9. Being Wanted

9

Being Wanted

Celyn

S peaking with the woman Safira soothed an ache in my chest I hadn't realized I'd been carrying those many long years. A water-horse is not a creature that needs companionship, even as the water does not require companions, but the first words from someone truly unafraid of me woke in me a great longing for more. I had promised not to trouble her if she did not seek me out, though, and I found the idea of humbling myself to request more conversation an unpleasant one. Who was she, to command the desire of a lake?

And yet, there I was, restless and troubled, wanting to return to her side not hours after I had left it. The exercise of speaking in such a way to another creature – as if we were equals; as if we were friends – left me brooding and tired, but I wanted more of it, nonetheless. I thought of Safira calling the rain a god, and found myself wanting to tell it to withhold its nourishment from me so that she would come to me again.

The rain did not comply with my silent desires. The rain never listens to the creatures it falls upon. It follows its own patterns, and I'd grown well acquainted with them over the millennia. It would be some time before she needed me again.

I didn't anticipate it, then, when her stone again skimmed my surface and sank to my depths. I hadn't prepared a reaction for such a thing, and when I picked the dark stone up from my lakebed, I didn't know what to do. Surely she did not need water, not when it had rained in the night. The ground was well-fed, and her plants grew vivid green upon the hill.

She did not skip another stone. Her shadow did not fall on my waters, nor did her reflection show. How long would she wait? Humans are such bright flashes of life, here one day and gone the next. I lived my life according to the rhythms of the wilderness, not those of men. Could I even react to the new and strange things she represented in time ?

But when I at last stepped onto the shore, as a horse instead of a man, she was still there. She looked up at me from her seat on the bench beneath the weeping cherry, and she smiled at me.

I couldn't move in the face of that bright expression, transfixed like a songbird caught in the talons of an eagle. All I could do was stare, the heart in my breast thudding painfully and water dripping from my mane. Nothing had ever done such a thing to me before, and I didn't know what to do. So I stood there, staring, my breath coming in great gusts, and when she shifted, I shied and leapt into the lake again, dissolving to water and leaving the strange physicality behind.

Over the next several days, she came down to my shores often. I saw her in glimpses as her reflection showed on my waves, and felt the cool darkness of her shadow where it fell across me. Once, she touched me, though I did not think she meant to, merely picking up a wet stone from the shore—but it sang through me with the same shocking force of a lightning bolt striking my surface, leaving ripples across my water.

I wanted to go to her with a desperation I didn't understand. I feared that desperation, embarrassed at myself and at the way I kept fleeing from the new things she did. I'd always thought myself immune to fear, unable to die and with implacable strength humans knew to be wary of, but her smile and laughter sent me skittering away like a minnow fleeing a pike. Such things couldn't harm me. I knew that. But they woke in me strange new sensations, and I had been an unchanging creature for so long. I didn't know how to fit them into my world, and so instead I fled.

But, oh, how I wanted her to touch me again. I could see it, almost, the smile on her face and the way she forgot to fear me, her hand reaching out and fingers unfurling to brush against my cheek...

Every time I thought about it the waves on my surface grew taller, froth forming on the shores.

No one had ever touched me for my sake. They had drunk my waters, placed their boats on my surface and their nets within me, and dropped their buckets into me to carry my water away. Hands had reached out to pet me, as if I might be lured into affection like a simple horse, and those same hands had torn at my mane in terror as I carried them to their dooms. But I had never been touched idly, nor with purposeful affection. Safira had never offered such a thing to me, either—but from the moment her fingertips accidentally skimmed my waters, I wanted her to, and that troubled me more than the fear.

What if she came to fear me? What if she grew tired of my inability to meet her with the same casual ease she met me? How could I return to my quiet rhythms, knowing that she walked on my island and looked out over my waters?

She didn't stop coming down to the water, though, eating next to me and scattering the crumbs on my surface for the ducks to eat. I liked that she would do such a thing, despite the indignity of having crumbled bread tossed in my waves, and at last I managed to convince myself that I could bear the lightning-strike of her smile, and pushed myself up out of the waves into my man's form while the ducks still dabbled for crumbs.

She jumped, a movement of surprise. My throat went tight, an uncomfortable sensation, and I reached up to rub at my neck. My body kept doing such unusual things around her, and yet I knew she was no more a power than the ducks that swam on my surface. Whatever strangeness I felt had to be something wrong with me, and not caused by her—even if it only occurred around her.

