Anandi had been out hunting on land and was on her way back to the water for a nap. It was the middle of the night, and her beloved moon was but a sickle perched on the edge of the ocean. Its twin reflection shimmered and rippled across the water's surface-- dancing to an ancient beat.
(It always seemed like if she was not at hunt she was just about to, or just returning from. She knew she ought to focus on the greater task at hand, but there were just so many... urges she needed to relieve first. She tried not to think about it too much. Not yet, she told herself, whenever guilt and responsibility dared to sneak into her conscious. Not. Yet.)
Life in Novus was full of a freedom that was hard to wrap her mind around. There was simply so much of... everything. Sight, scent, food. People, my god there were so many people (although it became hard to think of them as such when her stomach was empty) of all shapes, sizes, colors. And culture. Deep below the sea, she had thought they were the epitome of cultured-- it was so naive, at the time, but it was all she knew. It seems now that perhaps her people were the epitome of self-denial instead, although she kept such treasonous thoughts dearly close to heart.
As lost in thought as she is, Anandi does not fail to notice the mare who stands at the edge of the water. How could she, when her heart begins to beat just a little faster at the sight, scent, food.
But oh, the water horse needs her water. Without a word, Andi walks past the stranger until she is knee-deep in the calm sea. The starlight reflects off the water and sinks into her silky skin-- skin that aches to shift from fur to scale, legs to tail. "Anandi. Come on, Anandi. Into the water," Anouk murmurs. The sound echoes like a brook in the girl's mind. "Not yet," the girl says aloud to the dark stain on her neck. In rebellion it quickly forms into a small sphere, about the size of a closed fist, and drops into the sea with an angry splash. "Don't be angry with me. I'll be there soon," Anandi promises her bonded, although she is not sure if Anouk can even hear her, once it is part of the ocean. If it does, it does not answer.
The girl turns to the stranger, moving remarkably quietly in the water. Something about that simple movement suggests predatory grace, although to all appearances she is the picture of innocence-- to the point it is almost eerie, given the hour and location. (she doesn't even flinch at the water's cold touch)
"You come here often." It is not a question. Anandi knows. From beneath the waves she has seen many times the woman with symbols on her skin. It was only a matter of time before they met. It should have happened sooner, but the water horse chose to watch, time and again, feeling a strange anticipation that grew and grew but was never fulfilled. From this close, she realizes the other woman is covered in a festival of scent. Feather and bone, swamp mud and moonlit paint. And, of course, the flesh beneath it all, taut and supple, singing, singing with every heartbeat for Anandi's ears alone. Her private concert, wrapped in earthly offerings. She smiles without showing her teeth-- a skill she had quickly picked up on the surface. One of many.
"Why?" The question is exhaled so quietly it might be mistaken for a soft sigh. One might even want to step closer, to hear better.
If there is mischief in her eyes it seems to be that of a girl's, not a monster's.
Very quick. Very intense,
like a wolf at a live heart.
She runs for the sea, as if she there is no other place she could ever be. History ripples across her skin, flickering in the sun like the pages of a ragged book. There is no part of her that she does not wear upon her skin, no story of her people, of herself that is not told in paint and spiritual art.
The sand beckons her, it stretches, supplicant, as the sea rolls in laughing, sighing, reaching. Yet with eyes that blaze, brighter than stars and moons, she stops. Her sides are heaving, as her lungs drag in the salted air. It stings her, it presses upon her lips, its cool soothes the burning ache of salt.
Into a tree, stood sentinel upon the beach, forever watching out to sea, she carves into its flesh the throat of a king, the lips of a kelpie and a sea foaming mane. Every other line that draws this curved rune is made of star-lines and earth-lines. A shell shaped eye gazes eternal out to sea, unblinking, unswaying.
The stone falls as gavels do, landing blunt and heavy and ringing. It echoes in her ear like a sentence, but already she is moving on. Already she is the sinner free as she slips her shackles and steps down upon the sand. Gone is the touch of Asterion’s gaze upon her spine, it is shed like an itch and all the remains is the subtle burn to whisper to her of oceans and seas, swamps and Ilati rituals.
The wind presses salt kisses over her sigils, they crystalise and harden. They grow as scales might, bright and gleaming like the sun that dances across the waves. She moves to the water’s edge, black as a shadow and how the sea rushes to meet her. it reaches, it reaches but her feet remain untouched. Displeasure hisses across the sand as the sea draws back, back, back.
