She floats in the water, serpentine. From shore she might be mistaken as a large, crooked piece of driftwood. She is not.
Where are you moon? Moon, Moon, Mooon.
Moon was a new word to her and she repeats it over and over, imagining the way the letters roll around each other. How they would taste on her tongue, mixed with the air (Air, what a word! What a thing! Sometimes salty, sometimes... earthy, she thinks is the word for it) how they would rise from her throat like something sweet and syrupy.
It was important to know words, especially in a place where her name carried no weight. Princess Anandi would have to earn respect here, and one could hardly be respected without an education. But it was also of note that she liked the word moon for what it was. It was good to know the names of things that flattered you best, and oh how the moon flattered her.
She waits for the moon to come out (it felt like her only friend in this big, new world) and then she rises from the water step by shaky step. She always thought it would hurt to grow legs, but it doesn't hurt. It doesn't feel good, either. It doesn't feel like anything at all except different, and different always fascinated her. What does feel good is the way the water clings to her, catches the moonlight, makes her shine like blue-violet marble-- if marble had teeth. Her eyes seem all the darker for the way the moon catches on her cheekbones and her mane, plastered to her neck, drips silver. She feels holy, sacred, beautiful.
If she had not come into this world three thousand feet below the sea, one might think she was born to the moon.
She walks inland so very slowly, a strange pearl spit from a strange sea. Moonlight drips from her, dangerously. If one looked carefully, they would see her hoofprints began at the edge of the ocean, and they might wonder what strange magic was at work tonight.
The island is full of strange things, even stranger than O. She is not particularly surprised that one of them has walked out of the depths of the ocean right in front of her.
The thing, the girl, is beautiful. The sleek grey of her body is something ethereal under the tongue of the moon; bright orange-pink things, fins, maybe, spiral back from her forehead. O is standing in the cool shadows of the jungle and finding it harder by the minute to catch her breath. Her heart is pounding in her chest like it has a story to tell her, and her shallow breaths are starting to build in the back of her head. They are separated only by a thin stretch of bone-white beach.
O is not easily impressed, but this is different, this is—a kelpie, she can only guess, having never seen one before. But who else would come striding out of the water so easily? What would leave hoof prints patterned in the wrong direction? Oh, what drips off of her could be water but O thinks it’s more likely pure moonlight, sweet and thick as honey but twice as silver. For the first time in her life the little girl thinks about her own body. Thinks about her terribly narrow hips and the sooty, dingy black that patterns her legs. Thinks about the salt-tooth knots in her short, dark hair.
It is dark, though, and that helps. A little. She slinks further back into the comfort of the jungle. It is cool and dark, and O has spent so much time here recently it’s almost starting to become familiar; she is comforted by the cold, sweet wind that goes rushing by overhead and the smell of petrichor wafting up from the loose dirt at her feet, underneath a blanket of wonderfully glossy leaves. Bugs and birds chatter all around, easy and ceaseless as a machine. But not so loud that O cannot hear her thoughts. Thoughts that say, Go, go, go say hi. Go speak with the girl. Speak with the god—
Now the girl-thing is walking a little faster, splitting the distance between them by decimals. O’s eyes (at least the ones that are visible) are huge in the dark. Her heart is still thrashing a little out of pace, a little more out of tune: but something possesses her to step forward, and then she is half in the light, enough to raise her head in something between interest and defiance.
“Hello,” says Apolonia, and she does not quite recognize the sweetness of her own voice.
She smells her company before she sees. Young. Young. Maybe it is hypocritical, for Anandi is young herself, but it is not Andi who smells young. It is the beast in her– calculating, alert, hungry. Always hungry. It wonders– what would this child taste like? As wonderfully tender as it smells? How easily would the meat tear apart, pulled underwater and then violently rolled and thrashed until the flesh split open to reveal…
heaven?
“Is someone there?”
From the tone in her voice you would not realize that she knows, of course she knows, without a doubt that someone is there. How could she not know? The girl smells like the sun. Eventually she steps forward and Anandi, she sees the girl not just for what she is but what she could be: all those lean lines and warring colors and that captivating look in her eyes, one gentle and one fierce. (and the third?) The girl is beautiful in a way that only land horses are, and more. So Andi smiles in a way that still hides those terribly sharp teeth, in a way that suggests she has a secret– would you like to see what it is, girl? Come closer, I'll show you
“Hello,” she echoes. Her voice is low and it crackles the way insects do when they sing in the night. She makes it a point not to notice the trail of dark spots on the inside of the girl’s thigh (how… delightful) but there are so many other things she can’t help noticing. The smell of her blood racing, for one, her heart straining for the feel of those sharp teeth and that slick tongue. I could show you, if you like, it would feel like nothing else in the world, I promise.
