The way she moved would look peculiar to the eyes of those accustomed to the world above the waves. Her legs carried her, the solid wall of her hooves pressing into the earth as she seemed to marvel at the prints it left behind - each step was calculate, a leg lifting higher than it needed to be, clearing the ground and was drawn up and out, as she felt muscles in her shoulder contract and extend in different timing, as she delicately place that foot on to the ground.
Every step was like this, as Indrani moved. It gave her an ethereal presence like she was a dancer. Beneath the waves, she knew how to beguile the eyes and ears, how to spin and sing and entertain and it would be a time before that would come to pass here. She hummed to herself, a soft and sweet sound that drifted over the fields and seemed to intertwine with the breath of the world. It wove through the plants and reminded Indrani of the swaying kelp beds.
There was a pang for a moment, missing the water but it slid away, as she looked. Why she was here, she wasn’t entirely sure but the fields were of the Court she had given her name to - the Court she would go to, the one her sister had spoken it - and now she was here, with her bright eyes wide as she continued to hum the gentle in her throat.
This world was so bright - and full of life.
Every moment had been truly worth the price she would probably pay for stealing the magic needed to come here, she decided with a smile.
Anandi has been alone for what feels like so long. Untethered from the family that, for most of her life, was simply everything. Her closest friends, her deepest enemies; her confidants, her rivals. Her world, deep down there in the cold and the dark.
To be so suddenly not alone is a surreal feeling. The ripping of the bandage, in reverse. A coming together, a comfort, a wholeness that had been so far removed she had begun to forget what it had felt like to begin with.
The sight of Indrani hits like a hammer to the throat. She stops in her tracks. She thinks she might be crying. “Sister!” Anandi leaps into motion. She runs, legs long and strong, graceful but-- there would always be something a little odd to the motion. Her stride marking her as other just as much as the coral fringe on her poll or the wicked sharp gleam of her teeth. She skids clumsily to a halt, and closes the scant remaining distance to her older sister in a prancing trot.
“Indrani.” The emissary is definitely crying now, pretty little tears that she beats away with a frenzy of long-lashed blinks. She steps forward to embrace her sister, chest to chest, and a little giddy laugh emerges from her. A white flame of joy, so hot it could not ever be taken. “I’m so glad you’re here.”
She knows she ought to unravel herself, show her sister the court, say something, say anything, but right now she just wants a long moment wrapped in something familiar. And Anandi was good at getting what she wanted.
Somehow, in the expanse of scarlet ambition,
I forgot that joy, too, ought to be mine
The waving tendrils of foliage rippled around her, and how it mimicked the surface of the ocean she called her true home, was beyond her. Indrani, mesmerised, was swaying and singing in the back of her throat so quietly, the sound in time with the sweeping if the breeze as it made its way around her.
She continued her song, even as the familiar face and her own name fell from lips she’d not seen in such a time, and her song ceases as the siren turned to her sister to greet her with all the enthusiasm that she’d been summoning in her walk, in her song and voice.
“Sister!” She echoes the greeting, dancing forward although she does not move with the same practice Anandi does - she looked peculiar, limbs swinging in an exaggerated manner as she swings and welcomes the arrival of her family.
Though, she’d never seen her like this. Her appearance here was not too dissimilar to her own - she still had all the regality that she always had below the waves, it was just brought down by the force that held them in strong in the embrace of life.
She saw her tears, but Indrani merely smiles with an absurd brilliance as she reaches out to nudge at her sibling.
“I’m sorry it took me the time it did, Anandi,” she replies, genuine and sweetly, wanting nothing more than to console her. Their embrace felt so different in the open air, with no water to divide them and only air around them, but it was a moment that made her heart sing.
So she did herself, humming for a moment, a wordless verse of a song from their childhood. It would flow between them, her throat pressing against the base of Anandi’s crest, as it seemed this was the place she was easily able to lock herself to.
She has no desire to withdraw, it had been too long. She’d let Anandi decide when their moment was over, as she could feel the raw emotion that surged around them in waves.
“I’m not sure father nor mother would agree, but I didn’t come here for them… I missed you so, sister, it is so good to see you…”
She trails off, with love and happiness she’d not felt in some time rolling through her core. She had missed Anandi, missed her other sisters, but it gladdened her to have found her...
Deep inside of herself, Anandi buried the longing to be among her kind, the bloodlust for the people she served, the constant nagging feeling that she was making the wrong choices. She made the conscious decision to lock these things away, she had to. To waver, at all, would be to fail. To look back was to fail. And so it was rigerous self-discipline that pushed her onward into strange lands, all alone.
But family is a weakness. Indrani is a weakness. The self-control slips, and Anandi’s insecurities gently bubble to the surface. Is she safe here? Are the others safe here too? Do they trust me?
… Can I be trusted?
Sometimes she sorely missed being a child. Life was so much easier when all you had to do was what you were told. It was dark, and a little dismal, but they didn’t know anything else. And to be surrounded by love, by sisters– what more could a girl ask for?
Only later, on the surface, would she realize all these desires she didn’t know to want: sunshine, rabbit meat, sapphires. The world, she wanted the world. She wanted it all.
Sometimes she wished to go back to before she knew better. But there was no going back now, no forgetting the feel of the wind in her hair and the sun on her skin. So she swallows her fears and anxieties with a stubborn set of her jaw. I deserve this, she thinks. we deserve this.
And with one last sniffle she flexes that remarkable self-control to stop her tears from falling. “Oh, don’t apologize! You’re here! I’m so happy.” She laughs with delight, and tightens the embrace for a few more moments before stepping away to look her sister in the eye.
“Isn’t it magical?” Anandi looks up to the blue sky and takes a deep breath. Air! In the lungs!! No one else in Novus appreciated it like she knew her sisters would. “There’s so much I have to show you! Did you see how many fish there are in the shallows?” Such unbelievable bounty, all theirs for the taking. “There are so many creatures on land, too. Deer, rabbit, mirestag, fox…” for some reason she felt better about eating them after learning their names, and so the emissary had inadvertently become quite the expert in local wildlife. “And the court! It’s like someplace right out of a fairy tale.”
She’s aware of herself chattering but can’t quite help herself. She takes a breather to reposition herself shoulder to shoulder with her sister, whom she begins to slowly guide to the court. “What do you make of it all so far?” Anandi was incredibly skilled at hiding her fears and insecurities, but she would never be able to hide her desire for her sisters’ approval.
Somehow, in the expanse of scarlet ambition,
I forgot that joy, too, ought to be mine
