Their island had been quiet when Ivar had returned, and his call had echoed across the empty land without a response. They were off swimming, he had assumed, yet when dawn broke he was still alone. Ivar had circled the island and the waters around it, finding neither his family nor any clues to their whereabouts. Isobell was close to birthing, a dangerous time for a mare alone, and while Lothbrok was a brave boy, he was still just a boy.
The scaled kelpie destroyed each shark in a thirty mile radius, but found no bones within them (he was both relieved and disappointed with each failure). One day, then one week. He cannot find them. There is nowhere to expend his energy, no children to feed, no mate to keep him away from the occupied lands.
He’s not had a conscious thought in weeks by the time he emerges on the beach of the main island; he operates on instinct alone. @[Kylin] is here, he knows; she will fix it. He is not sure how, but the kelpie’s memories of her are always pleasant.
She will fix this.
She must.
The handsome creature stalks the shallows, waiting until the piebald mare is alone and the sun is barely visible in the western sky. He shakes the tangled web of his mane away as he wades toward her, and rests his pale muzzle on the point of her withers without a word.
”Kylin,” he says, barely aware of the promise he had made her those years ago to never use his hypnotism against her yet still deeply regretting it. ”I’ve missed you.” His chest brushes against her swollen barrel, and while he’d been enraged at its existence the last time he had seen it, tonight it reminds the kelpie of the children that he cannot find and the missing mate who carried them.
The scaled creature is gentle as his cool muzzle slides from her shoulder to her belly and back again, tracing the edges of her familiar tobiano pattern as he inhales her calming scent and the soothing lapping of water against his dark legs.
ooc: i have no idea where this came from so…i hope you enjoy it 
There is not a single part of her that even considers leaving Ischia. Her pregnancy hadn’t kept her to the island until the very last stages, but now she wouldn’t dare to leave. Ischia is safe, that she cannot say of other places beyond the island. It is all Kylin knows, and she loves her home, but she does get terribly lonely sometimes. The Brotherhood allowed her to stay, which she is grateful for, but sometimes it is like she is there, but at the same time isn’t.
Her only true comfort comes in the form of water. Though she does no longer go out to swim, or take a walk on top of the sea’s surface, there is nothing in the world that could separate her from it. She stands ankle deep into the water. It is still fresh, from the winter that affected the other lands, and through them, the sea. It soothes her sore – swollen – legs, and the light breeze offers some coolness. Like that, Kylin dozes underneath the warm spring sun.
His sudden appearance should have scared her. Even though Ischia is a peaceful place – with only parrots sharing the island with the equine – danger lurks everywhere. Today, however, Kylin does not have to worry about it. Her ears turn into his direction, picking up the sound of droplets falling back down onto the sea’s surface. His scent is next, laced with salt and some things she cannot pinpoint. Upon the touch, his muzzle on her withers, a soft sight escapes past her pale lips. Without opening her eyes she leans into his touch, relaxing the last few tense muscles in her body as she softly murmurs his name. “Ivar.”’
Her fins tremble light, and move out of his way, so his skin is in direct contact to hers. She wants to have him close, she wants him to hold her, like she had been hold too little lately. “I have missed you too..” she replies, her neck bending as she reaches out to touch a scaled hip. He feels both cold and warm underneath her touch, just as she remembers, and before long she finds herself angling her body differently, so she can lean against him, almost into him. Many questions lie on her lips. Why did you leave? Where have you been? Did I do something wrong? But she asks none of them, afraid that those questions will scare him away. She needs him, as much as he needs her right now, and honestly, the present is of much more value than the past. Even if her side is swollen with another’s child. All of them owning a part of her heart. So instead she asks; “How are you?”
@[Ivar]
05-20-2018, 05:35 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-20-2018, 05:38 PM by Ivar.)
The way she leans into him is familiar, and he realizes as he shifts to wrap his neck across her that he had misremembered the exact sensation. She feels like his youth, when life was simpler. Her presence dulls the perpetual call to hunt that he has heard since entering adulthood. It stirs something else too, something that growls at the child stirring within her, that inexplicable sense of possession that he has felt since his first visit to Ischia.
It is different than with Isobell, who has belonged to him even when he did not know it, and while he does not regret a single day with his spirited woman, he knows that is was his time with her that has allowed Kylin to slip away as far as she has. So far away that she'd sought out another man, and the growling in his chest grows louder at th reminder.
He soothes it with another carress to her ivory skin, and he traces the dip of her spine with teeth still stained blood red. She tells him she has missed him and he sighs, pausing his touches to press his cheek against hers. "Say that again, if you must." Ivar tells her as he places a kiss on her cheek. "Because it will be the last time you have to say it."
There is no reason why this time should be any different than the other times; Ivar has always left Kylin.
Each time he has returned, but this time, as he draws away to get a better look at her face made more lovely by the moonlight, he knows that this time he means it. When he finds Isobell - and he will it is surely just a matter of time - they will stay here. Any impediment the Brotherhood might offer is as inconsequential as the sire of the child Kylin carries. She will be his now, as she always should have been.
How has he been? She asks, and he smiles despite the past week, tucking her close again. "I've been better," he tells her honestly, "But it is better, now." Ivar had known she would fix it. "And you?"
@[Kylin]
Throughout her life, Ivar has been a constant return phenomenal. When they had first met, they both had been children, unaware of any dangers in the world. Unaware of her magic, too, as he had accidentally put her under his spell. At first she had thrived in it, pumped with energy and longing, and perhaps he had hypnotized to like him in one way or another too. Only at the beach, there where the baby turtles hatched from their eggs, that his compulsion of her had come to light. Neither of them had known what was going on, but Kylin vividly remembers it as something she never wants to experience again. And she trust Ivar to know that he won’t ever pull that trick on her again.
Ever since, they had met up regularly. Quite often at first, and less and less after. Especially once he became king, and traded his life at sea for the one on land. A choice she still does not understand, but she is nonetheless happy to have him back in the sea again. It is where he belongs. Where she belongs. His disappearance had hurt a lot. Kylin had cared for him – she still does – and to lose a shoulder she was used to lean on, well, it had caused a huge dent in her confidence.
And yet, she welcomes him back at her side like nothing happened. Her hazel eyes fall closed as she leans into his touch, a soft sigh coming from her lips. Gods, she has missed this. There is nothing complicated about Ivar’s presence, nor his touch or his attention. Slowly her eyes open again, and Kylin tilts her head to look at him, silent for a moment, before whispering. “I’ve missed you.” Her words are accompanied by a smile, and a moment later she reaches out to gently touch his cheek with the velvet of her nose. “You’ll be visiting again soon?” She does not ask him to stay, she knows he wouldn’t.
Genuine interest makes her search his gaze, still tucked against his side, almost like there had never been more time between their meetings than just a couple of months. His words are met with a worried frown, and she wants to ask him why it is ‘better’. Had something happened before? Yet, she is content to know that he is better now. And honestly, “Better now, too.”
She does not know how to put into words all the things that had happened. Not since the last time she’d seen him, because honestly, nothing much has happened since she last saw him on Ischia’s shore with Takei. Before that, well, it was an understatement to say her life had been turned upside down, and more than once too. “So much has changed..” she mumbles, her weight shifting as she puts her left hindleg in a resting position instead of her right. Her gaze is set at the horizon again, the waves still soothing her sore legs. “Too much has changed…”
@[Ivar]
Sorry for the wordplosion :|
<3
A flicker of motion catches his eye, and Ivar tilts his dark head to the side to better see the cause. A school of silver fish swim beneath them, darting between their mottled legs and hurried along by the surf. They are lit up by the glow of the phytoplankton, which are brightest at the shore and where they brush agains the legs of the two horses. Ivar has always found it fascinating, and tonight is no exception.
He smooths his muzzle across Kylin's crest as a warm breeze wraps around them, and while some part of him knows that Isobell is still out to sea, he finds that he is not as concerned as he was even an hour earlier. She will either return or she will not. For now, he is occupied, and Ivar has only ever really cared about the present.
It is why, as she repeats that she missed him, that he lets out a satisfied hum. He has always enjoyed their reunions, and this is no exception. He'd asked her once to stay with him in Loess, but she could not part from the sea. Now that he has returned to it, he sees no valid objection she might have. Ivar has been gone, yes, but more importantly he has come back.
Tucked up beside him and in easy reach, Ivar smooths the two-toned hair down her neck, laying it flat only to muss it again with a smile. "No," he tells her, "This time I will stay." She will stay too, of course, as will Isobell when she returns. Perhaps not on the main island - he has no desire to see Brennen again except as bones on the ocean floor - but on one of these smaller ones, closer than the rocky atoll that he and Isobell had claimed.
There is the small matter of the child she carries, of course, but Ivar imagines that the Brotherhood might take it in. He does not want it, and while the kelpie understand that mares readily form attachments to their offspring, he is certain that he can give her another child - a better child - to keep her happy. He does want her to be happy, after all, and it is no small feat that he restrains himself from commanding it of her. Ivar hasn't forgotten their adventure on the turtle beach, but he is certain that she will agree even without manipulation.
After all, she curls against him like the lovers they have never been, and when she tells him that too much has changed, he only smiles and presses a kiss to her neck and assures her that "Not too much," has changed. "You're still mine, after all" he reminds her. "The rest doesn't matter."
She feels the fish tickle her feet, but she pays them no attention. It is solely focussed on Ivar. On his presence, his touch, and the way he wraps himself around her. He offers her comfort she hadn’t known in a long while. Finally something solid had found its way back into her life again, and although it is only temporary, it is exactly what she needs. With Ivar, Kylin does not doubt where she stands.
And more importantly, his presence fixes that what has been lacking. She’d felt so lost, so terribly alone, and unsure of how to deal with her emotions and fears. She had been asked to leave Ischia, and again she had said no. She couldn’t. Even now the island overrun by man she can’t. Ischia is her home, and it offers her a connection to the sea like no other land can. It is the only thing in her life that hasn’t been affected by changes. The prospect of more things returning to normal is one Kylin cannot refuse. “You will?” she asks softly, vulnerable hazel eyes searching his. She hadn’t dared to ask. He had always left. Surely, he had come back most of the times, but never had he stayed. Slowly a smile starts to spread across her features and although it doesn’t chase away the sadness in her eyes completely, it is a genuine smile. “Please stay..”
Because she sure as well knows that she needs him. Now more than ever. Her heart is thorn. But really, when had it not been? Kharon had first taken a part with him, and it would be a lie to say that Ivar didn’t hold a piece of it too. But they are not the only ones. Klaudius, the father of her child, has taken a bit too when he left for Tephra. Both Kagerus and Svedka had done something to her too. Their attention had make her feel flattered, and made her stomach tighten and look forward in anticipation. Now Ivar is back, even here in Ischia, and she longs for someone to make her life easy. To lead her, like many had done before, but of whom nobody had stayed.
He does not fail to make her smile again. Like it is nothing, he puts them both back in the here and now. He does not live in the past, nor in the future, something Kylin has done too much these last few years. Her heart had longed for something – someone(s) – that was not here. She chuckles softly, her muzzle finding his skin again, in favour if breathing in his scent. She’d always liked his smell, except for his time in Loess, when he had smiled too little of the sea. His words make her stomach flutter, and she presses herself closer against his side.
Like that tears start to wet her eyes, before eventually rolling down her cheeks. “Nothing else matters..” she murmurs softly with a thick voice, unable to keep the tears from affecting it. She’s confused, upset, hurt and lost. Terribly lost. Which only fuels her anger towards herself and everyone else.
@[Ivar] <3
Her tears are no more salty than the sea, and Ivar brushes them away with a soft touch of his scaled muzzle to her lavender cheeks. "No more tears," he tells her, and while it is is a command it is weighted with nothing more than his baritone. The kelpie has never struggled with inspiring obedience; he was charming and commandeering long before he found his hypnotism. Kylin, more so than anyone, has always been the most compliant, and while he does not imagine he can stop the source of her tears, he does mean for their spilling to cease.
"I'll keep you safe," Ivar promises. His gentle caresses do not venture past her withers as he says this, he focuses on the fragile skin beneath her jaw, where he pulse beats appealing with so little protection. She is so weak, he is reminded, so delicate. She needs him, after all, needs him to protect her from the rest of the world. There are other hunters out there, after all, dangers that she does not recognize.
Dangers like the man who had planted his seed where Ivar's belongs.
He must be a fool, Ivar muses, a fool with a silver tongue to have taken what Ivar had not. The longer he dwells on it, the more irate he feels, until finally he asks what he had before been uninterested in. "What has changed?'
<3 <3 <3
@[Kylin]
She is unable to resist, unable to not lean into his touch. Ivar had never failed to make her feel like she matters, well, when he is around that is. His disappearance, like Kharon’s, and Klaudius’, had left her doubting herself. But he is here now. And she wills herself to believe that that is what matters. A deep breath, and a light rub of her cheek against his neck, is what it takes to will the tears to stop. The smile Kylin offers him is weak, but she finds herself nodding nonetheless. Ivar had never made her felt unguarded, but really, was there something to guard her from?
Ischia is perfectly safe. With the only other habitants being parrots, there are no predators that form a danger to the equine that have settled themselves on the island. But perhaps he is referring to her own destructive nature. Kylin leans into his touch with a soft sigh, relaxing and finding comfort in his presence. Just for a moment she will let herself believe that all is good and well, and ignore her aching heart.
Except that Ivar does not allow her. Surprisingly he seems to get back to the subject he has previously dismissed. “Too much..” she repeats, but in all reality, is it really too much? Ischia is still the same, her loyalty hadn’t changed, even with the change of leadership. “I’m such a mess..” she instead murmurs, shaking her head as in slight disbelief. “Such a fool..” To think that happiness left her, while she could’ve pursued happiness herself. Nonetheless, Kylin finds herself pressing her swollen form closer against Ivar, her muzzle resting against his neck.
“Why didn’t you stay.. for me?” Through those words she is not only addressing Ivar. Kharon, and Klaudius too, as well as everyone else that has left. “Was I wrong, to stay?”