The sea breeze tangles through the snarls of her mane, it toys idly with the bells and bones and whispers of shell song and dances that last more than just a night. For when is the sea ever still in sleep? It is an endless dance and Leto might let it carry her, for yes, she knows now that one night was never enough.
A girl moves, silver-white beside her. The grey girl strides out into the sea and the waters push to meet her. It laps about her ankles and limbs, embracing, pulling, tugging. Yet she does not move but rather turns her gaze from the endless ocean and onto the silver of Leto’s eyes.
Their met gaze is starlight upon a forest, moonlight across a verdant meadow. There is nothing of the sea there, not until Leto lifts her eyes to run, galaxy bright over the crown that rises from the girl’s head. What did she offer a god to have the setting sun eternally held upon her body?
Leto might have asked her, the words are there upon her tongue, behind her lips that part to speak – but already the stranger is speaking. Already she is asking with eyes that know and lips that wonder. The star girl’s ears fall to the tangle of her mane, her soft lips drawing into a hard line. “You have been watching me.” She says wary, fierce little more than a cornered doe suddenly seen by a great cat.
Ah, this girl moves, sleek and feline. Leto has seen another move like this, with a sea salt smile that reaches and reaches up his cheeks. He smiles with knives and daggers – he smiles like the ocean that beckons her home. A bite, a bite, her skin shivers with knowing. It tingles and not even then seabreeze can ease such a sting. This girl fills her full of nettles, Leto thinks, nettles and blood, her flesh the bowl that holds this seaborne ritual.
Closer this strange, feline girl moves. Soft as the moon, sleek and gentle as moonlight with her soft silver skin. Leto is as unmovable as the night sky that welcomes the moon into it, but oh how her eyes burn bright with starfire. Galaxies keen as they watch this creature step closer.
Why?
Why?
Her voice is shell song in a land girl’s ears. It trails across sigils and dares them to defy the calling of the ocean. Fate settles deeper into her veins and her soul. It solders itself into her lips and tongue. Is it enough to say a boy made her itch for the sea? Is it enough to say he made her soul restless as it awoke fate from its hiding place?
And so she speaks its name, “Fate.” And it rises upon her tongue, it laughs through the starfire blaze of her silken voice. It scolds all who touches it as it pushes the Ilati girl a step toward the ocean, toward the creature who watches her with eyes that are not forest green – Leto only realizes now – but seaweed deep.
@Anandi | "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
She comes to the shore with such terrible urgency.
It reminds Anandi of the hunger. Is there at least relief for the mare? Or does it still call to her– that unnameable thing stirring deep in the belly, where the body is tied to the soul? The blood’s song, ringing in the ears, and the ocean’s song, pawing at the feet like a kitten, and impossible weight of the night… does she know what they mean yet?
Anandi looks and looks but sees no revelations in the painted woman’s eyes. She sees only wariness (good, the stranger should be cautious) and fierce defensiveness. It is so similar animal of prey that knows its been caught. But Anandi’s not here to hunt-- or at least she didn’t think she was. And she certainly tried her hardest not to hurt such noble creatures as her land-walking cousins.
“Of course I’ve been watching,” she laughs gaily as thought it were the most simple and obvious of things. “You intrigue me.” Flattery was such a delightful tool. “You’re very lovely,” she adds with a gracious half-smile. (Does she see? Does she see the tips of those sharp-sharp teeth, gleaming in the starlight? Or is it just a trick of the light?) She does not elaborate on the woman’s loveliness, although she would certainly go on at length if prompted. The talk moves on to more interesting matters, anyway.
“Fate,” says the woman covered in ritual. A most unexpected answer. And then she takes a step closer to Anandi and the ocean. Anandi and her ocean. It is just a step, just a fraction of the distance between them eaten away, but the mare’s scent fills the kelpie’s nostrils and millions of neurons are firing in a galaxy of natural impulse. Logic and instinct battle. Fight or flight or feast. Or feast.
Or feast.
On the inside, she’s at war. But it’s one she’s been training for her entire life. Anandi does not move except for a lazy blink of the eyes. She swallows surreptitiously. The image of civility, and no one would ever understand how goddamn hard it was to bury the monster that only wanted to lick and bite and chew and feast. And feast.
And feast.
“Really?” She croons. She does not have to fake interest. “Is that why I’m here too?” She hopes the answer is yes. She so dearly needs the answer to be yes. It would crush the jade-eyed princess, to think she was coincidental. Parenthetical. A side quest in someone else’s story. To that extent it does not matter what the other mare says– Anandi will listen if it pleases her, and ignore if it does not. But that would be impossible to discern from the look on her face, wide-eyed and expectant, hanging on the stranger’s word as though it were gospel.
She takes a small step closer, to better hear what the other woman has to say.
The most beautiful sound
Was the ocean, and your bleeding heart
Sand shifts beneath her feet and it is nothing like soil. This place is ever changing and loud in its metamorphoses.
The stranger steps like a dancer, she stalks like a wolf and Leto retreats like a doe and lowers her skull like a lion. They are both predator and prey, this girl of the sea and the girl of the earth. Shades of grey cover them both, struck dumb by the bolt of orange that crowns the other girl’s head.
Anandi is a creature that moves like a dancer and who plays a flute for her better than the sea that whistles in song? It adorns her in froth, salt-slick and bright. It begs her to stand so it can place corals and pearls in the corners of her smiles.
Leto has known a boy like this before. He, a kelpie thing with long wicked teeth and ever darker smiles. His laughter is sea-breeze, his touch sea-spray. She still knows here he went, upon her skin, for those inches of her are salt-drenched forever.
Her smile is Artemis’ bow. It is the full glare of Solis’ wicked bright sun. Beneath it Leto stands, a girl uncovered, her shade all gone. The Swamp is so distant now and what horror is this – for she thinks nothing of earthy swamp pools when here is an ocean watchful and wicked and wild.
Intrigue and lovely and such words are not content to play merely in her ears. They also rest, tempting apple red, upon her tongue. They beg to be spoken and whispered. The sea seeks to reclaim those words, to hear them again. The wind lays salt kisses along the deep-sea black of her lips, but she does not open them, not matter the salt no matter the temptation.
Her chin tucks in, her nape arching like the bow of a ship. Anandi steps, creeping into that small free space Leto makes. And it is just a moment of pause, a moment of question until temptation has her reaching forward. To taste the sea-blue blood of an ocean girl.
Fate.
That word hangs, bright and present as the sun. It gilds them both in glory and presses girl and beast (though which is which? Are they not each just a little bit of both?) closer and closer together.
The sea-tide rises, it is beckoning the kelpie girl back and, yes, Leto already knows what this creature is. She knew it when she met a boy as silver as the moon with a smile that cradled the sky. His teeth were stars, poised to puncture the inky black night.
The starfire girl looks to this sea-storm girl, who makes death beautiful, who smiles like a siren sings, and stands like a god’s creation. It might be okay to drown, she thinks then, if all the sea were full of them: these kelpies with their too-wide smiles and salt-water kisses.
fate.
Leto does not miss the hunger in that gaze. It prowls in tooth and claw across the black satin of her torso. It promises to wash the sigils from her flesh and engrave her with the biting churn of waves.
Is that why this creature was here? With her green eyes that tie seaweed tight, tight about her limbs. Yet Leto stands within their hold, willingly, curiously, dangerously. No! Fate had not brought them here. Her death was not now, not today… No!
“Maybe.” The traitorous word slips, cool like an elixir, sweet as sugar. Her eyes are star-bright and all the sky is silent. Where are the stars that burn the night for her? Where is their smoke? All is silent, for nothing matters here but the sea, the sea, the sea.
And then suddenly she is moving and the stars are at last breathing. Gone is the doe stood still beneath the unwavering gaze of her hunter. Now a cat stalks across the sands, panther black with silver eyes sharp and hungry as teeth.
The stars are not just breathing, but keening and crying and laughing and igniting. The sky is white, white white. The stars burn the black that holds them, they shed their tethers, the rock and dance and ricochet.
Leto reaches for this kelpie girl. Reaches, reaches, reaches, until her breath, forest deep is upon Anandi’s skin, her throat, her shoulder, her cheek. There is no part of this girl that Leto does not study and wonder and drown within. “There is a girl fated to drown.” The star-girl breathes her story across the sea-girl’s skin, “It was foretold in blood and bone so very long ago…” Her words trail off and her lips draw back, silver meets green and holds, holds, holds like the moon paints the earth. “Have you come to kill me?”
