for beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror which serenely disdains to annihilate us
The longer Boudika remained on the island, the more it felt as though it were made for her. A type of purgatory, wrenched up from the sea by a terrible god to punish her for her sins. Ins one ways, it felt as though she had been returned to the bars of prison; as if she could only stare forlornly out a slatted window. Boudika had to remind herself, it was Tempus. Novus’ god. The god of time. The statue erected upon the island would leave no doubt, of that. And was time such a terrible god?
In some ways, perhaps. But in some ways, all gods were terrible. That is what she thought of, in the darkness of the island’s night, where the moon’s light could not quite reach, and the star’s seemed colder than usual. Boudika stood on the beach’s edge, staring out toward the ocean that was undulating in the colours of non-precious stones. Clear and bright like moonstone, deep and flecked with teal and red like blue jasper, glittering with streaks of yellow like lapis lazuli, or trapped stars. Then hard and dark like rough sapphire. Then smooth and bright and the green-blue of turquoise.
It sang to her in a voice sweet and pure. In a voice sharp and melancholy. It sang to her, the grief of widows, the grief of sailors drowned, the triumph of navies, the predatory cry of the orca and the silence of the shark. It sang to her, and always, Orestes’ voice with it, telling her, beauty is but the beginning of terror. A poem. A poem, his people loved. A poem, he had shared with her, when he saw the adoration in her eyes that she could not hide.
Boudika stepped forward, up to her knees in the water. It felt strangely warm, and the salt tingled along her legs. Beneath her hooves she could feel the island’s perpetual heartbeat, one she was not certain was real, or merely imagined. The night was strangely silent, as though the strange birds of the day were forgotten, just for a moment. She closed her eyes and raised her head, ears pinned against the breeze, against whatever the ocean would throw at her.
She loved it, because it felt like Orestes’ island.
She hated it, because he was not here.
And all the time, she hoped the relic would be spat out by the sea.
The sea speaks a language polite people never repeat
This island seemed just as strange, just as marvelous and magical as the rest of what Anandi had seen of Novus so far. She did not know what birds should look like, or what sounds should rise from the jungle at night. The trees, the birds, the sound of waves breaking on the shore, it was all new to her.
So-- was it god that called her to the island? Or magic? Or was it just happenstance that she should be at this pivotal place in space and time?
There are some things not even a narrator knows.
Let's stick to what we do. By day, the princess kept to a small grotto that flooded with the tides. Her eyes had adjusted to the brightness of the surface world, but sunlight still made her uneasy. She occupied an interesting section of the food chain (predator to some and prey to others) and instinct propelled her to stick to the shadowy parts of the day. It was with great eagerness that she awaited sundown, for she had circled this island for days and was finally ready to test her land legs.
Day turned to dusk to night- a very dark, very comforting night. The darkness reminded her of home. She tried not to think about it very much, home that is, but so often something would bring to mind her sisters, or her childhood, and before she knew it her mind ran away with longing. It wasn't that she was not excited to be here in this huge, strange world, but sometimes she missed the familiar. It was nice to have something, anything, to hold on to, to be certain of. So when she leaves the cave and slips into the dark sea, she lets herself be comforted by the night for a few long moments. When the moments pass, she straightens her spine and steels her nerve.
She is princess Anandi, sixth in line to the deep twilight kingdom, here on royal business. The dark is a comfort, but not a prerequisite for her success.
When she reaches the shoreline, there is another there, standing in the water. Her face is the color of bone and-- and-- a color she's never seen before, one that tastes like blood. She watches from the depths for a time, curious and unafraid. The mare stands still, breeze moving her mane the way the current does with Anandi. Finally two pale green eyes, rimmed in kohl black, rise from the calm water. Perhaps beauty and terror are not sequential but two sides of the same coin.
"My," her voice has a breathless hitch to it. It still felt unnatural to have air come and go from her lungs, to be out of water at all. The world felt upside-down up here. It was not a bad thing, but it was different, and she hadn't yet made up her mind about it. She smiles, sly and certain. "You're a lovely creature."
The clouds stir suddenly and moonlight streams down upon the two women. A look of uncertainty crosses Andi's features, but she observes how the land horse is not stirred by the strange, silver eye in the sky. She tilts her head curiously, and the water splashes quietly as she moves. "What is that light?"
All is visible and all elusive,
all is near and can’t be touched.
