"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
“Well,” Ivar says, once he has hacked the seawater and bile from where it clung uncomfortably to his chest. “That was fucking terrible.”
Below him, the sea shifts from midnight blue to black and back again, always with the clear moon overhead in a thousand shattered reflections. There are far too many emotions swirling in the kelpie for him to say anything more. He was never meant to feel most of them, but he finds the sensation of drowning to be the worst of them all. The sensation of water rushing into his lungs, burning at them in a way that was even worse than the hot sulphur water off Tephra’s shore. It was like the water didn’t belong, like there was something unnatural about being able to survive both in water and air. The feeling of drowning was terrifying.
For a moment, there seems to be a possibility of moral clarity for the sea creature, but it passes in the half-second it takes to blink away the salt from his eyes.
For all Ivar's past actions, for all the crimes he’s committed beneath the sea: he’s never made any of them fearful. Drowning was never painful, not with the kelpie. Yet Kagerus’ version of it lingers still in the sourness at the back of his tongue and in the scowl that the blue and gold creature wears across his scaled forehead.
“I definitely like my dreams better,” he says to his shifting reflection, glancing up to meet the spotted mare’s gaze before he adds: “You probably would too.” While Ivar hadn’t recognized the champagne stallion that blue-haired Solace had melted into, he isn’t really interested in his identity. Someone from her past, he assumes; maybe from her present.
He reaches out to press his muzzle briefly against her side, and while Ivar is biologically incapable of true innocence, the touch is short-lived and seemingly without agenda.
“Do you want to forget that?” He asks, swallowing around the last bit of rawness in his throat. Ivar isn’t quite sure what he’s referring to - the stallion? the water? the emotions she’d felt? the memory of dreaming with him at all? - but he does’t need that much information. Forgetting is forgetting, after all. He doesn’t find any necessity in differentiating the types. In the same way he’s made Kylin forget her death he might command Kagerus to forget. It wouldn’t work forever (minds are too complex for such a simple fix), but it would for a while.
I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
and in my dreams, i kissed your lips a thousand times
He sputters his own curses as we awaken in the sea, drenched both by the waters and by the sodden weight of my retreating nightmare. I wonder idly at what he must be thinking now, as the sensation of drowning fades from his powerful lungs. Truth be told in regards to my curiosity, I am rather without care for what he has to say or think; our nighttime gallivanting has left me exhausted, physically and emotionally; I ought to be curled up with Solace, and instead I am here, proving sweet nothings to a stallion who ultimately has no effect in my life over all.
Funny, the things we do in the dead of night; and funny, how we perceive them come morning.
He speaks again, those clever eyes rising to meet mine. Evenly, I hold them; they know much that I do not, though most of it I assume to be more pleasant than mine, considering his words. I don't smile at his suggestion of what I might prefer, but I do give a small dip of my antlered head in acknowledgement. I probably would, after all is said and done.
The extension of his being towards mine does awaken me somewhat to the reality of our existence, and my neck bends to watch as he brushes against me with seeming innocence. A soft churr vibrates through my chest, perhaps tickling his nose as it lingers against me; but the moment passes, and I find myself more attune to the roll of the ocean and the beating of our hearts, not in tandem but not far off either. In a strange way, I want to thank him for the gesture; but I contain myself, instead just blinking curiously and with a quiet contentedness towards him.
Do you want to forget that? He swallows with the words; unsure, perhaps, of what he is offering.
But I do not mind; for I too am unsure of my own answer. Scared of my own shadow you might say.
In the end, after minutes spent in silence as our eyes peruse the soft, constant rolls of the ocean drifting ever towards us, I decide. My legs splash in the water, disrupting the smooth symphony of our watery orchestra; I am turning away from him, back towards home, and back towards the one who saved me that day. My nightmare is not real; she does not wish I had died that day.
"Thank you for the offer Ivar, but no." I smile tiredly towards him, though the expression is kind. "Though there is pain, there is also value in remembering where I have come from, and how far I have come from that same place." I take a step forward, but then think better of it. My next step takes me right to his side. Blinking slowly, I reach out my own muzzle, pressing it's soft whiskers to the reptilian scales he sports. It is an innocent gesture; perhaps, a thanks.
"Stay as long as you'd like, my friend," I murmur, pulling away. "Hyaline is a Sanctuary - treat her as such." Heaving myself forward, I exit the ocean, water dropping from me in sheets. It won't belong until I'm with my love again; until a black, restful sleep reclaims my being.
![[Image: kag]](https://78.media.tumblr.com/2e8039018ce4dff6112c167ec23e886a/tumblr_p72zjit7wC1s5a0qvo1_100.png)