azar;

[Ivar]

I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take The sound of her laughter brightens his smile, though it fades as she reaches toward him. Not because he is unhappy – never that – but rather because the simple happiness is briefly swallowed by a swell of something else entirely. It is not something unfamiliar, but it brings with it recent memories of Heda and a less recent one of green feathers beneath the sea. Neither are unpleasant, but nor do they belong here with Azar. Ivar pushes them away with the ease of youth; nothing yet feels eternal. Looking out at the sea, she probably misses that brief flicker of uncertainty, and by the time she looks back at him his smile has returned in full force. He tilts his head at her question, but he does’nt answer. They’ve interacted so rarely, and yet he already suspects that…yes. He’d been right. She continues to talk, filling up the heavy fog between them with more words, finally finishing with the same question that she’d started with. “The island is beautiful,” he tells her. “It’s called Ischia. It has a forest too, but much different. Tephra has a forest too, a rainforest.” If there is one thing that Ivar has found in his ventures across Beqanna, it is that some things are the same everywhere. The type of trees might be different, but they still cluster together, providing safety for the animals that live beneath them. “I do like it here,” he adds, because that is what she’d really wanted to know. It is the truth; the redwood forest is a beautiful place. A little foggier than he remembered, but he’s never been here at this time of night – perhaps it is normal. There is a strand of graying hair out of place on her neck, and Ivar is reaching toward it to gingerly tidy it when something moves in the fog. The smile on his face falls away immediately, and his first touch to Azar’s soft skin is a crashing of his neck against her chest as he shoves her back, away from whatever it is that is coming toward them. The pied stallion has no time to lament that their moment had been ruined, for by the time he’s turned his head back to the intrusion he has much worse things to worry about. Once, as a child, Ivar had seen a slavering raccoon. Rabid, his father had said, and the word seems apt to describe this pale stranger. Ivar reacts to it the same way Stillwater had to the masked creature – he stands his ground. Gryffen’s yellow teeth and met with a matching snarl from Ivar. His handsome face isn’t marred by the ugly expression, and the serrated teeth he has to show are pristine (fine bones are a far better toothbrush that flat grasses, after all). The cremello stallion is older, probably more experienced, and driven by what Ivar can only assume is insanity. He is also smaller and flat toothed and covered in soft hide. Gryffen is a prey animal – Ivar is a predator. A predator with something to protect though, so the appeal of simply tackling the stranger head-on is tainted by the need to defend Azar behind him. “I think we’re in the Taiga.” He says instead of leaping forward, each word clipped. This is not Ruan (who Ivar knows as the shady figure that stopped his initial theft of Azar). It is also not Azar’s bear-father if her reaction is any indication. “And since when is just standing by the river disrespectful?” The last comes out as a bit of a taunt; Ivar is young and brash and rather sure of himself against this rabid stallion. kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis

ooc: The thread started before the wall was built so I just kinda skipped the wall references. If that’s not alright, just let me know and we can figure something out! I also kind of assumed that Azar wasn’t happy to see Gryffen but lmk about that too in case it’s not cool