"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
Ivar had not hesitated.
From the moment @[Isobell] acquiesces, he had never looked back.
Loess has become nothing but a faint memory, a story to reflect on when the night sky stretched wide and black above them. Ivar can feel the warmth of Isobell dozing beside him and hear the quiet rhythm of her breathing. The jagged wound on his right side aches as he shifts his weight, but the piebald stallion grits his teeth against the pain and stands without any visible grimace. It stretches up from his belly, an unpleasant reminder that sometimes glaciers are sharper than they seem.
He’d been careless, spiraling in excitement beneath a dozen feet of frozen ice. The cold and the salt water have done him good, but the scales have been slow to grow back. Fortunately, he has had other things to distract him, things like the softly swelling sides of the sleeping mare beside him. The kelpie reaches down to his resting mate, and presses a soft touch to the crown of her head. Since the moment Isobell had confirmed she was pregnant, Ivar has treated her as if she were as fragile as the first thin crust of ice on a still pond.
The violent ravages of the autumn seems as distant as Loess, and Ivar has spared no effort to keep Isobell comfortable.
Frozen ice was no place for an expectant mother, and so Ivar has guided her back south, where the water is warm and the hunting is plentiful. The kelpie had struggled for a while – why does his mate not appreciate the marlin he has brought her or the delicate conch he has pulled from the reef and cracked open on the shore? – but a quiet stretch of thick kelp forest and a rocky island have given them both what they need.
Ahead of the scaled stallion, the vast expanse of the dark and open sea lies wide and unobstructed. He knows that Beqanna is there in the south, nothing more than a distant speck on the horizon. Nautical dawn has begun, and Ivar knows he has less than an hour before the sun rises (and with it, his dark haired mate). The kelpie steps away from Isobell, onto a bit of stone that he knows drops away into nothing a few feet from the edge. Leaping from a standing position is something the kelpie has perfected over his lifetime, a necessary physical skill to enter the water as quickly and efficiently as possible.
In the minimal splash of his landing, there is only a brief flicker of a white-tipped and finned tail before Ivar disappears beneath the surf. The fish scatter at his arrival, but Ivar finds a sea bass that is slower than the rest. It stands no chance, and the pale faced stallion is swallowing the last of the crackling bones as he hauls himself back up onto their little rocky island.
“Wake up, sleepy head.” He says, moving his muzzle to drip the warm sea water along the line of Isobell’s spine. Ivar is distracted by the way it drips around the growth at her midsection, and he presses his muzzle fondly to the sleek mother-of-pearl scales that protect their child. “Rise and shine.”
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She had known nearly from the moment of their lovemaking some weeks ago. The painted mare's metamorphism into something greater than the body she occupied or the voice she carried. Something, a promise, had buried deep in her bones and her womb. Isobell had told Ivar beneath the winking of a million stars while they lay atop the floating glacier with only the dark embrace of a arctic night surrounding them.
Oh how Ivar had yelped out in the purest joy she had ever witnessed. He had gone spinning under the ice shelf in a sporadic whirl that inevitable left him bleeding on his right side but he did not seem to pay it much mind as he immediately began to smother her in his kisses. Isobell wanted to shove him off, prod him for being such a big softie but does not and allows the kelpie man do his little happy jig around her as she smiled tiredly at her goof of a stallion.
Their residency of the iceberg soon ends when Isobell can feel the protest of the growing child against the sharp edged cold. Ivar did not hesitate to head south when he witnesses the worry in her dark features and quickly ushered them to a much warmer place (Isobell is rather thankful that the foal within took after her side in that retrospect).
Isobell had made a small divot in the soft sand-dirt that they had decided to nest in to rest the growing swell of her belly. The soil is soft and cool and eased the shallow pains she felt from time to time. The sounds of the water lapping against the rocks a few feet away was an exceptionally soft lullaby that made her smile whimsically in her sleep as she dreamed. She did not feel the caress Ivar gives her or when he leaves to forage for their breakfast (though Isobell is glad that he has not attempted to force fish upon her anymore. The mere sight of their scales made it almost feel cannibalistic).
