Speaking of experiencing one's wildest dreams as though it is as simple as wading farther into the sea.
As he is accustomed to the embrace of the waves, so too am I accustomed to the caress of the dreamscape. They both thrum with an energy and a life that both Ivar and I seek, but will never truly understand. As he is one with the sea, I am one with the dreams - and yet we are separate entities still, only visitors in habitats that tolerate us at best.

There is magic in the ocean, a power that he must be in awe of: just as I am in awe of the dreamscape.

Show me. I want to see what a Queen of Hyaline dreams about.

My narrowed eyes glint as the hard line of my lips spreads into a dark smile. How simply he requests that I transport his mind out of his body, as if to do so is second nature to me... And it is. Perhaps that is why I'm smiling.

"You will be powerless before the hands of this Queen," I whisper, eyes sparking in the dark moonlight. To the tune of the waves sloshing gently against our stomachs and legs, I step towards him, never breaking eye contact as I reach to connect our corporeal forms. "But I promise not to harm you..."

My eyes close exactly as my mouth finds its mark on his whithers, and instantaneously we are falling to sleep. With an eager vengeance, the dreamscape tears us from wakefulness to sleep, causing a plummeting sensation that I bask in fullheartedly. To the less experienced, terror may be inspired; but I never break contact with the kelpie, intent on showing him that which he has asked for.

Silence.

My eyes open to a realm yet unexplored even by me. A glance upward reveals the strange glint of the sun against the topline of the ocean, hundreds of feet above us. My arms and legs float adrift in the current, unphased by the warmth that surrounds me on every side. With a deep inhale, the water flows through my lungs as seamlessly as the wind through long hair: its viscous nature leaves my insides tingling, but the pain of drowning is absent. Anything is possible when one dreams, after all.

I glance to my right, glimpsing the obscure shadow of Ivar's consciousness as I allow it time to form it's own shape. My lips curl gently at the sight, a hand reaching out for his.

Welcome, I murmur from my mind to his. The water's warm.

For all that he has never experienced fear, I indeed have. The knowledge of one's own death by the hands of a life not yet even fully formed tends to cast a shadow over one's ability to maintain positivity and confidence; not that Ivar would know. Or not that I would imagine he knows; by his dark gaze and the expert subtleties of his body language and normal language too, I can only guess that he's sired half of Beqanna. Or that he wants to, anyway.

Of course, I don't catch the way his fanged teeth reach for my throat as darkness embraces us; I have no way of understanding my true danger, for in my dream world, it's as if nothing can touch me.

Except - except him.

A shock runs through me that I'd not expected as his fingers deftly entangle in mine. When he pulls me closer, possessive and skin to skin and effortless, my breath catches. As if one's breath could catch under water, and yet mine does. Make it colder, he commands, and it's as if there's nothing between my powers and his will. Around us, the water's temperature plummets, and across my every surface, goose bumps rise.

Words tingle at the edges of my lips, but the weight of his hand sliding across my shoulder and throat latch silence them. My eyes blink and widen in confusion and surprise - he's catching me off guard, he's taking advantage of me, he's - but in the next moment, my mouth pops open from the pressure of his grasp. The glimmering darkness of the ocean is nothing compared to the darkness behind his eyes, tempting and gorgeous and there.

Stop me.

Two emotions rise up within me with the ferocity of starving wolves next to carrion. One wants desperately to taste each individual bud of Ivar's tongue, while the other screams in outrage at this intense and unexpected onslaught of temptation against me. As the voices in my head caterwaul, my body becomes frozen, drifting closer and closer to Ivar as my breath remains caught in my water-filled chest.

I love you.
It's neither of the voices in my head; instead, it's hers. And by god, her voice will always hold more weight than any of mine combined.

The heartbeat before our lips collide, the world around us snaps. The water surrounding Ivar suddenly drops as if from an enormous and instantaneous cloud, though I remain suspended in the water. His pale figure lands with a hard thud against the concrete ground I place beneath him. I do nothing to soften the blow, nor do I allow him an inch of my powers. The darkness of my expression has lost it's playful nature; for though this is a game, I'll be damned if I lose.

"I told you you would be powerless," I snarl lowly through clenched teeth. Along each of his fingers, the atoms of skin suddenly tear; gruesomely, the flaps tear back with an agonizing slowness until a half inch of raw flesh is exposed. The concrete already takes on the red hue of his mortal blood; I try not to listen to whatever noises he makes.

"Beg," I whisper, jaw unclenching as a smile unfurls across the lush curve of my lips. "And I will make it stop." My finger flicks in the cold water, and half of his fingers receive another full inch of flaying.

Perhaps this will teach him not to pursue queens so goddamn adamantly.

He's an expert of persuasion, a god of flirtation and sex: I can almost taste it on his lips and fuck can I see it in his eyes. Where his hand had been (low and firmly grasping and hungry) tingles, the sensation imprinted into my skin, echoing softly as I attempt to regain my composure. The separation helps that - and hearing his low curse helps even more.

It doesn't lower my arousal any, but - it's more of a hunger now, anyways. He ought to understand that.

Just below me, Ivar's human figure rolls to his back, glancing at his fingers as I flay them. He doesn't cry out; my teeth reclench in frustration. How dare he withstand the pressure of my will. Some satisfaction does diffuse through me at the sight of him clutching his blood-stained hands together as if that will protect him; but of course, he does not beg. Something tells me it will take more than blood to make him beg.

