"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
Her steps are weighted with burden from a widely expanded barrel and her disdain for the kelpie's absence. She walks with one well formed hoof in front of the other, a pace well known and easily executed by the heavily pregnant water queen. She has long left the shores of their private isle when Ivar (despite his silver tongue and coaxing voice) had left her with their smoke and ash son to pursue a war that truly involved neither of their interests. The pied mare had chosen to side along the stallion in the sanctuary of their secret grotto till day passed before she knew it was best to move.
Lothbrok is forming into a fine young stallion. He will grow to be taller than his dam and already his eyes are sharp with predatory fixation. Isobell knows there will be a day when the boy will no longer abide ehr stern intentions and will go to roam the waters hungry and lustful. He is Ivar's son after all and to hope for a gentled beast would mean his own demise.
The pair emerged from the glass like surface of the clear waters. Isobell is seen first as she lurks with the tips of her delicately cupped ears breaking the water's surface before the silver eyes are gleaming in suite. There is nothing along the shore insane enough to threaten the kelpie or her offspring. The mare finds purchase in the smooth river bed to draw herself upon the rocky shore just as Lothbrok makes a less elegant entrance and bounds along her with a well curated eye and small rounded chest. Isobell breathes slowly, her sides heaving with the weight of the foal inside.
"Lothbrok. Wait." It is not question as the shimmering scaled woman is soon aside the kelpie colt. Her dark lips reach to tug at a tangled mop of seaweed in his mane before he is soon struggling free, standing nearly her height already, to go investigate the grounds around them. After all, he is to look after his mother till father returns.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Isobell has always been the only woman that the kelpie could not fully win over. No matter how carefully phrases his requests or how charming he is, the ocean-dwelling lady has the audacity to tell him ‘no’. Sometimes it is about small things (like the time she had refused to let him take Lothbrok hunting until he was ‘old enough’, for example. No matter how persuasively Ivar argued that 'old enough to walk is old enough to hunt’, Isobell refused to let him take their two-month-old son shark-hunting. Sometimes it is about larger things (No Ivar, you can’t have both me and Heda. No Ivar, I won’t leave Nerine for you).
She continues to have her own opinion, and refuses to give in to him. At times it is infuriating and he considers further attempts to leave her on the sea floor. Somehow, those times always end up being his favorite times as well (he is quite sure that both their children were the result of make-up sex, after all). There is an inexplicable connection between the two creatures, a connection forged beneath a full moon not unlike the one now overhead. She’d sunk beneath the waves and had survived, and the water had changed her. The water, and Ivar, and perhaps some of the magic that permeates every atom of their world.
Ivar remembers the first time he’d truly seen her as she climbs out of the water ahead of him. Her lovely neck had been bloody and her sides bruised from his firm grip. He’d though her dead till she emerged from the sea, and the emotion he feels as she climbs onto the River bank is all-but-identical.
She is with Lothbrok, who Ivar greets with a shared breath and a quick hug, but his attention is always focused on Isobell. She is more beautiful than he had remembered, lithe and lovely, and stretched wide with his children. There is a primal satisfaction in the sight, and the internal kelpie rumbles happily as he approaches Isobell. A moment before he reaches out to embrace her he hesitates, his dark gaze searching for something in her pewter eyes.
making those promises that i could not keep in my dark times, baby this is all i could be
The boy is elated tho see his father as always. The larger, older kelpie man is a strong beast that the young smoke grullo child has always admired (and would continue to) as the ashed colt enjoys the embrace with a few warm nickers. His dark eyes are wide and warm as Ivar greets him. "Father." The kelpie colt breathes into the tangle of his father's mane with an unparalleled eagerness.
But the boy knows to slip away when Ivar is nearing his mother. The water nymph, the iron maiden of the waves, the kelpie queen. Lothbrok is smart enough t know to clear her angered or irritated gaze.
"Ivar." She coos her syllables as her steely laid eyes grip is pale and dark form with ferocity. She has allowed the beast to ravaged her once, drown her beneath waves, but her emergence as a new thing...a sacred creature of dark waters and water lungs, would tolerate nearly nothing of his ghost-like appearances or unsavory actions. Isobell speaks with a velvet tongue, a thick silver blade beneath. She is large with their children, uncomfortable and annoyed with his current distraction. "Ivar...you left..." She begins with narrowed, piercing silver eyes and a sharp tongue that would sear his illuminated hide but the smallest of twangs grip her for a moment before she realizes that the life within her was listening quite intently upon their parents converse.