She swallows and tries to think of moonlight, of Boudika, of anything but the hunger, the endless hunger. “My name is Anandi,” she says before she can be addressed as water horse for what must be the hundredth time. There is something shy about the way she says it, something enticing– did you hear? Maybe you should step closer… and as she tilts her head invitingly it catches the moonlight, turns it to flesh. “What brings you here tonight? Is it that relic I keep hearing so much about?” Those wide jade eyes blink innocently, not so different from a doe.
A young girl with full painted lips and magnificent almond-shaped eyes.
The air all around her smells of the sea.
Even as she stands, still and poised and nearly Greek (she learned it from her mother), there is something inside of Apolonia that trembles at the sight of the girl.
Shakes at her beauty.
It is that unnamed thing, full of admiration (or some sick cousin of it), that brings her closer, step by step, to marvel. To watch like a predator the long silver legs, the bright coral fringe. It tugs her by the heartstrings to close the space between them. Now, in the brightest kiss-patches of moonlight, O can see her clearer than ever, and she wants to gasp; she cannot put a name nor a reason to the hold the girl has on her, but it exists, indubitably, and she is prisoner to it as much as Anandi is prisoner to her invisible hunger. (Though neither of them could possibly know so, yet.)
She smiles. And her smile is—
Sharp, wolfish like O’s and her mother’s, and yet… it is sweet, In the way wind is sweet when it comes off the water, bright and cool, pulling the air from the girl’s lungs. Come closer. She hears it in her head, her own voice. A bell-sound, coming from an unopened siren’s mouth. Her ears ring.
This is not love. She reminds herself of it with a biting disappointment. This is not love. O is not quite that stupid, even for a girl her age, and it’s not love, but—it’s something, something that she hasn’t felt at all before. And she will not let it go. Cannot. It is like a drug already, the rush of admiration and adrenaline that shocks her little hurt. And so as the seconds pass and the feeling starts to fade, O steps forward again, one clipped stride at a time, toward a smile she would desire even if it contained a black hole (or those sharp, sharp teeth).
“It was,” O admits with something like sheepishness, “But now…” She pauses again. Mid-stride, mid-speech. “I don’t know.”
For the first time in a long time she has forgotten the weight of the axe at her hip.
“Aaa-nandi,” she repeats, rolling it in her mouth like a candy, like a little treasure. It feels like a pearl—like something precious beyond words or worlds, and almost she feels bad for using it, like it’ll be worn out by all the sharp corners of her mouth. “You are… like nothing I’ve seen, Anandi.”
Her name feels cheap now. Maybe it’s time to use the one so far reserved for special occasions. (This feels like a special occasion.)
She pulls in a deep breath, and: “My name is Apolonia."
Oh how good it feels to be admired, to be carved up by those pretty blue eyes like a feast. Anandi stands tall and proud, sea water still glistening on her skin. The girl takes a step closer, a bold move, and then another-- and bravery begins to border on foolishness. Anandi licks her lips, tastes the air: it is full of the fruitlike (fig?) scent of warm bodies and the humid, salty space between them. Delicious.
"I don't know," the girl says, and Anandi nods in understanding. Her attention is caught less by her words and more by the way she says them, the low rumble of her voice. It is a tone that makes her blood quiver.
"... You are... like nothing I've seen, Anandi." A flush of pleasure rises from the pit of her stomach to the tip of her muzzle. She cocks her head, cradling the moonlight with her cheekbones, keenly aware of how the night clings to her like a wedding veil. Her body is tense– it is a great struggle to not reach out and run her tongue down the other girl’s neck. “You’re a sweet girl,” she sighs wistfully, sidestepping coyly. So a strange dance begins, with the moon on their shoulders and the sea at their feet.
"Hello, Apolonia." The name like a green apple on her tongue, how its firm skin yields to crisp, creamy white. She wants more of it.
And she’s so very used to getting what she wants.
