This keening soul;
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
