"But the dream, the echo, slips from him as quickly as he had found it and as consciousness comes to him (a slap and not the gentle waves of oceanic tides), it dissolves entirely. His muscles relax as the cold claims him again, as the numbness sets in, and when his grey eyes open, there’s nothing but the faint after burn of a dream often trod and never remembered." --Brigade, written by Laura
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
He hadn’t meant to do it. Or that, as Ivar referred to it. But what had he done? And how? Why was another unspoken question. But he said he didn’t mean do. He hadn’t had the intention to hurt her. And that was what mattered. Right?
Like that she mentally pleas that his intentions are good as the distance gets closed between them. The breath she had been holding escaped past the barrier of her lips the moment his nose comes in contact with her skin. She shudders, eyes falling closed for a moment and then she takes a deep breath. Her hazel eyes search his the moment she opens them, questioning, pleading. Kylin doesn’t know for what exactly.
Ivar moves further forward, and she can no longer look at his features. Her nose is at his shoulder, his scent is all over her. For a while she stands frozen, breathing shallow as she waits for his next move. She can feel his breath ghosting across her skin, which only sends more jolts down her spine. Meanwhile she’s praying for him to not hurt her, to not do thát thing again, whatever it was.
Kylin isn’t able to keep still, no longer, and she reaches out slowly, hesitant. Her muzzle lightly brushes across his shoulder, and then she feels his head rest against her. Almost like he was trying to hide. Was he afraid? The truth freezes her, but this time on her own account and not because he hypnotized her. ”Hyp.. hypnotize.. on accident?” she repeats, obviously confused. How could she not be? Had he even hypnotized her to come here, to this beach, away from home?
Bending her neck she turns a bit to glance across her shoulder. Eyes set on Ischia. His promise, however, pulls her attention back to Ivar. When she takes a few steps back, it’s not to turn her back on him, or leave him behind to watch the turtles hatch on his own. Kylin tilts her head as her hazel eyes search his gaze. ”Never again..” she softly says. Her ears flick back and forth in the pause between her words, insecure. Also still hoping for truly be the friend she believed he was. The friend she needed him to be.
Reaching out she pushes the velvet of her nose against his, offering him comfort while wanting his touch. ”Never again... Never to harm. Not me.. Never me. I trust you won’t..” And she did. But Kylin easily trusted. She wanted to trust Ivar. Desperately. He promised, so it should be good, right? It wasn’t like she was hurt either. Only… spooked her a little. But no harm. ”Wh-what.. did you .. did you want me to see here?”
For a moment her gaze moves away, pulling back a little too. Then she offers him a small smile, trying to put some of today’s happenings in the past.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The silence after his words feels like an eternity. Though he is pressed against her, his head buried in her lavender mane, she has not reacted. She is still – so still. Still like the fish get when he lurks on the river bottom, still like prey.
He almost flinches when she finally does move.
Her touch is feather light against his shoudler, and as she speaks, he pulls away so that she can see his nod.
Yes – an accident. Truly.
Ivar’s dark eyes remain on her face even as she looks back to Ischia. She is regretting coming here, he knows, she is doubting everything. He can’t blame her. He can’t do anything more than apologize and hope that it is enough.
When she reaches toward him again, he almost thinks he is imagining it. Her touch is very real though, warm and soft against the cool of his pale scales. The stallion returns the touch with hesitant affection, brushing her smooth cheek gently for moment before pulling away. “Never again,” He promises.
And then, because he is as eager to move forward as she is, he looks away from her and toward that beach.
“That,” he says, gesturing toward the nest, “That right there.”
The first hatchling has already reached the water, but most of its siblings are still struggling to climb out of the sand. The turtles are half the size of one of Ivar’s hooves, tiny little shells with too-big flippers and bright black eyes.
“I saw the mother laying them months ago,” he explains. “She was huge! Bigger than any horse I’ve ever seen. I’ve been watching and another nest down the beach hatched last night, so I knew this one would probably be tonight.”
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
Not regret. She doesn’t regret coming here, to go away from home with the sun almost completely set. Or, perhaps a little. More she wonders how much of today, of today’s feelings, had been real. How much had been her own emotions? Sure a bit of it had been, otherwise Kylin wouldn’t be standing here in front of Ivar right now.
