10-19-2017, 10:23 PM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Cutting through Sylva has always been the fastest way to the northern kingdoms, but Ivar has always avoided it. Tonight, knowing that the population will likely stay near the heart of the kingdom, he has chosen to risk it. The scaled stallion is weary – two days and a night spent without rest – and he is eager to return home. The thought of sinking into the darkness of his pool sustains him, distracts him even, and he starts at the sound of movement in the woods nearby. Frozen, Ivar takes in the dark forest, and he’s found the source of the noise only moments before she speaks. He knows that voice – it would be impossible to forget. That voice had threatened Loess, threatened Heda (threatened him, as well, but that is less consequential). It was the voice of the wraith’s sharp-toothed companion, and Ivar finds her outline in the darkness. Their first meeting, he had evaluated her as one would a threat. She’d been a strong one; not insurmountable, but certainly a challenge. Now, in the darkness and the autumn, he finds her much the same, a hunger in her eye, a predator’s lack of hesitance in the way she moves through the woods. It has been too long since he’d been with Heda, Ivar realizes. “I’d rather not,” says the kelpie, but he steps forward anyway. “Don’t you have better things to do than stalk the woods tonight?” he asks with a tilt of his pale head, his dark eyes lazily roving the sleek blue mare’s figure. “Things like…I dunno, torturing something? Crushing babies? Whatever it is you all do in Sylva these days?” There is a soft taunt in his voice, but he doesn’t move from the relaxed stance he’s taken, half-leaning against a thick birch. |