Come down here and say please, and I might think about it.
Oh-ho, darling boy; what a request you make, trusting so foolhardily in the prowess of your simple masculinity. It's quaint, really; but god, it makes my blood boil.

Snap.

A long hallway stretches before the man, grey walls and a low ceiling with dim white lights. Of my corporeal form there is no evidence, and for some time, I leave him that way. At the end of the hallway, a red door looks temptingly approachable; but no matter how fast he runs or how many steps he takes, it never comes any closer.

Frustrating, I know.

Then, knowing that he will simply laugh at my little game, I send voices to whisper from within the walls. They spew out dark words and threats, insults and insinuations. They begin almost unnoticeable, climbing their way to subtle until their presence is almost undeniable, and yet, still somehow within Ivar's own head. Smiling, though I have no shape, I add my own voice to the din:

"I am everywhere, Ivar; think faster."

The sound of gnashing teeth rises behind him.

He stands there uselessly, not interested in playing my game. It's frustrating at first, but slowly, an idea dawns upon me that makes up for how useless my ideas have been thus far. Perhaps it's true; perhaps he will not know fear, no matter how I go about torturing him. I consider allowing him a stale mate, but the delicious taste of the idea formulating in my unseen mind beckons too sweetly for me to deny its call.

Perhaps I am still feeling the effects of his hypnosis.

Unlike before, the world does not change in a snap. Without reason or rhyme, water begins pooling along the floor of the hallway, gradually rising until it swallows Ivar completely. A more natural hum replaces the chorus of whispers, a very dim light seen from above. The hallway disappears next, leaving the man suspended once more in the place I'd brought him first. From the shadows of this watery world, my conscious reforms, covered in shivers - with nothing to hide them.

My dreams are soft, Ivar, I murmur from my mind to his, prefer the intimacy of this communication far more than spoken word. Our figures drift closer together, though only the force of the dream propels us; there's no tugging or bated breath. The swirling locks of my dark hair entangle themselves in his fingers, fingers that are healed now (for hadn't I promised not to hurt him?)

Knowing that I have little time before the ivory of my bare throat commands his next action, I close my eyes and dream my consciousness in two; an exact replica. One stays in this body, and the other finds shapelessness in the ocean around us, preserving my life should the one inside the naked, delicate girl's body be ended.

But sometimes - sometimes I dream of drowning.

He is bold in his actions, as I expect him to be. The strong pull of his hand brings my body right into his, and he even goes so far as to snare my legs with his; the gesture is quaint, but I allow it to continue, only smiling a girlish smile up at him as I allow myself to melt into his skin. His hands roam over my naked skin with the easiness of a lover, a fact I begrudge him, though not visibly. It's imperative that he believe me to be absolutely domesticated, bent to his will.

But of course, this Ivar is no fool: the kelpie who had come to Hyaline by lake is as sharp now as he was then, and I expect no less.

How do I know this is what you dream of?
I smile again, whimsical and lazy.
Prove it.

Although he hopes that his push of hypnotic energy might result in the spreading of my legs and tilting back of my head, it does quite the opposite. The sudden urge to rush to my final stage of this dream overwhelms the part of me that wants to tease him and lead him on first. The silly smile I wore is suddenly gone, my eyes opened and looking into his with a severe intensity. Does he deserve to see my true dreams? A part of me is hesitant, but the other wants to prove a point.

It will mean losing this exchange, but in its own right, vulnerability in the face of an intimidater is a success.

Prove it, he says again in a tone that suggests that, should I disobey, something sharp may befall me. Despite the involuntary flutter between my legs at the forced thought of that interaction, I decide to give him what he asks for. It's not what he wants, but, in this lifetime, it rarely is.

From within his grasp, I slowly dissolve. In his mind's eye (a dream within a dream) the lake of Hyaline appears, the sun rising just beyond the crest of the northernmost mountain. He remains suspended in the ocean, and he might glimpse it if he refocuses, but I impress most upon his the scene. It is still and quiet, and indeed, it is where I often find myself during dreams.

The scene glitches; there's a splash along the coast of the lake.

Suddenly, as if he were the one dreaming my dream, the pain of drowning fills Ivar's chest. But there is nothing he can do to reach the surface, although the bottom is close enough for him to stand. I embed in him a will to stand and live, but grant his body no power of movement; the burning intensifies, the scene blackening slightly from its first-person perspective. As the light of the sun glimmering from outside the lake dims, a figure appears; her face is familiar to me, but perhaps not to him.

It is Solace.

I send a thrill through his heart, a thankfulness so profound that he's quite sure he will live. As Solace dives beneath the waves, the drowning mare's mouth reaches for her, the first she's moved since voluntarily slipping into the water; but instead of support and life-saving maneuvers, a hoof suddenly falls onto the mare's chest.

Panic; feelings of panic and drowning.

As the darkness threatens to overwhelm Ivar's/my's/my dream's vision, Solace's face comes into focus, except that her face is now that of Rapt's. The change won't make sense to Ivar, but it will leave him needing to vomit as he drowns.

At the last, four words seep into his mind:

You should have died.

---

We awaken where we'd stood originally, I with a gasp. The sides of my body heave as I drag in lungful after lungful of air, desperate for it's life-giving abilities. Although I'd made sure not to actually kill either of us as we relived my repeating nightmare, the terror of its contents still left me shaken and nearly crying. Trembling, I attempt to regain my composure before glancing to Ivar, dreading and curious of his reaction to the truth of my dreams.

I want to say something - but for now, I stand there in silence.