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Chapter Text

The first time she encounters Master Garuda after she saved him, she stumbles wordlessly, confused and frowning as he looks down at her on the bank of the river. They are both dressed as they were, in whites and greens.

“What’s your name?” He asks.

The silence is long and drawn out but Wansarut doesn’t feel uncomfortable to have him look at her. His eyes are crinkled at the corners as he squints at her as if he can somehow read it on her skin. She wills herself not to look down. This male form to her is as known as her Nagini tail. Her name is secret and hidden, no matter who requests it.

“What would it matter, Master Garuda?” She tips her chin up, trying to make herself taller and bigger even though she’s lower down and he towers over her. “Are we not all the same to you?”

Gods are not born to look remorseful, but she thinks that’s what she sees on his face as he offers her his hand to help her up onto the flat. She doesn’t take it. Every step from the river fills her with apprehension.

He doesn’t stop her as she walks past him, further into the forest. He doesn’t trail her either. She wonders after walking for a time if such a simple rejection might anger Master Garuda further and set more attacks in motion. The thought stills her and seizes her heart, her whole body turning back on instinct. He isn’t there when she returns but there is a single white feather at the base of the tree near where he stood.

***

Wansarut is in the village today. It’s market day for the humans and the hustle and bustle of everyday life hides her very well, even though some look on her gold finery and either lust after it or see it as a reason to court her to their wares.

“My lord, my lord!” the vendors cry. She smiles and looks down at the seller who has a variety of hairpins. There is only one fashioned in gold. Similar to her headpiece which has the symbol of her people, this one has a U at the center and two brilliantly etched gold wings that fan out brilliantly from it.

“I think it would suit you.” A voice says behind her.

She startles and turns, almost knocking into Master Garuda.

“Would you wear it?” Eyes flick up to her hair and Wansarut fights the urge to reach up and touch her hairpin. There is something she cannot place about the god that has her so distinctly out of sorts. His lips are curled fondly as if they were amicable friends and his hand reaches past her to the jewelry, almost brushing her skin and she swears she can feel the sun in his skin warm her blood.

“Have you thought any more about my request?” She asks as Master Garuda turns his attention back to her and not the hairpin.

“I think I should think on it more.”

She narrows her eyes as he takes an almost jovial tone with her.

Sensing her displeasure, he smiles gently, “You know that this war is more than just you and I.”

“And yet you and Master Aruna have slain so many of us,” she says before she even understands her own words, too late to regret them.

However, rather than a burst of anger, Wansarut sees how Master Garuda struggles, first in his inability to name her, to direct his anger, and then to self-soothe. To repurpose the emotion and remain pleasant. She wonders why he would bother. Master Chalothon told them that the Garuda slay them without prejudice.

“There is death on both sides and it cannot be forgiven on a simple plea,” Master Garuda tells her quietly. She notices that their surroundings shimmer, Master Garuda hiding them from view as the humans walk past none the wiser to the two immortals in their presence.

“And without it, there can only be more death. How foolish.” Wansarut suddenly feels so incredibly tired. Maintaining human form is easy but conversing with someone such as the bird deity is incredibly taxing. “Master Garuda.”

She inclines her head, the most deference she can provide to him as he looks at her with those same searching eyes as before.

“Tell me your name.”

She doesn’t know why he keeps coming to her, why he doesn’t treat her as he has treated her kin but she feels the burning pain of their deaths as clearly as she feels the warmth of his presence.

“Read it on my epitaph.”

***

In her bed, her body writhes as the future yet to pass enters her mind. Master Garuda and Master Chalothon once again battle in the skies, gouging pieces of flesh to no avail. The screeching and beating of wings ring in her ears as she cups her hands over them to try and mute the sounds as they rattle in her mind.

She scrambles to see anything she recognizes, the shape of the clouds too ephemeral and the shade of the sky too bland until they slash across it in vermillion and emerald.

“Stop!” She screams. For them, for their kin and for herself.

Unlike hers, their ears are silent and hear nothing but their own blood coursing through their veins.

Her older sister, Wanwisa, brushes back her hair when her mind and body finally relax, pressing a cool piece of seaweed to her face. Wansarut stares up at the etched cavern, her own little alcove in the world of the Naga, water lapping up against its walls. Her tears are hot and she rubs them harshly.

“Sister,” Wanwisa tries to comfort her but they are not similarly blessed. Only she holds the visions of the future and the key to their survival within them.

“Why?” She croaks. Why must we hurt each other? Are we not born of the same blood?

Her older sister’s arms wrap around her and help to pull her up into a hug, fingers gently combing through her hair. She shushes her nonsensically and too rung out from her vision, Wansarut lets herself fall into her sister’s arms for a moment of peace, no matter how short.

***

When she sees Master Garuda next, she sees him well before he sees her. Sat up in a tree, she watches him walk, his bare feet crunching on the leaves. His white feathers are pristine and his skin is clear of blood.

She watches him crouch, fingertips touching the leaves he had not trodden on, picking one up and raising it to his nose. She realizes that he’s trying to scent something, someone, and she’s about to jump down to stop him when he looks directly up at her.

“There is no epitaph for the Naga who speaks with a Garuda,” he tells her conversationally.

“No, I don’t suppose there is,” She leans back against the tree trunk, a small smile unbidden on her lips when she notes his mistake.

“Will you really not tell me your name?” Master Garuda looks almost incredulous at the notion. “I have spoken with many and there is no young naga that travels in these parts. Only two sisters favored by the Naga king.”

“Two sisters?” She lets out a laugh, big and full. Is that all she is in the stories of others? “Is that not more appealing to you then, lord and master?”

“I do not care if he has a harem of women, I’m only interested in you.”

Wansarut looks down at him, the directness of his words like an arrow. She has long since abandoned hope that her affection for Master Chalothon might be returned. Many idiolize him and desire him as the strongest of their clan, his demeanor stern but kind with those he’s close to. His affection for her is that of a young sister. To hear such direct words, no matter how they are intended, shakes her.

“Your proposition is much too forward,” She replies and Master Garuda has the sense to blush delicately under his pale skin. She notes that it goes down to the top of his chest under his adornments.

He recovers, “You’re not so young to never have heard such a thing.”

“I am not so innocent but I am not so well favored either,” She admits as she drops herself down from her branch.

“Why not? You are a beauty.”

At that they both look away and Wansarut picks up another leaf, twiddling it between her fingers.

Master Garuda tries again, “What I meant—”

“I know what you meant,” She decides to save him the misery of trying to explain it.

“You have the most enchanting eyes.”

She can’t help that her gaze whips up to his.

“You will not give me your name,” Master Garuda laughs but it is airy and bright and such a pleasant sound to her ears, “I will give you mine. I am Sakuna.”

It’s a gesture of amicability that she never thought their kinds could have. Part of her wants to grab it with both hands so that it cannot slip away from her. She decides in that moment she will not.

“Wansarut.”

Sakuna’s face brightens up in a way that Wansarut’s heart begins to flutter and she almost reaches up to her chest to feel if it’s truly happening.

“Wansarut,” He repeats like he’s turning the word over in his mouth. “Shall we meet again, Wansarut?”

He spoke of how enchanting her eyes were but his are similarly so, if not more. He looks and she is seen.

“Meet who you will; it is no business of mine,” She tries to put a distance between them but it seemingly only encourages the god more.

“I only wish to meet you.”

“Why?” It slips out quickly and like a command.

A smaller, tighter smile appears on his face, “Because you were kind to me.”

“Are your wants so simple?”

Sakuna steps closer to her, “Yes.”

She could take a step back but she doesn’t.

“I’m curious about you, Wansarut. The only one who asks for peace and does no harm.”

“You make them sound like faults,” She folds her arms. Part of her wishes she had made herself taller so that she could stare Sakuna in the eye rather than still look up at him as he makes another step closer.

“There is no fault in you, I can see that as clearly as I did then.”

Something inside her stomach pleasantly churns at his words. She stamps on it.

“Nagini.”

She watches as his eyebrows draw together and his face scrunches up in confusion.

“I travel this world in many forms,” She gestures down to her current male form. In truth, she presents herself as male so that she can escape the boundaries of the Naga kingdom without alerting anyone to her disappearance, “Man, woman, even child if need be. When I am in the human realm, this is what I prefer.”

She doesn’t know what Sakuna is thinking and she knows that his kind does their best to avoid naginis. Their battles are fought between males, venting deep and dark aggression towards each other. Naginis do their best to be the protectors of their home and the rains.

Sakuna reaches out with a sure hand and knocks his curled knuckle under her chin, tipping her face up. It’s boyish and youthful, she had seen many fathers act this way with their sons.

“Come as you are, Wansarut,” he tells her softly, “I do not think how you look matters much.”

She has always known the expectations of her, to be wed and produce strong sons. Her mother delighted in her female face and how much she reflected the moon. Deep down, she was never desiring any of it. She was fond of Chalothon, thinking herself happy if she could wed him but after that, she did not think it suited her.

Sakuna’s voice draws her out of her thoughts, “Will you show me this world you visit so often?”

“I do not think there is much I could show you, Master Garuda.” Just because he told her his birth name and she thinks it, does not mean she is comfortable to use it.

“Show it to me anyway,” He smiles once again and bright crimson wings spread from his back. “I will see you soon, Wansarut.”

She watches as he breaks through the tree canopy and flies up to his home in the golden skies. It takes her a moment to realize that she’s smiling too. It’s how Wanwisa finds her with a call of her name.

“Sister!” Wanwisa looks like she’s ready to scold her. “You must change, Master Chalothon will be back soon from the battlements and he cannot see you like this.”

Wansarut looks down at her hands, still small but rougher and thicker than her base form, “Am I pretty like this, sister?”

Her sister looks at her as if she were the Greek Hydra that everyone is raving about.

“You are a man, Wansarut, what sort of beauty do you think you require?”

“None, I only—” She doesn’t know what she wants.

Willing her body to morph, to become malleable and pliant, she turns from the man that Sakuna knows into the female that Chalothon expects.

“It may be best that you do not come to the human world for a time, Wansarut, I fear it may have addled your mind,” Wanwisa takes her hand and guides her towards the water.

“My mind is quite intact,” She volleys back. However, her heart, normally impenetrable to the plight of the master of the Garuda, sending him back with harsh words and a closed door, is unlocked and open.

Her sister chuckles, “If you speak it, it must be so, sister. Come.”

Wansarut calculates it in her head, the next time she will be able to be in the human world would be the 15th day of the 11th lunar month.

Chapter Text

The gate between her home and the human world is manned by six naga soldiers, each reporting back to Chalothon anything out of the ordinary. Wansarut bobs her head as she slithers solidly towards the large stone doors that lead out to the gate. The Naga go freely between the realms owing to their ongoing war with the Garuda. No one bats an eyelid as she swims to the gate, her approval well gained and met long before now. However, it isn’t until she’s under the water in the human realm, the gate closing behind her, that she exhales as she swims to the surface of the water. As soon as her face hits the air, she changes, her scales receding and her hair growing down her back, any slender femininity left behind for her masculine form. Regardless, she loves how the water feels against her human skin, how it twinkles when she blinks her eyelashes.

What she isn’t expecting is Sakuna to be sitting, perched on a rock waiting for her.

“Master Garuda,” She ducks her head, treading water a little way away from the water’s bank, and he smiles at her.

“Wansarut.”

She watches as he never once inches closer to the water, his feet stable on the grass beside the river. Her eyes flit up to his and he still offers her his hand. It’s not fear that stops her from swimming to the bank. This garuda has had more than one chance to kill her, he more powerful than her, and he has not. He looks upon her with a warm gaze and she does not understand its meaning. Had he truly meant friendship when he proposed this folly of an adventure where they would go to the places she loved to go to?

“You extend your hand to me but stay awhile further from me,” she says.

“These waters are not kind,” Sakuna retracts his hand and she finds herself paddling a little closer to him. True, these are the waters of the Naga and to enter them might mean certain death for one such as he. “Will you trust me if I enter them?”

That captures her attention more than anything else.

“I do not know,” She freely admits. More than once she has met an ill fate by trusting too much the words of others. There was a time in her youth when she went to the small village in the valley and she mismanaged her scales and they threw rocks at her when they saw the glint in the midday sun. “Does it let you trust me further to believe so?”

“I wonder how you find your days, Wansarut, freely letting your mind turn this way and that,” Sakuna chuckles and she feels somewhat mocked.

“And you yet fill them with what? Dalliances and brawls?” She bites back, and rather than being offended, Sakuna smiles more brightly.

“I do not dally with one such as you, princess.” She watches his bare feet squidge the sand as the water laps gently over it.

“Who are you to call me princess?” Her family is high-ranking but to align her with the royal family is too much. It offends her sense of uprightness.

“With such pretty finery, it is easy to mistake you so. Maybe you should be less blinding, lest I be confused again.”

It’s that same jovial tone. He’s teasing her. She swims as far as she has to so that she can walk out to meet him on the bank.

“You—” She starts and he smiles at her, steadying her never faltering steps.

Wansarut realizes what he has done and she’s furious with herself and he is visibly pleased.

Sakuna lowers his face next to hers, his mouth speaks closer to her ear and she feels his words across her skin like gooseflesh. “Let our friendship begin, princess, you may yet discover me favorable.”

“We will be lucky if I find you tolerable,” She stomps a little more than is necessary past him and his laugh is melodic as he follows behind her.

***

She takes him to a bigger village than the one where they walk together in the market, looking at hair trinkets. Unlike that place, here she is able to get her favorite snack: fish on a stick. She proffers him one of his own and he accepts it with a tentative glare as the eye stares back at him.

“It’s good. They cook it with smoke,” She takes her fish and tears into its flesh, reveling in its flavor. Since they are engendering a friendship, she does not pause to hide how she picks the bones out that make it into her mouth. Sakuna is surprisingly delicate, almost pecking at his fish.

“You called me royal,” She says as they walk down the sandy walkway towards the temple that is the apex of this village. “Is that like for like?”

He looks the most uncomfortable Wansarut has seen him but he does not deny her the question or an answer, “My father is the true phaya krut.”

Like Chalothon, Sakuna is the prince of his kingdom.

Wansarut doesn’t push further, it isn’t her business and it isn’t her place to meddle, “In praise of the temple, they ferment their wine for many days to give it a deeper flavor. Today they will break the casks.”

“You wish to eat, drink and be merry in the human world?” Sakuna prods her in his way and she ignores the bait and explains, “The humans use alcohol to bring each other closer together.”

Sakuna nods as if he understands and then says, “You wish to be closer to me?”

She turns her head with the incredulity of it, “Do you plan to twist everything I say?”

Another grin breaks out on his face, “Do you plan to rise every single time?”

“I am hesitant to wonder what your mind is filled with, Master Garuda, if your words are so decidedly empty.”

“Never have I been so wounded,” Sakuna nudges her shoulder with his arm and the unexpected heat of him startles her. “Still, I have yet to find a more suitable blade to cut me so. Another, Wansarut.”

“Eat your fish and ready yourself for wine, your lordship, it would do you good to speak less,” Wansarut wonders if her face is flushed with the double-edged praise from Sakuna. No one had ever found her way of speaking to be affectionate but rather direct and cumbersome.

“I feel you weakening to me, Wansarut, you may yet call me your friend,” Sakuna falls in step beside her, another oddity as she must always walk three paces behind Chalothon as one of his attendants.

“I fear that this is the greatest threat known to me.” She mutters it but, of course, he hears and titters with more laughter.

***

For as much as she flushes, Wansarut cannot match the pink hue of Sakuna’s skin. Both sat cross-legged on the floor of the temple with candles strewn about them with the gentle noise of quiet conversation. Sakuna tips his small cup up to his lips and drains it, a stain of purple on the inner part of his lip as he licks any remnants from it.

Wansarut, demurely as she can, sips her cup away from him out of politeness but he traps her wrist and tugs her forward across the small table between them.

“Why are the nagas not like you?” Sakuna challenges her and she can’t free herself from his tight grip.

“Tolerant, you mean?” He lets her go and she finishes her cup, “You said it once before, the war has damaged us much.”

“But your heart is still open,” Sakuna nails her with simple but dangerous words.

“I’ve watched so many die in so many ways. Their inevitability does not shock me,” Wansarut refills her cup, “I long for a future I do not see. Since it will not come to me, I must strive for it.”

“One without war?” The young master of the garuda steals her cup and covers the rim where her mouth was just prior.

“Without war. Without hatred. Without the certainty of doom,” Wansarut steels herself to steal it back, and as expected he grabs her fingers and the cup falls from their shared grip.

“Where you could raise your young peacefully?”

It’s inappropriate for him to ask or make such assumptions, but Wansarut thinks this is the least of their concerns, “I do not envisage children in my future.”

“Do you not want them?” Sakuna turns their hands so that he’s holding her hand as if he were to kiss the top of it.

“I would rather a love to bless me than the loneliness of children without love.” Wansarut knows how both of their mothers have suffered, pouring everything into their children to balm the ache of a love shared.

“A soulmate?” He questions, turning the word over in his mouth. He doesn’t shame her as others have. She has been joked about for her foolish love towards Chalothon and the expectation that he would make her his one true wife.

“Is it so wrong to want that?” Like many things between them, it escapes unbidden and Sakuna’s eyes soften on her, his other hand reaching out to the curl at the bottom of her hair.

“I think a soulmate would suit you well, Wansarut,” He tells her with kind eyes and a peaceful smile. He lets her go, his hand dropping from her hair and releasing her fingers from his.

“Do you not wish for similar, Master Garuda?” She asks without thinking.

He looks so incredibly sad that her heart aches inexplicably.

“No,” He stops for a moment with a sigh and leans back on his hands. “I think it would be selfish of me to.”

“Because of the war?” She asks as gently as she can.

“It’s where I will die,” He lets out from the cask a fresh cup of wine for himself and another for her in hers. “How could I do that to my loving wife?”

“Would she not fight with you?” Wansarut picks up her cup and Sakuna looks at her with an indescribable expression before he frowns and takes his own cup. “I simply mean, when one loves, do they not share the burdens of life together? Would they not stand side by side throughout?”

“I find you increasingly strange, Wansarut,” Sakuna tells her as he drops his cup and lays down on his back.

“I do not think my words are so misplaced,” She knows her thoughts are unorthodox but how she thinks is how she wishes things to be.

“No, they are well met,” he tells her without sitting up, “It is just such a pity to find them.”

She isn’t sure if he is being rude to her so she lets it pass her with another sip from her cup. Her head feels light and warm. The night is pleasant against her skin and her sash tickles her when she scratches her collarbone. When she looks back at Sakuna, he’s sat back up, hands behind him and watching her intently as she drops her hand from her neck.

“Will you go home tonight?” He asks her. Others are making beds out of little more than a blanket offered by the monastery adjacent to the temple. She doesn’t know when the air got heavier but she feels the press of it around her and it leaves her questioning the appropriateness of her being here.

“I—” She starts and Sakuna tilts his head, curious, full lips parting and Wansarut chides herself for noticing.

“If you are, you must leave soon, no?” Sakuna takes her cup and stacks it on top of his. He taps the small cask and there’s barely anything left. He leaves a small bag of undoubtedly gold coins in payment for the wine before he stands and walks around to Wansarut before he scoops her up at the waist and stands her on her two feet with an “oofh” sound.

Wansarut immediately reaches out and grabs Sakuna’s forearms for stability and when she looks up into his eyes, she sees they are cloudy with misjudgment.

Her chest heaves, her breath deep and Sakuna watches her in this fragile, unspoken moment. One of his hands leaves her waist and cups her face under her jaw, “It really is a shame,” he tells her and she can’t even begin to know what he means. Only that it generates a thrum in her body that doesn’t dissipate until after he fully lets her go in the next moment and walks to guide her back down the path she brought them here on.

The silence should be uncomfortable but it’s bizarrely palpable. She wants to ask Sakuna what she has said to offend him but he does not seem upset and his mood does not invite conversation either, so she’s left walking behind his broad back, guessing at how and why this change occurred between them. It confuses her. They spoke of friendship but her heart pulses rapidly, beating strongly in her chest as the quiet stretches between the two of them.

“Master—”

He turns to her and she stops, the pale moon makes Sakuna look even paler to her. Still, even in the sallow light, his eyes are warm as he looks down on her.

“I fear we cannot be friends, Wansarut,” He tells her like something will shatter if they are spoken too loudly.

She doesn’t know what to say to him. She has never befriended her enemy before, never joked and broken food and wine, never shared careless amused words.

“I don’t understand,” She admits, “We were kind to each other.”

He hums, “Yes, and your kindness is too great.”

His hand comes up and cups her bicep and squeezes her gently.

“But,” He turns from her and his name stumbles from her lips, “Sakuna.”

It’s like she tore it from his breast.

“You have no idea what your words say, do you?” It’s not an accusation, but a solitary sadness that she can’t grasp.

“I do not comprehend yours either since you will not speak with me,” She challenges him and he steps back into her space. If he thinks to intimidate her, she will not stand for it. A strong hand curls into the hair at the nape of her neck, twisting until her head jerks up and she cannot move either way. She shows him her defiant face but his is still soft and distressed.

“As long as there is this chasm between us, we cannot be friends.”

As soon as he speaks his last word, he releases her. He moves and she stays rigidly still. His wings open around her, flicking outwardly but never touching her as they alight with flames.

“Wansarut—” He tries quietly.

She keeps her rigidity, “Master Garuda.”

He sighs and crouches down before he swoops up into the air. His human body melts into one of a half bird-half man creature.

She doesn’t look up at him, ignoring him completely, with her eyes stinging as she forces herself to walk back towards the river. She feels stupid, so incredibly stupid. She throws herself into her waters, the river calming the heat in her face as she sloughs off her human visage and slips back into that of her nagini self. How foolish was she? She curses herself as the gates close behind her and she’s startled by Chalothon standing in the doorway, apparently waiting for her.

“Wansarut, how was the human realm?”

Chapter Text

“Master Chalothon,” Wansarut bows as she should in the prince's presence despite having been one of his attendants for so long.

He tilts his head, curious, as he is wont to do but Wansarut feels for the first time that he’s pressing in on her, questioning her in the way he questions others. She stands back up and meets his eyes.

“There was a festival, I partook in the breaking of the casks,” She tells no lies but her omissions feel weightier than any she could have said.

“You drank?” His tone isn’t scolding but one of mild disapproval. A lack of control of one’s form could easily expose them like their elder brother in the monastery.

“A small amount, barely a flush. I mostly wished to watch the humans.”

This seems to appease him because she has always been known for her fondness for the human realm. Master Chalothon might watch people like others watch ants crawling on a log but Wansarut genuinely adores them. They burn so brightly regardless of their fate and it feels so warm to her against the coldness of what feels like her own.

“But you had no visions?” He takes a step towards her and it takes everything for her to root herself where she stands, her immediate fear that he could smell Master Garuda on her. The scent of the sun and the skies covering the freshness of their waters.

“I did not,” Wansarut has yet to have another vision since the one she had of Master Chalothon and Master Garuda.

Master Chalothon tuts and she frowns, confused, “But isn’t that a good sign?”

He draws his brows in, mirroring her frown, “If the Garudas do not attack us then they plan to attack us.”

Master Garuda hadn’t attacked her or anyone in her presence, “They—”

“They what, Wansarut?”

She suddenly feels like she has trodden in uneasy waters, “I fear for all, Master Chalothon. I see nothing but death for both sides.”

“Until there are none left, there can only be death,” he tells her and his hand reaches out and cups her upper arm. It’s nothing like Master Garuda’s, it’s cooler, more like hers.

“In your vision,” Wansarut says, forcing herself to not look away and while his face does not change, she wonders if he senses something is amiss.

“I will lead our people to victory, Wansarut, one where all Naga and Nagini can thrive.”

But must you step on the throat of another to do so?

“Wansarut…”

 “My thoughts are for our brothers and sisters,” Wansarut tells him with all the earnestness inside of her.

That same hand drops to her wrist. At another time, this would have made her heart pound and her stomach flutter but now she feels empty. Master Chalothon holds up her hand in his, thumb rubbing the top of her knuckles.

“You are a good and pure Nagini, Wansarut, you will be rewarded.”

She knows he means it with kindness but she wants to leave. She’s tired and drained and a little spun.

“Thank you, Master Chalothon,” She smiles wanly because, despite it all, he’s always been good to her regardless. She takes her hand back as gently as she can. “My sister is awaiting my return so I will take my leave.”

No, she should have realized this was the moment he would notice that something was out of order. Wansarut had always wanted to extend their time together, mornings spent discussing their people and the daily goings on of the palace. Not once had she ever spoken in a way that could be considered dismissive.

She lowers her eyes and her hair falls in front of her face, loose from her hairpin. Chalothon lifts her head by her chin, his eyes searching her face, as if he was seeing her anew.

“You may go.” He tells her and she inwardly sighs with relief and it shows in her small smile. It appeases Chalothon and Wansarut doesn’t let her breath escape until she’s well out of earshot.

~*~

She doesn’t journey to the human realm but it does not mean she escapes it. She dreams of human wars and how they bloody each other and it is interspersed with the screeching cries of the Garudas and the guttural wails of her own kind.

Wansarut kneels on the bank in her dreams and covers her hands over her ears until a warm hand cups her shoulder. Tears stream down her face when the hand doesn’t let up; it smooths down her back like her sister’s hand or their mother's in the intervening years before she and Wanwisa were old enough to care for each other.

“No!” She cries out but it doesn’t leave her.

“Wansarut,” the voice is soft and calm and the shocking familiarity has her opening her eyes and turning back. Sakuna kneels slightly behind her, his full regalia of pristine feathers are glistening and untouched.

“Leave this place,” She warns. She doesn’t know who might see into her mind such is her vulnerability in her sleep.

That same warm hand brushes back her hair from her brow. It’s completely loose and she realizes that Sakuna has never seen her in her female human form. He isn’t here. She conjured him into her mind.

“Wake up, Wansarut,” Sakuna helps her up, much like he did in the human realm, his big hands lifting her up like the wings on his back. Another screech has her ducking and Sakuna pulls her into him, his chest wide and as warm, if not warmer, than his hands. The wounded wail of a Naga guts her and she sobs, palms bracing her face from Sakuna’s chest as he wraps his arms around her back.

“Stop,” she moans. “Please stop.”

“It will not stop.”

Wansarut’s eyes open as she looks up. She is no longer in the arms of Master Garuda but Master Chalothon as his eyes glow the deep shade of green of his Naga form.

She tries to grab his arm, “You cannot,” she cries but he shakes her off and she stumbles.

“Master—” She doesn’t know who she’s calling for. She panics as Master Chalothon grows and expands and the shrieks of the Garuda get louder and louder in her mind.

“Sakuna!” She screams and she gets thrown back into her body as she wakes up, sweating and crying in her rooms.

Wanwisa is standing behind several ladies who have rags inside of bowls, “Sister, your vision, you have been under far too long.”

“How long?” Wansarut throws off her blanket, swinging her legs around to the side before she tries to stand and they shake as a weakness takes hold of her body and she falls to the floor.

“Three days,” Wanwisa tells her and waves off the ladies. She assumes she did not cry out the given name of their enemy as there are no horrified looks among them.

“Where is Master Chalothon?” She tries to kneel but her legs still refuse to cooperate and Wanwisa helps her to sit back on the bed. 

“He went to war with the Garuda the day after you slipped under.”

Wansarut watches her sister take her hand, “Why?”

Wanwisa frowns at her, “Why—?”

She feels icy cold like the central depth of the river where no light can penetrate. Her sister pets her hand, “He feared that you had somehow been affected by the Garudas when you last went to the human realm. You were acting quite oddly.”

Wansarut yanks her hand back, “Oddly? This had nothing to do with the Garudas.”

“Sister…”

“Are you not tired of this? This endless death for naught?” Wansarut feels the incredulity bubbling up inside her. “Unnamed mass graves for both and nothing achieved, it is senseless.”

“We have—”

Wansarut cuts her off, “We have always warred with them. I understand those words but they are but that. I bear no cuts from the Garuda nor do you, nor do the guards at the gate or the Nagini who raise their snakelets. We are at war. Whose war?”

Wanwisa looks like she has been slapped and Wansarut feels she has gone too far, her mind too chaotic and loud from her vision. She tries to adjust her blankets and Wanwisa sits next to her, “Wansarut.”

She doesn’t want to look at her sister.

“I am sorry your burden is so great, but you can never forget where you came from. You are a Nagini. You have attended as many funerals as I.”

“But we do nothing to stop it. We bury our dead and they bury theirs and nothing changes,” Wansarut feels the tears come in big, throat-tightening drops. “I am so tired.”

Wanwisa offers up her arms and Wansarut has nothing left in her to fight the hug her sister gives her. It is nothing like Master Garuda’s arms. She does not feel held and safe. She feels like she is still in freefall.

“You must report to Master Chalothon when he returns,” her sister tells her as she finger-combs her hair.

“What is there to report? He will have killed them all by then,” her voice is flat but it strikes nothing in return. Her sister too is inoculated to the death that they surround themselves with. Exhausted, her body pulls her mind under with the overwhelming desire to sleep. She doesn’t linger. Her mind forces her to drift back, all she can do is pray that she will not return to the battlefield but to the hills of her wanderings, green and lush.

She is not lucky. She is not blessed. She cries herself hoarse and refuses to see anyone for another three days when her visions finally cease. A parade of fruits and fishes are brought to her rooms and she stares blankly at the plates as they are laid out before her.

Master Chalothon oversees it all, sitting her at the head of the dining table that adjoins her family’s quarters. She sees his concern and his kindness as he tries to tempt her but she refuses it with her silence.

“You must eat, Little One.”

He hasn’t called her that in decades.

“Are these not the corpses of yet more families?” She gestures to the fish.

She thinks she sees a flash of intolerance on his face before he kneels to pet her knee, “I understand—”

Her gaze turns sharp, “What is it you understand, my lord?”

One of the lady’s maid’s gasps at her impertinence. How dare she speak to the heir to the throne in such a manner.

“You wish to know what I saw? Death.” She picks up an apricot and rips its guts open before dropping it loudly on the plate. “The stench of it turns my stomach so I shall not be eating today or any day until I am free of it.”

She stands and he catches her arm, preventing her from leaving, “You may not go.”

“You cannot make me stay,” Wansarut yanks her shoulder down, the top sleeve of her gown dropping to expose the top of her undergarments but Chalothon’s eyes never leave her face.

“How fierce you are, Little One,” He smiles, his face fond again.

She angrily puts her dress back, “I was not but I fear I can be nothing but.”

“Remember where your fierceness should lie.”

It’s a soft tone as he releases her but she takes it for what it is, a gentle reminder that this may be the last one she receives if she continues to behave as she has.

“As you wish, my lord,” Wansarut ignores the gossiping eyes of the lady’s maid who stares at her as she walks back to her rooms to lie on her bed, back to the door. She may regret her display but for this moment in time, she feels proud of herself for standing up for her feelings.

You say we cannot be friends, Wansarut feels her thoughts slipping back to that day. Are kindness and kinship not friendship?

Does he not want the same as I do – for the war to end?

She fears she has too many questions none of which he will ever answer.

~*~

The world leaves her alone for another two days before she is dragged out, bathed, and dressed in fresh garments and food nearly forced down her throat. She imagines the ladies are less kind to her due to her words towards their future king. She will not apologize. She refuses to let them touch her hair. She combs her own and pins it up in her golden Naga hairpin. She smooths the green fabric across her shoulder and she sets her mind to getting some fresh air in the human world, lest she stay here and breathe in the stagnation of her refusal to speak on what she saw.

She checks her reflection. She looks surprisingly the same despite feeling entirely different. Hooking her waist chain together, she turns it so it lays flat before she makes her way to the throne room to request an audience. While others scowl, no one gets in her way as she bows, standing side by side with the other Nagas and Naginis who require Master Chalothon’s judgment.

He looks past all of them to her, “Wansarut.”

“I do not come to speak on what has passed. I request to leave for the human realm.”

The loud gasps and angry whispers do not surprise her.

“And why is that?” Master Chalothon motions for her to lift her head. She does, but keeps herself in a respectful bow.

“There are many offerings to Naga and Nagini in the human realm, I wish to partake in the viewing of them,” Wansarut has attended many, including the one with Master Garuda. It is not an unusual ask.

“You have attended many, Wansarut, go another time,” Master Chalothon’s tone is gentle but hard beneath it. The answer is no.

She bows deeply again before her eyes flit up to his and she can see him dare her to defy him. Maybe not today, but tomorrow is a fresh one, and who is to say she could not then?

“Yes, my lord,” she stands and walks out. This raises more gasps and titters because not once had Wansarut ever deigned to leave the presence of Master Chalothon, only allowing herself to be sent away at his word.

She doesn’t know exactly when this change happened because she’s still herself; she’s still Wansarut, but she can no longer walk around blindly blaming her second sight for the pains she must endure. She has seen that there can be grace on both sides if they are willing. She cannot simply say that Garudas are evil if she knows they are not. She wonders if he went back to the bank to find her after he left. She wonders if he thinks her absence is because she is angry at him. She wonders if he cares.

Do I care if he thinks I am angry? Was I not always angry at him?

She knows she was not. He amused her with his foolishness, his honesty and cajoling. He saw her in ways that none here ever had. She was not Little One or Sister. Defined by someone else’s perception of her. She was Wansarut, for all her flaws and tribulations.

And who was he to her? He was Master Garuda. Gentle and kind in ways that he had no right to be for the short time they knew each other.

She hopes he would not be angry if they met again. She hopes more painfully that he would not keep his word and they would meet again and they would be friends as they planned.

A large part of her wonders if she will be felled by her own folly in trusting a Garuda. That in truth she was entirely wrong and she will be martyred as an idiot. Maybe so.

But at least I will not have lived a lie.

~*~

It takes another week before she’s free enough to escape to the human realm. She slips past the guards and slithers out in her Nagini form, only to morph into that of a human male. She breaks the surface of the river and she’s startled back by what she sees. There is a Garuda with blood-red feathers, on its hands and knees, coughing up on the bank and she tries to swim back when he sees her.

The Garuda screeches at her and she tries to change again but her body is frozen in terror as the Garuda beats its wings to take off. The caw she hears sounds like a curse. She summons all her power and beats the river water as it dives towards her. The water splashes up and consumes the bird chimera.

She gets her human legs to work as she swims as fast as she can, willing her true form to surface. The water wraps and bends around the squawking bird as she moves deeper into the river but still, her tail eludes her.

She wonders if this is how she’ll die.

There is a funnel of red and gold that pierces the sky and descends rapidly towards them. She all but gives up when it hits the Garuda. The Garuda is yanked from the water tunnel and flung up towards the sky. The result is the water slams back down without Wansarut to hold it up and the waves crash over her, dragging her under the self-created tides. She can barely breathe as she is subsumed, her hand flailing upwards. Fingers grip around her wrist and drag her up and out. She screams as she hits the air and tugs when warm hands move down her arm.

“Wansarut! Wansarut!”

She stops, looking up as Master Garuda yanks her up in the air before he catches her like he threw up a fish to catch in his arms. She scrambles to grab hold of his neck, his arm around her back and under her knees, “Master Garuda?!”

“What are you doing here? You could have been killed!” He chides her but her shock prevents her from saying a word. Her blood rushes through her veins and screams at her, Garuda! Unsafe!

When her mind reengages, she retaliates, “These are my waters.”

Golden wings gently flap as he sets them down on the exposed riverbank and he lets her legs down for her to stand but his arm remains around her waist.

“You haven’t been here in weeks,” He reminds her and she’s taken aback that this is something he knows or remembers.

“Garudas do not come to the waters. They also don’t attack Naginis.”

“Wansarut, you do not look like a Nagini,” He reminds her and gestures to her male chest, paler than normal and breathing heavily with exertion.

She looks down and then back up at him.

“No one would know unless they saw your true form, although you are small.”

Wansarut pushes him away from her, her sense coming back to her, and he reels back, “I am not small.”

Master Garuda grabs her by the back of the neck, along with her hair, and she’s stunned, “You are small, Princess.”

There is a prolonged moment where she cannot help but stare up at him, her body frozen not with fear but locked with the hot press of five fingers in the back of her neck. It goes down her spine along her nerve endings and ends at the tips of her toes.

She swallows, “Let me go.”

Her voice quivers and Master Garuda’s awareness returns to him as he releases her and looks down and back up again, “Wansa—”

“Thank you for saving me; however, I do not need your pity.”

“That’s not…”

She walks as steadily as she can back towards the water but her legs give out on her third step and Master Garuda catches her under her armpit.

“Can you—” She all but growls, her hands curling into fists as she punches his chest. He doubles over because regardless, she’s still a powerful deity, tiny as she is.

“Enough,” He throws back at her as he barrels into her hands and grabs her wrists, yanking them upward so she can’t hit him anymore.

Except it’s not. He said they couldn’t be friends but he saved her life. He was agitating her mind, turning her this way and that, spinning her worldview into something she doesn’t recognize.

She kicks his shin then the other and he hauls her up his body, her feet barely reaching the ground on her tiptoes as she is forced to lean on him.

Wansarut never realized until this moment that Garudas have fire rings that circle the outside of their irises when they’re angry.

“Are you done?” He asks her evenly but she’s caught in the shimmering glint of his eyes.

“If I am not?” She juts her chin out and he scowls, eyes flicking down to her lips.

“Then I am not to blame,” Sakuna drops her arms and her heels drop down and Wansarut tries to steady herself but she’s knocked backward, her feet coming up from under her as she tumbles into the ground, Sakuna on top of her, his hands once again pinned her wrists away from her. She squirms to try and get her legs under her to gain leverage but she’s suffocating under the weight of him.

“Get—oof,” Her breath leaves her as she feels the imprint of human teeth in her throat.

“What?” She utters as she feels the pinch tighter into her skin, steadily piercing the flesh until there are several pinpoints of pain in her neck and she cannot do more than lay there, unable to help herself or do more to hurt herself.

It’s over in seconds and she looks up at Sakuna, blood slick across his lips as he gets up to kneel over her.

“Why did you bite me?”

“To stop your foolishness,” He tells her as he rolls off her and lies by her side.

“I’m—”

“Say nothing or I will bite you again.”

“Is this a strange Garuda practice? Do you bite your young?”

Sakuna turns and looks at her, “We have beaks, why would we bite anything? Is it not Nagas who sink their fangs into their prey?”

“Well—” She stops and then starts, “Did you bite me to imitate Naga behavior?”

