11-06-2017, 08:53 AM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take He feels the scales beneath his lips, picks at them with his curious teeth. Not impenetrable, he finds; they are a softer version of his own. He hums quietly in interest until he reaches her bleeding shoulder, and there he pauses. It doesn’t hurt he tells her (that is nothing new) but he does not add that she likes it, the way he had below the water. Maybe she doesn’t like it; maybe only he did. That thought is uncharacteristically generous. Most of what he is experiencing is uncharacteristic. The scaled stallion inspects each inch of the piebald mare, and finds her perfectly whole. If she is more lovely he does not notice: she is still the same Isobell, but different. Better. She’d drowned and not drowned all at once. That is impossible, he knows, but here she stands in front of him, dripping and wet and very much not drowned. That stirring inside him strengthens, grows louder and more insistent the longer he is nearby. He does not have words for the sensation. It is not love. It is some odd concoction of loyalty, devotion, passion. But it isn’t love. He cannot, not the way she wants, the way Heda wants. They expect too much of him, expect him to be the man without the monster, as though the two could ever be separated. Ivar does not consider it a weakness; if anything he is stronger without it. “You’re mine,” he says with confidence. “You feel it now.” The water has changed her – or perhaps he has changed her. She is Isobell, like before, but better. She is a water creature, like he is. She must feel that. She must feel the pull of the sea. They had swam together as children, but that was before. Before adulthood had matured the monster, before Isobell became…this. Whatever this was. His memories of it are foggy, clouded, like most long ago memories are. He wants to refresh them, wants to know what it is like to slide below the water with Isobell beside him. They should go out to sea, he thinks, and reaches out to touch her shoulder. They should lose themselves beneath the waves. He should teach her to swim, to float, to hunt. He should, he will. He steps forward, and the sea laps at his white knees. “Come on.” He says, beckoning her out to sea. They need not ever come back to land, he knows. They can find their own land, an island, far beyond the horizon. They do not need Loess or Nerine. They don’t need Beqanna at all. They can leave now, leave it all behind. Leave forever. minimal grullo tobiano king of loess |