Anandi hated this vulnerability. This flagrant display of weakness, red and warm and sticky. If it weren’t for Anouk’s insistence she would be hiding out beneath the waves, tending to (read: ignoring) the wound as best she could. Speaking of her bonded, the little water elemental is pressed to her neck, a dark stain that quivers with worry. “Are you going to be all right, Anandi? Is she going to make you better, Anandi?” The water hums, and the kelpie does her best to soothe its worries with a softness that no other living thing sees from her. “Yes Anouk, hush now. It’s just a scratch, really.”
Alaunus lifts up and away, vanishing into the canopy like a fever dream. Her last sight of him: backlit by a sun that seems far away, white wings aglow with a bright light that lingers in her eyesight long after he’s gone. “That’s incredible,” she says, blinking away the brightness. “I’ve never heard of such a creature.”
“You should learn such a trick, Anouk,” she is in good enough spirits to joke. In response, Anouk thrums with mock indignance against her neck. They both know the sea needs no such tricks.
But Anandi is only half paying attention to soothing her bonded. She carefully watches Samaira at work, noting the ease with which the doctor moves around the small room and directs the medic. It is the same quiet grace that she has come to expect of the pegasus, but in this place it is multiplied. Here is a woman in her element, and there is something absolutely captivating about it.
Despite the pain, Anandi’s senses are razor-sharp. Perhaps it is because of the scent of blood in the air- even though it is her own, it triggers something primal in the kelpie. The medic at her side is so warm, and this is only emphasized by the cold ice between them. When she closes her eyes she swears she can hear the heartbeats of the other mares in the room. It reaches for her across the stale copper air. It invites. She reins in her instincts with a tired hand. “Hey,” Samaira brings her back. “How’s your pain?”
“What pain?” She winks and smiles bravely, although a moment later the expression crumbles to a wince as the ice on her shoulder is gently readjusted. “Do what you will, doctor. I trust you.” She closes her eyes and attempts to shut down her other senses as well, and although patience was never a virtue of hers she leans into it now, and lets the long process of healing begin.
@
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
