[mature] Who loved too easily; Ivar

[Ivar]

I V A R promising everything i do not mean

His dark ears flick forward in interest; her rapidly pattering heart as irresistible to the scaled creature as a siren song. Heda doesn’t seem to react to his arrival, but when she says his name it is not with the venom he had expected. It emboldens Ivar, who takes one step closer, and then another. For a while she doesn’t answer and he inches ever nearer, feeling the soft give of the soil beneath him. The leaves at their feet are crisp with frost, and the smell of a world preparing for rest surrounds them. Ivar has always enjoyed the autumn as a season (the activities that take place during it are only a bonus). He’d been raised in Sylva, after all. This fire colored world feels almost as much like home as the sea does. Almost. Heda answers, her voice as sweet as he remembers. She’d been traveling, she says, which explains the smell of the salt that permeates her skin and the feathers that are just barely out of reach. Ivar doesn’t reach for them (he recognizes a safe distance when he sees one), but he does lean to one side. The very picture of relaxation, the kelpie is, as though casual conversations with his ex-wife are an everyday occurrence for him. She’s tired of flying she adds, and Ivar recognizes the lie as soon as it leaves her lips. “You’re never tired of flying,” he replies without a moment’s hesitation. He can read her as easily as she’d feared; Ivar has seen a weary Heda (has made a weary Heda) and this is not one. There’s no accusation in his low-toned words. He doesn’t mind the lie; it’s not as if he deserves the truth, after all. The stallion knows that now is not the time for teasing, but the kelpie cannot resist. “You came back to see me, didn’t you?” Another step closer, and he’s near enough to touch if she were to reach out. He’s also far enough away to dodge a well-placed nip, but Ivar has weighed the consequences and decided this is a risk worth taking. He has the autumn on his side after all, the advantage of hormones at the fact that the worst thing he’d done was abandon her. He’s here now though, and in the fading evening light he has eyes only for her.

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