"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
The farther upstream Ivar goes, the heavier he feels.
The kelpie had not expected to have such a strong preference (especially given a childhood spent in freshwater), but as he leaves the salty sea behind him he discovers that he does. There's no reason for Isobell to have come up this far away from the ocean, but there is also no reason for her to be gone at all, so Ivar feels the River is as good a place as any to search for her.
He remains a few feet below the water, surfacing now and then to look along the banks. They are empty - or at least empty of anyone interesting - and the piebald stallion has made it nearly halfway to Hyaline before he climbs onto the bank.
As he does, the sleek dark tail that propelled him through the water splits into a pair of legs, covered in matte scales that shimmer only until the water slides off of him. The pale scales of his face, forelegs, and chest remain bright even as he slowly dries in the sun, their mother-of-pearl sheen a stark contrast to the tangle and cords of his black mane.
Around him, a few horses graze, seemingly unperturbed by the water creature that has emerged from the depths. The kelpie eyes them curiously for only a moment - he is not hungry and they are not Isobell - before returning to his own evening meal.
She could hardly see but saw all too well and saw nothing but disappointment with her compound eyes. Disappointment that each horse was not him. She didn’t fully understand why he came to matter so much to her except that he had always looked at her like she wasn’t a freak. Ichor understood the importance of how he made her feel like she was beautiful and mattered.
Eventually she was left alone and part of that was her leaving of her own accord once he was gone. Just gone - no goodbye. It hurt but the little mothmare hid her hurts well. She threw herself into her exploration of every nook and cranny of the free lands that might hide a flower until she knew them all by heart. It helped that she had tasted them all too.
Ichor could identify just about all the natural plants and flowering trees that grew here. Even now she is wandering alongside the river reciting the scientific names of the ones she passes. The water beckons but she hasn’t gone in it since her time with him. That had been a magical time she’d shared with Ivar. Since then she’s ignored the occasional flutter of gills on her neck.
The mothmare comes upon a bend in the river where a smaller offshoot cuts through the land and leaves the mother-river. Her black compound eyes focus on the noxious weed starting to choke the baby-river. “Ludwigia peploides,” she mutters dully around the long proboscis that unfurls out of her mouth. Even her eyes are dull like the chaff that flakes away from her skin with every step taken.
The bright yellow petals are entrancing enough to make Ichor broach the river with just her front legs and champagne breast before the sensation of water on her skin makes her remember. She makes a scrambling hasty retreat back onto shore before murmuring to the water primrose, “You’re trouble.” but she may have been mumbling it to the stallion beyond that has just emerged from the river.
It’s Ivar but she thinks she is imagining him therefore he can’t be real.
His grazing leads him farther from the edge of the river, and Ivar does not look up. He trusts his other senses (and those of the nameless horses around him), so the sound of a half-familiar voice causes him to pause. No, he thinks, must have been the river. But it comes again and he is no longer physically hungry, so he raises his head to find the source.
There, half-hidden by long shadows of the trees.
Not Isobell, but his nonetheless.
Ivar had not spared a thought for the women left behind in Loess until now. Were they still there, kept by whomever had usurped Lepis? (For surely someone had usurped her - what self respecting creature lets a newborn rule them?) That idea is intriguing; perhaps he might gather them up again. He spent the time to collect them in the first place, after all; there is no reason to think they would not come as easily the second time.
He doesn't think in terms of abandonment or that years have passed. Ivar steps up beside Ichor as though no time has passed since their last interaction. His dark muzzle presses into the feather soft scales along her neck. They feel different than when they are underwater, he finds. For a moment he turns back to look toward the River, reminded of their first meeting.
"You didn't want to swim?" He asks her, as though their last conversation had only been the day before. He can see the bright flowers across the bank, and they look quite like something that Ichor might want.
05-25-2018, 04:46 PM (This post was last modified: 05-25-2018, 04:47 PM by ichor.)
Hm, that’s new.
Usually the apparitions of Ivar never talked back to her so it was to dismiss each glimpse of him as nothing more than a very active and lonely imagination. Not only is it talking but it’s walking towards her. But that just can’t be! None of her imaginings had ever been so vivid as to seem as if they’re real.
What did I last eat?
I’m hallucinating...
It sounds like him. It smells like him. Even the press of dark muzzle to neck is like him. No! That just can’t be. This dream though, it’s too good to wake up from. Ichor sighs. She can’t help herself. It’s not love and maybe not even lust but Ivar was as familiar to her as the wings on her back that flutter for a moment - the only sign of her agitation.
