sa𝒶nv𝒾rya

saanvirya ceravaene delamere through the eyes of a secret admirer

i first saw her in the grand library of willowcrest , it was a bright october morning, when the sun spilled through the tall windows in pale sheets and caught into her hair, until she seemed lit from within. the light rested upon her face with an almost religious divinity. painting her as a saint. there was something so nameless, and unnerving about this girl's beauty, i was bewitched. her eyes refused a single colour , veering somewhere between the deepest green of a forest and the dark brown of rain soaked earth on winter, rich and cold. resembling death, the death of winter, the decay of a body buried. i saw her often after that , in the campus, almost always in the company of a boy who resembled her with eerie precision. he was as handsome as she was beautiful, with the same dark hair, comely green eyes, and the same high cheekbones that caught light with architectural serenity. he was the most beautiful man i had ever seen. for weeks i seethed in the miscontrued notion of them being girlfriend and boyfriend. there was a quiet intimacy between them, one that belonged to people who have forever and more shared the same clandestine lives. it was only upon further investigation did i discover that they were twins.

by the second week of the term , i was a man possessed. it embarrassed me to even admit it to myself. even now when i think of it in retrospect, i had become deranged, there was scarcely a detail about her that escaped my notice. i knew of her scent with an almost terrifying precision. the elusive fragrance of roses, mixed absurdly with citrus peel, old cedarwood, and the faint sweetness of candles. she adored the colours white and the palest of pinks. she was severly fond of dresses, elegant and aristrocratic, i suppose she loved the frilly, collared ones most. lace stockings, pearls, ivory ribbons. there was somthing so archaic about her, as though she had wandered out of an old portrait into this world by some fateful accident. she loved white roses, i gathered, when i saw her using one as a bookmark. i wondered if she kept it hidden in the book until it turned brittle and translucent. they seemed like a fitting choice, all innocence and immaculate beauty. she possessed the curious habit of tapping her foot incessantly, either from boredom or restlessness, i couldnt tell. she almost always carried a bar of dark chocolate with her, unwrapped, forgotten. her curls defied discipline , spilling like a waterfall in every direction despite the obvious efforts to tame them. often if not always was she in some distant land, some jar, that protected her from being a part of the normalcy of the everyday world. and there she inhabited, in her own solitary sphere, delicate and sweet, along with her brother, the lot of them sharing a language unbeknownst to the rest of us. i began measuring my days by her daily routines. which staircase she preferred. which table she claimed in the library, which section she was most fond of wandering in. which books she borrowed twice. the hour she arrived. the minute she left. i knew these things with an extraordinary certainty. she seemed entirely untouched by the ordinary business of teenage. gossip thawed around her without ever seeming to reach her ears. languages were her great devotion, english, greek, latin. music rivalled them narrowly. she was, i suppose by every accounts, a prodigy with the violin, while her brother paralleled her brilliance on the piano.

the more i inquired around about them, the more i drew curiously closer. the twins were loathed and admired all at once. they were strange, and peculiar, elitist and arrogant, and snobbish. a girl told me of the cruel remarks saanvirya had made about her in passing, and someone else of how brutally james crosby was beaten up by saanvirya's brother after touching her at a party.

by december, a profound despondency had settled in me, the snow was deep, gathered on pathways and rooftops, and the mornings were darker than usual, the sun was pale and somber. and saanvirya was yet not mine, not will she ever be, she remained just as distant as she had since i first laid eyes upon her. i dreamt of her often, waking up in cold sweat, my thoughts ranging from sweetly romantic to dangerously gothic, from vulgur to religious. she was the bane of my existence. an enigma that refused to succumb, a mystery, a puzzle i was truly, wrenchingly, desperate to put together, to solve. there was a horrible hoplessness that lingered around me like a cloud in the first few weeks following that month. my skies were death ridden, my bedroom was aflame. the premises of school, the traces of her inspired an inexplicable melancholy in me. the fire was no longer raging, it seemed to ebb, but never truly, completely dissolve, it lingered there. like an enemy, like a nightmare, like a curse. i suppose i was a little depressed now that the novelty of the limerence had exhausted. i tried to persuade myself that i was merely unwell, though i do not believe that was the case. sleep would not come to me, not more than an hour or two. i was disoriented, a solitary sullen creature of the night. i attended my lectures, returned to my rooms. i bypassed every friend i had made at the beginning of the term, not speaking to a soul. the strangest part of it all was how present she was, her and her brother, even in their infinite absence. the malady however that ailed me most deeply was that of hope. hope that she may yet look, that i could somehow still be a part of their mysterious world. i loved her. i loved her and every breath she took, the air around her. i had by some means i did not realize, surrendered the ownership of my mind and heart. everything that entered it was by way of her. it was another one of those bleak and terrible december mornings, i was running late to my french class. the corridors of willowcrest were unusually deserted. i rounded the corner in a haste. books struck the floor before i could comprehend the situation at play. for an instance that went by next, i remained frozen, in dread of who stood before me. saanvirya. my saanvirya. she looked no less breathtaking at proximity. there fell faintly a brush of freckles on her nose and cheeks, invisible to the common eye. how fortunate her brother was, privy to such beauty, i remember thinking. the lightest of snowflakes clung charmingly to her hair, and lashes, she had been outside, i gathered. she wore a dark brown coat, a red burnt bright on her cheeks, in all of my life i had not seen someone as maddeningly beautiful as she was in that moment. i had thought. "i am terrible sorry" i had managed then, though my voice had not come out as i intended it. she had regarded me with her annoying green eyes, the green dominating the brown in the cold. i remember thinking that she was a bird, a bird come to life, perhaps a swan, perhaps a dove, perhaps a bird on a windowsill on a late winter evening, but a bird nevertheless. "it was my fault." she said. her voice was soft, clear and unhurried. touched by a faint accent i could not trace. we knelt at the same moment to gather the fallen books. our hands brushed, cold, i remember thinking, her hand was astonishingly cold. she reached for my copy of homer. she titled her head, again, like a bird, a curious bird, pecking at a grain, or a fruit. her eyes wandered to mine again, there was a slight glimmer in them, of interest, i had thought then. thinking about that in retrospect, it is a haunting memory. it chills me down to my bones. the light in her eyes that i fancied then. the consequence of it. "you read homer?" a slight smile touched her lips. "my brother loves homer." she continued, there was a quiet fondness and pride in her voice when she spoke of him. "you should speak to him sometime. that may prevent him from talking my ears off"

she handed me the copy back with a surprising care, before pushing herself off the floor. "good day stranger" two words of an ordinary nature and then she was gone, yet i treasured them with pathetic reverence. i found myself thanking every angel in heaven, if there were any. as though some unearthly hand had finally taken pity on me. and thus began.