@[Ivar]
In the west, the last vestiges of orange light have faded, and the stars begin to emerge overhead. Ivar watches their reflections in the glittering surf, and he glances up at the slim crescent of moon. Two months, he thinks, two months have passed with no sign of Isobell and their children. She is dead then, dead or gone, and to Ivar there is not much of a difference. The kelpie knows that he should mourn their passing, and while he does feel a tightness in his chest at thier memory, he cannot summon anything more. He has never been much good at complex emotion, after all.
Want and need are easier to process than sorrow and regret. They are more comfortable too.
Kylin is the perfect example of this, with her downcast eyes and the harsh words she applies to herself. To Ivar, who has left countless bodies at bottom of the sea, being a fool and a mess seem trivial things. Regret is futile, and though he wants to press it from her mind, he instead brushes his muzzle across the crest of her neck.
Her heavy barrel presses close to him, a reminder, but the thing is still within Kylin, and so safe for now. Later, he decides, he will deal with it later. She asks why he didn't stay, and for a while he does not answer. There are many reasons, each as valid as the next, but he knows that she does not want to hear them. That will not make her feel any better. The second question she asks, that one he can answer more easily.
"Of course not." is the hesitationless reply. "You belong in Ischia." And she does, more even than she'd belonged in Hyaline. Ivar has never felt the same attachment to the land, but he feels it to the sea, and he suspects knowing that might bring another smile to Kylin's face.
"I shouldn't have left the sea. Not for Loess." He does not regret his time in the hilly kingdom - how could he, when the need to kill had left him, when he had been surrounded by women more than willing to sate his hunger? - but he knows that the time might have been better spent elsewhere. In the sea with Isobell, though the damn woman had refused to leave her own kingdom, or perhaps here in Ischia.
He remembers asking Kylin once if she wanted children. She'd not thought about it, she'd replied, shortly before declining the offer to stay with him in Loess, to join his harem. Now, as he trails his cool muzzle across the side of the swollen barrel that is not pressed against him, he decides that perhaps he should have forced the issue. It would have been better, after all, to have Kylin with them in the sea. Isobell had been plagued with the need for monogamy, but with her gone, the concept seems foolish. Kylin would have swam with him, he thinks as he lips at the translucent fins at her side. The kelpie is careful of them, as careful as he is to not press too hard against the swell of another stallion's child.
Ivar keeps forgetting as the stand in the moonlight, and each time he is reminded all the more forcefully. "Who is the father?" He asks mildly, tracing the pattern of her piebald hide with white lips. "Will I have to get rid of him?"
She does not know of Isobell, and their children, if she had, she would’ve politely asked about their wellbeing. Family is a subject they have rarely discussed, except for the one time Ivar had told her about his parents. She sees no point in bringing them up, they are both adults now and Kylin remembers him not being too keen on the subject. Instead she follows his example. Ivar had always lived in the now, not the past, nor the future, but now. Less complicated, it seems, and right now, that is what Kylin longs for.
It comes in the way he touches her. Her sides are warm where their bodies touch, even though scales cover his body, but her attention lies there where his muzzle trails. Down her crest, and from there, he is trailing her side. She does not pay mind to the fact that he hovers over a side that is round with child. But how can she, as her mind is busy progressing his words.
She does not know what she had wanted to hear him say. That she should have left? That is a fool to stay. Klaudius surely did seem to think so. But likewise, she thinks he is a fool to leave. Yet Ivar seems so sure. Kylin bends her neck so her tear filled eyes can search his gaze, but before she speaks, she first has to swallow the dry lump in her throat. “Really..?” Her voice is soft as she asks, weak even, with a slight tremble. Before he had thought different, what had him change his mind? If she only knew..
Surprisingly, his next words make her giggle slightly, and she shakes her head as she tries to fight the smile that tugs on the corners of her lips. With the tears still shimmering in her eyes, it must be a silly sight. “Told you so” Kylin cannot help but say, reaching out to playfully lip at the corner of his mouth.
But as easily as he had made her smile, he is also able to remove it from her face. Teeth sink into her lower lip and her gaze, after looking at him for a while longer, is out on the horizon again. Only a faint orange glow was left of the day. “No” she says a little too quick. Her heart having skipped a beat and her insides uneasy clenching. “No please.. Don’t tease me.. I.. I love him..” But honestly, so does she love Ivar too. She doesn’t know since when exactly, but something had drawn her to him, always. Trying to keep the tears at bay, Kylin shakes her head and forces herself to breathe calmly. Just one deep breath after the other. “I.. He left.. He didn’t want to stay, when Brennen took over. One night, he asked, he promised, and.. I agreed.. I was his.. But..” she does not finish, and instead leans against Ivar more firmly, her fins twitching lightly at his touch.
@[Ivar]
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