"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
I V A R 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?”
She feels like she has returned a thousand times to the River. Nothing seemed to ever change much these days. Her brother was off, the dragon prince in all his glory, to mender about with his two-toned eyes and dashing grin that made all the mares go gaga for him. The painted mare misses her brother but he was his own man now with thoughts of leadership and an equal responsibility to fill.
Isobell, on the other hand, had followed her mother. Watching, learning, trying to solidify herself like the iron queen but Isobell is not her mother nor her father. She is the creature that she was birthed. Quiet, observant, a peck of a coy smirk always at the corners of unmarred lips. She has been fortunate to have savored her foalhood before becoming a mare.
The silver eyes are drifting over the tender curves of the River as she feels the warmth of summer upon her dual toned spine, each hoof fall is placed in front of the other till she finds herself rooted at where the cold waters meet the pebbled marked soil. The cold felt good despite the initial feel of shock and dull ache. The Nerine princess, despite the years of passage, remains as youthful and fresh as the very bloom of spring. She had grown though into a refined carving of depth-less onyx and clean marble. Her limbs are no longer too long and her tail too short. A flow of long tassels drift on the soft summer breeze, small droplets of water spray glistening against her skin when she steps into the water. The ugly ducking has become a swan after all.
But wait-
"Isobell!" Her name on the tongue of someone familiar but not her mother nor brother (Father rarely spoke). The woman jerks her head to her left to see a dark mane, scale and skin man, calling her. The lids slit slightly as she strains to think and- "Ivar? Ivar!" Isobell calls with confusion then immediately followed by assurance before she is moving to close the gap between them, a large smile spreading across her tapered lips. "Oh my gosh Ivar!" The mare exclaims with bright excitement. Her mercury eyes observe his growth, the change, his handsome face. Was this really her brother's friend? The colt from her childhood? He is slick, almost damp, and Isobell almost feels as though she wants to go to him for she fears he may have a chill...but it's Summer, right? The mare pushes away the silly thought of being that close to her friend. Why would he catch a chill in winter?
"Oh Nerine is Nerine. Mother still sits the throne and father is still fawns over her as the day they met supposedly." The pied mare laughs softly as those are the stories she was told when her parents met. Despite the way her mother is she knows that Lior always managed to have a hold on her heart. "And you? I haven't seen you in so long Ivar. You should probably be a gentleman and invite me along on these adventures that you and Castile have." A tease in her voice and a glint in her eye (though it may have been some time as well since Ivar saw her brother), Isobell watches him but occasionally forcing herself to keep her attention trained on him and away from the magnetic pull to look him over.
It was simply the oddest thing...she had never noticed the pull of her eyes before...not with anyone but she resists nonetheless against the silent protest to want to be closer to him. Delicate ears train forward as the pewter eyes watch him and eagerly awaiting his reply.
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
While rippling of the water behind her catches Ivar’s eye for a moment, but that is all it is – a moment. The current is pleasing to watch, but he prefers still waters, deep waters, dark waters. Tempting, but not irresistible when he is so watchful.
He turns his gaze back to Isobell quickly enough, pleased by her enthusiastic greeting. She’s struggled to place him for a moment too, it seems, and it is grateful that the uneven social footing was not restricted to where he stood. Still, they know each other now, and she falls into a chattering answer. Her tone is lighthearted, gentle, a rather stark change to what he has become accustomed to. He listens intently, smiling at the image of the stone dragon Lior fawning over anything, and the Iron Queen ever allowing such behavior.
He supposes that the very existence of Isobell (and Castile) must be proof of some sort of relationship, but it is difficult to picture. Easier than imaging his own parents, of course, because the two of them had not interacted at all during Ivar’s childhood. He has only recently pieced that together: the fact that his perfect childhood had included two doting parents who had never once spent time with him simultaneously. The odds of siblings are not likely at all, he’d surmised, which makes Isobell all the more fitting for the role. She’s probably the closest thing to a sister that he’ll ever have.