Isobell grits her jaw, attempting to sate the feel of the child (children) that threatened to make their existence know. Isobell wobbles slightly to accommodate the sudden stir whilst attempting to be displeased with the sudden appearance of her spoken mate. "I waited...you were gone..." Her words are exhaled with a breathlessness that even frightened the kelpie mare before she suddenly buckles to the sand as a wave of labor pain ripples over her sides and her hind region. The mercury filled eyes slam shut as she clamps her jaw to combat the depth of her pain.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Though she coos his name, there is nothing adoring in her stance or expression, and Ivar is suddenly grateful for that moment of hesitation. Her attitude seems to the very opposite if his own, though Lothbrok had certainly been excited to see his father again. An attempt at flattery dies before it even reaches his lips, and Ivar is silence through her accusations.
The kelpie glances up when she wobbles, his amber eyes flicking across her broad figure but finding no indication of injury or damage. She must be gritting her teeth against him then, he surmises, holding back her fury out of regard for Lothbrok’s nearness. The boy slips away, wise to his mother’s moods, and Ivar braces himself for the verbal onslaught.
When it comes, it is far breathier than he images, and Ivar looks up from the earth at her feet to meet her gaze. He does so just in time to see her fall to her knees, and to watch a contraction ripple down her sides. The baby is coming, he realizes. Ivar’s experience with childbirth is limited to Lothbrok’s birth, but he is still quite certain that Isobell is too small for the child she carries. Surely it is twice the size that Lothbrok had been, and he remembers in a flash the sight of two foals trailing their mother. Twins? He wonders, as he step forward and runs his pale muzzle along her distended sides.
“Take deep breaths”, he tells her, “It doesn’t really hurt.”
The verbal sentiment would be laughable - possibly even insulting - but as he says it aloud he demands it of her as well. Hypnosis functions in the subconscious mind, and perhaps he can use that to make her forget the pain. He knows better than to try and quell it all. It’s probably beyond the scope of his gift anyway, and she still needs some awareness of the process so she knows when to push.
“I’m here now,” Ivar breathes against her neck. “You can be mad at me later, but I’m here now. You have bigger concerns, anyway.” At that last, he smiles, taking his eyes away from her face and glances for a moment at her belly.
making those promises that i could not keep in my dark times, baby this is all i could be
05-27-2018, 09:15 PM (This post was last modified: 05-28-2018, 12:04 AM by Isobell.)
And for once she listens with unabashed openness. He is right (as she is gritting her teeth to bear then in a temporarily relief to beat the pain). She can feel him near her and she is thankful. A slow rush of hot breath exits her lips as she falls to her sides. The anger, the malice, it is all but evaporated as her swollen body responds to his nearness...his caress with the children are fighting to be born. Isobell groans loudly as she lays upon her knees (scars from Lothbrok's birth) before she is forcing herself to rise up. She would birth these children as she had Lothbrok.
Silver eyes flash as she meets and holds Ivar's gaze. One hoof rises to bear her weight..and then the other. She stands challenging him and whatever weakness he may harbor for her but then...slowly...she moves to the river. Each step is labored and wracked with an unfathomable pain.
Isobell sinks beneath the water's embrace with a soft moan (the foals inside beginning to crest). Isobell looks to Ivar with a panicked, worrisome gaze before she slips below the waves (as he had once done to her). Beneath the water, her body is weightless and able to to help the eager children. Waves of contractions begin to quicken and wrack her womanly form. Iosbell's pain is capsuled in delicate bubbles. At first, the boy child is born strong and eager. Isobell nearly faints with the lightheadedness of child bearing for such a healthy colt...
Until the girl follows, Isobell is shocked. Another child?!
But the pain is nearly too much for her as the smaller girl child is born. Isobell does not fold beneath the waters but instead helps the thin forms of their newly birthed children to meet the water's surface so they may breath. Isobell knows they will be kelpie and she is a proud woman. Teeth grips very gentle to keep them close, ensuring they breath as the waters are tainted pink from their birth. Pewter filled eyes are flickering to meet those of her mate. Isobell had made sure to stay closer to the shallow waters if Ivar should decide to help in the miracle of the twins (twins!) birth. She would never deny him of his privilege.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The piebald stallions takes a step back as Isobell heaves herself to her feet. He knows better than to offer help; even if he wants it, Ivar doubts she would take it from him. She had inherited her mother’s infamous strong will, the scaled creature knows, and trying to change her mind when she is in a mood like this is as futile as attempting to halt the tides. The kelpie mare’s reaction to Ivar’s arrival doesn’t seem to have changed his approach, for he follows close behind her as she slips into the river, and runs a reassuring muzzle along her side just before they submerge.
