She didn’t know this side of the sea. She couldn’t even claim to know its depths. Anandi knew the ebb and flow of the tides, the upwelling of cold water, the play of the light (strained) and shadow (trembling). She knew well its cruelty and its kindness, and most of all its capacity for mystery. But she didn’t know this side of it. It was a new violence to her, and though she may one day learn to love it, to lean into the storm like it was a warm body, that day was not today.
Fear was not something to be ashamed of. Fear is what had kept her people alive for generations. Surviving, if not thriving. Fear is what tells that now she must return to the water, that some thrills are not worth the risk. Fear tells her where and when she belongs, and it is not here and now. “Maybe,” she concedes with a roll of her shoulder that suggests not really. Not at all. “But it does not love me the way the sea loves me.”
It was a great privilege, to be loved by the sea, but in many ways it had made her soft. She had taken that softness and fashioned it into a kind of strength-- she was at least resourceful, and cunning. But in the end it was still a softness, it would always be a softness, and so she trembled at the lightning with fear instead of delight.
There is a sudden flash of lightning, and this time she does not blink. The image of Boudika, coiled and tense as a tiger, is burned into Anandi’s vision. The twilight darkness of the storm returns and Andi sees the other woman in double; seared in white and red, slick with rain and rage. God-like. Irrefutably kelpie.
The distance closes between them. Tremulous and electric. The words “you know what happened to me” sit bitterly in Anandi’s stomach. The ear they are breathed into flicks back. She wants to vomit. Despite the cold rain her skin feels hot, hot hot, and she is not sure if it is Boudika’s closeness or her anger or both which makes her blood boil.
“Who.” The word is barely more than a growl. Predatory and more than a little possessive. Who did this to you-- and would you be terribly upset if I rip their throat out? No one (else) had the right to do this. Boudika was hers.
Novus was hers.
Her tongue plays across the back of her teeth. Back and forth, across the seam between flesh and tooth, feeling the blood just beneath the skin grow hot. Feeling her own pulse, rhythmic and haunting. She could smell herself in the air, that fresh-blood scent hanging like a lure, twisting her up.
Anandi steps back, leads the other mare down the cliff with the eager swing of her hips. Partway down the rocky trail to the sea, where she knows below there is a gap in the rocky shoreline, she waits for the sea to swell with an incoming wave...
and without hesitation, she jumps.
A N A N D I
"Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like.
I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
Fear was not something to be ashamed of. Fear is what had kept her people alive for generations. Surviving, if not thriving. Fear is what tells that now she must return to the water, that some thrills are not worth the risk. Fear tells her where and when she belongs, and it is not here and now. “Maybe,” she concedes with a roll of her shoulder that suggests not really. Not at all. “But it does not love me the way the sea loves me.”
It was a great privilege, to be loved by the sea, but in many ways it had made her soft. She had taken that softness and fashioned it into a kind of strength-- she was at least resourceful, and cunning. But in the end it was still a softness, it would always be a softness, and so she trembled at the lightning with fear instead of delight.
There is a sudden flash of lightning, and this time she does not blink. The image of Boudika, coiled and tense as a tiger, is burned into Anandi’s vision. The twilight darkness of the storm returns and Andi sees the other woman in double; seared in white and red, slick with rain and rage. God-like. Irrefutably kelpie.
The distance closes between them. Tremulous and electric. The words “you know what happened to me” sit bitterly in Anandi’s stomach. The ear they are breathed into flicks back. She wants to vomit. Despite the cold rain her skin feels hot, hot hot, and she is not sure if it is Boudika’s closeness or her anger or both which makes her blood boil.
“Who.” The word is barely more than a growl. Predatory and more than a little possessive. Who did this to you-- and would you be terribly upset if I rip their throat out? No one (else) had the right to do this. Boudika was hers.
Novus was hers.
Her tongue plays across the back of her teeth. Back and forth, across the seam between flesh and tooth, feeling the blood just beneath the skin grow hot. Feeling her own pulse, rhythmic and haunting. She could smell herself in the air, that fresh-blood scent hanging like a lure, twisting her up.
Anandi steps back, leads the other mare down the cliff with the eager swing of her hips. Partway down the rocky trail to the sea, where she knows below there is a gap in the rocky shoreline, she waits for the sea to swell with an incoming wave...
and without hesitation, she jumps.
"Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like.
I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else."
@Boudika
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
