take aim and reload - Kylin

[Ivar]

I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take Shaking off the excess water, Ivar moves down the beach. A few dozen meters beyond where they’ve emerged, the white sand is shaded by the fan leaves of a stand of peach palms. The black and white stallion gestures in that direction, nickering a request for her to follow. When Ivar reaches the shade, he drops his right shoulder and rolls onto the ground. His back hooves are submerged in the surf, and the gentle waves dampen the sand up to his hips. It is cooler here beneath the trees, but Ivar still enjoys the feel of the water. The white sand clings to his dark sides, but it is fairly visible on the opalescent scales of the long forelegs stretched out in front of him. “Cheating.” He repeats with a smile that is mostly internal. Perhaps he had been; he’d certainly used means beyond those of a normal equine. They are perfectly within his own grasp, of course, easy for the creature that he has become. He concentrates for a moment, remembering the feel of the sea against him as he raced beneath the surface. The change is smooth and instantaneous, the distinction between his hindlegs vanish as they meld into a single tail. His dark hindquarters now fade into a white tipped limb capable of propelling him through the water at impressive speeds. Ivar has the feeling that it would be rather ungainly trying to move with it on land – hence lying down before trying it. The piebald creature cranes his head to look back at it, glancing toward Kylin, who has only just recently revealed her own recent physical development. “I think I know why my dad like my mom’s dolphin form so much,” Ivar muses, casually breaking his habit of never speaking of his family. It is easier to never speak of them, but as he had sped through the water beneath Kylin, he had known. Born an unremarkable little colt, the stallion has changed with each passing year, until he is all but unrecognizable as the boy he had once been. Kylin still knows that boy though, Ivar realizes as he searches her eyes for a reaction. She has seen him through his maturation (at least the physical one – other parts of himself he refuses to let surface), and the lavender and white mare’s opinion on things is one that he values. king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus