we are the ones who don't slow down at all
Aghavni looks good. O is waiting just inside the gates, hoof cocked, weight leaned against the wall, and tells her as much when the Emissary comes out of the darkness, Apolonia sort of laughing as she remarks, with a kind of mild, pleased astonishment: “Look who decided to dress up.”
Her tone is rough with amusement. A kind of purring sound, from the back of the throat. It is something she has only just begun to pick up as she grows older and spends more of her time around girls, who do this same thing—purr and snarl and make it look pretty. To her Aghavni is a mentor, a guide to the strange world of femininity.
Around them the world is red and dim. Rising walls are lit with the strange flicker of hungry flames. There is music in the air—a dark and lively slashing of violins on top of pianos on top of groaning-heavy cellos—and the crowds are dense, packed with the perfumed bodies of dancers and drunks with raucous laughs.
This is a place to be wild.
O’s lip curls into an easy smirk. With a narrowed gaze, she notes the pearls in Aghavni’s hair, the hard green of her eyes, the slash of bright fabric looped against her throat; this kind of finery is not uncommon in Solterra, but in the warm, dusky light of the festival it seems especially ethereal. Like reading through the illustrations of a well-loved fairytale. Like looking at a pearl or a shell through the sheen of perfect blue water: a beautiful thing made awfully strange by the way it sits, pretending to be inorganic, under a film of something like magic.
Aghavni’s hip meets her shoulder and startles her from her thoughts. “It’s alright,” O says, amused, and brushes her mouth quick as a lightning bolt against the Emissary’s flank in something like a dare. (Is this not a place for dares?)
She is feeling good. Too good, maybe—arrogant. The world is wide open with people to kiss, partners to dance with, drinks to be drunk and jewelry to be stolen; Apolonia’s heart is alive like a wild thing in her chest, and her blood is racing hot under her skin, and when Aghavni says that girl over there has been watching you, she is not surprised. Does not raise brow.
When she sees her suspicions are right—that the girl Aghavni refers to is none other than Anandi, sleek gray and bright pink against the mysterious darkness of the crowd—she grins, or perhaps it is a smirk, but either way there is no mistaking the intensity, the wolfishness in that flash of bright teeth.
“We’ve met,” O says to her friend, as if it is a proper response (still she is distracted, the glow of her three eyes a dare in the dark, a brow arched at Andi from across the room). A breath escapes her, half-laughing. And then, before she can argue, or think about crossing the dance floor, a surprised ooph escapes her as she is tugged forward by the loop of Aghavni’s scarf tightening behind her neck, and then they are in the thick of it.
A jolt of shock. Her hooves skid over the floor; briefly her ears flicker back in surprise. But there is no time to waste. Quicker than a heartbeat, they are now deep in the swirling, dancing crowds, the smell of incense descending like smog, the sound of music growing louder and louder until it seems to vibrate in her bones.
O’s sharp, severe body is not made for dancing, but that hardly seems to matter now. Slowly, she forces herself to relax. Her heart beats harder, but her muscles start to unwind; she is only following Aghavni’s lead, swaying to the music like a leaf stirs in the breeze, eyes bright with mischief, lip curled in a girl's smile.
Only once does she toss a glance over her shoulder in the direction of the kelpie princess, as if saying come here.
