[open] You Can't Fight Fate [Any] [No Sylva]

[Ivar]

I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take Ivar grins at her display of injured pride, shaking his head playfully as if he disagrees with her claim. “I dunno,” he says teasingly, “But maybe we can spar sometime and you can prove me wrong.” It’s been some time since his training with Akkadian in the autumn woods of Sylva, but muscle memory is impossible to forget. The black stallion hasn’t ever fought in a battle (he doesn’t count the sparring in Nerine), but the idea of truly testing his own strength is appealing. He is equally curious about what Zhenga might be hiding up her own metaphorical sleeve. She has also grown up well, and there is more than platonic admiration in his brown gaze as he realizes this. As she beings to answer his question, the pied stallion listens curiously, flicking his pale tail against his scaled hindquarters. Ivar smiles at the mention of Eiria; he wonders how she is doing, and if she is still in Sylva. It seems that Zhenga has been to several other lands. He does his best to keep the shadow from his face as she mentions the loss of the Taiga, but his smile does falter for a moment. That wound is still healing, it seems. When the roan mare prances about though, his smile returns. She seems so easily happy, an excellent companion for a stallion prone to quiet periods of thoughtfulness that tend toward the morose. Zhenga asks what he has been up to, and he tosses his head enthusiastically. “I’ve been everywhere,” he tells her. “Tephra was definitely too hot.” And smelled much too strongly of sulphur, and the waves that swallowed the Taiga. Best to rip the bandaid off, he decides. “I’d been thinking about staying in the Taiga with a friend, but…” He trails off – she will obviously know why he’s no longer doing so. “And I considered Ischia, but decided that I’m going to visit Loess next.” It’s the first time that he’s said it aloud, but Ivar finds that doing so only cements his choice. “I have a…” for a moment he flounders for a word, a blush on his pale cheeks, “a friend. I have a friend there.” More than a friend, truly, but he’s been raised to be wary of naming a thing that does not yet exist. “I was actually heading there now, before I stopped to see if you needed some help.” kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis