Ivar yawns, displaying several sets of too-sharp teeth in a jaw that opens far wider than it should. Yet as it closes, he is impossibly handsome anyway, a product of rapidly evolving biology and a healthy dose of magic.
The kelpie has been forced to wait out a storm on the mainland, and he is roused by a clap of thunder that suggest a second spring thunderstorm might be on the way. He'd fallen asleep in a windblown copse of trees, and he picks his way through the damp forest in search of the sea.
He has not quite reached it when he hears the snap of a branch that suggests someone else is moving nearby. The piebald horse freezes, though he knows it is unlikely that he will not be seen. He is brilliantly blue and gold after all, clearly out of place here in these new-growth woods. His ears flick forward curiously, pale nostrils flaring in an attempt to catch the scent of whomever - whatever - is out in the shadows.
Evening is quickly approaching, and the sun is mostly set behind the distant western mountains. There is a sharp pang in his belly. Ivar glances to the side, where lush spring grass grows aplenty, but he is not in the mood for grazing. The sea is distant still and he has never been fond of small game, and the hunger makes him irritable.
Sea storms always call to her and she heeds their siren whenever she can manage too. The battered cliffside shores of Nerine are her favorite, being that she was born there on a stormy night, but she is far from Nerine for now and so the Meadow’s lapping waves will have to suffice. Thunder rolls some miles away, threatening to drift inland as the mists start falling from the graying skies.
Travel is much faster by air; her large obsidian scaled wings carry her lithe bay body with ease in silence. The light rain begins her slick her dappled bay chest and rib-sides, oiling her black wings. Something below catches her attention, a piebald stallion gold, blue and white. The dim light reflects off of his opalescent patches and then it clicks. She knows him. Well, sort of. He had led her away once when she was younger and she followed him with a willingness that had scared her older sister who whisked her away before anything could have happened (whether it had been disastrous or fun, or both, Wrena would never know).
She is older now and not much wiser, if we’re being honest.
“Hello.” Her voice is smooth, purring. She touches down behind him and folds her reptilian wings to her side, eyeing him from a safe distance. She had missed his display of teeth earlier, but she remembers them from before, his foreboding presence in general. She shivers, both from a frigid gust of wind and the memory of walking behind him, innocently enamored with his handsome appearance and terrifying sort of nature.
@[Ivar]
He sees mahogany brown skin and smells the granite of Nerine, but the winged mare that watches him with fiery eyes is not the one he had expected to see. The disappointment is so brief as to be nonexistent, and Ivar knows the overcast evening sky will hide what remains. It takes a while for him to recognize the bay mare as the filly he'd nearly lured away years past. This while includes ample time to trace the curve of her brown neck and the way the scales of her dark wings fit neatly once beside the other, and finally the smattering of white spots across her back that finally snap with recognition.
"Wrena." He says, her name coming to him as easily as the dashing smile to his scaled muzzle. "It's been a while." Years, he thinks, and they have been good to her. Their last encounter had not ended the way that he had wanted it to, but it seems that the hurricane has brought him not only brilliantly stormy waters, but a gift from the past as well.
"Is your sister with you here too?" He asks, as though only a few days have passed since their last meeting. There is a bit of laughter at the edges of his dark eyes, and the kelpie's tone is alluring as he continues: "Or are you finally going to be able to come away with me?"
The kelpie remains perfectly - unnaturally - still; this is not hunting season but prey is almost irresistibly near. She is just out of reach, and Ivar knows better than to make the first move. Other tactics then.
"Are you still in Nerine?" Asks the blue and gold stallion, his blazed face tilted curiously. There is nothing in his demeanor that suggests he is biding his time, that he is going through the motions of socialization in the hopes of future reward. It is a habit he is well accustomed to, though perhaps if he takes a step closer to the water, Wrena will follow him. Perhaps she'll follow him all the way to Ischia, where he can keep her safe.
10-11-2018, 08:54 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-11-2018, 08:56 AM by wrena.)
Her ears tip tightly forward, one brown with black tracing and the other ghostly white – tense and listening. With an anxious shiver her tail swishes the moment his eyes find her and the cogs of recognition can be heard creaking behind his stare. She sucks in a deep, quivering breath and grinds her jaw a little bit. “No.” She purrs from her stock-still stance some feet away from him. “I am alone this time…” She blinks, an expression something like sadness quickly flashes over her dark face before it’s replaced with her normal skeptical look. “We left Nerine a long time ago.” She lets a grin play in only one corner of her tightened lips when he says something about coming away with him...but she leaves it alone.
The sound of distance waves fills the emptiness around them, between them; she hasn’t moved an inch.
“Where are you now?” She swishes her tail again, and lets her head drop which makes her have to tilt her eyes up to look at him. Rain is wetting everything, making it glisten and drip, pattering softer and louder with the breathing of the wind.
@[Ivar]
10-12-2018, 06:40 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-12-2018, 06:40 PM by Ivar.)
She keeps her distance, forcing Ivar to rely on less reliable cues. The skepticism in her gaze flickers for an instant to something more useful, but it is erased by a half-grin and something about having left Nerine. In truth, the kelpie doesn't much care if she's moved to Pangea; socialization is only a tactic.
He knows not to move closer; chasing them on land is futile and garners too much attention. The piebald hunter thrives in secrecy; while he might have a reputation as a paramour there are not even whispers of his darker ventures. Still, there is enough water on her hide to make the saliva pool beneath his tongue, eager to renew the faded memory of touching her.
"The sea." He tells her without hesitation. He could say Ischia, but dislikes the association with the Brotherhood. And his island isn't really Ischia anyway. It's more...Ischia West. It's certainly not Loess, where he had almost lured her before the sister-that-made-her-look-sad had intervened. She is not here now, Ivar reminds himself, and he glances away from the treeline to Wrena.
Her lowered gaze is difficult to resist, and the piebald stallion swallows audibly. That might be a ploy, and his next words certainly are. There is much an impossibly handsome creature might get away with, and even more once the prey is near enough to touch. "Are you somewhere else now?" Or are you in need of someplace to be - someone's to be.
|
