or arrows closed in. The harsh press of chest-against-chest, the sharp exhale of impact, a release of intensity that sometimes, somehow, reminded her of a lover’s sigh.
Then there was the matter of the bread strewn across the snow and the bit of blood she smelt in the air. Dazed, Boudika unentangled herself and observed him or injuries as he observed her. No, there was nothing broken or stinging too badly, although she was fairly certain she’d scuffed a haunch on the cobblestones and bruised a good bit of her shoulder. Minor concerns, however, as Boudika mentally scrambled to discern a way which would allow her to maintain her dignity. The more she thought, the more difficult it became, until she finally affirmed the fact she would be unable to do any such thing. Boudika offered an abashed smile. “I can assure you this wasn’t intentional. I’m fine… Are you?” It was the second time she had asked, but Boudika looked at him incredulously, as if she had not believed him.
He was handsome, in the way that one was when they were well-bred. The gold of his skin reminded Boudika of her people’s war colours and the way they painted their horns and faces with the very hue of his coat. Boudika quickly diverted her attention, again, to the spilled bread. “It does appear as though we have at least one casualty.” Her tone, somber and dry, did not convey it as a joke despite her meaning it as one.
Boudika started at the crow’s call, her head tossed skyward as she searched for it with a crimson eye—and then, back to August, gathering herself. Her hair was disheveled and her skin sweat-streaked from her run. In the cool morning air, it was chilling fast. His question caught her off guard and immediately made Boudika question if she should know him. Frankly, she was uninvolved enough in the court that she did not know many people, even those who were important. And so she said, ”No.” And added, ”Should I?” Some five seconds too late Boudika realised how rude it may have sounded to ask in such a sharp way and, abashed for, probably, the third or fourth time… she amended herself. “I mean, do you know me? If you don’t, you do now. I’m Boudika. I’m an entertainer in the Court. I dance.”
The introduction felt awkward on her tongue, too heavy and too light all at once. In her homeland, she would have said, “I am Bondike,” and they would have known her as the general's son, and they would have complimented her on her father’s strategic maneuvers against the Khashran at the battle of Bashide Cliff. Here, she was a dark presence, a dancer without a name who performed on a firelight stage.
Boudika moved, a little more seamlessly, into the next line of thought. ”I’m, uh, I’m sorry about your bread. I’ll gladly buy you some more.”
ROLLING OVER THE WAVES WILL SHOULDER ME UNDER. EVERYTHING FALLS IN A TREMENDOUS SHOWER, DISSOLVING ME.
the great object of life is sensation - to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
For August the moment is returning quickly to normalcy. It begins with the way her glance settles on him and darts away - the kind of look he is well used to, and preferable to outright staring. For his part, he is less shy about the way he watches her, though now it is less to search for injury and more to sate his own curiosity. She is elegantly and powerfully built, distinct from her spiraling horns to her stark knee-high socks, and her eyes are as bright as sparks struck from flint and breathed to life.
Even if they are, at the moment, full of embarrassment.
“All except my dignity,” he answers with a half-grin, “but that was questionable to begin with.” Some - and here he thinks of Minya, with her impeccable posture and her disdainful pout - would say he had none in the first place.
When her gaze moves from him, he allows his to linger on her just a moment more before following it to the true loser of their collision. Her words, so solemn, curve the corners of his mouth, though he quickly smoothes away the expression to graveness. “Yes,” he says, matching her tone, “but every battle must leave something for the crows.” As if in response one flaps nearer, alighting on the snow then strutting toward them, its dark head bobbing like a buoy. August does not show it away, but he does begin to gather the loaves again, though he leaves the broken pieces for the birds.
August does not expect her to answer yes, not when he doesn’t know her either, but something in him still tolls like a shipwrecked bell at the answer. He does not like to be hearing things - especially not ghosts - but he lets none of his unease show when he turns back to her. “No,” he says with a laugh. “I just could have sworn someone called my name-”
He would have said it then, but she speaks first, and he settles back with a grin. A dancer - he could have guessed that. Despite their initial collision, the lines of her body and the care she took in moving it spoke to a gracefulness specific to those who used their bodies - in dance, and in battle. “Boudika,” he repeats, enjoying the way the vowels roll of his tongue like waves. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, though my body may disagree. I’m August. I…” It is unusual for him to falter, when he is so used to the current of conversations, and he blinks his quicksilver eyes before continuing. “-fill many roles. Like bringing rolls.” Nor does he usually have to resort to bad puns; perhaps he is more shaken by the blow than he’d realized.
