“What kind of king?”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.
kindness
can be a weapon too
@Boudika
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