Leto asks like a whisper that feels like drowning.
@Anandi You asked for a novel, right? | "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
Anandi tilts her head to watch the expressions on her companion’s features. She’s never seen anyone so at war with themselves and she– she pities this woman, even without knowing her story. Even without knowing her name.
“Maybe,” the sound rings like the first raindrop on still water. And then–
Anandi almost draws away when the other woman is moving forward, when the other woman is prowling with a determined, catlike tension in her jaw. Anandi almost draws away but instead she stands firm and looks into those brightly burning eyes as they come closer, closer, closer. And then her breath is all over her, and it’s so much warmer than she thought it would be, so very alive, and the closeness and the heat, it leaves the kelpie’s every nerve on end.
She finds that she enjoys the way her heart beats furiously in her throat. But before she can explore this feeling more, the woman takes a step back. Anandi inhales sharply, the salt air suddenly too cold in the absence of the other mare’s heat. It takes knuckle-whitening self control not to take a step forward, and then another, and another, until there is only one horse on the beach tonight. She barely has enough patience for this, but she hides it well. The only display of her displeasure is a small, pouting frown that curls at her expressive lips.
When Leto asks if she is here to kill, she does not need to fake her surprise, or exaggerate it. “No,” the word is soft and warm, something you want to sink your teeth into. She swallows to clear the thickness in her throat. “I would never kill something so beautiful…” At least, she would never want to, although to her shame want and need did not always align.
The kelpie smiles, and starlight shyly illuminates the sharp, clean edges of her teeth. “Not unless you wanted me to.”
The fleshy silence between the two mares is full of white noise. To Anandi, the stars and moon are as silent and far away as the bottom of the ocean. All she hears is the sound of home. Waves crash, steady and rhythmic as a pulse, and a briny breeze tugs at mane and forelock. And there is the droning of her animal hunger, her ritual want, a curtain of static that always rises to the foreground when silence falls. Just a touch. Just a taste. Proud girl, why not bow to your nature?
A demure purse of the lips, as a thought rises to the surface of her thoughts. “You know, there are ways to drown without dying…” Anandi steps closer again, and breathes in deeply of raw horseflesh, dried clay, Deeper mysteries. A shiver runs down her spine. Delicious.
She suddenly does not know how she watched this mare from afar for as long as she did. Here, now, her fascination and-- and her want-- is so plain and simple. Easy. It was so much better here with the barest of distances between them.
“Aren’t you afraid of me?” Her voice is whisper-soft and strangely soothing and– and everything about it is at odds. She sounds both pleased and disappointed, proud and embarrassed. That melodic voice swells with every emotion, leaving it up to the listener- Leto- to pick and choose what she wants to hear in it.
Oh the girl taste of seawater. Salt is sharp upon her tongue, the heat of the sea a sigh across their skin. The wash of the tide rises and falls between their limbs. It reminds them that it is here, that it is one. Against their limbs it pushes and pulls, pushing together, pulling apart, pushing apart and pulling together. Over and over that sea tide swirls feline through their limbs and seaweed tangles in ribbons about Leto’s limbs. It ties her to the ocean, it claims her and the sigh of the sea in her ears is so terribly close to laughing.
Leto asks the girl if she is here to kill and the kelpie says no.
No…
The smile that shines across the shed-star’s lips is the grin of galaxies caught by ancient sunlight. What irony is this! How often had Leto been taught of the ravenous hunger of kelpies? Of their endless desire to kill and hunt and drag unsuspecting horses out to sea?
Something stirs within her, it is warm and gentle and Leto shudders at the feel of it. No! Never should she feel for these beasts. Never has she feared them, always has she been willing to kill them. And yet, oh yet, here she stands so close and desperate to touch. Salt is upon her tongue and the pale of moonlight skin is a lamp within her gaze.
I would never kill something so beautiful… And still Leto’s smile glows as brilliant as the stars she commands. Her skin glows fierce with white heat. Her starlight blood is glowing and her laugh is the song of a universe reeling. The bells at her throat chime as they sway with the movement of her hair and neck. “Not even if you were hungry?” And Leto edges a step closer, her galaxy gaze so full of skin and sea and sand. It is desire that has her pressing close, that has her lips reaching, reaching, reaching (and yet never quite touching) the silk of the girl’s skin. Stark upon her own body is the memory of another kelpie’s touch. How that filled her with an ache of the sea, the desire to drown. The sea laughed, oh how it laughed for the Ilati-shed-star girl born of earth and sky and yet so utterly in love with the sea-
ah! For that is what it is, is it not?
