"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
She hadn't expected their intimate meetings to result in anything this year. They have been trying relentlessly for two years, and it appears that she or maybe him was fustratingly infertile. Their past efforts, resulted in sorrows and streatched hopes. Over the two years of sorrow, and bittness, she had found herself snuggling against him during this time of year, confiding her sorrow and immense feeling of guilt and failure that engulfed her. The fact that she may be broken, unable to carry a child was heartbreaking to her, that is until this winter.
Loess was blanketed in snow. The land was absolutely gorgeous with the change of seasons, but that wasn't the only that changed, Heda too had changed. Her barrel just barely swelled child, and she had attained a rather ravenous appetite, in fact, she couldn't stop eating. All these bodily changes made the navy pointed women overcome with joy.
Engulfed with excitement, the golden girl chose to seek out her husband. She hadn't seen him as of late, and a matter fact she had only seen him escorting that ebony girl to his land, the newest member of his clutch of pretties. So with an ecstatic leap, she lifts off wingspan spread agape, and she takes off to the skies in search of her kelpie mate. She searches throughout Loess's winter landscape, finding it rather hard to find an obsidian and alabaster stag during this time, especially since the shadows on the snow often fooled her sight. But eventually, she finds her scaled king standing atop of a tall bluff in the very depths of his kingdom.
She begins her descent slowly, reaching the ground in descent time, and landing elegantly on a fluffy white pillow. Her heart flutters with excitement, as she prances towards him in a rather joyful tone. "Ivar, my love!" Her words pour out of her lips like honey. As she walks up beside him, pressing her cranium against his scaled hide of his nape. Then she reaches her muzzle towards him in a greeting of affection. It doesn't take long for her to spill the beans, wings tightly clasped around her barrel in excitement. "I'm with child." She purrs against him, gently raising a wing, allowing him to view her slightly swollen barrel. "We did it." She whispers, pressing herself against him.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
In the sea, time feels different. There is less rush, less hurry. The only pressure is that of the tide, and that gentle pull that can be banished with a single flick of his dark tail.
Ivar had entered the water at the close of autumn (on the day that Isobell called to him) and he has not emerged since. The kelpie knows that time has passed (he need only look at Isobell’s belly to know that). The snow is thick on the land, blanketing the familiar hills in a cloak of white. Here and there the land is clear, in areas where the hot springs heat the land, but he is not looking for warmth. He is looking for Heda, and he finds a bluff from where to look for her.
The words he must say to her are spinning through his head. It will not be pleasant, the piebald stallion knows, but it is necessary.
He has them almost sorted when a shadow crosses overhead. Ivar looks up, and there is the familiar silhouette of his consort against the blue winter sky. She lands and prances toward him with a brilliant smile, and he is struck again by how very beautiful she is. She will find a replacement for him easily; anyone would be lucky to be chosen by the navy winged pegasus. Ivar had been lucky, he knows, fortunate beyond measure and gifted beyond what he truly deserved with the buckskin mare.
She presses her head against him and he inhales her familiar scent. It is too easy to wrap his neck around her, to pull her tightly to him despite knowing that he should push her away – make this easier for her.
“Heda, I…” I’m leaving. Leaving you. There is someone else. The words (his explanation) are cut short, little more than her name falling from his lips before the mare makes her announcement.
Whatever he had been ready to say, ready to do…it all falls away. His world shrinks in an instant, hyperfocused on the rounding of the buttermilk yellow barrel.
“A child,” he breathes, stepping closer without realizing it. His pale muzzle touches her belly gently, the soft give of her pelt an unfamiliar sensation. He knows how his child feels cradled in scales – this is different. This is his too, but it is not Minnow. The mare carrying it is not a kelpie; she is not his mate. This should not be possible (he thought he knew why they had never before been successful), and yet it is.
“Heda, I…” The words are there, but they are tied down, weighed down by the flurry of emotions that he has only even begun to understand. Ivar is glad that he does not have to look at Heda, and instead can focus on tracing the curve of her belly with his muzzle. “I don’t know what to say. A child. Our child.”
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
It seemed at first he had somethng to say ot her, his gaze was serious and his tone was rather glumly stated. He was going to say something, but he didn't, she thinks quietly as she breathes in his salty musk as she presses her crown against his two-toned nape. He smells of another, someone of the sea, no one who she knew, but hey she should be used to him slumming around with other mares with his growing herd and all. She burshes away the though, but she can't help stop thinking about what he was going to say to her before she made the announcment.
Despite her curiosity and minor worries, she smiled when he said two words, he seemed surprised and perhaps a little bit bewildered. She knew fatherhood was new to him after all, they had been trying for a while now without any luck, and she was sure he had lost hope by now. Perhaps he was trying with another, she ponders to herself, perhaps that was the fishy scent that was mixed with his normal aroma. She doesn't break her smile when pondering, she wants to stay hopeful that he had stayed faithful to her after all, they had gone through so much together.
His muzzle against her honeysuckle skin is soft and sweet. "a child." she repeats in a low murmur as her kelpie lover inspects her golden barrel. His muzzle tracing her swollen belly, her gaze remaining calm despite her wild thoughts that continued to enter her mind.She knew he was going to say something before she told him abotu the child... but what?
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Ivar has always been good at denial.
Recognizing it in himself has been difficult, but seeing it in others has aways come much more easily.
The buckskin mare is in denial.
Ivar has been away for months. The king of Loess has been absent, and the only stirrings in the small land have been the lives of his little herd of mares. The women he had gathered to amuse him, to pass the time. Yet he has not been with them, but rather away.
The fishy smell to Ivar is his natural odor - he is a sea creature before all else.
He’d hidden that from Heda of course; he has presented himself as nothing more than what he seems. She knows him to be a kelpie, but has never truly understood what it meant. The buckskin mare is still smiling, even as he hesitates over what she knows should be joyous news.
She does not want to accept what she knows is coming, which only makes what he has to say all the more difficult. His breath catches in his throat and he is grateful he does not have to meet her gaze.
“We’ve been trying so long,” he says, “I’d given up hope.”
“But…But it doesn’t change what I came back to tell you.” Or perhaps it does, he thinks, even as the words spill forth. “I can’t stay in Loess anymore. I’m leaving. I’m going with Isobell.”
“I’ve asked Castile to stay here. He’s promised to help you. I’m sure he’ll do the same for…for our child.”
Only then does he pull away, his dark eyes meeting Heda’s familiar gaze. He knows what he expects to see, but knowing does not make it any easier.
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
01-28-2018, 02:46 PM (This post was last modified: 01-28-2018, 02:49 PM by Heda.)
Heda
Over these years she had given everyhting to him, her kingdom, her life, her family, and herself. But with those dreaded words, he had taken everything away from her, he had betrayed her, stolen away her kingdom, her hopes for a family, and courted the whore of a queen, Isobell. Her heart sinks, and she draws away from him, her hazel hues welling with oily tears, as her body quivers in meere shock. He had not only ruined her, her hopes, and perhaps even her dreams, but he had ruin her home, the land that she crafted and made her own. He had ruined everything for her. She can hardly hear his words now, something about Castile taking care of her, and their- Her child.
She doesn't care anymore, she's too heartbroken to speak to the scaled bastard. Her golden wingspan releases from her swollen sides, and she lifts off. Leaving the man that stole everything from her in the dust, tears cascading down her cheeks.
Go right ahead, laugh at the girl that loved to easily.
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