Eight sunsets.
Anandi had never seen the sky painted in so many colors. Some achingly soft (cotton candy pink, blush orange, purple ochre) some wild and fierce (crimson, blood orange, black-eyed purple) all whirled together in some elaborate, mysterious dance. Below the spectacle the ocean simply watched, and reflected, unimpressed, the ephemeral show.
Eight nights.
Hunting was easy in the warm, shallow waters. There was a bounty of fish, and a relative lack of competition. In those eight nights Anandi saw none of her kind, to to her pleasure, and the time passed quickly and unmemorably in the way time often does when it is being so carelessly killed.
Eight long days.
The sun way always too bright, here. It cut through the cerulean water like sky, and at the surface of the sea, the pale sand drank in the dancing light like prayer. Eight long sleepy days spent sliding from one restless dream into another. Anandi had laid a wide net, and the waiting made her impatient. But she felt the trap closing, in the way only a hunter knows to feel. It was a gut feeling. An instinct. Those eight days passed achingly slow but in some ways not slow enough. She savored the anticipation. Drew it out like something sweet and rare. Honey on the tongue.
And on the ninth evening, the sun king. Orestes.
He didn’t have the lineage of a king (of course, not to her knowledge) but he moved like one, she gave him that much. Like molten gold. Anger rolling out before him like a wave. The sea breeze whipped up as he approached, spraying sand sideways across the beach. When she opened her eyes again he was before her. Far enough away to be safe. Close enough that she could see the intricacies of his glowing tattoos and the blue grit of his eyes.
She noted that although he carried himself like a small god, he left hoofprints in the sand. Same as every man.
“Water horse.” Oh, how tired she was of being called that! But on his lips it was something different. Less contemptuous. Not at all fearful. Almost sacred and she-- she almost would not mind if he said it again. But instead he chants the names of her people, or people like hers. Most familiar, some unknown. He says each one like a king does, like a god, and she frowns, refusing to be impressed. She never did like a showoff.
“I’d prefer if you call me by my name. Anandi. If it please you, king.” She bites off the title of princess– too forward– and struggles to not roll her eyes at his brusque greeting-- too immature. It was a delicate balance between conveying that one had been insulted and complaining about it. She bows her head low, as some of the sweet Terrastellans at court had shown her to do. She never learned, though, how one should not maintain eye contact if they did not want to challenge another's authority. Or she did not care. "Is this the way you treat all your visitors?" Her voice is green-apple crisp, fleshy and sweet enough to sink your teeth into, and a small smile plays at her features.
And just when she thinks they're past the rough introductions, “The sea loves no one,” hits like a slap in the face.
He was damn arrogant, to speak that way to her. In that moment all her careful self-restraint is forgotten, and she snarls without hesitation. One long second of the beast exposed, sharp teeth flashed ugly-beautiful. A warning, a promise, a protest.
It takes Anouk, sweet Anouk, to calm her. He rises from the skin of her back and hovers near her cheek in loving reassurance. "I'm here, Anandi. I would not be if the sea did not love you." But there is hesitation there, in the calm voice that fills her head like water. "... Who is he, Anandi?" To that Anandi can only grit her teeth because she does not know. Not really. Not yet.
She quickly regains composure. Fangs are politely tucked away, facial expression withdrawn for something a little more docile, a little less "I will eat you." Eyes, it was always the most important to control the eyes, they calm from a raging green to a silvery jade and lose the intensity of a cat about to pounce. Instead they are polite and veiled, just barely suggestive of all the thoughts that would be too impolite for a lady to share ("Seriously, I will eat you"-- among others)
While she meets his gaze, she is careful not to look to closely into his eyes. The depth of them is reminiscent of a trap, and the kelpie is too wary and too sly and too proud to be caught so easily by any man, even if that man was a king. (-- They are lovely, though. Stormy, salty, sea-kissed eyes, a color one could live in.
If one must choose their cage.)
A small pure piece of her heart wants to ask "what do you know of the sea?" but it's... too soon for that. (yes she's uncomfortable. she's afraid. she's nervous and excited, moreso than she thought she'd be. Moreso than she'd like.) Each word is another play in a long, complicated game. One she intends to win. So instead of asking the question that calls to her, the one whose answer she fears, she asks: “What do you know of love?”
The question is– it’s supposed to be a weapon. It is supposed to cut the way his had. "I will not lose this game," she thinks. But… but he’s glowing in the fading light, a man carved not of sunlight now but embers… and her voice twists the words around, softens them, spoons them out with... genuine intrigue. A softness she had not wanted to reveal. Anandi's heart flutters angrily at this betrayal of the body.
“I will not lose this game," she repeats, to fend off the vague, sinking feeling that she's already lost.
A N A N D I
@Orestes <3
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