“Whatever gave you the impression that I’m a gentleman?” He replies with mock affront, the charade lasting as long as he can hold in a laugh, which is barely any time at all. “Castile and I haven’t adventured in a while anyway,” Ivar admits to the younger filly, “I guess he’s been busy in Hyaline and I’ve been trying to make myself useful in Loess’ army. What about you? Gonna stick around in Nerine?”
Isobell smiles up to her companion as she listens thoughtfully to his words. She had always enjoyed her brother's friend (well her friend too, she surmises) and cannot help but let out a little snip of a laugh as he gives her a coy reply to his gentlemanly behavior. "Well I suppose you are right. You and Castile are both rather brutish." The younger girl laughs it all with a tinkle of her amusement and stately facts. How she had missed laughing so easily that she had not realized how long it had been to enjoy another's company.
"I guess he has been..." Isobell trails off, her eyes clouding slightly, as she thinks of Castile and also realizes how much she missed him. It ached her heart deeply but the painted girl straightens her crooked expression to smile softly at the other duo toned horse. "And you in Loess? I have yet to visit there." She replies with an inclination of her head.
Ivar mentions Nerine, her home, her throne perhaps one day and nods just as her mother did when she was listening but deep in thought. "How could I not? What more could I want than sea air, white foam, and black sand?" Her words come forward a bit more sarcastically than she had expected...another nod to being a child of Nayl and Lior and her tone takes her back a bit. Isobell had not realized until this moment how she had really grown into the mare she was becoming. Her voice was taking on the husky tone of a mature mare, her hair long and smooth against her skin, the way the long knotty legs had filled in finely to give her curves where mares were supposed to have them. Where had her foalhood gone? Isobell quiets a moment as silver eyes look past her friend as though there was an answer just over his shoulder.
"...perhaps I can visit you in Loess? It would be nice to see another place if only for a visit." Isobell knows that only Ivar would ever be the only other man (other than her father) that Castile would allow her to be alone with.
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
At the mention of his brutality, Ivar offers the younger girl a wink, followed by a grand and elegant bow, with far too much of a flourish. Such had once been the custom of the day, he has been taught, but there is no real place for elegant mannerisms and formal speech in this post-Reckoning Beqanna. He much prefers the more casual way that they can interact, the he does not have to bow to Isobell as a princess or for her to lower her head in admission of respect for an older male.
Ivar’s experience with children has been minimal, but summer seems to be the season for them to sprout up like wildflowers. It is easy to categorize the Isobell he’d known with those floppy haired foals, their large eyes and overlong legs as amusing as they are mildly disconcerting. A little sister is supposed to be little, after all, and little means childish. If his memory of her does not quite meld with the actual young mare in front of him, that is surely some failing on his part. Her laughing silver eyes are shielded by a long forelock, too long for a child, and he curiously follows the line of her face down her neck for a little too long as well.
Fortunately she is still talking, a sarcastic description of the granite land of Nerine falling from her lips as he returns his brown gaze to hers with a small shake of his head.
“You’re more than welcome to come,” he tells her, righting himself as Isobell asks if she can visit. She has been looking off over his shoulder, and for a moment wonders if he had disturbed her with his wandering gaze. He reaches out to bump her shoulder to disrupt the (most likely imaginary) tension, but that is a mistake too, so he asks: “Haven’t you been to any of the other lands? Other than here, I mean?”
Isobell can not help but grin at the sweeping bow and returns with crossing her own hooves to make a little courtsey. Isobell quietly wonders how long it had been since she had smiled like this or laughed with all her belly. They are nearly identical except for their markings and Ivar's scaled but similar nonetheless.
She watches how a ghost of s sjmile remains on his lips as though lost in thought for a moment and Isobell wonders what was going on behind those lively eyes. She almost asks but does not want to be rude so instead she closes her pretty lips into a budding smirk. But Ivar's reply is welcoming despite her drone of Nerine and it's lovely black sands. Loess sounds like a good change and mother would not mind if she were to visit (or so she tells herself) 'Well Ivar, my dear friend, I have yet to travel from Nerine or the River so let's see this Loess of yours." She speaks with aduly mockery, grinning like mad. This was all a fun game after all. She steps lightly to take Ivar's side, he a taller form to her more womanly one. The painted mare does not mind being so close to him or the occasional brush of a hip or shoulder. After all, Castile would apporove and that made things okay.