It would have been easy, then, to ask where she danced, to tell her he would like to see her perform and joke that he hopes she possesses more grace on stage - all things true enough to him, though they felt like little lies in the process of getting to know someone. But again she speaks first, and he shakes his head, his pale hair settling like snow over the sloping plane of his shoulders. “No need. If it’s a little soggy today, then no one will ask me to fetch it tomorrow.”
It only takes a beat for him to change his mind - a vision of Minya’s mocking, but more than that another moment to study Boudika, a pause in which all his natural curiosity comes winging back like a flock of birds after crumbs. “On second thought, my compatriots can be very frightening and easily disappointed. If you’ve the time, I’ll take your company back to the market as payment enough.”
what i would give to be the only pile of ashes here
Boudika would be a liar if she were to say he did not enjoy his wit and easy way—August's nonchalance was disarming, especially for someone who found it so difficult to acquire nonchalance. Despite her inner protests, Boudika found herself relaxing in his presence; she was even aghast to discover a smile threatening her lips, quivering at their edges, and lighting the corners of her eyes. The dancer supposed that in such a situation, the only reasonable approach would be to laugh at how ludicrous she had been—even with the flapping crows, the spilled bread, and the way he matched her solemnity with his own. There was an air of comedy, one which overset the tragedy she had been attempting to escape--and briefly, just briefly, Boudika forgot her dream.
The only thing that gave way to the fact their interaction may have possessed an underlying theme of strangeness was his comment—I just could have sworn someone called my name—, but already, the conversation was moving, moving, and they were past when it was acceptable for her to investigate the statement. Which, when considering the ethereal silence of the snow-covered morning, interrupted only by their collision and the birds… Denocte was not awake… well, when considering that Boudika found questions she did not have the heart to ask. Who would have called his name?
“It is a pleasure to meet you, August. I didn’t know Denocte employed breadboys” Boudika answered, and again, paused at her brazen commentary—her speech always came too clipped, too sharp, as though sardonic. It wasn’t how she meant it. It had been too long, far too long, since she had engaged in real communication. His pun occurred to her too late; and she found herself momentarily reeling, wishing she had acknowledged it--instead, Boudika laughed, out of place and late.
She could go days without speaking to anyone in the dancing guild. She lived upstairs in a small apartment-type setting, with the bear essentials of civilised life, and emerged only to run or dance. Boudika had not socialised on Novus… and she found it came haltingly, awkwardly, especially when she felt a blossom of disappointment in her breast. No need. If it’s a little soggy today, no one will ask me to fetch it tomorrow. To her, it felt briefly like rejection, before she began to reason it away—no, no, he was busy.
Boudika could not help the smile that split her face suddenly, with a genuineness that seemed at odds with her stoic way of speech. Her ears perked, and the mare, for the first time, genuinely assessed August as he had been looking at her—with open curiosity. ”I’d be glad.” Without waiting, Boudika began to move down the narrow pathway which, in part, had been the cause of their initial collision—as she moved forward, her aching muscles protested. It had been easy to ignore with the initial rush of adrenaline, but her run had been far, hard, and fast. She had not allowed her body to cool down properly and her movements were gingerly, stiff. Boudika did everything in her power to not think of why she had been running with such intensive desperation--because, if she didn't keep moving forward, it would rush back to her. She tongued the wound in her mouth she had bitten in her sleep, tasting the copper flavour of blood, forcing herself to forget. Listen Boudika insisted. Be in this moment.
”You’re compatriots sound interesting,” Boudika said, almost absentmindedly. Frightening and easily disappointed were words that brought to mind some beastly creature, one with extremely high standards—draconic, even. She cast him a sidelong glance, curious of how he moved. She waited a moment, before adding, almost nervously into the potential silence: ”I have been in Denocte for months now… and I honestly have not been to the markets as much as I should.” In other words, they were still very unfamiliar to her.
