Cutting through Sylva has always been the fastest way to the northern kingdoms, but Ivar has always avoided it.

Tonight, knowing that the population will likely stay near the heart of the kingdom, he has chosen to risk it. The scaled stallion is weary – two days and a night spent without rest – and he is eager to return home. The thought of sinking into the darkness of his pool sustains him, distracts him even, and he starts at the sound of movement in the woods nearby.

Frozen, Ivar takes in the dark forest, and he’s found the source of the noise only moments before she speaks.

He knows that voice – it would be impossible to forget. That voice had threatened Loess, threatened Heda (threatened him, as well, but that is less consequential). It was the voice of the wraith’s sharp-toothed companion, and Ivar finds her outline in the darkness. Their first meeting, he had evaluated her as one would a threat. She’d been a strong one; not insurmountable, but certainly a challenge. Now, in the darkness and the autumn, he finds her much the same, a hunger in her eye, a predator’s lack of hesitance in the way she moves through the woods.

It has been too long since he’d been with Heda, Ivar realizes.

“I’d rather not,” says the kelpie, but he steps forward anyway.

“Don’t you have better things to do than stalk the woods tonight?” he asks with a tilt of his pale head, his dark eyes lazily roving the sleek blue mare’s figure. “Things like…I dunno, torturing something? Crushing babies? Whatever it is you all do in Sylva these days?” There is a soft taunt in his voice, but he doesn’t move from the relaxed stance he’s taken, half-leaning against a thick birch.


kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis

The difference between this meeting and their first are striking, and Ivar remains quietly pensive as the roan mare slips closer. She speaks of a pleasant surprise and he almost smiles, but she won’t see it with the way she is sliding past his, her soft lips on his cheek.

There is more to the world than prey and not prey, Ivar is finding, though the categories always seem to broaden in the autumn.

Ivar is tired, the dull haze of exhaustion blurring most of his senses. Her voice is a pleasant croons that slides easily against his ears, and the rake of her teeth across his scaled neck elicits a satisfied groan. Already sated and weary, the need to seduce her is far from the kelpie’s mind. He’d have been content to pass her by, but the soft give of her neck beneath his roving muscle is just as pleasant.

With a quiet sigh, he answers her question truthfully: “No.”

His technique is the penultimate bait-and-switch, exquisite pleasure in exchange for every drop of blood in their body. They never knew what was coming; that is how he likes it. But that is in the water, not here in the woods with solid earth beneath his hooves.

The desire to see her jump – startled, but not afraid – is rather novel. The light of pain in Karaugh’s eyes had been intoxicating; perhaps he is too tired to want the theatrics in Thana. Taking her to the water would require too much effort, he reasons. There is no harm in seeing where this accidental encounter will lead. “Don’t you have something to do at your little festival?” He asks, his breath ghosting back and forth across her ribs. “Everyone knows you all probably have something terrible planned.”

The word Evil has been more frequent in Beqanna of late, and the uptick is almost certainly to do with Sylva. Ivar doesn’t know how forward the kingdom is with the rest of the rulers – had they threatened to kill them as well? – but he doesn’t particularly mind. There are few others that Ivar would bother to keep safe, and Heda is at the top of the list.

She’s probably already asleep, the scaled stallion reasons as he slides his muzzle down the length of Thana’s back leg. He could bite it, he knows, grab her in an instant and hobble her with tattered muscle. It would probably be the wiser choice, but it would take longer, and the satisfaction might not be exactly what he’s looking for. Better to take what he does now.

“Or do you get to celebrate as well?”


kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis

“Mhmm,” he murmurs as she speaks, a wordless confirmation that he is listening, even if he is not looking. Her teeth clicking across his skin send a shiver down his spine, an odd sensation to match her unexpected confession. There is something wrong with her admission, Ivar thinks; it is not acceptable to kill. He knows this, even if he has never been able to fathom the logic behind it. There is a reason he has far more sexual conquests than victims; he can control it when he must.

“The more I know about you, the more disturbing you become.”The words are said as he tastes the skin above her ribs; he gives no indication that he has reacted any way at all to what Thana has told him.

The killing is not something Ivar likes; it is only something he does.

To find enjoyment would be to feel something, and Ivar has never shared proximity with much emotion. There is an urge, animalistic and masculine, to lunge after her as she tugs at his mane. He complies. Following instinct is natural, and while there is not a feeling of happiness, there is a definite primal satisfaction in the sensation of her underneath him. His breath is hot in her ear, and his forelegs pin her firmly against him. Soft and sleek with the lay of her hair, and pleasantly rough against it, Ivar runs his muzzle along her neck, then down to her shoulder. There he bites down, the black and blue haired hide no defense against his sharp teeth. It is not deep, but it is enough to trickle down her side and plop – disappointingly – into the leaves below. There is no artistic spiraling of blood in the water, only dull gravity.

The whole time, he is mindful of her pleasure, the catch of her breath and the beat of her heart as his only guides.

Yet for the first time, he does not command the mare below to not feel the pain of his claiming bite against her neck. He always has before; it makes their eyes roll closed in pleasure (and sometimes in death) all the more quickly. This time he holds back, waits until the very moment before she reaches peak pleasure. Her heartbeat is a hummingbird flutter as he finishes, but he withdraws an instant before she crosses the same line. Incomplete. It could have been a miscommunication – or perhaps simply selfishness on his part.

He can still taste Azazelle between his teeth as he smears Thana’s crimson blood down her roan shoulder. That particular sensation is far less satisfactory than the successful planting of his seed, and all four hooves return to the earth, he runs his dark muzzle along the curve of her belly. Maybe, he thinks to himself. She is not kelpie, but she is also not prey. Ivar is far from selective of his women; he is a creature of opportunity. Still, they are always incompatible. That most basic instinct, the need to procreate: he is unable to fulfill it. The scaled creature has reached maturity, but has yet to sire a child.

Maybe, he thinks again, this time pressing the thought into Thana’s mind with the hypnotic command to: Wonder if there will be a child. He might as well have someone else bear the load of his insecurities, even if the nature of her concerns might be different than his own.

“We’re different there, too,” he says as he nips harmlessly at the edge of her hip. “I’m not selective at all. ” The last word is accentuated by a sharper nip just to the left of the base of her tail. That, coupled with the unwavering stare he now gives her, is the first hint that perhaps he is aware of what he had done. That he might know he has taken her to the very edge and left her unsatisfied. “I’m sure your king is looking for you by now.” he says, the satisfied twist to his smile an almost certain confirmation.

He is satisfied, physically at least. Now, as the twilight deepens into dusk, he can return home. Ivar will stop before he reaches the heart of Loess, he will find a bubbling spring to sink himself into. When the hot water has washed all traces of the roan wolf-shifter and the grey-eyed grullo from his scaley hide, Ivar will emerge, settling into an unsuspecting lover’s embrace, and drift to sleep perfectly content.


kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis
minimal grullo tobiano king of loess