There’s not much he can do as she writhes with contractions. This far upriver, there aren’t even dangers to patrol for, and he must settle for drifting quietly and watching the water around him. Lothbrok does the same on the bank overhead, Ivar knows, instinctually protecting a birthing mother.
The boy is first, brightly marked like his tobiano parents. Ivar starts to bump him toward the surface, but the colt blinks up at him with wide silver eyes and Ivar can see the flare of his dark nose as he breathes the water as easily as he might air. Rather pleased, Ivar turns back to Isobell, curving his long tail around the boy in such a way that the firstborn is prevented from drifting away in the current.
The girl comes next, and Ivar watches wordlessly as his mate mothers their newest children. She is indescribably gentle with them, just as she had always been with Lothbrok. Ivar moves closer in the cool water, and slides his muzzle wordlessly along her scarred withers.
(mine)
rumbles the kelpie happily, and Ivar’s gentle touch grows warmer as he presses another kiss to Isobell’s neck and then the soft place beside her ear. The black and white stallion half-expects a knee to the chest or a nip (she is not always pleased with his amorous intentions), but he risks it to tell her: “They’re beautiful.”
making those promises that i could not keep in my dark times, baby this is all i could be
She wears the weariness of the birthing like armor. The kelpie mare is proud to have bore two foals for her mate, she is proud have produced kelpie children for Ivar as she knows she would. She is the mother of kelpies in this world and the next and she is satisfied to see his smile and watch how he gathers the two spindly foals. Isobell nearly melts to the ground with a heavy sigh and her exhaustion.
Lothbrok finally emerges from his place in the near hedges. He is cautious of his mother and father and curious of his newest siblings. The pied boy watches with large eyes and a lowly held head as he looks for a signal from either parents to permit his nearness. Isobell allows the lids of her eyes to fall as she draws a breath, slow and deliberate as she fights the fogginess of sleep. Lothbrok's birth had not been this try but then again she had just bore two foals and her body hurt.
"Ivar..." She is nearly whispering her name as she moves to the children and help guide them to their feet, her tongue appearing and covering their tiny forms as she helps to show them where to nurse. The quicksilver of ehr eyes are shining and bright as she is proud to have bore the foals, her yes searching Ivar's with adoration.
Isobell collapses to the ground, but Ivar’s tail flicks without thought. He catches he dark jaw before it can strike the earth, and he lingers for a moment before he pulls away. It is not like his Isobell to be so compliant, and Ivar is not the type to waste this advantage.
He is distracted by Lothbrok’s emergence from the reeds. Ivar’s molten gaze snaps toward the movement, but the line of tension in his scaled figure eases as he recognizes the boy. No, he realizes, not really a boy anymore. He’s a stallion now; Lothbrok has grown up in their year apart. Still, Ivar reaches out to playfully tug at his mane as he always had, drawing the boy closer for a moment before looking back at the piebald twins that struggle to find their feet on land.
It’s so much harder than the water, Ivar knows. Too many weeks out to sea and even Ivar has a few stumbling steps while his body struggles to remember what gravity feels like. The kelpie means to let Isobell sleep for a time, but his ears flick back at the sound of his near-whispered name. The kelpie mare is struggling to rise, and Ivar keeps near to her without offering help. He knows better.
As their youngest children take their first meal, Ivar chances his luck and steps closer to Isobell. His touch is gentle as he smooths away a tangled bit of mane from her neck, feeling each pebbled scale beneath his pale lips as he does. He roves farther, tapping at the slightly raised scars of her neck and shoulders with his sharp canines.
(mine. mate. mine.)
The kelpie lets out a long sigh - one that he wasn’t truly aware that he’d been holding. His chin moves to rest along the rise of her withers, and he shuffles his hindquarters to offer and equally comfortable place for her to rest along his side.
“What do you want to name them?” He asks, as though no time has passed at all since they had last seen each other. "I still like Kaliope, for a girl."
I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