Creeping sunrise made its way towards the resting place as it illuminated the turquoise waters and highlighted it in gold. 'Wake up, sleepy head. Rise and shine.' The baritone syllables rouse her gently. Sooty lashes open and close in a slow blink as she wakes from a lovely dream about swimming in a hot spring as tiny snowflakes fell around them. "Good morning." She speaks quietly with a sleepy smile blooming upon her dark lips, legs uncurling in a big, big stretch and yawning rather unladylike.
No one ever said pregnancy was a pretty thing.
Isobell stares at Ivar as he drips small droplets on her skin, little beads of sunlight dancing across her scales. The silver eyed woman moves to sit up but the belly (noticeably bigger) provides a bit of an obstacle...so much she must give up after a few exhausting minutes of trying. If Ivar tried to help without her asking, she would quickly nip at the most tender place she could reach in her stranded state to prove she could do it on her own...but lately she seemed to need his assistance more and more as their child developed. "Ivar, help." She sighs with a brow that is furrowed and glistening with beaded sweat. She had managed her legs under her and one fore hoof extended to pull her forward and upright all in the same motion but she needed a little momentum to get going.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The flutter of her lashes catches his eye, and the kelpie watches her rouse herself and smile up at him. There is warmth in his chest, bright and satisfying, at the sight. He steps back to allow her room to stretch, and at her large yawn he only smiles. Isobell could make the very ugliest of expressions and Ivar would still find his mate to be the loveliest creature he has ever seen.
He does not move back too far, though, for he knows that she will need him, He also knows that to offer assistance is the very worst mistake. Instead he waits, his eyes carefully glued on the horizon, as though he does not notice how she is straining herself. Let her have the impression that he thinks her perfectly capable. Yet Ivar’s expression, when she finally asks for help, is noticeable relieved.
Moving behind her, Ivar lowers his head. He waits till she is ready, and at their signal he pushes against her piebald hindquarters until she is able to get to her feet. Once again, the black and white stallion is looking elsewhere. This time it is down into the sea beside them, where the seafloor drops off not six inches from the shore. A few fish are already venturing back through the water, though they cling closely to the protective shelter of the kelp forest.
It might take Isobell a while to catch her balance, Ivar knows. She prefers to be seen as elegant perfection, and so Ivar allows her that. Still, he is smiling when he does look back, stepping closer to press his pale mouth against the dark slope of her cheek in greeting.
“How did you sleep?” He asks her, and not a moment later, this time to the sweep of her belly where their child hides: “And you, little one, did you sleep well?” The logical part of Ivar knows that the child cannot really hear him, that his questions are at a best a distant murmur to the unborn foal. Yet he cannot help himself. Ivar does not wish to contain his excitement at the tiny thing’s existence and the intensity of the feeling he has for its mother. He hasn’t had to, not in their solitude; they are only Ivar and Isobell here, not a King and a Queen.
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
Ivar has become a very, very smart man these last few months. Isobell would not give him the satisfaction of telling him verbally but the sharp smile of her lips or the coy, shy look of knowing would cross her eyes when she would notice the way he was just within reach but far enough to not be swiped at. Very smart, handsome man indeed...
When she struggles, he says nothing to humiliate her roundness, he simply complies with a gentle smile and good push to her hind end. It takes little effort with the stallion helping her up, he even allows her to make a few small stumbles without witnessing it and for that she is grateful. Isobell moves to his side, her own swollen belly bumping him as she moves to press her dark lips to his own that he sustained the day she confirmed that they were expecting. Small, deliberate kisses are presses to every inch before she goes to rest her head across his spine.
