"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
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The sheen of her fin catches his quick eye, and Ivar watches as she touches her neck to it. He would like to do the same, to trace the outline of the translucent appendage, to see exactly how Kylin has changed. Instead, he remains still as she comes closer, closing the space between them with her own curiosity.
His breath is held tightly as the lavender mare runs her muzzle against the scales of his tail; Ivar chooses that instead of letting it hitch and reveal his visceral reaction.
The kelpie is silent as she stares at him, nothing revealed on his pale face, but as soon as the words “so you did cheat” fall from her lips, he flicks the end of his tail sharply. A spray of water cover them both, breaking over his shoulders as a smile breaks across his face. He’d suspected such a reaction, but there is still a warm sense of relief despite that.
She asks about his mother, a topic that he’d broached. It is not a common one for them – it is not a common one for him at all. He does not speak of them.
Yet he does.
“She was whatever she wanted.”
Ivar has never witnessed a conversation between his parents. His memories of his birth are foggy and incomplete; they’d both been there, but he remembers little else. Not since that day had they spoken in front of him; to Ivar’s knowledge they never spoke at all. Despite that, the piebald colt had watched them watch each other, a resigned sort of contentment on each face.
“Though I think this is from my father.” Ivar flicks his tail indicatively, glancing back at it for a moment. “Or perhaps it’s some sort of combination.” Who can say how the magics of Beqanna work?
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart.
As her lips gently trail over the scales, she holds her breath. Yes, she has touched his scales before, they weren’t strangers to physical contact – physical affection even – but that wasn’t the same as touching a shifted limb. Just moments before the fin had been two separate legs, and it just amazes her how mother nature works her magic. Kylin only remembers how to breathe again when she pulls back. ”I knew it” she adds with a chuckle.
He replies and Kylin doesn’t miss how he uses a past tense when he mentions his mother. It could mean many things, of that she’s aware, but it definitely turns the conversation more serious than she would’ve expected. She doesn’t reply until she has lowered her body into the sand next to him, pulling her fins against her sides before goes down. ”He’s a water creature too?” Well, that would make sense, Ivar seemed to be the logical outcome of two water creatures. Kylin took purely after her father, not resembling her mother at all. Neither had Kharon. Kali had, but both are faint ghosts now.
She offers him a smile and from her position next to him she reaches out to offer him her nose. Almost shy, as if she’s afraid Ivar would deny her the touch, the exchange of scents. ”You’re Ivar, nothing less and so much more.” Though family matters to her, he is who he is, and his linage wouldn’t change anything about him. Neither would her knowing about them.
”You mentioned that your family lived in Sylva before, they still do?” she asks him, her dished head tilting to the side. Thus far she’d failed to discover more of Beqanna. Without either Ivar or Kharon she lacked the courage to, but it hadn’t stopped her from dreaming. And from what Ivar had told her, Sylva had to be amazing.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Kylin asks if his father had been a water creature, and Ivar nods. The clearest memories of his father are those beneath the water.
“A kelpie”, he replies though his eyes remain out to sea. He can feel Kylin resting beside him (not by her warmth – this place is too tropical for that – but rather by the shift in the wind that plays with the drying strands of his dark mane. Perhaps his father is still out there, lost in the sea. Ivar does not think of him often, but he does now. The piebald creature was an aberration, the result of magic interacting with animal instinct in an entirely unexpected way. He’d nearly killed his mother at birth, and he knows that she regrets him.
Not enough to avoid the danger of his father though; no one is ever strong enough to avoid the danger of a kelpie.
He does not like the direction that these thoughts are heading, and so he distracts himself instead of dwelling further on them.
Instead he leans to the side, pressing his pale shoulder to Kylin’s side where she lays beside him. Her gentle compliment brings a smile to his pale face, and he places a gentle kiss on her outstretched nose.
“My mother is back in Nerine these days. My father is out to sea, where kelpies belong.”
The irony in his statement does not escape the black and white stallion. His own home is far from the saltwater, yet as he reclines in the sand it is almost easy to forget.
