was destroyed by global warming
—
"Only alright?" Aghavni's cheeks dimpled in a fleeting grin, her gaze trailing restlessly over the room's wreathed columns, the moss-and-gossamer-draped settees, the earthen floor covered in a skin of shimmer.
Terrastella's was a beauty as coy as Solterra's was decadent; as demure as it was heavy-lidded, a waking dream for the devout and the dreamless. It enchanted and irked her in equal measure. Why play at subtlety, she wondered, when the goal was precisely the same: to arouse desire, to seduce loyalty, to fan the flames of sympathy. To twist what refused to give.
It did not make you more pious, or more upright, she thought, when you pretended not to see your own shadow. It only made you a hypocrite.
A shiver shot down her spine as O's lips ghosted over her flank, butterfly-soft; by the time she recovered enough to move again, to act (and act authentically) unfazed by so sudden a touch—the moment had ossified into history.
She swallowed thickly, and accidentally glared at an innocent passerby; except that the slick, dark-suited man hadn't been entirely innocent. He had been watching her, just like the others, and she hated it. How scrupulously they fixed their eyes to her, breaths held in collective anticipation. Of this, she knew, all the courts were the same. Vespera's children, Solis's children—anyone with something to lose and much more to gain hungered for the fall of those like her, the ones who did wrong with their mere, privileged existence.
So much more reason to flaunt it.
"We've met." Curious, Aghavni mirrored O’s casual glance across the room. Looked closer at the figure she had seen, just barely, between swirling skirts and their accompanying wine glasses. Hints of sleek grey materialized first; then, an elaborate headpiece—or was it apart of her?—of a bright coral; finally, as she tugged O forwards by her scarf, a blink of brilliant green eyes.
Almost identical to her own.
All of it together, the grey and the coral and the bright, bright green, presented a perfect picture of—
Anandi, she realized, too slow. The foreign-born Emissary of Dusk.
“Apolonia! How lovely to see you.” As if on cue, out of the parting crowd stepped the emissary herself, swirling to a halt in front of them. With her came a cloud of expensive perfume and a man clad all in red; just by the way he bowed (a beat too eager, a heartbeat too long) Aghavni knew it was his first soiree. The emissary called him Austin.
But not before calling Aghavni—
A stunning friend. Nameless and titleless; a pretty face with nothing more to it. What was your name again, love?
Her greeting, practiced and polished, died abruptly on her tongue. So in place of one, she tilted her head and smiled; the pearls woven into her mane clinked against each other like a symphony of bells. They were enchanted to do so; her father had gifted them to her the last time she'd seen him, months ago.
Even stripped of her scarf, every bit of Aghavni dripped of Hajakhan luxury. But, she noticed, so too did Anandi wear the finery of her bloodline. In a subtler way, perhaps—there it was again, that Terrastellan obsession—but undeniably she wore it: in the gleam of her frills, in the unnatural sleekness of her coat, in the octave pitch of her voice.
If the rumors were true, and rarely were they not, Anandi was a princess too. Of some distant undersea kingdom, peculiar in both its elusive obscurity and its kinship to the sea's creatures.
Or, to quit the euphemism: she was a kelpie.
"O, you neglected to tell me you were acquainted with Dusk's very own emissary," Aghavni said, nudging Apolonia's scarf-clad shoulder with her own (now bare) one. After, and only after, did she sink into a flourishing bow.
"Emissary Anandi, I am Aghavni. Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier, on behalf of the Solterran court. Of course you would not recognize me." Her teeth flashed amicably as she rose. "I have only just been appointed as emissary."
But of course you knew that. Shrewdly, brow lifting ever so slightly, she looked from O to Anandi and decided that she wasn't, in fact, mistaken.
The tension between the two was thick enough to cut. Anandi's green eyes glowed in a mirror-replica of Aghavni's own, and only when she was feeling one thing: jealousy.
So she turned her attention to Austin (but not without wondering: gods, what had she done to deserve this, to land herself in a den of A names on top of unwittingly becoming a piece in a game of jealousy that wasn't even her own). "Rosé, please," she said sweetly, demurely.
