There was a creature lurking beneath the waves the morning Ipomoea came to the cliffs. She watches with bright, curious eyes as the pied stallion comes to the edge of the land. From beneath the surface he is just a brown and white smear against the first-blush sky. She does not realize he's reading a piece of paper, then ripping it, then tossing it into the wind until it hits the water. It floats for a minute, the fibers of the paper growing dark and heavy until, bloated, it sinks past the kelpie.
For a long time, paper scraps like that were a lifeline to her. They would sink ever so slowly into the sea, undulating back and forth with the breath of the tides. And when they reached the depths where the Minns resided, Anandi and her sisters would carefully draw close in the dim light to decipher whatever text was still legible. Sometimes the words had already faded, the surface of the paper dissolved into the sea, but sometimes they hadn’t. They mostly got business ledgers from sunken trade ships, but sometimes they would get letters, lost or discarded, or even books and maps. Each poured over like scripture, and hotly discussed for weeks to come.
Anandi doesn’t attempt to piece together the writing on the letter that drifts down now. People, she had quickly learned, were far much more interesting than their trash. Instead she gracefully rises to take its place on the surface. Blink and you’ll miss the exact moment she emerges-- one minute Ipomoea is looking into the water, the next he’s looking into Anandi’s calm green eyes. She stares at him a moment too long, catlike and unyielding, before lifting her muzzle above the water to say “It isn’t very nice to litter.”
The kelpie rolls onto her side, looking up at him through the sunlit mist of sea spray as the waves rock her to and fro. He looks sad. She found it interesting that the sea brought great joy to children– they rushed to it with delight, skipping stones and frolicking in the waves– but for adults it often had the opposite effect. She had seen countless men and women standing at the top of the cliffs with that same haunted look in their face.
To the sea each stranger showed their true face, expressions not clipped or buried or emphasized with the knowledge that someone else was watching. And Anandi had learned, from much time spent watching from beneath the waves, that when you took away the audience most people were sad.
Sorrow was a disease, and she was determined to never let herself succumb to it. She didn’t particularly like being around sad people (they were often quite boring) and any effort made to cheer others up was often made for selfish reasons. She smiles prettily at the pied stallion, voice charcoal and red wine. Her tail flicks briefly at the surface and is gone again just as quickly as she purrs, “I wonder, sovereign Ipomoea, what punishment would you inflict on someone caught littering in your lands?” Her tone is laughing, teasing. She was hardly about to fine a foreign king for dramatically discarding a letter into the sea. Especially knowing what joy it might give some little girl living deep, deep below.
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."
For a long time, paper scraps like that were a lifeline to her. They would sink ever so slowly into the sea, undulating back and forth with the breath of the tides. And when they reached the depths where the Minns resided, Anandi and her sisters would carefully draw close in the dim light to decipher whatever text was still legible. Sometimes the words had already faded, the surface of the paper dissolved into the sea, but sometimes they hadn’t. They mostly got business ledgers from sunken trade ships, but sometimes they would get letters, lost or discarded, or even books and maps. Each poured over like scripture, and hotly discussed for weeks to come.
Anandi doesn’t attempt to piece together the writing on the letter that drifts down now. People, she had quickly learned, were far much more interesting than their trash. Instead she gracefully rises to take its place on the surface. Blink and you’ll miss the exact moment she emerges-- one minute Ipomoea is looking into the water, the next he’s looking into Anandi’s calm green eyes. She stares at him a moment too long, catlike and unyielding, before lifting her muzzle above the water to say “It isn’t very nice to litter.”
The kelpie rolls onto her side, looking up at him through the sunlit mist of sea spray as the waves rock her to and fro. He looks sad. She found it interesting that the sea brought great joy to children– they rushed to it with delight, skipping stones and frolicking in the waves– but for adults it often had the opposite effect. She had seen countless men and women standing at the top of the cliffs with that same haunted look in their face.
To the sea each stranger showed their true face, expressions not clipped or buried or emphasized with the knowledge that someone else was watching. And Anandi had learned, from much time spent watching from beneath the waves, that when you took away the audience most people were sad.
Sorrow was a disease, and she was determined to never let herself succumb to it. She didn’t particularly like being around sad people (they were often quite boring) and any effort made to cheer others up was often made for selfish reasons. She smiles prettily at the pied stallion, voice charcoal and red wine. Her tail flicks briefly at the surface and is gone again just as quickly as she purrs, “I wonder, sovereign Ipomoea, what punishment would you inflict on someone caught littering in your lands?” Her tone is laughing, teasing. She was hardly about to fine a foreign king for dramatically discarding a letter into the sea. Especially knowing what joy it might give some little girl living deep, deep below.
"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."
@Ipomoea <33
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