"I am very excited." She whispers near his skin despite not needing to be hushed at all. Life was so big and rish for the youthful woman and she was drining it in by the glass full as each limb keeps stride with Ivar, brushing against his side and blushing a bit all the same but it was innocent enough, right?
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
He inclines his head appropriately at her curtsy, unable to keep the amused grin from his face despite their attempts at formality. Why had their parents taught them these things? What use was the intricate dance of the past when they have the future ahead of them – a future that does not seem to reflect long on those that came before? His mother had tried to tell him, to instill in him the knowledge of the Old Beqanna. But what was the point of remembering long dead kings of kingdoms that have been forever lost below the sea? What use was the history of a place that no longer was?
Ivar is far more interested in the world that is, the Beqanna that stretches from Nerine to the Beach, from the Plains to Tephra. He has seen as much of it as he can, and so when Isobell admits that she has seen very little, he cannot help but wonder why. Castile, he decides as she comes up lcoser and her pied remarking remind him of her elder brother – or Nayl or Lior. The world is not as safe for a girl as it is for a boy – more so for a girl that is also a princess.
He will have to take extra care, he decides, do his best to keep her safe.
Safe from everything.
When she presses her side to his he sidesteps, and when her breath warms his shoulder as she whispers he looks away rather than bend down. Isobell is beautiful but she is not fragile, and he is glad that the soft whisper to
(take)
is as easy to ignore as the scent of summer wildflowers.
He leads the way with his gaze forward, and the silence between them only makes that occasional quickening of her heartbeat easier to hear. Ivar hasn’t had any experience with little sisters, but he is quite sure that they are not supposed to respond to him the way that prey does. If he ignores it, he decides, it will go away.
“You’re lucky its close,” he tells her, falling back on the banter that seems to come so easily between them. “I wouldn’t want you to wear out your delicate princess hooves on too long a journey. Castile would never forgive me.” He would also probably never forgive the fact that Ivar is no longer leaning away from Isobell as they walk, and that the piebald stallion has decided that if he doesn’t look at Isobell when she brushes against him, that it is alright to let his mind wander.
She cannot help but roll her eyes with exaggeration when he mentions her 'delicate princess hooves'. "You're a lot more funny that I remember Ivar." The sarcastic tone enveloping her words but remaining playful and light hearted despite her sideways glance. Isobell does perk up to her brother's name. Castile would indeed make good one the coy threat that Ivar has dreamt up. Isobell even believes he may not approve of her walking alone with the alabaster and jet stallion but he is a childhood friend and nothing more, right...?
Right?
"And you, handsome Ivar, have you any more brothers?" She inquires with a lovely little smirk across her dark lips, curious of his reaction. Isobell believes if there are more of Ivar...well, she may very well move to Loess for good. Her silver eyes move off and away from his face but much internal protest but she does not want to stare at him. It was rather unbecoming and she, a princess to Nerine, must not give into the soft waves of want lapping against her skin in the form of his warmth. Isobell looks to the west, the scent of summer rain hanging in the air, fresh soil mingling on the fringe of it all. It makes her heady and light. Deep down, oh so quietly, she yearns to walk through the warm, fat raindrops at Ivar's side. She wonders how shiny and slick his skin became wheh it was wet...
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Time away from the sea has dulled his drive; the little springs of Loess were not enough to quench the entirety of his thirst.
The stallion had not linked the changes with the lack of water. He has assumed he was growing up: becoming more responsible, more predictable. And he has been, but it is more than just maturity. He knows that now, having found his spring, having felt the months of dust slide off his scales and seen the darkness of truly deep waters once again.