"Where I come from, that’s a name fit for a queen," she smiles sweetly; her silken lips, the delicate curl of her ear, all parts of her the picture of innocence– all except those eyes, sensual and knowing, smoke and jade. Would you like to be a queen? A goddess? A prayer?? Let me help you. “Queen Apolonia,” she murmurs, tasting that name once more, the way hers had been tasted twice. “It has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?”
Even though she had eaten not so long ago, the nearness of the pied girl nearly overcomes the creature of the sea. She is so keenly aware of the heat of Apolonia’s body, stretching across the briny air between them, and the details of the younger girl’s face which come now into sharp focus. And of course the scent of her, honey and salt. She shivers, unsure whether her thoughts are her own or her hunger. Unsure if, at the end of the day, there is really a difference.
All her life she’s been so disciplined, so patient. A creature of opportunity, not prey. But this world is so big and delightful and full of quickly beating hearts… it can’t be that bad, can it? To bow to her nature? To paint the town (bloody) red? She takes another step, circling Apolonia, admiring her (and, naturally, being admired) in a different light.
“I must say, you look absolutely scrumptious.” Her lips curl into an impish smile. You’re missing something, aren’t you? I can make you whole. The hunger comes again, buzzing up and down her spine. I can turn you inside out, wouldn’t you like that? I think you would, sweet girl that you are…
rise as a crescent moon. bite her lip
as you would a date. break your fast
on her brown honey
Apolonia has never been called a sweet girl before. Until this moment she doubted she ever would be. Normally it’s girl with the axe, gun for a mouth, and O knows she deserves it, normally even enjoys it, but this is different. Anandi is different. O has never before cared this much about having someone like her. Sweet girl—her whole body goes dark with a shiver of pleasure at the sound. The way it leaves Anandi’s mouth, so dulcet, so… ripe.
Her whole heart clenches like a fist. She does not even realize she’s stepped forward until she’s looking down at the space left between them, suddenly cleaved in half.
But Anandi has side-stepped with all the grace of a dancer, and the distance opens again. It breaks. Oh, and it hurts—O has never been privy to useless emotions like grief or longing, but even the extra yard between them has her stricken with something like a craving. She watches the kelpie with eyes that are painted by wishes she cannot yet put a name to. Though she holds herself stubbornly in place, it takes leagues more effort than she’d like to admit.
Queen Apolonia. She shudders again. (Perhaps it was a foolish endeavor to tell this stranger her real name; it holds a power over her that is amplified tenfold by the sweetness of Anandi’s voice, and already she feels weaker than she should. Than she ever has.) “One day,” she says, dreamy and unusually sincere. And after a breath that shakes her to the bones she says—“And you could join me.”
This all must be a vision. The moonlight on her skin and the cool salt of the air. The pounding of Apolonia’s heart that says nothing but please, please, please. But—it is not anything she could have imagined, not anything she could have known she wanted—and how could she have come up with someone so beautiful and so strange? Almost she wants to say this out loud, to admit to Anandi the reasons for her stunned silence. It would flatter her. She might like me more. O’s thoughts are dazed and nearly narcotic. But no. No, she’s done enough for now, more than enough.
She blinks, and Anandi is circling her. Like a jungle cat circles its prey. Like a vulture circles a carcass from above. But she is not afraid—how could she be?—every step Anandi takes is a new opportunity to be entranced, a new chance to fall in desperate, stupid lust, and O will take whatever chances she is offered, as she always has. The moonlight dapples the girl’s skin in a pattern O cannot remember ever seeing before. Even the slow shift of her muscles, the smoke-green of her eyes, they have a hundred different facets in the fading light. And Apolonia is watching every single one.
“…thank you.” Her head tilts, her heart pounds against her throat. “I think?” And she laughs, though even she cannot tell if it’s real humor or just anxiety, making a fool out of her when she needs it the least. Scrumptious.
And if it were anyone else, she would be scared at the way it sounds, and the things it suggests. But she would do anything to hear a compliment from Anandi’s lips again. Even the kind that points toward doom.
Even if you don't know the depth of what that means. But you understand, don't you? Because you’re a special girl, I see it in those pretty eyes. You know me. I know you. I've always known you.
There is a difference between pain and the idea of pain. Anandi walks that fine line with a dancer’s grace. It’s true that sometimes she leans a little too far to one side or another. But she always finds her way back to the center. (A test of her patience… surely there was more than a little delight to be had in the fall?) She treads ever so carefully now, the way she carefully maintains the distance between them even as her soft eyes beg for just a touch, just a taste of that delicious skin.