THERE IS A LION IN MY LIVING ROOM I FEED IT RAW MEAT, SO IT DOES NOT HURT ME
Boudika should have been surprised. That was the thought that came to her, when the horse emerged from the sea. She should have been surprised; but, instead, it occurred with the familiarity of a rising sun. Of course there would be a horse beneath the waves. Of course the water horse crested surf with a red frill and eyes greener than jade. Boudika would have started, a month ago. She would have reacted with hostility, or perhaps leapt back, but for a brief moment all she thought of was Denocte in flames, the feeling of running from the grey kelpie on the cold shoreline, his words, I could Make you, and the winter castle. All of these things were fantastical, strange, compared to the familiarity of a water horse in the sea.
My. You’re a lovely creature. And in that voice Boudika could only hear the sea, the way it sang at nighttime, the way it sang once to her in her prison cell. Soft and delicate, warm, nearly torpid. The heat of a humid climate, like the one they were in; or the warmest summer night in Oresziah, which brought in the storms but first, first, the silent night and lulling sea.
Boudika was split apart inside. So are you, she wanted to say, in just the same way that the tiger hunter would always admire the robust colour of the feline's coat, or the lion hunter the ferocity of the beast. The beauty would always enchant her. Are they not beautiful? Vercingtorix had once asked, of their bodies, heaped like that of so many fish. They shone with scales and horns and bright, glassy eyes like marbles. Walrus-tusks and teeth rowed as a sharks, needled like a barracuda, and they were all the colours a horse could be. Chestnut and bay and roan and grey. Black and white and sorrel and palomino. Some were frilled with fins or crests, or adorned with the nacre and pearl of the sea. And all of them in shapes of change, all of them seeming to shift even in death, as though in the last throes of life.
So Boudika did not tell the sea creature she was beautiful. How could she, when she had seen so many bleeding? Was that not sick, to think, you are more beautiful dying?
Her lip twisted wryly. The salt of the ocean stung and scraped. The moon shone bright and she answered, quietly, “It is only the moon.” It must have been, Boudika thought, that this creature had never seen the night sky. “It is not often you see the sky?” The sentence began as a statement and ended as a question.
She cocked her head, curious, leonine. The water felt strange about her knees and her tail lashed at the waves behind in, first in languid flicks, and then vicious ones. The island remained eerily silent to her back, and Boudika did not turn to glance at it. “Are you searching for the relic?” she asked, quietly, and beneath the question lied another: or are you searching for flesh? But there was something about the green-eyed kelpie, the softness of her voice, that invited Boudika to remain gentle, and calm, and always in the back of her mind swam the image of Orestes as he drowned, and his words, always his words—
It’s in your nature.
Could she not fight nature? And so Boudika waited. Tense, but responsive. Tense, but not murderous. Tense, and captivated, and afraid of her on heart as it beat within her chest with all the fury of a bird in flight.
“Only the moon,” Anandi repeats, lidded eyes looking coyly at only the moon as though she were being courted by it. That’s what it feels like, as the moonlight wraps around her so jealously. It makes her cheeks feel warm. She never had any hope or expectation of being a queen. There were five sisters ahead of her in succession, and her bloodline was a strong and long-lived one. It was not to say that she was indispensable, but... well, she did not share in the importance and attention that was given to her older sisters. Which was fine-- we only mean to say that she did not often have the full attention of anyone, and the moon's praise on her skin was flattering beyond words. "I have come from very far below," is all she says in response to the mare's question. She is too delighted by the moonlight on her skin to say much else, until the other woman asks another question, and this one catches her attention more than the first.
“Are you searching for the relic?”
"Oh, no." Her laughter then is like water frothing in the shallows. She has no idea what this relic is, or why she would be searching for it, but it must be trivial in comparison to what it is she seeks. It tickles her to think the stranger would think her some commonplace peasant, caught up in the excitement of some unwarranted activity of the surface world.
"I'm searching for a king." The kelpie slips closer to the horned woman, still cloaked by the ocean except for her ears and headdress and two sharp green eyes. And then she lifts her head above the water to taste the air. She can smell the sea, of course, as it gently sways to and fro in constant, rolling movement all around her. Beneath that immediate fresh-oyster taste there is the scent of the humid jungle, damp earth and rotting fruit and a swelling darkness she has no word for-- and then there is her companion, heart beating like the toll of a bell. Gamey, fresh, ripe. So different from her usual meal, but that was not unappealing. If anything, it had the opposite effect– it would seem nature had designed her to be adventurous in all ways, including her diet.
Anandi reminds herself (sternly) that she would never eat such a noble creature, but it doesn't hurt to wonder... what would the land horse taste like? Would she put up a fight? Would she cry out, at the end? The princess would be mortified to admit it (for it was such a vulgar admission) but there was something so delectable about that last gasp. It was almost her favorite part of the whole affair. Be it in fear or relief or uncomprehending surprise, you could learn a lot about someone by the last sound they made. She shivers.
“You’re so tense.” Something is sharpening in her. Quickly.
"Good. As a courtesy I should inform you– I haven't eaten properly in weeks. It would be prudent for you to keep your distance," her speech is breathy and wanton, the tone enticing come closer in defiance of the words. "But don't run." Her eyes plead please-- turn and run-- and squeal-- and thrash-- and bleed so deliciously, love, for me, do it for me, aren’t we friends? She swallows. "I don't think I could resist the chase."
An ancient hunger quickens the pulse in her neck, dilates the pupils. She groans, the craving unfolding in her like a switchblade. "I'm so sorry," her voice is small and distorted, like its source is buried deep in her body, lost amidst the overwhelming hunger. Tears brim in her wide green eyes. She proudly attempts to blink them away but they just roll down her face and back into the ocean’s embrace. It is the first time she’s felt tears on her cheeks. "Its so embarrassing to– be like this, but… Please don't leave me. Can you," She takes a deep breath, swallows (again), feels at the darkness that thickens on the inside of her skin, “tell me about yourself?”
THERE IS A LION IN MY LIVING ROOM I FEED IT RAW MEAT, SO IT DOES NOT HURT ME
Only the moon. There was a chance, if Boudika were anyone else, the passing silence would have unnerved her. Certainly, there was something unnerving about the water horse’s sudden preoccupation—and adoration—of the moon over Boudika’s shoulder. Boudika had heard enough of Novus’ lore to understand the water horses there were sometimes greatly affected by the moon, whereas her Khashran had been indifferent to it. Perhaps this mare—water horse, Boudika amended—was affected so? But that did not make sense to Boudika, considering she had asked what the moon was. The mare elaborated, but not very well. How far Boudika almost asked, but did not. The large, green eyes gave it away. The perplexity about the light of the moon. The dark, perhaps.
“What kind of king?” Boudika wondered. She remained expressionless, aside from a slight narrowing of eyes. What a strange water horse. The kelpie shifted in the water, nearing Boudika, and the huntress watched cautiously. The water horse, grey and white and green and frilled with red, elongated her neck—reached for the air.
If Boudika were to kill her, that would have been the moment. The jugular gleamed like an offering, catching the moonlight just so. A spear or a trident or even a knife, expertly thrown, would have ended it. Boudika had none of those things… but it did not matter. The life ebbed there in that gleaming throat, exposed like a virgin at the alter.
Boudika would not have recognized the change that overcame the water horse, had she not been so experienced in watching them. There was a sharpening, a sudden and brilliant attentiveness. Ah, Boudika recognized that head-tilt, that virginal offering. The water horse had been scenting the air and on it was Boudika’s very flesh. She had seen something similar often enough. The wind shifting during an ambush, alerting a herd of Khashran of their approach—the way they lifted their heads, not equine but predatory, and turned their eyes sharply in the directions of the wind.
It was not so different.
As a courtesy… Boudika’s lips turned wryly into a smile that belonged not to flesh and blood, but a blade. It was not a smile that said prey.
Boudika answered the breathy, wanton voice. She stepped closer. The water lapped higher, now, and Boudika knew the depth at which she stood would delay her movements. She knew the risk very well, and a larger part of her whispered, run. Was that not a tactic they had taught at the academy? She had been one of the top students. She remembered her lessons very well. It would not be so difficult, to incite the predatory instinct of a water-horse… to seduce them into a chase… but why else did Boudika run so far, so fast, so often? Her sure-footed land-legs would not fail her. But lungs accustomed to water? Would they fair so well? Boudika wanted to run. She wanted to lure the water horse—
Orestes. Orestes, in her mind, standing beside her. The only time they had not had bars between them was when they had been led to their death sentence. They had walked in chains, prodded and jeered at by a large crowd, and had walked side-by-side. His flesh and touched her flesh, and it had been so much warmer than she had expected a Khashran’s flesh to be. And in her had welled the fear of mortality, the fear of an un-lived life, and he had brushed his killer’s-mouth against her jaw and whispered, tenderly, “You will not die today, Copperhead.”
