Ichor
it came from somewhere in the stars
Ichor keeps to herself.
The summer days are spent in seclusion and shade because the sunlight is far too bright for her to stomach it and she just feels tired, all the time, tiredtiredtiredtired. She is most alive after the sun has set and night is her dominion to roam from flower to flower, sucking up the precious nectar she needs to sustain herself. Sometimes, she experiments on the sap from those odd stunted trees that manage to grow here and other times, she pokes her proboscis into some other animal’s shit - that’s just what moths do and she is more moth than horse with her six legs and flaking scales, antennae and wings, and those black compound eyes that take forever to assemble everything into one vivid picture.
So it is no surprise that it is night and Ichor is about. For a six-legged freak of nature, she manages to move with a quiet that does not disturb the few denizens of his herd and kingdom both. The horse part of her brain has recognized that she is part of his collection and not a self-sustaining member of the kingdom and Ichor is okay with that. She harbors no desire to be little more than what she is - Ivar’s little moth-horse with the gilled neck that can breathe underwater like she sometimes does when she submerges herself in the hot springs. That is where she is heading tonight - the springs, to soak up their heat even though the night is hot enough as is.
It never bothers her that she is alone.
There are moths out that sometimes come to hover around her as if recognizing her as some sort of larger not-quite-right kin but kin nonetheless. Sometimes, there is moonlight that she frolics in, her big wings spread and quivering as she manages some odd dance with all six functioning legs. Other times, there is her long proboscis snaked deep inside the heart of a flower and Ichor murmuring it’s scientific name lovingly afterwards, because that is how she thanks each flower for its nourishment of her. But tonight, there is only the flutter of her gills the moment her four front legs touch the hot springs. A quiver of anticipation that in the single most lamprey part of her because she could not forget that she came from some strange river eel’s loins.
Ichor could never be horse enough for any of them. Not with lamprey and moth comprising so much of her genetic makeup and accounting for her most odd look. Ichor also never minded one bit - she knew, deep down, that she was a fantastic creature, sometimes too fantastic for this world and then - she dunked her head beneath the water until it lapped at her shoulders, leaving only her champagne rump and two back legs visible on the shoreline.