She watches him still, with a rapacious curiosity, the way people flock to water natural disasters unfold. Not that he is anywhere so deadly, but his body is crafted so opposite of hers, she feels that same fascinated pull. When his red eyes meet her blue ones, she doesn’t look away. She wonders, now, what he thinks of her. She knows that fire melts ice. She wonders what would happen if she got closer.
She doesn’t move, though. She can live dangerously, in her mind, but in actuality, Annapurna is quite practical. She avoids things that might hurt her, she does not hurt others, she simply moves and breathes through the seasons and sometimes, in the winter, she thrives. She thinks often of returning to her mountaintop, where the winter is unending and the air thin enough to kill those not built like her, but she doesn’t follow through with this. It had been lonely, on the mountaintop. She hadn’t known what loneliness was, as a child, because it was all she knew, but when she came down into Beqanna, she learned. Even though she has no lovers or close friends, no family she is bound to (she has countless half-siblings here, of course, but she has not found them and why would they care for her, anyway?).
He speaks, his voice loud and booming across the river, and when the flames dance over his skin she watches, transfixed. She doesn’t like fire, of course, but can admit there’s a beauty to the way the flames shift endlessly. She almost asks him if it hurts, to burn like that, then considers how stupid her question is. After all, does the ice hurt her? Of course not – she revels in it, she savors the cold. She imagines it’s the same for him and these flames.
She smiles, though. This is different. He is different. She likes that.
“Existing,” she says, mimicking his reply, then add, “and watching. I haven’t seen anyone quite like you.”
At his next comment - you look cold - she smiles again and thickens the layer of ice on her skin, refreezing it as it melts.
“Not nearly cold enough,” she says, then, “I’m Annapurna, by the way.”
I can’t cut any language open wide enough to give you this story