Love… love for the sea. A desire, a knowing, a need to sink between the waves. It was right, it was her destiny. But always she thought it was against her will. Yet this girl would not kill her…
And the moment shifts.
The silver sea-girl crowned in sunset hue fronds begins to smile. It is a smile small and sweet and soft. But it slides like a blade across Leto’s skin when those sharp teeth gleam. The Ilati girl’s eyes close and she tells herself it is in disgust that she hides her gaze from the moonlight gleam of that smile. But oh, the truth is bitter as lemon kiss across her ebony lips. It is desire that has her eyes closing and turning away. It is the sharp twinge of want that flares deep and hot as a fire. The stars rejoice, the earth of her soul is flooded and drowning. Ah, the sea is already within her, it stirs like a whirlpool in every inch of her.
Not unless you want me to. Those words are a shiver down Leto’s back, they settle into her nerves that have her trembling with their wicked need.
-Proud girl, why not bow to your nature- oh that voice sings those words in each of their minds and souls. Leto echoes with it, her silver gaze opened wider than the moon as she drinks in the seductive beauty of this girl - for what else is she when she smiles like a goddess and says she does not kill unless they want.
Tightly, tightly Leto’s teeth grit together as Anandi presses forward. They are close that only the sea can slip between the places they leave between their bodies. It is warm here, in this place of temptation and beautiful death. Desire sings its siren song in Leto’s body and with a breath she presses herself against Anandi, as if it is relief.
There are ways to drown without dying. The girl’s voice is a tender whisper in her ears. It swells like the sea and is a balm across her skin that glows with starlight. Leto is shattering before this girl, her veins lighting up,starbright, and splitting her into a thousand black shards. Leto wonders if she might shatter into pieces and if the parts of her left will be shedstar, Ilati or water-girl. “I know there are.” She says it like an ache, for to the Ilati it would be regarded a death and she would become one of the monsters they vow to hunt.
It is horrifying the touch of their skin, midnight upon moonlight, for none of it is wrong. It does not scold her with its wrongness, but sets her alight with how terribly right it is. Her stars keen when she calls them, she hears their ethereal song, but oh there is something keening within Leto. She is a star loosening in her place. She is ready to fall.
Aren’t you afraid of me? There is something painful in the soft of Leto’s smile. It is small and sad, delighted and rejoicing. She turns where they touch, shoulder rubbing against shoulder, hip against hip. Her brow is pressed against the curve of Anandi’s neck and slowly she withdraws as she replaces her forehead with the sharp edge of a fractured piece of bone. It is as sharp as a blade and she holds it against the throb of the kelpie’s artery. “And I am an Ilati, trained to hunt your kind.” They are sharp teeth against sharp bone, midnight against moonlight but all Leto can think is how bone and tooth and moonlight and midnight each belong with the other.
“Are you afraid of me?” She whispers, her voice that mirror of shame and delight. The shard of bone falls into the sea, tangled at their feet. It was never a threat, and Leto breathes in the air, warmed by their bodies. At last she reaches, to touch the soft skin of Anandi’s nape with her lips, to feel the soft of skin made for the sea.
“What would you feel if you changed me…?” Leto breathes the words across Anandi’s neck, the words painted where lips touch skin. Then Leto is pulling herself from the kelpie girl. She is putting stars and Ilati earth and space between them – though her skin is cleaving with the lance of desire. “…if I asked to become one of you…”
Beneath the ebony crown of her fringe, she casts her gaze back to Anandi and from there is does not lift, but lights her like the moon upon the sea.
-aiiiii I am sorry, I am not sure why her every reply to you is so ridiculously long...-
@Anandi <3| "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
Anandi smiles graciously. I’m always hungry she wants to laugh, and maybe something in those long-lashed eyes does. Self control is the game, and I am the master– would you like to test me? “Only as long as you don’t run.” It seemed only fair to mention this, even though it was terribly embarrassing to admit. Something primal in her could not resist the chase.