More alert now, he has been even more careful. The desire to
(hunt)
is little more than a murmur. He knows what it is now, knows how to keep it subdued. To keep some things safe, other must be sacrificed. That is the way that it has always been; Ivar is only now wrestling with the truth of it. Sometimes it is easy (the little yellow mare with conrflower blue eyes) and other times it is more difficult (the green dun had fought), but in the end everything that must be safe is safe, and Ivar will keep it that way.
Isobell is such a thing that must be safe. There is too much to her, too many strings. Castile, Nayl, Nerine, Politics, Siblings.
She is safe on every level that Ivar can list and yet the soft flutter of her heartbeat is like ten thousand drums. She looks to the west and Ivar watches her, his dark eyes tracing the sleek line of her neck. It would be easy to lean forward, and so he does. He stops just beside the tender place where her jaw meets her neck, where it would be so easy to
(take.)
His breath ghosts across the dark hair there, but reason and summertime win out, and he only tugs at a silky strand of her mane as he tells her:
“If I do, I’m sure none are as handsome as I am.”
Encouraged by his recent success at reining himself in and emboldened simply by his own nature, Ivar presses his shoulder to her own. This is only a test, he tells himself; if it succeeds then he can be certain she will remain safe.
“Besides, if you preferred my hypothetical brother to me it’d surely break my heart.” He winks, and the gesture says that he is only jesting. “I know you’re trying your hardest to resist my charms,” adds the young stallion, “and you could stop resisting anytime, you know.” His voice doesn’t change, nothing changes, but as he pulls away as though to lead them to Loess he keeps his eyes locked to hers.
He needs to see the results of this test, to see if he is strong enough to keep her safe. He’s used his lesser known skill, the hypnosis. He could have forced her, but he’d rather use her own underlying desires. It feels less like cheating, that way, less like he is skewing the results and taking advantage of the young princess. The stallion is certain that she wants him – they all do – but he has always preferred to remove barriers to action than force action. Hyponsis is only suggestion, after all, and it is far easier to work with an existing desire than to plant an entirely new one.
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis
Ok so in my head I thought that setting them up for Ivar to reject her would be mucho fun and maybe set things up for down the road and also give Iso a reason to go to the party but if that does not appeal to you we can do whateverrr!
The silver of her eyes flash as the waning bits of sunlight greedily envelope her face. A storm was rising and it caused a shiver to goose pimple her skin as though the very thing that powered the thunderhead was crawling up her neck...until she realized it was Ivar when he pulled at a strand of her unruly mane. She turns her head sharply to look over at him with a grin on her lips. The young mare does not really understand what is happening but she finds that her cheeks are aching dully with her smile.
His reply- "If I do," -confuses her a bit. "Have you not been home in some time?" The question is asked despite the possibility of a sting of a nerve but it is she who feels the electricity of his smooth scales against her when he presses against her. It's like a flash of lightening, the sudden burst of a million fireflies. Isobell fears she will stumble, an does so, her slender legs crumpling beneath her slim weight for only a moment but as she looks up to meet his gaze, tossing her forelock away, his eyes...his beautiful eyes...
Isobell stares, her own pewter ones wide and hungry. "Stop resisting..." Her voice is light and so very soft it's as though a ghost has whispered it. She is like the finest silk moving across a warm breeze as she moves beside Ivar, unwilling (and unable) to look away. If she could only die seeing that face she die the sweetest death...
"Ivar?" She barely whispers his name, her voice low and womanly with a craven lust despite the beauty of her youthful features. She moves to close the space between the, pressing against him, her skin searing against his. She reaches to nibble softly at the edge of his jaw, tasting the salt of his sweat and groaning gently, his pheromones making her yearn for something she does not know. The young woman dips her head to brush her cheek against the thick vein of his neck to listen to the sound of his heart beat.
She feels ethereal, floating. It was odd but it felt right. Isobell can only think about her breathing, pacing herself and trying to slow her beating heart, to cool her feverish brow. Suddenly her inquiry as to a brother is no longer relevant and she hoped to be in Loess soon.
i'll wait for you inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
