B
oudika is struck by his disbelonging. She can scarcely comprehend his presence in the streets of Denocte; in her mind he is forevermore wild, a creature of sea, surf, sand, storm. He belongs to the froth of the waves, the crest of the ocean in the mid-distance. He does not belong here. Somehow, it makes him seem smaller.Or perhaps that is her fury, that mounts within her like a tigress unleashed.
(But, so too bubbles a soft relief; a sudden breath that is released, a breath she had not known she’d been holding for… how long? Months? Years? A breath that says--you are not dead, a breath that says, you are not gone forever. Suddenly, he is resurrected from her worst conclusions.)
Alive. Alive. Alive.
He is alive! There is a voice within her, full of disbelief and wonder and hope.
But so too: her anger clenched to her breast like fists, tight and coiling and righteous.
Boudika listens bright-eyed and uncertain to his explanation. She wants to say: it is not good enough.
He should have taken her with him.
He should have told her.
I was driven away after I saw you last. I regret it. Those sea-eyes are upon her, close as the water is when she dives deep. They take stock of every inch, and when they do so Boudika softens. He reaches toward her, and the uncoiling of her rage is complete; the soft brush of his muzzle is intimate, tender, familiar.
She thinks: I know this body like no other body. The seashells and bone-bits, a song in her ears. The mottled, seal-like gray. They had never needed words as she had needed them with others. That soft touch is a revelation: it is the same as the sea after a raging storm, serene and gentle, bringing upon itself warmer waters and easy meals. Glistening like a gem. Boudika knows he is sorry without him saying it; and she wants to believe that he had left because he had had no choice. Still, she asks: “Who?” Her voice is salt in a wound; raw-edged; stinging. “Who drove you away?” It takes her longer than she would have liked to find the new scar on his skin, still puckered and pink. Age will soften it, she thinks.
Are you happy Boudika?
She thinks of all that has happened since he had left. Boudika thinks of how Denocte, once her place of shelter and wellbeing, had become a prison of buildings. She thinks of Isra leaving; of the Sun King, Orestes, who she had found at last; of Tenebrae and the cave and the pomegranates; of the magic unfolding within her the way fruit ripens. Her expression complicates itself; a glint to the eyes, a twitch to the ear, and she is pressing closer in disbelief. The scent of him fills her with memories of fear, hatred, excitement, affection, with unbecoming and becoming. Salt. Sea. Fish. Sun-baked sand. The ice of his skin. Boudika answers, “Sometimes. Were you?”
In the cave, Tenebrae had asked: if Amaroq returned, would you go with him?
She had said, of course. But the admission and the actuality do not align in her mind; in many ways, she feels as if she does not know him.
But in stronger ways still: she feels as if he is the only one who knows her.
She is quiet and still for a long moment. She nearly says, there had been someone while you were away, someone who-- Boudika does not know how to explain it, or if the intimacy is even a betrayal. He had left. She had thought him dead. And it does not taste that way, on her tongue. For now, she does not divulge the fact: she turns her face into his mane and says, “I am happier now.”
Not, I was terribly lonely.
Not, I did not know what I was.
Not, I did not know what to become.
No, because Boudika learned herself. And perhaps she is better for it. Perhaps his disappearance had done her a favor; but this is a truth she keeps somewhere secret, somewhere between her heart and ribs, a sliver like a piece of glass. She is better for it, for having been alone. “We do not belong here,” Boudika says quietly, gesturing toward the buildings, the scent of bonfire, the crowd that cuts around them as if they are rocks in a strong current. She says it, and turns to walk toward the sea.
Then, she cuts her eyes toward him. Something must be said.
“Amaroq?” His name is a pearl in her mouth. “It matters more, that you came back.”
this is who we were, before bones, before dirt, even before light
this untameable expanse, this blue mirror of god. this heaving,
churning proof that we have always been deep, restless souls.