"Celyn," she said, with warmth in her voice I hadn't expected. "I'm so glad to see you."

My brows pulled together in confusion. "Does the garden need water?"

Safira laughed, the sound bright and beautiful, ringing in my ears and sending a feeling like a shiver through my body. "No, Perrhen has been very free with his rain ever since we made our bargain. I just enjoy our conversations," she said, leaning her head on one hand and smiling at me.

Smiling, for no reason other than the pleasure of my presence. No one had ever been glad to see me before.

"We have not had many conversations," I said, creeping closer to her, so that I sat with the waves only lapping against my body.

"Only two," she said, holding up two fingers. "But they were good ones."

Her eyes swept down my form, lingering on my thighs for a moment before darting back to my face. Her skin grew ruddy, color flushing her brown skin. I didn't know why the sight of my legs would cause such a reaction; she'd seen me before, and I never changed. But I liked that I was not the only one troubled by our interactions. It helped soothe the strange tension inside me to know that she thought of me, too.

"It... pleases me to hear so," I replied at last, realizing that she waited for me to speak. I lifted my chin to lean my face towards her, trying to still the fluttering feeling behind my sternum. "You called to me, some days ago, though the rains still wet the soil," I said, feeling somewhat embarrassed at the memory. "Why?"

"Oh, um," she said, her skin growing darker. Safira bit her lip, an expression that left my field of vision narrowed on her mouth.

What did it feel like to be bitten, I wondered? Mouths were such sensitive things. They moved with such control, that a horse might pluck blades of grass without tasting the thistles, and a man might shape words with his lips and tongue. Perhaps she might tell me why she would do such a thing, hooking her blunt canine tooth over her full lower lip and biting down. Perhaps she might tell me why it was that I would be captivated by such a small motion, as if she'd spoken my true name aloud to command my attention.

"Celyn?" she said, sounding concerned .

I snapped out of my reverie, my eyes jerking back up to her gaze. She must have answered me, but I hadn't been listening for the words.

"Yes, Safira?" I said, hoping that she might like hearing her name spoken. I liked the sound of it. I would have liked to whisper it to her, my breath hot against the curve of her ear, beguiling her into touching me the way I desired.

What was wrong with me?

"You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to," she started, a fearfulness in her eyes that sent a rush of cold through me.

"I do," I said, too fast, the words almost snapping out.

She flinched backwards, a movement that made me feel as if I was falling from a great height, but then she relaxed and smiled at me again, an expression carrying both warmth and a self-effacing character that I disliked. "It's really been a long time since someone's talked to you, hasn't it?"

I hesitated for a moment, then looked away, trailing my fingertips through my waters. "Yes," I said in a calm voice. "As I said, it has been more than a century since any but you has exchanged words with me, and..." I trailed off, trying to remember the last time anyone had spoken to me for ought else than a bargain. I let out a heavy breath, my shoulders dropping down as tension fell out of me. "The last one to speak to me out of curiosity instead of need was a young boy, many years before the ley powers came to raise the tower. He fell in my waters, but I brought him to the shore. None believed him."

Her eyes widened. It stung me that she should react with the same disbelief those long-faded people had, but then her gaze softened, and I realized it hadn't been shock at my tale at all, but at its implications.

"Celyn, that's more than a thousand years." Her voice came softly, with a gentleness to it that none had ever used when speaking with me before. I leaned a little closer towards her, mystified as to why Safira might do so, yet wanting her to do it again.

"Towers rise, and towers fall, and I am still here," I said, getting to my feet. I walked towards her, my gaze fixed on her dark eyes, so like those of a doe. My mouth curled up into a smile as her brows slanted and lips parted. I set each foot with care, leaving footprints on my ancient shore. "The sun wanders across the sky, and I am here to track its path. The rain sways between drought and plenty, and I endure. I watch the shape of the mountains change, and have seen the desires of the beasts shift to suit them." Slowly, with all the sensuous motion of water cascading down stone, I lowered myself to the ground, draping myself across the rocky shore where Safira sat. "What is even a thousand years to one such as me?"

Safira regarded me with an expression I didn't recognize, her brows lifted in the center and her eyes and mouth soft. At last, she reached up and brushed her dark, curling hair away from her face. "The rain feeds you and the stone holds you," she said, a smile tugging one corner of her mouth back. "But there's quite a few lakes in the world, and so few of them speak. A thousand years might not be a long time for a lake, but it's a long time for those of us who like to talk to each other."

