[private] Go ahead; Ivar

[Ivar]

I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take In the sea, time feels different. There is less rush, less hurry. The only pressure is that of the tide, and that gentle pull that can be banished with a single flick of his dark tail. Ivar had entered the water at the close of autumn (on the day that Isobell called to him) and he has not emerged since. The kelpie knows that time has passed (he need only look at Isobell’s belly to know that). The snow is thick on the land, blanketing the familiar hills in a cloak of white. Here and there the land is clear, in areas where the hot springs heat the land, but he is not looking for warmth. He is looking for Heda, and he finds a bluff from where to look for her. The words he must say to her are spinning through his head. It will not be pleasant, the piebald stallion knows, but it is necessary. He has them almost sorted when a shadow crosses overhead. Ivar looks up, and there is the familiar silhouette of his consort against the blue winter sky. She lands and prances toward him with a brilliant smile, and he is struck again by how very beautiful she is. She will find a replacement for him easily; anyone would be lucky to be chosen by the navy winged pegasus. Ivar had been lucky, he knows, fortunate beyond measure and gifted beyond what he truly deserved with the buckskin mare. She presses her head against him and he inhales her familiar scent. It is too easy to wrap his neck around her, to pull her tightly to him despite knowing that he should push her away – make this easier for her. “Heda, I…” I’m leaving. Leaving you. There is someone else. The words (his explanation) are cut short, little more than her name falling from his lips before the mare makes her announcement. Whatever he had been ready to say, ready to do…it all falls away. His world shrinks in an instant, hyperfocused on the rounding of the buttermilk yellow barrel. “A child,” he breathes, stepping closer without realizing it. His pale muzzle touches her belly gently, the soft give of her pelt an unfamiliar sensation. He knows how his child feels cradled in scales – this is different. This is his too, but it is not Minnow. The mare carrying it is not a kelpie; she is not his mate. This should not be possible (he thought he knew why they had never before been successful), and yet it is. “Heda, I…” The words are there, but they are tied down, weighed down by the flurry of emotions that he has only even begun to understand. Ivar is glad that he does not have to look at Heda, and instead can focus on tracing the curve of her belly with his muzzle. “I don’t know what to say. A child. Our child.” king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus