Bhupendra

Bhupendra

Only twice in his life did Bhupendra wake to the unnerving sound of silence: the first, when he was born, and his twitching, uncertain parents so smothered him in care that he could hear nothing but the steady drone of their heartbeats and the friction of their skin on his soft new scales; the second, when he saw his wife pluck the fragments of a shattered pearl out of the frothing sea which had served to hide him for centuries but could not fool the wise, tired eyes of one who had seen the world but had yet to fall in love with any of it. She looked up from where she knelt, cupping her paws to protect the glittering jigsaw that lay in her lap, and locked eyes with him through the tossing surf. Hers widened- his narrowed. If she had looked away again immediately, he could have forgotten about her. He could have moved on. But she stared for so long that he wondered what it was she was seeing. He looked around, and realized that he was camouflaged by the rocks he was perched beneath, and that it was the sun rising over the ocean that so entranced her. Confused and intrigued, Bhupendra dove, and clung to the rocks until the dragoness had wrapped up her find in a piece of sailcloth and woven her way back up the beach.

When she had gone, he became obsessed with seeing her again. But a year passed and she did not return. He kept a memento of her appearance however, a single piece of the broken pearl that she had forgotten. He kept it around his neck so it wouldn't be lost, and over time he began to forget why he had even kept it. The obsession faded. The feeling died. He returned to his ship and his books and his music. He turned his attention to other women and other things.

But when he met shore a year after, coiling rope and checking barrels, he saw her lying asleep on the sand, and he touched the necklace he wore with one clawtip and remembered. And he knew she had to have it- that was surely what she had come for.


They're not the most auspicious pair, to be sure: one a somber, salt-smelling seafarer draped with conches and beads and strings of coins, slow to speak and impatient but with a flair for the dramatic; the other an anxious, talkative creature with a knack for interior decorating and a questioning mind. Their courtship didn't officially begin until they had known each other for almost three years- interactions mainly consisted of gift-giving and storytelling, long nights spent sitting on moldering docks swapping tales by the dusky light of swinging deck-lamps. One is tied to the land, and the other born to the sea- neither willing to leave their element, but neither willing to abandon the other.

It is important to emphasize that they are not the most suited for each other- he is easygoing, she is headstrong, he is worldly and she is naive. She loves the ocean for its beauty and he for its practicality, and neither one can sit to a book or poetry reading without falling asleep. However, they are the best of friends, and any fights are handled with much splashing of salt water and kicking of sand, and soreness over disputes rarely lasts more than a day.

He is afraid of snow and cold weather, as it freezes water and he's never seen it, and she's afraid of the unknown and being alone. He turns dice in his fingers when he's thinking and she twists and frets with her pearl when she's nervous. The only thing either of them wants is to learn and for the other to be happy, for that's what friends are for-

-and no matter how long they are apart, they always find their way back to the same beach at the same time every April, to catch up and spend some time with one foot in each world.