Some strange magic is at play. The Ilati begins to glow with a hot white light from the inside, veins turning hot white like fractures. Anandi breathes in sharply, surprised and awed, and she steps forward. All creatures of the deep sea are enamored by the light. (at least, those who have not lost their eyes-- however loosely "eyes" may be defined) The distance between them closes, despite all the reasons it should be growing. And then it is Leto who finally reaches out across that slim space of warm air between them. A star could not change its orbit, even to save itself.
They are brine and clay, kelp and mud, fish and flesh and heat, so much heat. It’s all new to the kelpie. She knows the warmth of flesh (skin blood and bone) on her muzzle, in her mouth, down her throat, but not pressed against her like that, like the ocean, like the sun, but closer than either of those. Like a locked door being pushed on until it strains against its hinges.
And then there is something sharp pressed against her throat.
The frantic beating of her heart betrays the butterfly-calm look in her eyes that says do I look afraid? It hammers against the bone-blade, embracing and recoiling in equal measure. Even after the weapon is discarded, the kelpie feels a warmth where it kissed her skin. A warmth that considered further, and compared to the feel of Amaroq’s teeth in that same spot, would turn to rage. She resented being treated like a monster or a conquest, even though she could rightfully be called either.
But before the shock can fade and anger rise in its place, Leto is back, pressed against her like warm silk, and there is no room for consideration. There is only being, and doing, and the woman’s words hot on the girl’s bare neck. When she draws away again Anandi takes a single hungry step after her, a small, beautiful frown painted on her lips.
In truth it would weigh heavy on Anandi’s heart to make another kelpie. Her kind did not approve of doing such things on a whim– for they truly saw themselves monsters, and it was a great responsibility to make another monster. But the longer she stayed at the surface, the more she felt a division grow between herself and her people. Life was easy here. Free. There was an abundance of fish and… other things to feed on, and not as many rival clans as Andi had expected.
Really she would be giving the woman a gift. A whole new world, unimaginably larger than Novus. A freedom beyond all expectations. The only downside was the Hunger, but that was manageable. (It could even be enjoyable, but Anandi was not yet ready to admit that to anyone.) “I would feel good.” She feels exposed beneath the starlight of Leto’s gaze and the wide-open sky. “Like I was doing something right.” She hesitates. It was not natural for her to be so honest, so genuine– it often did not work to her favor– but something compels her. Maybe it was the closeness of Leto just moments ago, the memory of her touch warming Andi’s skin. Maybe it was the gravity of the topic of conversation. “It isn’t something I would offer just anyone, you know. You’re… Different. Special.”
Leto takes a breath and it is full of seasalt, full of life. The wild sea runs in and claims the girls again and again who stand upon its shore. The girls are apart, their black and white skin separated and light and sea and the wind reaches into the places where they touched.
But what relief it is not to touched and be touched! Leto breathes deep, deep until her lungs ache and her heart is fitful behind her breast. Anandi’s words are silk, they are sweet-soft and Leto smiles because, for every piece that is soft is also sharp with violence. Her galaxy eyes close. Her lids blot out the world, though she hears it roaring and vital within her ears. “I am tired of running.” Her gaze seeks out Anandi, her smile small and weary. The sea summons her and obediently Leto takes a step towards it and wonders: is it the sea who holds her fate here, or is it she - or even Anandi?
Leto might have let her mind wonder, she might have begun to let it think that today was not the day, that she would not die beneath the waves and - … But she doesn’t… Not when Anandi speaks of how right she would feel. Oh, would it be right? Leto’s lashes are thick and low across her eyes. They press like dreams upon her cheeks, dreams she dares not take - not when she puts her fate into the hands of a pretty kelpie girl and aches to just… go.
Different… Special
Those words, they lay themselves across Leto’s skin. She feels their branding mark but does not feel changed or marred for it. “What does that even mean?” The shed-star asks as the earth shifts away with the water beneath her feet. Her footing fails as the sea forces her step. She steps deeper, once, twice and yes, yes, she answers the sea and walks. The waves roll in to welcome her, they pull her deeper and deeper, up to her chest, her throat. Her heart is worried, it thunders and races and all of her is alive. The sea water hisses where the white hot of her magic touches it. Steam plumes thick and elegant and Leto looks back to Anandi. “Then come and let’s do something good and right.”
