[mature] could i use you as a makeshift gauge - wishbone

[Ivar]

I V A R promising everything i do not mean

Months have passed since the piebald creature had slept somewhere other than the sea, and there is a long moment of disorientation when he finally wakes. The sea is too loud and his body too heavy; his muscles still ache from the previous night’s exertion. Ivar cannot think of the last time that he has felt quite this miserable (though to be truthful he does not try especially hard to remember; he does not care to dwell on the past). The beach air has dried the unkempt mane of the kelpie and the waves have left imprints on his black scales in crusted salt. He takes a few steps toward the sea only to see a dark silhouette against the mouth of the cave. Is that what had woken him, some sense that his temporary shelter had been compromised? He stills in the shadows, not even the flick of an ear betraying his location. Just one, he realizes, alone and female. The kelpie cannot make out her features from this distance, but she smells like nothing he knows. ‘Who’s here?” she asks in a gentle voice, and his ears turn forward. Young. Weak. (prey.) “Who’s asking?” He replies, moving toward the center of the cave, where the moon streams down across his back. The light is dull on most of his body; the matte of his black scales absorb it. As if to make up for their dullness, each white scale glimmers like the heart of a pearl. The kelpie is not flawless; a long scar stretches from his belly to his hip, and one elbow is a mass of dull grey scars. The old injuries do not detract from his appearance, that of a stallion in his prime, hard-muscled and impossibly handsome. His pale head tilts curiously, as if he is trying to identify her. Perhaps this is her cave - though it had smelled of nothing but sea and salt and stone. “Is this your cave?” Ivar does not smile when he speaks; he is still tired and stiff and thinking of his failure. The stallion's dark tail flicks at his hindquarters and is distressingly dry. He glances away from the stranger to the sea, and leaves the moonlit circle in favor of standing in the shallows. He moves neither farther away nor closer to the mare, but rather keeps the same distance between them by angling his path. He stops only when he is knee deep in the water, looking out at the horizon.

I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .