Anandi was not well acquainted with loneliness. Even here, leagues away from family and friends and home, even here in a world so different that distance took on a whole new meaning, she did not feel lonely in the way she expected to. Life in Novus was colorful and beautiful and easy, and she was too busy exploring it to feel homesick. But how many times, with her many new land friends, did she wish they could join her beneath the waves? Sometimes the only thing in the world she wanted was to dance once again with someone to the gentle pulse of the sea.
The light is blue-green and piercing. It glimmers, illusive, and dances across the skins of the two water horses. One delicate, long, lovely-- her very bones suggestive of the snap they would make as they broke. The other sharp, sleek, also, in his way, lovely-- in the way a wolf is lovely, even with its muzzle red with blood.
Anandi never learned how to run. She learned how to hunt, how to stalk and chase, even how to be submissive-- but only when to do so was opportune. So when he lunges for her, she does not even have the instinct to flee. He's upon her too easily and a keening wail, indignant, rises from Anandi with a flurry of bubbles. She bares her teeth, angry, and her eyes scream the world you know is changing fast, even as her heart trembles with fear. This would be such a stupid way to die, she was so stupid for playing this game with him, and yet--
She knows he won't bite. She knows. Because she was made for bigger and better things than dying on the whim of some shallow-water dog. Because her future is still ahead of her, clear and starlit and big, bigger than this stupid, primitive beast could even imagine. Because she really does believe that the world he knows is changing fast, she's here now, and she's going to change everything. But not if he bites down.
And he doesn't bite. She stares daggers into him, but remains docile in his grip until he lets go.
It would be a damn lie to say he wasn't beautiful. She takes a long moment just to watch him rise into the sun, the current playing with his silver mane and the light wrapping eagerly around his body. A mystery of scars carved into his thick flesh. Every inch of him sings of danger, of death. Every inch of her responds.
She should leave. This asshole doesn't deserve her company. But despite her better judgement she follows, forward and up, up and into the too-bright sunlight. Caught, like a pathetic fish on a line, and pretending she chose to bite into the hook that hid beneath the lure.
She breaks the surface with a very quiet splash. Gives him a long look with kohl-rimmed eyes. Anandi, for perhaps the first time in her life, doesn't know what to say. She doesn't know how to act, who to be, before this man. She still feels his teeth on her neck, and his horn pressed so softly to her cheek. "Hi," she says finally, voice licorice and salt and honey. She licks the sea water from her lips. "Who are you?" Like they don't already know each other in a manner more intimate than words could ever be.
Like a deep woman, the sea hid a good deal; it had many faces, many delicate, terrible veils. It spoke of miracles and distances; if it could court, it could also kill.
@Amaroq <3
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