<3 let's do this! -
@Anandi <3| "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
Oh, Anandi had no idea, did she, that this land would be so full of such marvelous creatures. She had no idea how much she would come to admire them. Their beauty, their elegance. Even their stupidity, when it happened, which was not as often as she assumed, was utterly charming. How fond she would grow of their delicious scent and (most of all) the way they looked at her like she was a goddess.
“I am tired of running.” Anandi, wide-eyed, nods understandingly. (She does not understand.) “I know,” she whispers. (She does not know.) She licks her teeth. Jittery with need. There’s blood in the water, and she so wants to insert herself into the wound. Make it all better.
It is a kind of love. Maybe.
What does it mean to be different? Special? Anandi laughs. “It means you seduced the kelpie, and not the other way around.” So sweet, so honest. “It means I would make you mine,” How soothing her voice is, all velvet and starlight. It was a shame, how often landlings failed to realize the ocean could be warm. The ocean could be sweet. It could even, sometimes, be generous. “Not as a meal but as an equal.”
Oh but that soft voice promises of unseen barbs. In the crooked curl of her lips is a promise: yet-- we will never really be equals. You will always be a shadow of me, a star held up to the moon.
But don’t worry, I’ll make sure you learn to like it.
Anandi did not think her first time would be like this. With a beautiful girl stepping slow and sure into the sea. Up to her neck in seawater, looking over her shoulder. Summoning, with a voice that knows mud and stars and ocean. Summoning, with a look that could melt mountains. So lovely and so wanting. Mine, the kelpie marvels greedily. All mine, always. She will always remember the feel of the bone knife pressed to her throat. How her pulse rose half in fear, half in challenge. cut me, drink me, make me feel real.
Leto, brave, perfect Leto, she says: “Then come and let’s do something right.”
The words sink in like a fishhook. Anandi’s eyes glaze silver with moonlight. She wants to suspend time to lap it all up. To savor the way her bones ache so much with desire it feels like they might snap. But she was never very patient. Particularly not with the carrot on such a short stick.
Anandi growls, all divine savagery, and in the span of a heartbeat she’s pressed against Leto’s sweet summer flesh. Her tail, grown long and snakelike, wraps around the other mare’s legs. It tightens. There is little gentleness. There are no instructions. Anandi grabs that beautiful neck in her teeth and, feeling the pulse of life on her tongue, she pulls. Down into the water that roils and bubbles around them like a cauldron. Down into a heat that feels like desire itself.
And with the night and the ocean as witness, a most fated turning begins.
I scraped my teeth on destiny like eating a mango
it ran down my chin
the oldest story of all
From the moment her prophecy was whispered from the scratchy, other-worldly voice of the Witch Doctor, Leto had wondered what it was going to be like to drown.
She did not imagine teeth within her throat that hold her and pull her down. Neither did she imagine the tail that wraps about her limbs and holds them fast - as if she might ever have considered escape.
But Leto did imagine what the sky would look like above her as she drifted down and the waves rolled over to consume her in blue. But nothing could have prepared her for the beauty of it, the savagery. The world, the sky leaves her as rippling blue shuts like glass doors above her.
She opens her mouth to call down the stars but all that fills her lungs is water where there should be air. All above her is silver and a blue that grows richer, deeper, darker with each pull, pull, pull from Anandi’s teeth.
Then the blood comes seeping up, up from where flesh and teeth meet. Where Anandi marks her changed and different. Fate is warmer than the water that holds her. It cradles her in electricity that makes her skin sting with the energy of it.
The girls sink in silver and black and blood. They are tangled in desire and fate as the ocean churns and welcomes them deeper, deeper. There is an agony in death; a desperation that has her fighting, struggling against the might of Anandi. Ah, beautiful, sweet Anandi who brings death with a divine smile.
It is slow, this fateful turn. It is lungs too full of saltwater. They gasp and agonise and beg to be emptied and filled again with air. It is the cut of her throat as if beneath teeth that open gills along her neck and have her breathing again - breathing as if the water is air. It is the rise of hunger deep as an abyss as strong as a riptide. It has her peeling away from Anandi, rolling and twisting, slowly, slowly through the water, learning to breathe, to swim, to want as Anandi wants. It is her eyes closing and death and rebirth entwining and uniting within her.
<3 Leave this here and explore the after effects in a new thread? -
@Anandi <3| "speaks" | notes: table 2/2!! this was super fun to make