The small smile on her lips is genuine and it only grows – as her eyes flutter closed – when he lightly brushes her cheek. He promises and she trusts. Foolish? Maybe, but so very her.
And she leaves it at that. Her gaze follows Ivar’s towards the beach. Both her ears pin forward and she lightly tilts her head to the side, curious to spot what she’s here for to see. First, there’s nothing, but, when Ivar speaks, she can see it shifting. The movement in the sand catches her attention and holds it.
Her hazel eyes follow the movement of these newborn creatures in delight, twinkling as the sky around them grows darker. ”Oh.” Her voice is barely a whisper, a soft murmur against the crashing waves behind them. Without really realising it Kylin drops her head, but doesn’t move forward, yet, she’s curiously to study them. If they hadn’t been that small, she surely would’ve. Instead she keeps standing at Ivar’s side.
His voice makes her look back, the wide smile on her lips telling exactly how exciting she is to see this little miracle. ”They are all just from one mother?” she asks, awestruck. After all, she had learned that twins like her and Kharon weren’t that common. Let alone this amount of babies. Her gaze moves back to them, nose dipping towards the ground once again. ”That’s incredible. There are so many of them!”
In her excitement she pulls up, her nose pressing against the curve of his neck before she moves forward. Just a few tiny steps, the idea of crushing one of the little sea creatures was the one thing that holds her back a little. The air she breathes out makes the sand move a bit, her nose over the sand, but she doesn’t realise. Her attention is full on the creatures, just like the parrots she had showed Ivar on Ischia.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
While Kylin watches the turtles, Ivar watches Kylin.
She is exactly as excited as he had hoped she would be. Last night he had watched the other nest break open, had seen the tiny creatures race to the sea. He’d followed a few of them until they drifted away in the current. Most had found floating seaweed to hide in, and Ivar did not blame them. Though their mother had been a massive creature, the hatchlings wouldn’t even make a mouthful for the predators of the open ocean. They must grow up farther out to sea, he reasons, past the eastern horizon of Ischia even. He’s never seen an adolescent sea turtle, after all.
Kylin asks if they are from one mother and he nods.
“Yes,” adds the stallion aloud, knowing that with her attention on the nest she might have missed his nod. “She dug out a nest and laid them all in, covered them up, and went back out to sea.”
It’s such a different existence than his own; he cannot imagine a childhood without his mother. Of course, he is not a turtle, and perhaps they do not feel emotions the way that he does. Maybe they don’t even know that they have a mother.
Ivar remains still as she brushes against him, but he lowers his head to match hers, his nose scant inches above the sand. A single bold (or perhaps stupid) hatchling scrambles toward them. Perhaps the moonglow reflecting off Ivar’s scales have confused the little thing – it only knows how to run to the moonlit sea, after all. Whatever has made it come closer, Ivar is as hesitant to crush it as Kylin is. Even when it brushes against his scaled leg he does not move, and he bends his neck down and watches it disappear into the sea beneath him.
“Maybe?” He replies, honestly unsure of the answer. The hatchlings on the beach have all made it to the water, so he does not have to watch his step so closely as he picks his way across the sand to the nest. It is full of sand and strange leathery shells.
“I think they all…” he starts to say, but stops when there is a bit of motion. One last turtle crawls out from beneath the eggshells of its siblings. “Watch out!” He says to Kylin with a playfully false tone of alarm in his tenor voice. “I think this one’s coming for you!”
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom. ”So they don’t know their mother? Or family?” she asks, hazel eyes lifting from the through the sand waddling creatures to look up. They are slightly widened and Kylin cannot help it but to feel bad for them. She had always been surrounded by family and imagining a life without them pained her. Nobody should live like that.
Her gaze travels back towards the little turtles and their battle against the sand. Even though it’s their nature, in the core of their being, to face such hardship right from the first moment they’re born, Kylin feels somewhat bad for them. Her nose is just above the sand again, silently watching. But it’s not until one of them comes in theirs – Ivar’s – direction that both her ears pin forward again. By the time it’s gone, she’s smiling widely again, her heart beating excitedly in her chest as a typical scene of mother nature unfolds itself in their presence.
So she cannot help it but to be somewhat disappointed as Ivar tells her it maybe has been the last. Kylin could probably have watched the baby turtles for hours, but alas. She doesn’t move towards the nest in the sand when her companion does, instead she keeps waiting, eyes on Ivar to hear his discovery. Well, that was until he falls silent, ears perked up and hazel eyes twinkling in delight. ”Are there more?” she breathlessly asks, only to jump up at the sudden warning.
Where it was the turtle’s nature to find the sea, it was in hers to dash away from everything that opposed a thread. But, Ivar should’ve run then too, right? Instead Kylin stands frozen, head up and ears back as she searches for looks of distress on his features. ”Coming for me?” she asks softly, blinking her eyes confused when she tilts her slightly dished head.
Then she sees what Ivar saw and the smile is instantly back, curling the corners of her mouth up. Her posture relaxes and her nose dips towards the sand again, this time stepping a little forward. Her attention was on the one that was last, she wouldn’t have to worry about crushing the others. ”It’s so small… Would it survive on its own in the big sea?” Her question is more like her wondering, her heart constricting at the thought of the little baby not surviving. If she only could keep it. To protect and cherish.
With a sad smile she shakes her head, chuckling softly at her own thoughts. How could she? She was no turtle. It doesn’t stop her from watching the little one coming in her direction indeed and Kylin carefully lowers her muzzle, letting the velvet of her nose brush the hard back of the turtle. ”Off course I can’t keep you, I’m silly to think that..” she murmurs to the turtle, shaking her head once again when she lifts her head a little to watch her turtle – yes hers, she declared right there – continue it’s path.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
“I guess not.” He replies. “Though maybe they meet up with them out at sea?” The idea is foreign – Ivar doesn’t often put himself in the place of nonequine animals. He knows that his own instinctual inclination is to stay with a band of others; who is to say that turtles don’t do the same out in the saline depths?
The smile on his face softens as he watches Kylin react to the little turtle. She is genuinely concerned about its welfare, and Ivar watches her with a strange sort of warmth growing in his chest. The lavender girl does nothing to hide her emotions; Ivar can read her face like a book. She talks to the hatchling as though she has forgotten Ivar entirely, and it feels only natural that he should come closer, should rest his neck across her shoulder and watch the baby toddle off to sea.
A quick wave almost succeeds in sweeping it away, and the turtle freezes, clearly unsure. The piebald stallion makes a noise of reassurance in his throat, and it works (or perhaps is just coincidence) as the little creature completes its bolt into the sea. “I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Ivar tells her. Realizing how close they are standing, Ivar draws away. He doesn’t do so quickly, but he does know that not everyone is as comfortable with physical affection as he is.
“After all,” confident reassurance in his tone, “The mother must have started out that small too, and she survived the open water.”
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
She nods absentmindedly. Perhaps Ivar was right, though Kylin cannot help it but to think of how massive the sea was. How could anyone find someone there? Especially when you were so little. But alas, it’s nothing she really had to worry about. Her family all lived safe and sound on Ischia. ”I like that idea” she replies softly.
The warmth on his body feels good against hers and she settles to lean against him without really being aware of it. But even if she had, it was nothing for Kylin to worry about. She and Kharon were almost conjoined at the hip and she enjoyed the physical contact. Ivar was a friend, it just felt natural. And, honestly, she’s grateful for it. Watching the baby turtle and its quest to the sea, she wanted to step in. To huddle it close and never let it go. Probably would have too, if Ivar hadn’t been there to hold her in place. ”I hope so..” she murmurs, watching the sea silently for a while. After a while a soft sigh escapes past her pale lips, and she shakes her head slightly before turning to face Ivar again.
”You’re probably right. Just.. I’m worried. I hope it survives. The sea is not something to think lightly of..” she replies, though his confidence had put her a bit at ease. Swaying her head in his direction, Kylin offers him a smile. A bit less sad that the prior ones, when she had wanted to cradle the hatchling against her. ”Thank you for sharing this moment with me.” For a moment she holds his gaze, then allows hers to travel back to the sea again. Not to Ischia, but the sea, wondering how the babies were all getting used to their new home.