"Not long enough but I suppose I couldn't wait to open my eyes and see you." She speaks teasingly, giving a little tug to the base of his mane. When Ivar speaks to the side of her abdomen, the life within the kelpie mare, kicks and kicks and kicks! The child knew it's father's voice already! "I think that means very well!" Her voice is surprised and laughing as she pulls her head from his back and moves to meet his gaze, her head lifting to float near his. Silver eyes are looking into the depths of his own as she feels the utter joy of this moment. It did not take magic or fairy dust. The painted mare glowed with the happiness that filled her heart.
...until she felt the odd sensation of warmth spill from her hind end and to the ground below. "Ivar-", her voice is low and trembling slightly as worry creeps into her throat. She looks to her stallion. "I think the baby is coming." A cramp grips her for a moment that makes her grit her teeth and suck her breath...passing a few moments later. "Ivar...he IS coming." Her voice is breathy as she looks to him a moment longer before moving towards the warm waters of Loess, each foot fall slow and shaking but her body seemed to know what to do already.
His head remains pointed at the sea ahead, but he watches Isobell as she draws closer. The sea wind pulls at his dark mane, and the dark cords of it are a stark contract to the soft wisps that frame Isobell’s pretty face. He does not tire of looking at her, but when the child inside her responds to his voice, he is more than able to tear his attention away.
”Do you think he heard me?” Ivar asks in wonder. The stallion presses his muzzle to Isobell’s side, and is quickly kicked by the foal within. ”Hey now!” He says sharply, but the sound is not chastising. No, it is fond, even if he cannot quite understand how he feels so strongly about a thing that does not even truly exist yet.
Perhaps it’s an extension of his feelings for Isobell, he thinks as he draw back to look at her. Surely anything she did would be wonderful, and the fact that she is carrying his - their - child has made him ever more fond of her. He knows these emotions from before. Heda had given them to him, pressed them into him when he was unable to create them himself.
Now though, he does not need her to. They spring from within, from some part of him that he had not known existed until Isobell called to him from the sea. Ivar loves her, and he does not need a projection to know that this is true.
He’d be content to stand here forever (or at least until either of them got hungry), but the grey-eyed queen has other plans in mind. At least, her body has other plans.
”Ah...” He fumbles for words, looking back and forth from Isobell’s face and belly. ”I don’t. I...”
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She is feeling her body clench and release. It is a create all it's own as her mind separates the feeling of her pain from the logic and rational thinking that she usually holds.
Knees are buckling and digging into the soft sand. Scales flick of like thin flower petals at the unnatural movements that force her body down to the warm ground. She grits, groans, eyes slamming shut as she breathes slowly to try and ease the contractions. Isobell exhales as her body allows her to fall completely to the ground so that her swollen sides lift and fall with each jagged breath.
The contractions seize her body again, a woman possessed, and she pushes against them as her body commands despite her lack of experience. Isobell looks to Ivar (knowing he is meeting her with an equally frightened gaze) but she manages to draw herself upward to her feet again to rock against her weight but the water calls for her.
Isobell sinks beneath the waves, her body easing with the need of water met but not long befor the child begins to emerge. Minutes tick by like creaking hands on a broken clock, she moans, pushes, groans, pushes, hot tears and searing pain and she still pushes...
A boy, grey as a morning storm and patched with white, emerges. He is large, strong and eager for food. his small form instinctively draws water into his lungs...and breathing. Isobell had watched carefully to rescue the boy (a boy!) if need be but no...no, he is a kelpie! She is beaming and her heart bursting with love as she moves to gather the long legged boy and take him to the surface so he may rest.
"Ivar, look." Isobell coos lovingly. She had never known such love as she gazes upon the grullo painted child before looking to the kelpie man himself. "He is beautiful." The woman whispers into the neck of the taller man as she embraces him before ushering the young boy to nurse.
He is a handsome creature, the color of his granddam and just as handsome as his father. Isobell smiles wearily up at Ivar, her silver eyes nearly glowing in the depths of her happiness. "We did it." She whispers softly, gazing upon their child as he suckled greedily.
