"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The morning sun is almost full noon by the time Ivar wakes. He had been up most of the night, watching the hills. The tall tobiano stallion was not quite sure what he was looking for, but he had found nothing concerning. Only when the first streaks of light begin to appear on the eastern horizon did he rest his attention. Day time is safe time, he has always known. Dusk and night are for (hunting) and he is not in the mood to hunt. Too often when he drifted off beneath the stars he woke up to find himself somewhere else entirely. Best to stay awake, and stay aware. So he sleeps till noon most days, and catnaps through the afternoon between patrols of the land and exercising. Today is no exception, and he yawns a dusty face into the bright blue sky. The spring has been a dry one, and the glistening of Ivar’s white scales is dull. He has not cleaned his scales to glistening in months, has not truly swum since last fall. He’d felt the heat of the magma behind him – and above him, below him – everywhere in the water. Nowhere was safe, and in the confusion, he had lost her. He’d been following that shadow of a twisted trunk beneath the water, not a roan mare with feathered wings. He had failed. Best to stay awake, and stay aware. The young stallion shakes his tangle of mane against his shoulders. It is less unkempt these days, resting dark against his matte neck in a smooth curtain, The dreadlocks of last summer are gone, along with his vibrant zeal for adventure. He is more of an adult now, more predictable, more stable. It feels wrong ,sometimes. He is sure that is only natural as well. There’s a faint smile on his face as he looks out over the hilly realm, his brown eyes alert and interested. Ivar has a while before he needs to walk the eastern boarder; he’s up before noon today – that’s practically early. With nothing to fill his time, the young horse finds himself looking around to see if there’s anyone nearby.
She has ventured too far today, somehow passing over the border of her home and into the foothills of Loess, though she has yet to learn about kingdoms or borders so it all feels the same to young Shirad. Tauber can't seem to adventure during the daytime - the sun hurts his eyes and makes it difficult for the buckskin colt to see, so he stays in the shadows of the forest canopy until the dusk finds them, as it is apt to do.
Her teal body moves comfortably over the rolling hills, her amber eyes greedily drinking in the scenery as she goes. She's never seen anything so open, or so bright. Sylva's yellow canopy can get bright when the sun hangs low overhead, but it does little more than splash a golden tinge across the hidden earth. The filly's purple and blue mane bounces as she trots and her short tail billows behind her as best as it can; her ears press forward with unbridled intrigue and when the daughter of Carnage sets her silver eyes upon the black tobiano, she is swift to head in his direction.
She is wary as she nears the young stallion though not afraid, she has met enough unsavory characters in her short life to be used to them by now. She kicks up less turf as she slows her star-marked legs to a walk and then finally to a halt a few yards from the dragon-scaled stranger. "Hello, sir. Can you tell me where I am?" she questions without prelude, her teal head tilted slightly to the side as she considers the black and white male.
If the morning light don't steal our soul, we will walk away from empty gold.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The residents of Loess are not plentiful, but that makes it all the easier to recognize them. This foal coming toward him is not someone familiar at all, and Ivar twists his dark ears forward, his soft pink nostrils flaring to better catch her scent. He is wondering if she is someone’s child – but then, had he seen any pregnant mares this winter? – but before he can be certain he catches the familiar musty smell of his own childhood home. She is coming from the south, after all, where the Loessian hills meet the Sylvan forest.
Ivar has not been to the golden woods for two years; he is curious what brings this young filly out. Ivar does not have to wonder long.
She is lost, or at least looking for a better idea of her location, and Ivar is reminded of his own youthful forays. He’d come to Loess when he was not much older than this girl, and while there are no visible similarities between the two of them, he feels a small sense of camaraderie with the bold teal girl.
“You’re in Loess.” He tells her, seemingly unperturbed by the casual way with which the young child has strolled into the kingdom. “Is this where you’d meant to come?”
These sprawled foothills are so unlike home that the teal girl forgets momentarily that she is about to engage in conversation. Her silver eyes roam the open landscape, the urge to run and jump and bound swelling uncontrollably in her narrow chest. By the time she comes to heel before the black and white stallion, it's a chore for her to keep her lanky legs from prancing. She curbs her restlessness only briefly, to tilt her teal head and inquiry of her surroundings as if it's alright for her to be trouncing across Beqanna on her own.
"Loess?" she queries innocently and a pleased smile finds its way across her lips at the stranger's willingness to answer her questions. "I didn't really mean to go anywhere," she shrugs as she turns her silver eyes to inspect this Loess more thoroughly, "I just wanted to keep going 'til I found something cool." She and Tauber have their hiding places in Sylva, but mother won't let Shirad venture out into the darkness like she will allow Tauber, with his hidden talents, to do. And during the day, there is usually some sort of business to attend to with Aditi. Today, though, is for adventuring.
"You're pretty cool," she admits easily before squinting her silver eyes at the stallion's hide, which seems to gleam and glisten in the direct sunlight.
"Do you have hair? You're... shiny."
If the morning light don't steal our soul, we will walk away from empty gold.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
As soon as she repeats the name of the kingdom, Ivar knows that she hadn’t meant ot come here. Well, he supposes, there are worse places to accidentally wind up. At least she hasn’t found herself falling into a Tephran volcano or off a cliff in Nerine. The teal filly expresses an interest in finding something ‘cool’, which brings an amused smile to the stallion’s face. Well, Loess might lack in glorious landscapes, but they are all but up to their eyeballs in unique platns and animals.
She seems to have found something cool on her own through, and Ivar looks down to the scales she squints at.
“They’re scales,” he tells her, hesitating only a moment before shifting his weight to hold out one long leg.
What is the worst she’s going to do? Bite him? Knock him over and stomp on him with her tiny hooves? Ivar is willing to risk it.
“What about you?” Asks the older horse, gesturing to the swirling stars that adorn her legs. “Did you put the stars there yourself or did they just appear overnight?”
The stranger continues to show a willingness to answer her questions, pleasing Shirad thoroughly. She moves her teal frame hesitantly closer to the stallion and squints her amethyst eyes at his black and white scales that glimmer in the sun. She giggles at the way he lifts his leg closer to her and she sniffs at it briefly - he still smells like a horse, not that it's terrible. She knows that even she can smell bad sometimes, after her and Tauber have been running through the woods all night.
Shirad recoils a few strides and grins at the painted stallion, her ears flopping forward at the inquiry he presents her with. She follows his gaze to her starry legs, at the swirls of purple and blue, before turning back to the stallion and shrugging her small shoulders. "Mom says that Dad gave them to me, but it sounds cooler if I say I put them there." This stallion is smart and kinda funny, and Loess isn't so bad either.
"Wait, do you have a name? Mine is Shirad," she offers semi-politely to the stallion as her purple eyes move curiously back to his dragon hide. "And how did you get your scales?" Maybe he had met someone who gave him his scales, or maybe it was a magic trick - either way, the young girl is enthralled and wants some for her own.
If the morning light don't steal our soul, we will walk away from empty gold.
@[Ivar] - Sorry this is all over the frickin place.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
He has heard from others – mostly fellow bachelors – that children are bothersome. “Needy”, “whiny”, “always try to walk off a cliff”. The later is probably true, but Ivar finds this teal filly to be entirely tolerable. It might be a result of his lack of recent socialization (there are few conversationalists in the Loessan hills), but he still does not find her especially needy. She’s curious, something he remembers as being a key facet of his own childhood, and he cannot blame her. Beqanna is filled with a rather large number of wondrous things.
She recoils from his leg and he waves his hoof at her half-heartedly in her direction, as though trying to reach her with it. He doesn’t move though, only grins, and follows her gaze as she looks back down at her own legs. When she answers, IVar pieces together her celestial appearance with the other children he has seen this past spring and summer. The stars must have come down to earth this fall, he realizes. They do that, from time to time, siring children that look like the night sky overhead. It seems this child is one such offspring, and he wonders if the other teal filly he’d found wandering Loess is one as well. It must be strange to have siblings that you don’t even know.
“I’m Ivar,” he tells her, unable to keep a smirk off his face at her late introduction., He doesn’t mind – there are more interesting things than greetings – and he is not surprised when she moves past them quickly.
“I think from my parents,” he tells her honestly. “I was born with hair, and when I lost my foal coat, these appeared instead.” He suspects they had always been waiting to emerge. He’d been born with his teeth and affinity for the water, but the scales and other gifts had come about with puberty.
