09-30-2017, 05:05 PM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
“You’re here for the same thing, then?” Ivar asks, his brown eyes leaving the blue mare and white stallion. He looks at the red mare and the slim lavender filly, meeting their gaze squarely. They might have come with Thana and Gryffen, but they’ve been curiously silent in the conversation that has ensued. Is their presence here only a coincidence, an unlucky meeting at an unfortunate time? The red mare is closer than the filly, but not yet near enough that she poses an immediate threat to Heda. The four horses do not quite appear as a unified front, but it’s always best to know exactly what type of predicament you’re in. “To take the kingdom? To kill us?” He might have kept their gaze, pressed nonverbally for an answer, but Gryffen is now far too close. Heda’s voice is muted to his left, an unfamiliar anger in her sweet voice. “I do not need your help” she says, and she might be rebuffing Gryffen’s offer or reprimanding Ivar. If it is the latter, Ivar is beyond caring. He can feel the heat of Gryffen’s breath against his own, and while he is not certain what magics (for he must have some intangible gift or be a raving lunatic to be this bold. Possibly both?) the cremello stallion possesses, he is utterly certain of his own strength and how it measures up against the small, red-eyed stallion. Half his heritage would prefer water to do the work for him, but all of it knows that he doesn’t need it. Brutality and violence are not well-honed skills for the smokey black stallion, but that does not mean he might not excel at them. He’s never had a reason to try them out, after all. The way Thana speaks to Heda though, that is enough to make the two seem suddenly appealing. “You can’t have those things,” Ivar tells sharp toothed mare, his tone reminiscent of a parent letting their child know that they’ve listed unreasonable demands. “So you can either leave without what you came for, or I will help you leave.” There is nothing in her snarl that suggests she knows she is prey, but then again, a shark never considers itself prey either, not until it is digesting in the belly of an even larger shark. Perhaps Thana has only ever threatened minnows before. He has not forgotten Gryffen and his offer to show Heda how to keep her subjects in line. Whatever it is that makes the wraith bold must be powerful, but what he might become were he to use it is a mystery even to Ivar. Would he be a drowned girl? A soft-eyed pegasus like the one beside him? Or would he appear as a match to the instinct that thrums through Ivar’s veins? A low-slung, powerful body best suited for a life beneath the surface? If Gryffen were to touch him and find out (or were Thana to lunge for the jugular she had just been eyeing) their contact would likely come with a sudden, inexplicable, and overwhelming desire to leave. “Choose. Now.” He has clearly given up on being subservient; Heda might rule here, but she is also small, soft, and vulnerable. |