Time on the island was cruel.It turned out the sun, which Anandi did not have a great impression of to begin with, was not only garish and arrogant, it was selfish. It stole the sky for far longer than it had any right to, waltzing around overhead for what seemed like entire days at a time. So the appointed full moon, when she would meet Apolonia again, somehow stretched further and further away with each passing minute. Anandi was not fond of waiting, but she had little choice in the matter. The heavens were not her domain, and not particularly receptive to the appeals of those bound to land or sea.
Finally, with no fanfare save the churning of the ocean and the chorus of frogsong and crickets, the moon fills to bursting.
When Anandi steps forth from the sea, she does not shake the water from her body. It would be something like a travesty to part with the ocean so soon. And this is how she comes to Apolonia, step by step, slick as a seal and gleaming. Cut from the silver-bright night and silhouetted by the moonlit ocean.
She stands at ease, even in a world that is not hers, surrounded by still unfamiliar sound and scent and feel. Before her the jungle looms dark and exotic, painting the senses with over-ripened fruit and black mud, at once secretive and inviting. And there stands her girl, painted in shades of moonlight. Hair so neatly braided. Waiting so patiently. So tensely, all anticipation and coiled springs. A wonderful calamity of contradictions: soft but certain, certain but hesitant. Fierce, underneath it all, that familiar fierceness which so stirred Anandi the first time they met.
And so wondrously obedient.
"Apolonia." Those five syllables are practically purred, songlike and velvet. The kelpie looks at her (friend? companion? something more and less?) a long minute. Fish bones roll in her stomach like dice. "You look nice." Her sharp green eyes narrow into focus on the bundle at the other girl's slender hip. "What's that?"
A N A N D I
@
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