He raises his eyebrows and she gulps before she’s sure her face goes a bright shade of red.

“Are you well?” Sakuna asks and Wansarut looks away and covers her eyes.

“Master Garuda, please,” She rubs her eyes and takes a breath, “Never do that again.”

“We do not bite each other. Ever. Not unless we want to kill each other.”

She takes her arm down, “Do you want to kill me?”

He looks at her, his face guileless in a way he has, “No.”

“You are such a strange deity.” It spills from her mouth faster than she can stop it.

“As are you.”

That same strange feeling in her chest returns and it takes nearly everything she has to not touch her skin over her heart when Sakuna looks at her.

You can’t.

“What a match we are,” she whispers. He must have heard her because he leans over to brush back a lock of hair that is covering her face. He tucks it behind her ear and burns her skin the whole way down the shell.

“Why are you here, Wansarut?” He asks, equally quiet.

“I—” Missed you? She throws the thought out as soon as she thinks it, “I was lonely in the Naga realm. I missed people.”

“So, you came for the people?” Master Garuda looks like he is mulling it over. “Is it truly so terrible for you there?”

Wansarut sits up, hand touching her already healing throat, “Not terrible. Constricting.”

“How so?” Master Garuda leans on his elbow, body turned to Wansarut as if he’s waiting to listen to her story. As if the attack on her life is nothing but a distant memory.

“There is only one way of life. If you don’t prescribe to that…”

“It’s incredibly isolating,” He finishes.

“I do not mourn such a lot. I am well cared for and loved.”

She looks at him and the fire has receded from his eyes completely and now they are no different from a human’s. Soft. Brown. Gentle.

“My heart bleeds for the senselessness of this war between our families,” Wansarut tries to brush her knees and Master Garuda watches her as she scrubs her hand against her skin. “Can there truly be no way that this ends without unending massacres?”

“Run away.”

Wansarut snaps her head up to look back at him, “What?”

“If they cannot be saved, must you too be damned?” They are spoken so casually but Wansarut can hear the weight in each of those words.

“I cannot turn my back on my family as surely as you cannot.”

“What if there were something greater than this?”

“Than family?” She tries to search Master Garuda’s face for what he means by his words because his face gives nothing away. He looks solemn, contemplative, and at ease with such almost traitorous words. “Sakuna…”

He looks at her when she says his name like no one has ever looked at her before.

“I wonder sometimes if you were sent to test me,” he whispers back to her and she’s lost.

“I don’t—”

“Of course you don’t.” Gentle fingers touch her face, stroking the line of her nose, and the dip of her top lip.

“You confuse me,” She admits as the air between them gets thinner along with the space Sakuna closes.

“You confuse me,” He repeats.

“Is this friendship?” She asks. Sakuna’s eyes which were transfixed by her mouth, look up to her eyes.

“No, Wansarut, this is not friendship.”

“Why not?” She can feel him breathing on her lips with how close he has leaned into her.

“Because you are beautiful to me,” Sakuna barely speaks against her mouth before he presses his lips gently against hers, like the barest kiss of a butterfly’s wing.

They’re warm and dry, his breath hot against her and she cannot help but watch Sakuna close his eyes as he hesitantly kisses her again, a soft peace slipping across his face. Her mind short-circuits as her own eyes flutter closed, pulled under by the tender hand that cups the back of her neck now.  

Does she want him to kiss her? Can he kiss her? Are they not mortal enemies?

His kiss seems to send tendrils curling around her heart as it beats faster as his lips touch hers and encourage her to meet him halfway. A small sigh comes from Sakuna as he lets her go before kissing her again, pressing more firmly and his other palm cups her cheek.

Wansarut feels her face heat, her skin feels like it’s moving between human and Nagini, her scales barely under the surface as Sakuna pulls that from inside her. She puts her palms up against his chest and pushes.

“We cannot,” She tells him. Whatever friendliness that might have been, it cannot be this. They are too different. Too entrenched in what was.

“Wansarut—” Sakuna’s voice sounds pained and it hurts her to hear it.

“I do not wish you to mistake me.”

“Mistake you?” The pain shifts into disbelief over that previously serene face.

“This,” She gestures between them, “cannot be.”

“And how is that?” Sakuna asks and his tone is one of questioning but also frustration.

Wansarut wonders why and how she must explain this, “Are we not Nagini and Garuda?”

“Are you not Wansarut who saved the life of a Garuda, regardless?”

“That was…”

Sakuna moves to stand and he grabs her arms to pull her up as well, her once again stumbling into him.

“If you do not think you can find it within you to have affection for me, say so. But do not say that you cannot because I am one and you are the other.”

Sakuna immediately lets her go, stepping back and giving her what feels like an acre of space between them.

Can she find affection for him within herself? Could she love one who had harmed so many of her kin?

“I think I was meant to find you.” He tells her sincerely and it digs even deeper into her heart.

“And if not? If your feelings are but momentary and you will yourself to forget them in the future?” Wansarut wipes her mouth, unconsciously trying to wipe away the feeling that she now cannot forget. “We will only descend what is already fatal into a cataclysm.”

“And if I am? Will your heart not feel at ease to be with me? You do not fit there because you were meant for more, Princess. A world beyond your waters.”

“I think your mind is addled,” She tells him with all seriousness and he chuckles sorely back at her. His big palms touch her face, lifting it once more.

“Then let me dream once more of a better world.”

This time he kisses her and she is expecting it. She turns her mouth to the side and he kisses the corner of her mouth. He then kisses her temple before he completely lets her go.

“Be well, Wansarut.” Sakuna smiles but it is melancholy and pained.

This time when he leaves, she can only stare at the beaten earth that is brown with mud and dirt.

“Sakuna.”