of your own longing;
your need grows teeth
"Somehow it's strange to hear you say that."
At first the words don't register- Anandi's struck by the lovely rasp of Apolonia's voice.
(Last winter, a terrible thunderstorm rolled through. The next day she walked past trees with broken, fallen limbs. Bark lay scattered in thick, rough brown curls and the air smelled of char and ozone. Apolonia's voice is like that.)
The emissary collects herself with a flushed smile. “Well. I’m not often sorry.” She thinks Apolonia isn’t, either-- and why should either of them be? At worst, sorrow was a sickness most vile. Better to sever the limb than let the infection spread. It was, at best, a waste of time. A sentimentality, granted to the pretty pied girl with the sharp-smokey eyes and the big... axe-thing. (weapons… not really a specialty of the kelpie’s) We count all the reasons why as the petals of a flower going round and round. Or, more appropriately, the many rows of a shark’s teeth. Pluck them one by one, sing a little girl’s song: “She loves me. She loves me not. She loves me.”
Bloody teeth and torn petals; Apolonia’s cheek on her shoulder and smoke and shadows pressing close like blankets.
"That sounds..." the grey picks up with a soft laugh where the paint leaves off, “mmhmm… fun.” The words are a little tart, undeniably sarcastic but… there is a fondness there. Often it's those closest to us who are the most maddening; so it was with Anandi and her large family. The closer she allowed them, the easier it was for them to slip beneath the skin. “We get along most of the time. It’s hard, sometimes, we’re all so different… but I’d do anything for them.” She shrugs, not seeing the need to embellish the point. It was strong enough as it was, coming from the kohl-eyed emissary who on the surface didn’t seem to care about anyone at all. That was all part of the game-- it isn’t safe to be yourself here, unless you’re in the shadows or on the outskirts… or on evenings like this, hazy evenings with the sea in the air, thick as a second skin, and secrets burning up all around.
Apolonia leans in close, murmurs “like this?” just low enough Anandi must lean in to hear. She feels the words, a warm whirl of breath, on her cheek. Then, in the glow of a flame that isn’t really there, her eyes widen. O sets it all on fire. The scraggly cliff grass, the stupid piles of paper and ink. The livestock, bleating drunk and careless, crackle and burst into flame. And at the center of the closest bonfire, a pillar of heat and life reaches up to challenge the night.
It’s all so real. But no one else reacts, and when wide-eyed Anandi reaches out a foreleg to swipe it over the flames, they are not hot to the touch. “You clever girl!” And she laughs like she’s drunk; in a way she is.
Oh savage glee.
Oh wildfire love, cheeks smeared with ash, tongue thick with want.
One girl turns to the other. It was almost always like this- one of them looking, the other pretending not to notice. Anandi stops laughing and her voice is suddenly very serious.“What’s keeping you in Solterra?” Her cheeks are warm with the possibility of rejection, but she was never one to stay quiet when there was something she wanted; she pushes on. “Why don’t you stay here a while?” She gently pinches her lower lip between her teeth. Set things on fire for me. Jump off the cliffs and into the sea. Come with me to court.
In the quiet that follows she can hear her own heartbeat, and it sounds like the soft sputter and smolder of coals.
@
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
