There was no monster hiding beneath Anandi’s skin. Cruelty did not slink in her shadows, violence did not burrow in her soft flesh like a disease.She wrestled with herself, sometimes to the point of agony, but there was no point to it. Her darker nature always won. And it whispered with a wicked smile: You are the monster.
Anandi quickly learned to embrace the hunger. She allowed herself whatever flesh she wanted, whenever she wanted it. After just a few months on the surface, self control was more or less abandoned. There were no consequences here other than her own guilt, so she carved that from her chest and tossed it back into the sea. It was just so much easier this way.
The one exception to her wild hunger was horses, which were too much like family, like distant, pitiful baby cousins. They were too beautiful, too close to herself. In all truth she envied them, and those she knew she coveted like prized trophies. Anandi was vain, and possessive, and hungry, so very hungry, not just for the consumption of their flesh but control of it. She wanted their love. And their respect. Even their hate, she would gladly take that too, gulp it down like blood and slam the empty cup on the table. The more she had of everything, the more she craved.
You are the monster, silly girl. You are the monster.
Anandi rips into warm flesh, single-minded. Even the ocean doesn’t invade her thoughts; not when there’s death on the tongue, copper in the air. Nothing matters but this moment, this beautiful crimson moment, this untouchable wholeness. Any predator knows: the glory of life is in the power to take it. And the delicate balance that results.
“Andi.”
The emissary looks up with a startled growl. The threat of violence obvious in the coiled crouch, the pinning of the ears. The eyes, huge and green, predatory and sharp as knives. But even as she hunches low in defense over the dead fox, recognition floods her. She knows that voice. And as her piercing eyes register the intruder at hand, they quickly soften with recognition. Oh, gods, she missed those beautiful golden eyes.
“Sereia!” Anandi squeals with delight, and when she grins her teeth are still bloody.“Oh, Reia! I'm so happy to see you” And they’re together, pressed up against each other so close it’s hard to tell where one sister ends and the other begins. Sereia’s mane is full of trinkets and treasures, gifts of land and sea, and Anandi lips at them with wonder. “Oh, isn’t it amazing here?” The bounty of it, the splendor. The sky and all its colors. The clouds, different every moment of every day. The stars-- the stars! How delightful, to share these things with her sisters!
“Oh!” She takes a step back, gestures to the half-eaten fox carcass on the ground. “Are you hungry? Please, join me. It’s a fox.” Her smile is generous, her manner benevolent. If she had noticed the way her sister carefully avoided looking at the kill, she says nothing about it. Her eyes remain hungry, in ways more than one. Endlessly hungry.
I am the monster.
corrupts absolutely,
or almost.
A N A N D I
@
some say the loving and the devouring are all the same thing
☾