The ocean was never still and neither is its daughter; the current circles Apolonia now, a whirlpool with the pied girl at its heart.
“One day… and you could join me…”
Anandi’s green eyes practically glitter in the moonlight. Her pink fringe lowers to her poll in the rush of pleasure, and then it rises again. The play of color is something akin to a blush. “I’m going to hold you to that, my dear,” she purrs, eyes deadly serious as she takes another step around her new friend. "One day." The words are like a collar, not slipped around the neck but placed very deliberately against her cheek. Don't you like the scent of it? the feel? Anandi considered herself a woman of class and civility; she would never force anyone to do something (or at least, she had not yet been pushed to this) but she would coax you into taking the bit in your mouth yourself, and thinking it was your idea.
A strange thing happens then, for Apolonia’s laughter sinks into her chest like a fishhook. The sound of it was so pure, so unlike everything she’s ever heard before. A look of surprise and uncertainty clouds those jade eyes. They stabilize by drifting to that tender throat, the heart of the laughter. Her heavy gaze, half veiled by long dark lashes, anchors there between fluttering heartbeats. And then the hunger rises.
The illusion of innocence drains from the kelpie’s face. Her eyes seem to grow sharper, more predatory, and her jaw loosens as though ready to unhinge. “Well I’d love to stay but,” her voice is intentionally casual but she can’t help how it comes out so breathy, urgent, “I have plans.” Shoving her face into a kill, fresh and steaming, trying to think of anything but that laughter rubbing against her like shark skin.
(She just ate, didn’t she? So what is this ravenous feeling? Was it perhaps a different desire of the flesh?)
She ought to leave before she does something… unbecoming. But she hesitates, tension coiled all down her spine, huge wanting eyes staring at divine Apolonia. “Meet me here next full moon?” Command or question, want or need, all things blur and bow to the hunger, the hunger, the hunger. Even her words slur feverishly; they melt into her smile, confident and casual and calculatingly sharp. She’ll have to give her friend a close look. Some day, perhaps, when she had greater control over her urges.
Anandi turns and slinks into the overgrowth, and just like that– a girl stands alone on the shore except for the nightsong and a scattering of slivered-moon hoofprints.
What I've seen here, what I say
The white sun erases
O’s face goes a little warm when she sees Anandi’s fringe lowering to her neck. It’s like nothing she’s ever caught a glimpse of before; she almost feels bad for witnessing it, like she’s sticking her nose somewhere it very much shouldn’t be. Like watching a wedding you’re not invited to. Like watching someone undress with their back turned to you. Her mouth all of a sudden feels very dry, and her eyes drop to the ground with a measure of self-consciousness, as unusual for her as the electricity that tingles up and down her spine. (The ground at their feet is already being swept clean of footprints by the seething waves; to see the evidence of their encounter erased so quickly almost makes her sad.)
Normally she would feel like prey, being circled like this. She wilts a little under the heat of Anandi’s stare; there is no escape from the tight circle she winds around Apolonia, but anyway she doesn’t mind it, wouldn’t want to leave. Here is where her heart beats, here is where her skin burns. To be pinned in by Anandi is to be cast under the eye of God. There are worse and less pious ways to die.
I have plans. O’s whole body smarts like she’s been whipped. Indignance overcomes her. She blinks in hot surprise, her brow furrows, her mouth twists—what plan, she wants to prod, could be more important than this, but something stops her. She even leans back. Maybe it’s the way Anandi’s pupils have blown to full moons, silver against leafy green—more likely it’s the change in her voice, rougher, thicker, tight with too much effort.
The thing that sparks in O’s stomach at the sound of it could be terror or it could be craving; at this point it all tastes the same.
She clenches her jaw, lifts her head. Even over the fan of her dark lashes she can read the silver of Anandi’s face, how it smiles with something feral, how it twitches as if it cannot quite be controlled: to anyone else she might make a scornful comment, your mask is slipping, but the words won’t quite come out of her. For once she doesn’t have the vitriol. Instead she blinks heavy, tilts her head sharp like a wolf.
“Yes,” she says, and backs away in the wrong direction as Anandi slips away. She almost isn’t disappointed.
