dark side of the morning - Enfys

[Ivar]

i'll use you as a makeshift gauge
of how much to give and how much to take

The girl seems wary, but Ivar misses it as he watches her transformation. From glistening nothing to soft grey and purple. Purple like Kylin, but also purple like herself; something new. He’s not seen spots quite like hers before, and for a moment he traces them with his brown eyes, taking in the matching violet of her long legs and moonlit mane.

She admits it, admits that they are not all like her, and Ivar smiles.

It is not a boy’s smile, but nor is it that of a predator. Nature has given him more than sharp teeth and an affinity for the water; when he smiles like this he is more beautiful than any living creature has a right to be. His nature might be predatory, but he is both bait and hunter.

“You’re special,” he tells her as though it is something that he has always known, as though he is glad she is realizing it.

“I don’t have any siblings,” Admits Ivar, and with that he seems just a boy again, friendly despite his presence in a foreign kingdom in the night. He’s never thought about wanting siblings, and something in the way that the spotted girl speaks of them almost seems to justify that. To have a sibling, his parents would need to spend time with each other, and that is something they have never done. He supposes he could have half-siblings, but he sees his mother each day and knows it is impossible on her side. Father does have secrets, Ivar knows, but he does not think that other children are one of them.

“I’m Ivar.” He tells her. “It’s nice to meet you.”

And then, because she is pretty and Mother is not around to tell him no, he asks: “Would you like to swim?”

IVAR