There is a bit of seaweed in Kylin’s mane, Ivar sees, and he reaches out to brush it away. Once he has, he does not pull away, but rather rests his neck across hers, trying to draw her a bit closer to him with a gentle tug. Ivar can’t recall if he’s ever told Kylin what his father was before – what he was – but he is entirely unconcerned. She isn’t in any danger, after all (at least not in danger of anything with permanent consequences). The brown-eyed creature will not break his promise to the lavender mare, but there are times when it would be easy to.
Times like these, he thinks as he traces the fall of her still damp mane down her pale neck. She tastes of seaweed and saltwater, a delicious concoction, and the thrum of her still-rapid-from-the-race heartbeat is enticing in ways that she would not understand. She is innocent of these ways, he knows, though rumor would suggest that her purple family might have taught her early. The need to sink beneath the water, to watch her last breath shatter the surface with bubbles overhead, to drink of her blood until all he can see or smell or even think of is Kylin.
No.
Ivar stops himself, though a gentle brush at her shoulder is but an inch away from a bite to make her his forever. He lets out a long sigh, deeper than he’d intended, but hides it in a motion to stand. In the blink of an eye, his tail is legs again, pale and muscular and fetlock-deep in water.
It is always safer for them when he is farther from the water.
“I want to see more of Ischia.” Ivar tells her, his brown gaze carefully focused on the dark green of the jungle ahead and determinedly not on Kylin. “Let’s avoid the hibiscus if we can, though.” Adds the scaled creature, the reference to his first trip to the island bringing a bit of humor to his tone. “What else is there to see here?”
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
There is my mind, there is my heart. ”A kelpie..” she repeats after him, as if the whole world made more sense now. It explained the tail, the scales, and his ability to breath underwater. Perhaps even the thing he had done to her when they had gone to the beach to watch the baby turtles. ”Did the kelpie cause it, back on the beach?” she asks, her head tilting a little to the side as her hazel eyes search Ivar’s gaze. She has long forgiven him for it, it shows in the casual way she reaches out to gentle nibble on his mane. Back then Kylin had been scared, but it would be a lie to say that she hadn’t wondered about it ever since.
”Oh?” Ivar surprises her by saying that his family no longer lived in Sylva. And they hadn’t even had the chance to explore the land together. Not like they had explores Ischia and Loess. But it also doesn’t seem like her business to pry and ask why. She wouldn’t like to be asked about the reason of her own family’s disappearance either.
But Ivar has given her another subject to talk about. ”You belong in the sea too..” she murmurs softly, glancing up at him again after settling herself more comfortable against his side. Kylin has always enjoyed their close contact, today is not different. ”Don’t you miss it?” Of course she’s referring to the time he spends in Loess.
Her hazel eyes watch the sea, thinking she would definitely miss it. But so does she miss Ivar when he isn’t around too, he is the closest thing she has to family. It is easy to snuggle more into his scaled form and the gentle petting is almost hypnotic. Slowly she catches her breath, and it wouldn’t take much more before she starts purring contently.
Like always Kylin is oblivious to what is going on in Ivar’s thoughts. His sudden suggestion to explore Ischia further comes out of the blue and it takes the lavender and white woman a moment to process it. By then Ivar is already up. ”Of Ischia?” she asks, blinking her hazel eyes at him as she gets up her feet.
Her confusion about the sudden change of scene is soon forgotten, as she laughs softly at his joke. ”You sure? You looked rather adorable with all the pollen on your face.” Kylin is grinning at him, unable to not notice how he is not looking at her. Half playful and half upset for the lack of attention.
Anyway, back to the matter at hand. Hadn’t they explored all? Most of the main island at least, perhaps.. ”We can go to one of the smaller islands?” she offers. It was not often others ventured there. Where else could they go? They hadn’t been to the flower meadow yet, but Ivar had jokingly suggest to avoid them. They had swam in the biggest pond, and in the sea too. Visited the parrots even. ”Or..” she briefly pauses, because this had been her and Kharon’s special place. ”.. we could go to my favorite pond?”
