beauty can bite
Anandi is not here for romance or love or any of that simpleton stuff. She’s here to play the game, the silly game, to spread herself across Novus, to acquaint herself with strangers and to grow friendships from acquaintances. To her this is all a matter of business.
(And if her heart beat a little quicker when the envelope came, if her touch trembled with anticipation when she slipped the knife beneath the seal and freed the letter from its cage with a soft rip of paper-- that was a secret between herself and Anouk. The card read:
“Your date is soft as an angel
And so intensely beautiful,
To look at her is painful.
Her name is Juniper.”
Well, it was not the greatest of rhymes, but the name brought a smile to Anandi’s lips. Juniper. She knew the mare, though not as well as she would like to.)
Anandi didn’t care at all for the snow, and neither did Anouk. The little water spirit pressed tightly to Anandi’s underbelly, where it refused to move for terror of the cold. The emissary herself was not moving particularly smoothly. She had hardly mastered walking on grass, let alone snow, and it was no surprise her date had beaten her to the venue.
Their eyes meet across a semi-trampled field of white, and Anandi smiles immediately. She notes the wave of the pegasus’ wings in greeting, and she finds it deeply charming. She’s thinking of the sea, and the expressive flapping of fish gills, and- while this might seem like the opposite of romantic- it reminds her for a moment of home, and it fills her with comfort. She finds herself at ease, despite how easily this situation could slip into awkwardness.
“Juniper,” the kelpie purrs as she draws close, accepting the cookies and cocoa with a grateful tuck of the head. “How lovely to see you.” The cookies are sweet, the cocoa sweeter, but she is very careful to take a nibble and a sip without grimacing. This is what horses did, so she did her best to play the part. “How are you, my dear?” Her glance strays to the lake, where couples are laughing and drifting across the ice in a way that makes her uncharacteristically nervous. Was that… was that supposed to be fun?
It looked like utter lunacy to the emissary.
Although, much of Novus did, but that did not stop her from wanting it.
Where Juniper looks to the world as a glass half full, Anandi looks to the world as a glass full to overflowing- and hers, all hers, for the drinking. Does this make her an optimist? Yes, but not like Juniper. Oh, not at all like Juniper.
@
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