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis
no no it is fiiiine.
i've never played ivar mcuh with babies so sorry if he's weird
She playfully dances away from the black and white stallion as he reaches his hoof for her. She lays her ears back to hide within her blue and purple mane and snaps her blunt teeth at him in jest. His enthusiasm for answering her reminds Shirad of Tauber and the teal filly feels briefly forlorn that her twin is not here to meet Ivar with her. She makes a mental note to tell the buckskin colt all about it later - perhaps soon they could come find this place, Loess, again in the nighttime so that Tauber can appreciate her stories.
The scaled stallion answers her nonchalantly but Shirad takes hold of his statement with excitement. "Maybe something like that will happen to me when I'm old enough! My brother already has his power," she states matter-of-factly before turning her amethyst eyes back to the scenery of this new, undiscovered land.
"Do you have a favorite hiding place here? Could I see it?" she inquires of Ivar, curious whether or not adults outside of Sylva find places of their own to settle in whenever they're on the premises. She and Tauber had been exploring the golden forest, but had yet to discover a place that they could call their favorite.
If the morning light don't steal our soul, we will walk away from empty gold.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
She dances away, snapping playfully at him, and Ivar smiles. He doesn’t snap back in return – he had learned from a young age that his physiology makes the playful gesture into a far more startling one. She’s only shown him her little baby teeth; Ivar has an impressive set of canines held by jaws strong enough to crush bone. Best not startle her, he decides. He is enjoying their conversation, after all, and having her run screaming for the forest would not be the most ideal ending to the afternoon.
The girl seems excited by the idea of growing into something, but she mentions her brother and Ivar wonders if she doesn’t just want to have something of her own. She is already as colorful – perhaps more colorful – than a sunset. More like a coral reef, he decides, with teal waters and brightly colored fish swimming about. Ivar, who has only ever been black and white, wonders what that must be like.
Shirad flits from one subject to another as quickly as a hummingbird darts, and Ivar does’nt manage to hide his amusement. First scales, then hiding places, what will she want to know about next?
He has a place, of course, his spring. But that is his, and there are a plethora of other places that he thinks she will find more interesting than a black pool of still water.
“There are lots of good hiding place,” Ivar replies, pausing for a moment after that admission to come up with the best of them. Coming from Sylva, he knows she has likely seen more than her share of trees, but Ivar is well aware that there are no trees quite like the ones in Loess.
“I think I know just the place.” The piebald stallion moves away, glancing over his shoulder in a clear invitation for Shirad to follow him. The path is roundabout (Ivar might have briefly forgotten the way – he’s not been since he first found it), but eventually they round a rocky bluff. A half-dozen rainbow eucalyptus trees grow beside a clear freshwater spring. The water is not deep, but it has eroded a small hollow into the stone of the bluff. It does not appear to be a large hollow, but Ivar pushes back through the brush and there is just enough room for two adult horses – or one very large adult and a small child – to stand in an be hidden from view.
“A lot of the animals come to drink at this pool,” he tells her, his voice lowered conspiratorially. “If we wait long enough, we might be able to scare one.”
Shirad wants to run home for Tauber, to bring him back here to meet the stallion with black and white dragon-hide and to explore the hiding places of Loess. They can always take time exploring Sylva - how often do either of them get to adventure away from the golden forest? But the run would be too long and, chances are, she would run into one of the adults from home and then she wouldn't be able to leave again for quite some time. So the teal filly smiles instead and turns her bright head up to the scaled stallion.
"Awesome! Is it far?" she asks, but she is already lost in the scenery as they move further into the hills. Shirad's rhythmic hoof beats follow closely behind Ivar, and only occasionally does she run ahead of him and then stop until he catches up because she has no idea where she is going. After some time, she peaks at the stallion from the corner of her amethyst eyes and screws her face up with suspicion. "Are you lost?" she blurts, but then it seems they are upon it.
The rainbow trees pull her gaze to them immediately and she nearly squeals. "Cool!" she exclaims and moves closer to the colorful trees, her nostrils flaring to test their scent. Ivar draws her attention back and Shirad flips the blue and purple forelock from her eyes as she regards him with excitement. "What do you think we will see first?!" she inquires in a whisper before nestling her teal body in the small copse of trees beside the basin, lanky legs folded beneath her.
If the morning light don't steal our soul, we will walk away from empty gold.
