FIND WHAT YOU LOVE AND LET IT KILL YOU ALL THINGS WILL KILL YOU, BOTH SLOWLY AND FASTLY BUT IT IS MUCH BETTER TO BE KILLED BY A LOVER
Anandi's beautiful pride, her rigid stubbornness, softens his hard edge all at once. The urge to goad her, to punish her for the transgressions of her homeland, disappears. It is not like him. Orestes is left only with a resonant sadness at what no longer belongs to him. If he were another man, dapple-grey and still free, unburdened by marks of gold, he would have asked her to swim with him. He would have bounded into the sea, with a thousand songs. Instead he stands silent. Instead he stands knowing all that is no longer his to know.
She is so young. Orestes registers this with her slight uncertainty, the cycle of her emotions as she says stubbornly, a lady never tells only to relent a moment later. Orestes knowns there is a bit of hypocrisy in thinking such a thing; after all, he is young too. But his soul is not. His memories are not. It has been many, many years since he jutted his chin so proudly and played such a political game. He cannot even remember what life it had been in, when he still felt as fresh and wild as that.
Anandi is everything he misses and loves about the sea. Fierce, and unrelenting, and beautiful, and nearly shy.
What’s it like to be a king? Is it as lonely as it seems?
When she asks it, he wonders what she had expected of him. Regality, perhaps—the stereotypical king, dressed in royal purple and crowned at all hours of the day. Perhaps she expected courtly chivalry, or kindness. Orestes wonders why she cares about such matters, when the sea sings so sweetly. He nearly asks, but decides against it. Instead, Orestes sates her curiosity.
“Lonelier.” His eyes dance with mischief. He quotes: ”’I am too alone in this world, and yet not alone enough to make every moment holy.'”
Then, Orestes sobers again. “Lady Anandi, I will tell you a story. Perhaps you do not want to hear it.” There is no sun left in the sky; the light of his tattoos dims until they are cool silver lines against his skin. “The sea may love the land; it may learn every intimate crevice of her shore. But the sea does not belong upon it. The land will not accept the sea. She will push the waters out.” He draws back from her, step by step. “There is an island very far from here—it might as well be another world. Your distant cousins thought they could become a part of the land, there. They thought they might have the best of both; that they may befriend the land-horses, and coexist.”
His eyes are very sad as he says it. “I am not sure what you are looking for. But I am certain of what you stand to lose.” Orestes does not mean the comment as a threat. He says it in a way that implies, that suggests, he knows because he has lost it.
Orestes turns away then, after holding her gaze for several long moments. “If you would like to learn of Solterra and my Kingdom, you may visit. Ask for me, and I will escort you as a chivalrous king ought to. But do not wait for me on my sea shore and try to entice me, as if I did not once intimately know your language. Do not come to me to play games, Lady Anandi. I do not have the time for them.” He nearly wishes he had not come, as he ascends the beach and into the dunes. It is only when he crests the one nearest the sea that he stands to glance back at her. Then, he dips below the summit and into his desert.
Orestes
@Anandi | speaks | notes: eee i hope this is okay to end here! I'd love another thread with them, perhaps with anandi coming as dusk's emissary!