It was only as the large, foreboding masts came back into view that Boudika remembered the sea—and it shocked her, as some scents did, scents that brought with them memories dark and twisting. But, she had to remind herself, that was several minutes without trying to escape it. It was, perhaps, the longest she had gone thus far which, to Boudika, was a small victory. And so she turned her attention fully upon August, upon his gold skin, and thought, this moment, this moment, this moment. "How long have you been here?" she wondered, aloud.
the great object of life is sensation - to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
“We’re a rare breed,” he answers with a wink, “truly the city’s upper crust. Unafraid to go against the grain.” Now he is dangerously near to babbling, but at least she’d laughed; that was enough for him.
Better yet is the smile that reshapes her face then, a change like the sun emerging from the line of the coast, and August has never been so glad to have changed his mind. He continues watching her as she walks, noting her stiffness, the way her sweat has cooled and left only salt behind. He recognizes the signs of a hard run abandoned on a cold morning, and wonders if their routes had ever crossed.
August is grudgingly considering his own soreness - an ache he hopes will vanish before the evening’s work - when she catches his eye, a look he meets with another steady smile.
“Never tell them so,” he says breezily, following his own tracks back down to the markets. “Their egos need no inflating.” But of course she is right - they are an interesting band, a group of misfits like Robin Hood’s merry men, only not nearly so moral and far more fond of luxury. He makes no effort to disguise his fondness for them. At her next words he casts her a glance, one golden brow raised. “I try never to advise people what they should do, when it’s something as harmless as where they spend their time. But I would be honored to play guide - it’s one of my favorite parts of the city.”
It is not a long return - easy enough to follow the street back downhill, until the bare canopies of old oaks and ashes and the red brick buildings no longer block the view of the lower city. It spreads below them in the soft dawn light like a town out of a picture-book and for a moment he stands still, struck by it the way he is every morning, the gulls’ chatter as they wake echoing in his ears.
When he follows her gaze out to the bay, his eyes snag only for a moment on the stalls and brightly colored canopies of the market, glowing beneath the first sunlight, before rising to the forest of masts. As always, something in his heart pangs at the sight of them, pain and promise and want, and he drinks in the rich blues of the winter sea.
He is almost lost enough in it that he misses her question, but his near ear flicks toward her, and his attention follows (though he must drag his eyes away from those ships and the adventure they promise). Now his smile is softer, but no less proud. “My whole life,” August answers, “and yet every day I discover something new. Come - I will introduce you to Talan, and perhaps a few other friends of mine.” The baker and the dragons would all be surprised to see him again, but happy, too.
Once again he begins descending toward them, graceful despite the dull throb of his shoulder. But his attention lingers on his companion, and as the ground levels again and the buildings give way to stalls and alleys he turns his silver eyes back to her. “I’ve met many strangers to Denocte, but most are only passing through - how did you decide to make us your home, Boudika?”
@boudika | may as well go all in on his new reputation haha
what i would give to be the only pile of ashes here
Boudika did not just reward him with one laugh, but two. The absurdity of the puns, unexpected and also slightly brilliant, evoked something far too close to girlish giggling for her liking. She curbed it as quickly as possible, but not before the sound burst from her chest and mouth like flowers blooming, ecstatic and bright. Boudika didn’t know what to do with his easy charm and that disarmed her—she had no defences against it, no natural apprehension. Before she could help herself, she commented: ”You better be careful, things can quickly go a-rye if you try to be too different.”
But then readily, quickly, they were moving on to talk of his friends—and Boudika could not mistake the clear affection he felt for them, in the way he spoke. For a moment, she felt a pang of exquisite sadness. She had once talked of others similarly—of Vercingtorix and those within their sphere of young officers, all whom she had grown up beside. Boudika had known their fears, their wants, their weaknesses, their strengths; she had known what girls they loved, and the problems they had with their families.
And even as he continued to speak, she could not help but think of them. Even as she nodded in the moment, saying almost absently, ”I would really appreciate that. Honestly, the markets are just the bit intimidating.” Even as she said it, she thought:
Cian had come from merchants who worked very hard to put their son through the academy, and he was extremely conscientious of causing others inconvenience; she knew he liked carrots but not potatoes. She knew Anann, and how no matter how many times he learned to watch his left side, for some reason he was always unbalanced there; and that got him killed; she knew he always laughed, and asked about her day. She knew Miach was more of a healer than a soldier, but could memorise tactics in one glance, and drank like a fiend. She knew Balor loved poetry and wanted nothing more than the war to end; he had a childhood sweetheart back home who he intended to marry upon the cliffside.
The gulls were crying overhead and the people were awakening, and still, she thought:
All those boys had made her laugh and had made her cry; they had pushed her through ruck-marches and cavalry practices, through endurance runs and obstacle courses and disciplined marching. She had ate beside them and slept beside them and in that moment the piercing hole where their absence resigned… oh, it echoed within her.
Of course the sea was then in front of her, bright and alluring, promising an answer to a question she never asked. And still, she thought:
Dagda. Dagda, who had never attempted to be within their clique. Dagda, who was the only one to visit her, when she was imprisoned. Dagda, the only one to apologise for what they would do to her; the only one to tell her she was the best of them all, and always would be. And perhaps that was all Boudika knew of him, of Dagda. Perhaps she would never know more.
Oh, August is lost in the moment—and she in the tangling memories of her past, in the fact that her heart is somewhere on the other side of the sea, and that is the answer to her unspoken question. You aren’t here, in this moment. She bit her cheek until it bled. She forced herself to look at August, letting the ghosts die.
My whole life. The honesty and the pride made her smile, although it was not as authentic as the last. ”You sound as though you genuinely love it.” The thought made her happy, in a way that was both sad and promising—because, Boudika thought, because perhaps that meant she could learn to love it herself. ”I would very much enjoy that.”
And it was with that fragile hope that she followed him; the hope of a child, almost, seeking something they had never seen. Boudika was not expecting the curiosities to be turned back onto herself although, retrospectively, she should have. Indebted to his kindness, she could not softened her truths. “I was lost when I arrived. I was a part of a shipwreck and I was the only survivor that I know of, and I washed up on the shores of Solterra…. But I wandered until I found a meadow, and there was a stallion there, who told me the story of the Courts and Novus. I didn’t want to be alone; Day was too much like my homeland. Dawn and Dusk were… too kind.” Boudika did not know how else to explain it. She rolled her shoulders in a shrug, feigning nonchalance. ”Caligo I related to the most… and maybe that is a silly reason for choosing an allegiance, but it is as good as any when you know nothing of the land.”
Perhaps she had softened her truths—but that was easier than admitting them. And the farther they walked, the more she felt as though she could be someone else. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of the market, it would be easy to close her eyes and imagine she was truly a dancer of Denocte, and this was her home.
Vercingtorix. Cian. Anaan. Miach. Dagda.
And August, in front of her. Right there, in the moment. Boudika turned her eyes from him, glancing at the market, the stalls, as they progressed deeper into the throng of it. ”And what of you, August? Why have you decided to stay?” Boudika wanted to know; she wanted to know why Denocte was worth staying in, not from pessimism, but because she struggled daily to find her sense of belonging, of purpose, of understanding. In a land of outcasts, Boudika had secluded herself as a pariah.
the great object of life is sensation - to feel that we exist, even though in pain
♠︎ ♕ ♠︎
His own laugh punctuates the air with a puff of steam, bold enough that a few crows perched on a cable caw their disapproval at him, flapping their wings like a nurse-mother might flap her apron. Anyone game enough to not only laugh at his puns but meet them with their own had his instant approval, and when he regards her again it’s with a grin tucked in the corner of his mouth.
Intimidating, she calls the markets, and the golden boy almost laughs again. “I promise no one there hits as hard as you,” he says, arching a brow at her, thinking of the ache that still resonates in him like ripples on a pond.
August - despite honing his ability to read people over the years, it being his livelihood - does not know her well enough to note the sadness that touches her then, the faraway look in her eyes. If he had recognized it, he still would not have pressed; he is not a boy who willingly puts his fingers to another’s wound. The gods know he has enough of his own, scars he swears still bleed sometimes.
Instead, he looks away, toward the sea. He does not stir from that moment, with Boudika lost to her thoughts and he to his senses (the bite of cold, the mournful cry of gulls, the salt-and-brine of the stiff breeze, the dying smoke of last night’s bonfires), until she sepaks again.
“I do,” he says, and down to the markets they go.
Though he’s surrounded by familiar things, all the colors and smells and faces he loves, his smile dissipates like mist burned off in the morning as she speaks. Oh, how beset by tragedy is his country; August knows many stories run too closely to her own. His is not absent it’s tragedy, either (and his ear flicks at the mention of that sand-scoured country, Solterra), but hearing hers is no easier to swallow. Just as she mentions Caligo, they pass over the goddess’s moon-stones set in the cobblestone street, their goddess’s own constellation, and August takes unusual care not to step on one of their smooth and gleaming faces. “Most here would not say that’s silly at all. I am sorry to hear of your arrival, and your shipmates, gods keep them. But let me assure you, you made the right choice.” Here his smile returns as his gaze touches on her, back to being a little proud, a little wicked.
Now there are people around them, now the miniature dragons wind like jewel-covered ribbons between feet and among stalls, now the air is filled with voices and the clang of wares, the snap of rugs and flags, the scent of a hundred spices and foods. He absorbs it all, a balm to his unquiet mind, and leads her through it like a well-seasoned captain through a treacherous bay.
“I was born here,” he answers. “In this part of the city, near the noise of the markets and the sight of the sea. Denocte has always been my home - I’m not sure I’ll ever want another.” He does not mention - he hardly thinks - of how, in a way, the Scarab might be an achor, a trap around his leg. For August it is his family, his home, his duty, his savior - it is dangerous, to think of it otherwise, to dig beneath that dark soil.
And anyway, even without it, the Night Court is still his home. If there were anything else, any other place his heart sang for, it would be a ship, and the sea, and the sky unrolling like a map above.
@boudika | <3 (let me know if I should add more action)
BUT THERE'S CHAOS BREWING UNDERNEATH MY SKIN, TECTONIC PLATES GRINDING AND CRASHING IN AN EFFORT TO RATTLE MY BONES.
Boudika felt more and more as though she did not deserve his ease, his friendliness, or even the thoughtful silence that stretched between them. It did not carry the weight of awkwardness, for which she was glad. He had made her laugh again, shortly, I promise no one here hits as hard as you. Boudika did not believe him, entirely. At once, she felt foreign in her own skin—and as if it were the only skin she’d ever worn. The skin of not quite. The skin of barely-belonging. But still—he was so light, so golden that the smile on her face felt wholly natural.
Their descent was a welcome one and, eventually, the world in front of her was so unlike the world she had come from that Boudika did not remember it. Those names that had berated her mere moments before were chased back by the onslaught of what could only be described as Denoctian. For a blessed moment, her thoughts and memories vanished. They would return, she knew. They would return with a vengeance, when she was alone—the haunting of a woman scorned, a woman betrayed, a woman guilty of every crime accused. She could not escape for long. Even as she spoke of it, her arrival at Novus, it seemed for a moment… far away. But let me assure you, you made the right choice. Boudika cracked another uncharacteristic smile, broad and sharp. “I was lucky, I suppose.” And she meant it in more than one way. The siren music was in her ears—the seas whispers, the silhouette of Orestes singing and, then, nothing but that haunting melody.
In a way, the distance of her own past, the sudden and stark apathy regarding it… as though it were nothing but a history… it unnerved her. For a moment she felt something other and as she spoke of Caligo, of the Night Court, it was a verbal admittance that she truly belonged to them.
Boudika could only smell the heady spices of the market. She was focused on the gleaming moonstones of her path, and avoiding the dragons that weaved quickly through her hooves. Her ear flicked toward August as she listened, intently, to his own story. A bit of envy flashed through her. Envy for a comfort, a belonging, she had never possessed—even at the height of her life, it had always been a lie.
But she could not blame him, for that, of all things. This stranger who was too-kind. “What is it that you do for the Court?” Boudika asked, and then added, almost coyly: “Besides fetching bread, that is.” Boudika could smell it now, in the air—the thick, yeasty smell of it baking. A multitude of grains and flours, and even the sweetness of pastries.
THIS IS WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE IN-BETWEEN GOOD DAYS. TO BE A SELF-CONTAINED HURRICANE FLOATING ON CALM WATERS. TEETH GRITTED, KNUCKLES WHITE, TRYING TO HOLD IN THE STORM INSTEAD OF MAKING WAVES.