Subtle-ly.
She was in Terrastella now; it was only polite to take part in the local customs.
Terrastella's was a beauty as coy as Solterra's was decadent; as demure as it was heavy-lidded, a waking dream for the devout and the dreamless. It enchanted and irked her in equal measure. Why play at subtlety, she wondered, when the goal was precisely the same: to arouse desire, to seduce loyalty, to fan the flames of sympathy. To twist what refused to give.
It did not make you more pious, or more upright, she thought, when you pretended not to see your own shadow. It only made you a hypocrite.
A shiver shot down her spine as O's lips ghosted over her flank, butterfly-soft; by the time she recovered enough to move again, to act (and act authentically) unfazed by so sudden a touch—the moment had ossified into history.
She swallowed thickly, and accidentally glared at an innocent passerby; except that the slick, dark-suited man hadn't been entirely innocent. He had been watching her, just like the others, and she hated it. How scrupulously they fixed their eyes to her, breaths held in collective anticipation. Of this, she knew, all the courts were the same. Vespera's children, Solis's children—anyone with something to lose and much more to gain hungered for the fall of those like her, the ones who did wrong with their mere, privileged existence.
So much more reason to flaunt it.
"We've met." Curious, Aghavni mirrored O’s casual glance across the room. Looked closer at the figure she had seen, just barely, between swirling skirts and their accompanying wine glasses. Hints of sleek grey materialized first; then, an elaborate headpiece—or was it apart of her?—of a bright coral; finally, as she tugged O forwards by her scarf, a blink of brilliant green eyes.
Almost identical to her own.
All of it together, the grey and the coral and the bright, bright green, presented a perfect picture of—
Anandi, she realized, too slow. The foreign-born Emissary of Dusk.
“Apolonia! How lovely to see you.” As if on cue, out of the parting crowd stepped the emissary herself, swirling to a halt in front of them. With her came a cloud of expensive perfume and a man clad all in red; just by the way he bowed (a beat too eager, a heartbeat too long) Aghavni knew it was his first soiree. The emissary called him Austin.
But not before calling Aghavni—
A stunning friend. Nameless and titleless; a pretty face with nothing more to it. What was your name again, love?
Her greeting, practiced and polished, died abruptly on her tongue. So in place of one, she tilted her head and smiled; the pearls woven into her mane clinked against each other like a symphony of bells. They were enchanted to do so; her father had gifted them to her the last time she'd seen him, months ago.
Even stripped of her scarf, every bit of Aghavni dripped of Hajakhan luxury. But, she noticed, so too did Anandi wear the finery of her bloodline. In a subtler way, perhaps—there it was again, that Terrastellan obsession—but undeniably she wore it: in the gleam of her frills, in the unnatural sleekness of her coat, in the octave pitch of her voice.
If the rumors were true, and rarely were they not, Anandi was a princess too. Of some distant undersea kingdom, peculiar in both its elusive obscurity and its kinship to the sea's creatures.
Or, to quit the euphemism: she was a kelpie.
"O, you neglected to tell me you were acquainted with Dusk's very own emissary," Aghavni said, nudging Apolonia's scarf-clad shoulder with her own (now bare) one. After, and only after, did she sink into a flourishing bow.
"Emissary Anandi, I am Aghavni. Forgive me for not introducing myself earlier, on behalf of the Solterran court. Of course you would not recognize me." Her teeth flashed amicably as she rose. "I have only just been appointed as emissary."
But of course you knew that. Shrewdly, brow lifting ever so slightly, she looked from O to Anandi and decided that she wasn't, in fact, mistaken.
The tension between the two was thick enough to cut. Anandi's green eyes glowed in a mirror-replica of Aghavni's own, and only when she was feeling one thing: jealousy.
So she turned her attention to Austin (but not without wondering: gods, what had she done to deserve this, to land herself in a den of A names on top of unwittingly becoming a piece in a game of jealousy that wasn't even her own). "Rosé, please," she said sweetly, demurely.
Subtle-ly.
She was in Terrastella now; it was only polite to take part in the local customs.
