09-30-2017, 10:38 PM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take Overhead, the cumulus clouds drift, hurried by a warm wind. By late afternoon they’ll be heavy with rain, but for now they dot the clear blue sky unthreateningly. The same wind that eddies the clouds is stirring the land as well. The spring grasses ripple in the wind, a broad sea of emerald green dotted here and there with cresting waves of wildflowers. Some of the flora Ivar recognizes from his Sylvan childhood (those bright bluebells, the round balls of allium). Were the pied stallion to look to the south, he knows, the distant golden forest of Sylva would be visible. He does not look. Instead, his gaze is on the water, the broad clear river that began as a trickle of melting snow in the distant Hyaline alps. It is not the first time that the mountain kingdom has crossed his mind in the last few days. He has not been there since he was a child. He had dove beneath the water without a care in the world, looking up at the distant Kylin where she walked across the water. That afternoon seems impossibly long ago, two-thirds of his life have passed since. (Everything seems so achingly distant to the youth; perhaps someday he’ll see a span of two years as little more than a blink of the eye.) He had been thinking of the past, his brown eyes focused unseeingly on the horizon, and it was no surprise that Castile featured in his memory. The two boys had grown up together, racing the beaches of Nerine whenever Djinni would bring Ivar to visit. The dragon prince was living in Sylva, the last Ivar knew, so he attempts to blink away the recollection. It doesn’t work. Another quick blink, followed by a shake of his head, and Ivar finally realizes that it’s not an internal projection of his childhood friend, but rather Castile’s sister, similar enough in looks that it had fooled his half-alert brain. “@[Isobell]!” He says suddenly, the dullness of his brown eyes fading away as he places the tobiano mare in front of him. “Sorry, I was…lost in thought.” The excuse sounds half-hearted, a paltry reason, but he smiles as he says it. Ivar knows his grin is disarming (it’s often easier to make others stumble for words than admit he is doing the same). Surprised, he didn’t have time to think through his initial reaction, and has likely just unintentionally dazzled the younger mare with physical charm that was meant to ensnare prey. Isobell is not prey though; she is Castile’s sister. She is what his own younger siblings might be like, Ivar has reasoned. Since their first meeting (and occasional subsequent wordless passings-by when he walked the grey coast), Ivar has thought of her as such, and this time is no different. Isobell is beautiful, a still-soft replica of the Iron Queen. A stallion would be lucky to have her, he thinks distractedly, never imagining himself such a horse. “How have you been?” He asks, the questions coming easily: both polite and genuinely curious. “How is Nerine?” |