Her body language is calm when she steps closer towards the water again, the waves rolling a bit higher up the sand now, gently hitting her hooves. It wasn’t something Kylin would ever get tired of. She loved the sea, water in general. It called. ”Does she appeal to you too? Does she call you?” she asks suddenly, lifting her head a bit and bending her neck slightly to look at Ivar. Of course it was clear to her that she spoke about the sea, not at all aware that he couldn’t read her mind. Or well, she was just so accustomed that it was possible.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Kylin seems touched by the dangerous plight of the little turtles. Ivar had not thought to be concerned about their welfare. They lived or they died; there was nothing that he could do about it. It had even crossed his mind that if it were not for the impressive shell, that a turtle might make an excellent meal.
He knows that that is not a horse thought.
It has taken some time, but he can separate them now. It feels strange still: splitting himself in half. But the horse is what he should be, the horse is what will keep his promise to Kylin.
(the horse won’t protect her though)
That is a worry for another day.
Ivar is watching Kylin, and when she thanks him, he dips his head in quiet acceptance. He had known that she would like it, and while he had not planned for the rest of the things that had happened in the interim, it seems that they would both prefer to forget them. He’d rather focus on the sea, on the way the tide is slowly creeping up the beach and brushing against their legs. Kylin does not step above the water – at least not yet – and the brown eyed stallion is already looking at her when she takes her attention from the sea.
It does take him a moment to understand what she is asking, but not overlong.
“The sea, you mean?” He asks for conformation, lifting up one pale hoof and pawing at the rising water. “Sometimes.” he admits. “Not as much as it used to, but sometimes.” Not as much as it had before it had taken the Taiga, he doesn’t say. Not as much as before he’d begun to associate salt water with sadness.
html code by Toli, design idea based on "Dovev" by Laura
Like a flower waiting to bloom.
Before – when she hadn’t met Ivar – she would’ve indeed chosen to step onto the water. But now – after Ivar had learned her how to swim – Kylin wasn’t sure which she liked better. Playing on the water was one of the most natural things in the world for her, but the sensation of the water all around her, floating made her feel so weightless. That she loved the water, that was clear.
Kylin had thought that the water would call Ivar too. In her mind Ivar and water belonged together as one, like the equitation one and one is two. So it does honestly surprise her when he answers her question. Her hazel eyes take him in curiously, her head tilting slightly to the side. ”She calls you less, or does she appeal less?” she asks, hoping he wouldn’t mind her asking. Either way, Kylin was curious to find out why it was different than before. Wasn’t he a child of the water after all?
She doesn’t wait for Ivar to answer. He’s close by, but not within touching distance and that has to change. Or at least, Kylin thinks so. With a soft smile she reaches out to him, nudging his shoulder as to ask for his attention and offers him a smile when their gazes meet. Her smile turns into a small grin and next thing she is jumping forward, with the intention to playfully splash the water back at Ivar.
OOC: Dunno what kind of rubbish this is :|. Sorry it took me this long!
Her question is like the lapping of the water at the sand: a quiet noise in the background of his attention. Ivar is lost in the way the moonlight plays upon the water. The round globe in the sky is never reflected perfectly in the shimmering water - it is always moving, broken, incomplete.
Ivar can relate.
Kylin's touch to his shoulder pulls him back to the present, and he looks down into her dancing hazel eyes. She is bright and cheerful, and her warm smile is far preferable to the dull ache of memory that had rushed over him as he he watched the ocean. Pushing those thoughts to the side - and half aware that Kylie had asked a question he'd not given her an answer to - he follows her into the water.
It is chilly, a bite of winter still hiding beneath the black surface, but the air against his shoulders is a warm counterpoint.
Warm until she splashes him, of course, and he lets out a surprised: "Hey!" The shock of the water and the shape of the lavender mare prancing in the water are enough to lock away the last bit of memory he'd allowed to escape. With a grin, Ivar darts forward, dipping his muzzle beneath the water and bringing it up in an arch of water. He hopes to splash Kylin in return, but doesn't stop moving forward until he is close enough to see the warmth of her piebald body steaming against the chill of the water.
"Will you always stay by the sea?" He asks, the playful expression still on his handsome face despite the seemingly-serious question. "In Ischia, with your family?"