Her desire of violence fled abruptly. She watched the water horse's salt tears. “Don’t apologise. It’s your nature.” There was no insult. It was as matter-of-fact as when Orestes had said it, of her, as Boudika sobbed out her guilt of Binding him to his equine form and no other. It is in your nature. There was a wisdom to those words Boudika would never fully understand; an acceptance, of knowing something for what it was and not attempting to change it. Sometimes, there was no malice in deeds—sometimes it was as simple, as factual, as the wolf eating the lamb. Boudika cocked her head. “I won’t leave. Come, water horse. We can find you something more suitable for you to eat.” In those words was a kindness Boudika did not expect to find. She cleared her throat, stepping slowly backward and out of the water, ensuring she made no abrupt or flighty movements. “… can you leave the water?”
Boudika stood in the sand, staring. She was caught unawares when the water horse asked about her—and she discovered that she did not know what to say. “My name is Boudika. I’m a dancer in the Night Court.” It was clipped, factual, one statement after the other. It was not her. It was an identity she scarcely understood, or related with. I am a dancer who chased down a criminal. I am a huntress who fell in love with what I hunted. I do not know who I am.
Boudika did not want to say that--but at the same, it felt like a lie to refrain. Haltingly, she spoke again. "Before I lived here, I hunted a speices very similar to yours. We called them Khashran. They're gone now."
The way she admitted it, they're gone now was not cruel. She could not help her voice from catching. She could not help but remember Orestes' dark face streaked with golden dust, his eyes staring at her with a pain of eons, of oceans, of an entire people. Gone.
"That was a long time ago, though." And the night sang to her, and the sea sang to her, and perhaps it would not be so terrible to be drowned by a creature so beautiful.
Perhaps it would even feel a little like forgiveness.
To be honest, Anandi had not expected such company. She had met a few land horses already, and all had regarded her with fear and suspicion. It was not unlike the way you would treat a wild animal– which she was, but it was a condition she constantly strove to overcome.
"A fertile one." Her coral pink frond lowers to her head bashfully, a gesture that suggests she is much younger than she looks. But the frond quickly pops up again, folding and unfolding like a fan, and she flashes another sly smile. "He's for my sister."
Princess Ailsa Salome, second of her name, heir to the twilight kingdom and future queen of the Mínn kelpies, was graceful, intelligent, ruthless when necessary, and, honestly, a bit of a twat. Anandi loved and hated her older sister in equal measures (sometimes not-so-equal) but she took very seriously her responsibility of finding a new king for their clan. His compatibility with her sister was not the highest priority, but it was worth consideration... an unhappy Ailsa would no doubt have a trickle-down effect and the whole clan would be upset. Ailsa had that effect on others, influencing their moods with her own. Their parents called it natural leadership. To Andi it seemed like shit-poor leadership, but she would never say so out loud. It was rude, and disrespectful, and if she even uttered the word shit her reputation as an elegant, eloquent, esteemed woman would be tarnished for a long while.
"But he also must be patient, wise, and willing to adapt to... new situations." The hardest part would be getting used to the darkness. The scant sunlight that reached those depths was so heavily filtered, it had a quality not unlike the moon on her skin now-- ethereal, mysterious, as illuminating as it was concealing. In fact the moon is the only familiar thing she's found in this strange new world. It's no wonder she treats it like an old friend. "Know anyone that fits the bill?" She does not expect her quest to be so easy, of course, but it is worth a shot.
Of course, then she rises from the water and the hunger strikes. It had been growing for many days. She managed to hunt a few small fish, but it had been such a long journey to the surface and she was so completely out of her element… the smell of the land horse has every nerve on edge. She’s an incredibly beautiful creature, smell incredibly delicious… when she takes a step closer Anandi groans, feral, and her tail writhes against her will. The sound of water moving fills the night, until the woman speaks-
“Don’t apologize. It's your nature.“
Anandi freezes, her breath caught in her chest. It's your nature-- see, that's what the problem was. Her nature was not an excuse. Her nature was a thing to be fought, to be
won. “You don’t understand.” She spent her entire life taming her instincts, learning to get by on small fish and deep breathing and anything-- anything that was not the fulfillment of that perverse desire, the joy of blood in the water, on your tongue, all around you like... like heaven.
For her, heaven was red, and coppery, and full of sin.
But her people taught her how to behave like a lady. She learned the etiquette and responsibility and culture that could not be attained by those who caved to their primal desires. But oh, how she longed to sink her teeth into red meat. And, if she did it here, no one would ever have to know…
“I won’t leave…” Anandi lets out a soft, mournful cry, full of relief and hunger and sorrow, and more tears come streaming down her cheeks before she lowers her head beneath the water, shakes it until composure returns, and then rises once again. “Anandi,” she says, a-non-dee, something at once feral and delicate to the name. “Call me Anandi.” She hated being called water horse. It made her feel inferior. “I can walk. But I don’t know if I deserve this kindness, stranger.” Her voice almost cracks but she holds it steady. It is difficult to express the effect an act of kindness can have on a monster.
For that is what she is: a monster.
She knows it, even if the others don’t. No amount of etiquette or illusion of culture can compensate for her most wicked of urges. And oh, the hunger still writhes in her stomach like an eel, it still glazes her eyes with we’re friends, right? you can step a little closer, surely, closer now, mmm my how delicious you smell– but she’s in control, she’s in control she tells herself as she steps out of the water and her tail splits and shortens into two hind legs and a new tail, horse hair, long and silver in the moonlight. It is painless and effortless and a moment of vulnerability. The next time this happens, she will beg her company to avert their gaze.
But for now, she is too distracted with the newness of it. The earth is full and weighty beneath her and the air– the air is so much lighter than water! She feels like she will float away, and yet… at the same time she feels so steadily anchored. It feels suddenly claustrophobic, to be limited to two dimensions, and the anxiety brings out her lesser nature. “What will I eat?” She asks weakly, without looking at the land horse she so desperately does (not) want to kill. And when the hunger grows and grows and threatens to overcome her, Boudika speaks of herself and Anandi lets herself become lost in the words.
“A dancer!” Andi thinks about dancing on land, and she would burst into laughter if it was not such a terribly rude thing to do. How could once dance without water?! What was even the point to it? She has no doubt that her companion is excellent at what she does– for a land horse– but by the gods, she’s skeptical that even the most talented land-flopper could rival the most amateur of water dancers. “I should like to see that,” her tone is somewhat smug but still genuine, for she is skeptical but very curious. And, as she takes a few admittedly awkward steps forward, she must confess that moving on the surface does require a certain… finesse in which she is personally lacking. She might like to dance on land someday, if becoming ravenously hungry and eating her partner was not a very valid fear.
Anyway it is good to distract herself from the hunger, and she listens eagerly to the rest of Boudika’s words as she distances herself from the sea, step by step. (As she distances herself from everything she’s ever known. Her heart is racing and she doesn’t know why, and she doesn’t stop to think about it because if she stops, if she thinks, she’ll lose some part of herself that is here and now and trying not to marvel at the way the sand feels underfoot and the lightness of the air and all those new scents in technicolor and the hunger, must there always be hunger…)
“The… Khasran,” the word is foreign on her tongue, but there is a familiar heft to it. Like Gealach or Séasúr, the word has a ring to it that sounds, to her, like predator. It is important to know, for sure, “were they violent?” He tone is light, innocent. It hides the seriousness that runs beneath. Because hunting for food is one thing, and defense another… and pleasure a third, in a league of its own. No matter the kindness of this stranger, Andi could not agree with anyone who hunted for the sake of hunting. And as delicate as she may seem, it was not wise to have her against you.
It would seem as if the earth were holding its breath - but whether it was waiting for the water horse to collapse, or to eat the land horse, was unclear. It only knew that something was yet to happen, something important.
And it is not wrong. The parrots arrive in a group, dozens of them bunched tightly together. They race down the beach with their wings spread wide, and all together they make a moving rainbow. From red to purple, their feathers catch the light and throw it back at the sky in indignation, for they are the brightest thing around.
But it is not their brightness that is most striking; it is their laughter that echoes along the beach as they land, not far from the two horses.
They laugh and they laugh, their beaks clacking noisily together with every cackle. They laugh not knowing the danger, not knowing who or what the water horse is. Perhaps it will be their fatal mistake today. Perhaps it will be their last mistake.
The waves lap gently at the two horses, as if pushing them towards the flock. And the flock, unknowingly, drifts closer to the horses. One of the parrots looks up, and it meets the horned mare’s crimson eyes.
And still it opens its beak, and it laughs at her.
