a pack of blood fresh-drawn
A gem dangles alluringly near a piercing blue eye. Anandi feels something hinge in her stomach. It swings in time with the gem on the stranger’s crown.
The kelpie has seen that beautiful face before, although not in nearly this level of detail. The drawing the twin had made (she couldn’t differentiate the two twins, didn’t much see the point anyway) was undeniably the woman before her, but it was so flat and lifeless in comparison to reality. He was talented, but it simply was not possible to capture the look in those piercing blue eyes, or the character expressed in the elegant jut of her chin. The effortlessness of being, and the gravity formed by such effortlessness. Hers was a beauty that transcended vision. It reminded Anandi of her sisters, of herself.
Even as she slipped beneath the dark waters and darted along the lake floor, she felt the weight of Manon’s presence, calling to her like the moon.
It was a shame that Anandi had to do what she was about to do. They might get along quite well otherwise.
She calls herself a queen of something. Maybe. Anandi smiles. She’s thinking of Apolonia, how they talked of being queens. Apolonia, weapon at her hip like a love letter. “Oh, I’m just a princess. Princess of a twilight kingdom. But the night suits me better, don’t you think?” She floats closer, lets the moonlight play silver light across her sleek grey back.
Anandi practically purrs as Manon says she should bow to no one. She loved the way a compliment felt, and the shape it made on the lips of someone beautiful. “Queens can be useful,” she murmurs with a shruglike sway of her head. “Don’t you think?” More useful than not-queens, generally.
“And sovereign Marisol is good to me.” It was not entirely a lie. There was something dangerous and confusing that pulsed like a velvet heartbeat between emissary and sovereign. She still had not decided exactly how she felt about Marisol, and the more time passed the more uncomfortable this made her. Anandi did not like nebulous things, even when they were dark and delightful. She strove for control, internal and external, and the relationship she developed with her queen was something that felt wildly out of hand.
But at least it wasn’t boring. “Plus, she has interesting tasks for me, sometimes.” Anandi rises to her feet. Her tail shifts fluidly again to two long legs. Knee-deep in the lake, water drip-drops from her belly, scattering ripples across the still water. She smiles sweetly, and takes a single step toward the other mare. Nothing about her should be threatening, but everything is. “Your name is Manon, isn’t it? I'm Anandi.”
higher than my heart
A N A N D I
@
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
