Like a flower waiting to bloom - Ivar

[Ivar]

I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take Her disappointment stings more than he’d expected. The intimacy they share is borne from years of friendship rather than a quick concoction of pheromones, and Ivar cannot meet her quiet gaze for long. She knows that he belongs in the sea, and that Loess has no satisfactory water. Still, he cannot explain to her why he stays (why he keeps Heda) without revealing the rest of his nature. His father had killed his mother both times they’d coupled. Only her own supernatural nature had saved her; the mares that Ivar has drowned beneath the sea will rot there – they could not be saved. He wants to do the same to Kylin. He is the offspring of a monster and a monster himself, but here – on dry land – he can forget that. The call of the sea is quieter from a distance. He can sate it with other pleasures, with sex instead of blood, with moans instead of screams. He could keep Kylin here, he reasons as she speaks. She had made him promise to not use his hypnosis against her, but did she mean it? Surely she’d be happier here, with him. Ivar has already decided it, is stretching out his muzzle to command her with a kiss – and then he stops. The memory of a snow and shadow figure bobbing on the waves is suddenly stark in his mind. He had tried to keep her, too. It had not ended well. He does not want Kylin to end up the same. He shakes his head – fortunately at a suitable time in the conversation – to clear the image and his intention. It takes the stallion a moment to come back to the conversation, but what the lavender mare is saying is important for several reasons, and his dark ears flick forward. “Do you want to help them?” He asks, no sign on his white face of the internal battle roiled only moment ago. He seems only curious, a little concerned about Kylin’s comfort. The islands have only ever been occupied by her family, he imagines to have them filled with strangers must be a strange thing. To Ivar, the solution would be simple (slaughter them) but diplomacy is more complex than the kelpie would like it to be. kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis minimal grullo tobiano king of loess