Anandi
please, please, please
I
n her tenure as emissary, Anandi had admittedly not spent much as much time and attention as she should have on Delumine. For the most part she had taken the many stereotypes to be true, and dismissed the scholarly court as benign and uninteresting, introverted and innocuous. From her understanding of Novus history, they lacked the fire of Solterra (a court she always considered a threat, even with mild Orestes at the helm) and the mystery of Denocte. The physical courts of novus, in architecture and style, she was not particularly interested in-- it was the citizens and the culture. For the latter the library was deeply intriguing to her, and perhaps the one interesting facet of what she privately referred to as “Doldrum Delumine”. Yet she had never visited to see the revered structure and its contents for herself. It lay entombed in the thick, lush Viride- a harrowing journey, one she always found some reason to avoid. It was not the darkness of the ancient forest that intimidated her, for she was born and bred in shadows, and she had no fear of adventure- elsewise she would have never even arrived in Novus. The simple truth is that she did not like to be so far from the sea. It was impractical, perhaps irrational, and certainly not a measure of safety, for she was as well-equipped and dangerous as any other predator that might lurk in the jungle. But whenever Anandi did not have sight or sound or scent of the ocean in range, a sense of doom began to press in on all sides.
She saw it as a stroke of good fortune that the dawn court sovereign had come to her shores. Their meeting was long overdue, to the point that she felt a flush of shame that their first meeting would be a chance encounter. But Anandi, ever the optimist (so long as optimism was in her favor) focuses on the bright side, the silver lining, and discards her shame and failings as easily as a scrap of paper thrown into the sea.
He’s not at all the bland, simpering puppy she imagined. Is it due to whatever sorrows brought him here to her sea?
Or is it perhaps because of her, the contradictions in her that called to those in him? (sharp-soft, sweet-sour, as blood could be velvet beautiful yet smell of rot)
“Witch,” she had been called once as she rose from the sea. It was supposed to wound, but she only tipped her head back and laughed. Fools often thought the spell was in her song, but really it was in her being.
Does he ever get called warlock? She figures he doesn’t, men having a way of being defined by more than their power or mystery. Which was funny, as she had no discernible magic and he-- he was brimming with it. She had heard great tales of the havoc he’d caused in Solterra, the armies of beasts and walls of prickly cacti. In the songs he brought a hundred shades of color to the monochrome of the desert, each of them twisted and turned to his will. Nobody mentioned how many of the beasts died, and if they did so with fear or joy in their eyes.
This is all on the back of her mind as he talks about secrets, and then summons her to land. She wonders briefly if his words are laced with magic. Is it will or compulsion with which she moves next? She rises to the dare in his gaze, wordless, setting hooves into the dark sand and stepping forth from the shallows to the slim beach. The brief smile she shares with him says it all: “Yes, king.”
But only because I want to.
The cliffside, although steep and rocky and prone to crumbling, is scaled quickly and skillfully. (Anandi has spent much time going up and down those cliffs- she climbs with more grace than she walks.) And then they stand before each other, emissary and sovereign, each with their own headpiece of sorts. Like delegates for land and sea. “I like your flowers,” she says, even though she had seen how flattery washed off him like rain. Saying nice things when they came to mind had gotten her surprisingly far in life. Perhaps it is because these little compliments carried sincerity in ways her scheming and flattery did not, and from these glimpses of integrity one could discern that Anandi is still so very young, still softened and delighted by pretty things. Still drawn to all the beauty in all the great big world, and eager to share it.
Anandi turns and steps around so they stand shoulder, facing the sea. The two are of equal height, and from this distance she can sense the warmth that leeches from his skin. It hangs in the air around him like a shroud, until the breeze picks up and sweeps it away. Her heart quickens, although her voice stays low and steady. “What kind of secret would you like?” Her grin is less sweet now, more mischievous. It only makes her look more like a girl.
“I have many.”
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