I stared up at her, surprised to be placed in the same category as someone like her. I was vast. Ancient. I saw the way things propagated through the world; saw the edifices of man rise and fall. And yet, we both spoke, and the cadence of our words did not differ so greatly. We had hands that could grasp. Mouths that could smile.

Did she also long for an exchange of words?

"If you wish to speak to me, I will answer as best I can," I said, searching her expression, as if I might be able to recognize desire in the face of a woman. "It is not so easy for a creature such as I to find comfort in sudden shifts. I may not always choose to come to you."

She laughed, a bright sound that made me flinch backwards. Despite the strangeness of it, though, I wanted to make her do it again—find the things that would cause the lightness in her soul to break free with such ebullience. What must that be like?

Could something such as me laugh?

"You don't even have to talk, if you don't want to," she offered, smiling at me, that vivid pleasure wrought in her lips. "I think I'd enjoy even your silent company. It's awfully lonely out here, and I've always preferred to have a friend."

A... friend. The very concept felt strange, displacing me, but in a way I didn't dislike. Could a water-horse be such a thing to the flicker of life represented by a human woman? Perhaps the answer was "yes." Perhaps she might even continue to want my presence, even though I was strange to her, and even though I was dangerous.

Would she touch me willingly, if I was a friend?

"I ate your weeds, once, when you offered," I said, looking up at her with a quivering, yearning sensation plucking at my throat and making my ribs tight.

"The growing season is short here, so that means I'm always weeding, weeding, weeding," she said with a broad grin lighting her face. "I'd appreciate it if you walked alongside me, and ate what I pulled."

My chin lifted. My own smile warmed my face. The yearning eased. "I cannot speak when I walk on four hooves."

"That doesn't matter much to me," she said, tucking her hair behind her ear again as the breeze tugged it free. "I like companionship, and I like to talk. You can hear words, and eat weeds, and you won't have to do something new."

Tension drifted out of me, water seeping out of sand. "Such a thing would be a pleasure for me. I have often listened to those who fished upon me, enjoying their words without answering in kind."

"You let them fish?" Safira asked, looking away from my face towards my waters, a light laugh bubbling out of her. "Isn't that... oh, isn't it strange to have people putting hooks in you and yanking the fish out?"

I smirked at her as she looked back at me, enjoying the way her skin flushed ruddy at my expression. "I am the lake, not the fish, nor even truly the water. I may water your garden and ease the thirst of those who come to me, or give up my fish and accept boats and hooks, and it is no stranger than giving my words to you."

"I suppose that makes sense," she said, still flushed. Safira shook her head, then stood up, brushing the last crumbs off her lap. "Well, I have to go back to work, but if you ever want to be company for me, you have my open invitation."

"I do?" I asked, startled. No one had ever said any such thing to me before. No one had ever wanted my company without restraint.

I know the sound of my wolf's footsteps, and you don't walk like him. She didn't fear me. Strangely, greedily, I wanted more than that. I wanted her to want to come to me—to trust me. To touch me.

"You do." Safira smiled again. "Four feet or two, as you like. I like the conversation, too."

"You may come to me as often as you please, and ask from me the things you desire of me," I offered in return. "I will answer if you call, though it may take time."

"Do I get my rock back?" she asked, hands on her hips and a smirk on her full lips.

"If you ask for it, I will return it."

Her lips twitched. I watched them curve into a true smile. "May I have my rock back, Celyn?"

I looked back into her eyes, pushing myself up into a sitting position. "I will return it to you the next time you come to my shore and call me," I promised, with an eagerness pounding through my veins.

"Deal," she said with a laugh, then shook her head, still smiling. "Until next time."

I watched her walk up the slope, and I watched her start to garden again, pulling weeds. I wanted to shift forms, to trot up to her with ears perked and tail flagged, but I caught myself before I could do something so... needy. I was not her duckling, to follow her around for the sake of smiles and laughter. I was Psalytaemanthe, the caldera lake who encircled the great abyssal confluence that twined around the heart of the volcano cradling me. What was she? Only a human, here today and gone tomorrow, with no more meaning in her than the does that drank at my shores.

Long after she left, deep beneath my waves, I hooked my canine around my lip in a gentle bite, and shivered from it. I did not know why.