Oh, this woman drove Anandi insane.
“Are you a child? Life is not always as simple as it seems.” Anandi flicks her tail to the side with annoyance. If they were underwater, it would be a dangerous gesture; but they aren’t, and the useless thing just swats against her silver flanks, a tired flag.
Lucinda couldn’t know that Anandi was born and raised in darkness. Taught to scavenge, and wait, and hope a husband would magically fall from the surface so that she would be so lucky to bear his children. And raise them in darkness, and so continue the dismal cycle.
Lucinda couldn’t know Anandi cried the first time she watched a sunrise, or that Dusk Court to her was a wonderland of new sights, smells, sensations. She couldn’t know Anandi had left her family behind, deep down in the dark, and was hustling to make a safe home for them in the sun.
But it was true that Anandi was a shameless liar, and her actions were not always as benevolent and selfless as she might claim. And the two women’s first interaction had been an ugly, violent affair, so the winged kelpie could not be blamed for being a little… close minded. They had gotten off on the wrong foot, so to speak. Anandi grits her teeth, and attempts to be the bigger person.
It would be so much easier if she could cut the tether between them. If only it were a physical restraint that could be sawed through. Anandi so longed to cut these ties and be done with it. Instead she has to stand here while the other mare laughs
in her face,
she has to swallow her pride and feel the prick of Lucinda’s disappointment. Coward. Anandi reads the sentiment in the sneering curl of the woman’s lips. “You’re something else, you little witch.” It takes every effort to keep her face wiped clean of any emotion. She watches the darkness spread across Lucinda’s face. The curiosity. The hunger.
Her own belly feels like it's full of eels. She holds her ground when Lucinda steps forward, dripping salt water. And when she speaks, her voice has the electric tension of forced calm. “There is a bond between us. A pull.” Like the tide. Something beyond themselves. Anandi does not understand it, but that did not matter; it was a thing that was felt, not thought. The mind could try and wrap itself around it, but it would only end up in knots.
She tries very hard not to sound condescending. It is difficult, but she manages-- she thinks. “Tell me you don’t feel it, and I’ll leave. You’ll never have to see me again.” As soon as the words come out, she wishes she could take them back. They reek of a lie.
Anandi would never leave her alone. She couldn't.
@Lucinda I love that html <3
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