It’s as if the island knows what the newcomer needs, as if this strange new world is welcoming her with a gift. It’s not a king, but perhaps it will do.
@boudika and @Anandi will be intercepted by a flock of birds as they walk down the beach, a vibrant array of parrots that land not far from. They’re beautiful, if not odd; but although their looks are striking, their charm is perhaps ruined by the harsh laughter that drips, unendingly, from their beaks. They laugh at the land and water horse alike, and perhaps for that, they are wrong.
(I felt slightly sadistic writing this)
Both participants have been awarded +100 signos. How you reply is up to you; feel free to NPC the birds!
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THERE IS A LION IN MY LIVING ROOM I FEED IT RAW MEAT, SO IT DOES NOT HURT ME
Boudika feels a sharpness to herself, a sharpness that is untrustworthy and cruel. It is the selfish, careless urge to pick a flower just because it is beautiful, knowing that to do so cuts the beauty short. Kills it. The clock begins to tick; the flower wilts. A fertile one, the water horse says. There is a wryness there. Boudika’s lips twitch into an almost-smile. She cannot help herself, and then the expression is gone. Replaced with a tiger’s apathy. She wants to ask, is your society matriarchal but does not. The Khashran had worshipped women. The men had been historians, keepers of the “souls”, priests. The women were the huntresses, the leaders, the warriors. “No one comes to mind, I’m sorry to say.” It was a lie. Her mind screams, Orestes, Orestes, Orestes but she would not admit it. Almost jealously, she guards the name within her, and wonders, what would he think, of this water horse?
Boudika does not know. She rarely knows what he would have thought, on much of anything. He had always given away so much, and nothing at the same time. The ocean drips from the sea-horse’s flanks, and Boudika watches the tension, the transition, from water to land. The water horse is clearly unaccustomed to it and in a way that is almost vindictive, Boudika is pleased—until she remembers her excursions and discomfort into the water, and that vindictiveness crumples in on itself. “I understand more than you think.” Boudika says. Already, her eyes have taken in this water horse’s weaknesses, her uncertain land-legs. It would be easy, Boudika thinks, compared to the Khashran. They were tigers on land and sharks in the sea. They did not need land shapes or water shapes; they transitioned between one and the other effortlessly. How often had a Khashran just barely broken the surface, some sort of crocodile, and launched themselves toward her imperceptibly in the shape of a shark-toothed stallion?
If this mare were a Khashran, Boudika would already be dead.
I don’t know if I deserve this kindness, stranger.
Boudika has no response to that. So she says nothing, and her mind fills with the phrase the path to hell is paved with good intentions. There was a guilt flooding her; a guilt for her hunter’s urge; a guilt for Orestes’ memory. And a sick pleasure, too. This was the edge of adrenaline she lived to recollect. It was the only time she felt like herself; on the verge of being something else.
“There are many things on this island to eat.” It was true. They may be strange, unruly things; wildcats and birds and creatures both beautiful and terrifying… but flesh was flesh, Boudika assumes. A dancer! The girl’s enthusiasm, her wide-eyed wonderment, is almost innocent enough to prompt a smile. Almost. Yet there is a sharpness to the frilled water-horse, a leanness, that betrays her as something other. It is there in every line of muscle, in the elegant curl of the neck and the near unnatural brightness of her jade eyes. Boudika recognises the instinct that rises within her, brazen and affirmative: it is the instinct of a prey animal confronted with a predator. It is an instinct that screams run, run, run and detects the nearly imperceptible quiver of a predator’s restraint. Boudika knows this feeling. She has come face to face with it many times. And she dismisses it easily, readily, with a lethargic flick of her tail and an arrogant closeness to a creature that, naturally, would like to kill her. “Perhaps you will see it, if you don’t eat me, that is.” Despite the sharpness the comment could have possessed, Boudika says it with an almost dismissive lightness.
The island seems eerily silent as they walk; it fills Boudika with unease the water horse cannot produce. Before, there had been birds everywhere. Now, there was nothing. She side-eyes her companion, wondering if it is the presence of Anandi. Then the relative silence is broken, and the way it breaks is abrupt: Boudika hears the cackling laughter of birds long before she sees them, and the convenience of their appearance is borderline ironic. In the brightness of the moonlight, they look like so many assorted jewels. They are a rich woman’s jewellery, laid out to be admired, on the beach.
“They were violent.” Boudika answers, much later than the water-horse had asked the question. Boudika does not say, but so were we. She does not talk of her old gods or confused past, of how Oresziah was colonised by a shipwrecked crew of vikings hundreds of years before she had been born. She does not tell the water horse that the competition between the settlers and the Khashran had always been steep and violent. She does not say that the settlers imprisoned their women and bred the water from their veins and that she, herself, must have a little of that carnal wildness flowing through her like poison, or magic, and that is why the sea sings so, so sweetly.
The bird is laughing at her. Boudika’s attention redirects sharply, malevolently. The thing is bright red; the colour of a polished garnet. Her lip twitches, distastefully, and she says, “The island seems to be giving you an offering, if you can catch it.” And the huntress moves sideways, tracking to the flank and then behind the flock of parrots. They stare at her brazenly, offering their guffawing laughter. Boudika flicks a tail at them, and they flutter back. By now, the flock stretches between her and the water horse—but the majority of the birds are focused on Boudika, as she nears them, head high and nostrils flared.
Her tail lashes again. Kicking sand.
The flock flutters back a foot or two. Then, abruptly, violently—Boudika lunges into the flock and they respond by laughing with all the ferociousness of a pack of hyenas. Yet, they flutter back another two feet—directly into Anandi’s reach.
And Boudika asks, into the flurry of jewel-bright, mocking birds—
“Is the king for you?” The unspoken assumption: are you royalty?
fair as the moon,
clear as the sun,
terrible as an army with banners
The mare says “no one comes to mind, I’m sorry to say,” and Anandi displays her disappointment with a prim frown. By some strange magic, even that ugly gesture is made beautiful. And then she says “I understand more than you think,” and Anandi cocks her head and waits for an explanation that does not follow.
Anandi hates waiting.
It probably doesn’t matter anyway. She’s got enough to distract her. The hunger is coloring the edge of her vision a hazy red-grey, and her senses are alive with the alien newness of the surface world: The scent of the earth beneath her and before her, the caress of the ocean breeze on her wet flanks, the sheer, senseless enormity of the sky, which cannot be truly understood until you stand beneath it and feel its silver weight on your shoulders.
And of course, the sharp awareness of Boudika. Boudika who stands so arrogantly close and flicks her tail like a lioness. Boudika who smells so tantalizingly raw and fleshy, who wields her horns like a crown. Who speaks of being eaten as though its something she’s considered before, on more than one occasion, and each time she thought about it deeply and respectfully before saying thank you, not today. “I have the feeling you wouldn’t be an easy meal,” the words tumble from her like a love poem– and isn’t there something just a little romantic about a girl reigning in her violent desires for another? “Not even if I asked nicely.” She laughs a little lightly, a little tensely, the hunger knotting and unknotting in her stomach like an eel. Anandi liked a little bit of a challenge, but she wasn’t used to really working for a meal. And Boudika would be work. “You’re too beautiful to kill, anyway.” The flash of a famished smile. The kelpie was always generous with complements.
Maybe there was a god. Gods, even. For out of nowhere arrives a feast, emerald-winged and stupid. Her mouth waters.
Boudika makes it too easy. The flock veers away from the horned mare, out of the frying pan and into… Anandi lunges forward. She sinks her teeth into feathers and fat, flesh and blood and bone. Tastes bloom in her mouth like a flower, like a wound, borderline holy the way it fills that primal hole in her soul. A violent, joyous shake of the head, and the water is splattered with dark drops of love. An offering to the ocean.
The kelpie utters a guttural sound, something between a growl and a moan, and the bird, in its entirety, is gone.
“He’s for my sister. Ailsa.” Anandi licks the crimson from her lips, gently rolls her eyes. “The future queen of my clan.” Queen of dark waters and endless waiting. Endless self control. Endless hunger. It was a life that now seemed so very small and stupid to Anandi. Upon coming to the surface she had very quickly decided she would not be returning to the depths, at least not permanently. But this was a decision that was made in some very small and private place in the core of her being, and it had yet to infiltrate the rest of her body and mind.
The flock has moved to the water, still stupidly squawking the ugliest symphony she’s ever heard. It would be a justice to the world to silence them. Princess Anandi, vehicle of justice. She heads into the water instinctively, and she is up to her knees before she turns to the captivating Boudika on the shoreline.
“Thank you, lady Boudika of Night Court.” A wicked, beautiful smile cracks across her lips, illuminated by the light that reflects off the rippling ocean. “When we meet again, I would love for you to dance for me.”