This tree is touching me.
When did trees get entirely too familiar?
It’s not a tree. It’s Ivar but she is in complete and utter disbelief as he asks her why she didn’t want to go into the river. “Because there are monsters there.” she tells him sadly. The only monsters are the memories of that first time in the river with him before they mutated in a sudden and crippling fear of submerging herself in the loving arms of water. Doesn’t he know about the monsters? The Ivar in her imagination does. He tells her not to go in the water, only drink from it and even then, to be very careful.
Why won’t this tree stop talking in his voice?
Why does this tree feel so much like him?
Unconsciously the little mothmare leans against him. Almost rubs her head underneath his chin. He should feel all rough and barky like a tree. Why doesn’t he feel like a tree?! It’s not real - it can’t be real. But it feels so good! Ichor sighs again and starts to turn away from him.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Ivar is not certain why the women in his life have suddenly become so sad. He had not guessed from her reaction to his touch (she too acts as though no time has passed at all), but her voice as she answers his is quiet and small. Ichor’s explanation at first seems nonsensical; what monsters might possible lurk beneath the clear water of the river?
(prey)
It has been a while since he felt that sensation.
Ichor presses her little head beneath his chin, and Ivar grows very still.
(easy prey)
The champagne creature is very small, and her thin skin barely holds back the flutter of her heart. As if at the image, the kelpie feels her wings quiver for a moment agains him, shedding minuscule golden scales in a way that is reminiscent of his childhood. For the first time in a long time he thinks of his mother, a small dark figure against a backdrop of the autumnal sylvan woods.
The need quiets, though he draws an scaled muzzle along the smooth line of her blonde mane. The piebald creature’s touch is not quite intimate, though he does not lean away from where she has pressed herself against his side.
“I would keep you safe.” He promises, remembering the last time he had asked something of her. Ichor had given in, blinked her too-wide eyes at him so eagerly the last time. Would she still react the same, he wonders? Or should he make sure that she does in the same manner he had before? When she starts to turn away, Ivar reacts without hesitation, grabbing hold of a strand of her mane between his glistening teeth. He doesn’t intend to let her slip away so easily.
“I’m very real,” he tells her, his dark eyes flitting over the extra pair of legs and the strange wings. Still the same Ichor, he sees, but a little different. Grown up more. There is a strange conflict of emotions in Ivar’s chest as he realizes this, but his gentle smile never fades as he seeks to meet Ichor’s gaze.
Ichor has been many things before. Odd. Weird. Fantastic. But never really sad. That was a more recent development and the catalyst had simply been Ivar’s leaving. There was more to it then that of course. Like how she could no longer smell mother or father in any of the free lands. How she’d neither seen nor smelled any of her sisters any more.
It meant Ichor was the last. Maybe the only. This was what made her sad - knowing there wasn’t another like her in all the lands when her family had been large enough to leave traces of themselves somewhere. Not any more. Then he left too and it seemed like Ivar took all the light (both sun and moon) with him when he went. Not to mention the sudden abhorrence of water that she found herself with.
Ivar stole all the joy in the river and swimming with him when he went. Just like her trust because she had always trusted him. Intrinsically so even though there was always something predatory about him that Ichor willfully ignored in favor of him taking a shine to her six-legged weirdness. Considering that six legs weren’t even the half of it! But back to the real-Ivar that she believes is still the imagined tree-Ivar.
His scaly muzzle travels the length of her mane where it sprouts from the neck and she is starting to realize that maybe this isn’t just a tree and some bits of happy-sad imagination. Maybe this is real... it must be real the moment he grabs a strand of hair between his teeth. The tug- the faint fast stab of pain from her knee-jerk reaction tells her this much. No, it could still be a tree that she’s hung up on...
Until the tree talks again. No, not tree - Ivar. He promises he would keep her safe just like the last time. Ichor believes him. She so easily believes him. Especially when he tells her that he’s real, very very real. Finally, she raises her face so that her strange eyes can meet his.
It takes a moment for him - all of his face from his eyes to the gentle smile on his mouth - to come into focus. She sees myriad fragments of him in black and white since he’s piebald. Definitely not a tree! And like the way dawn first breaks across the sky, a goofy grin breaks across Ichor’s lips. “Oh you are real.” stated not exclaimed though the burst of happiness that accompanies it is enough to light up her face.
Her proboscis unfurls to touch the tip of his nose as if it were a flower begging her touch. “Yes, you are real.” she confirms it with a giggle that is almost like the Ichor of old. “I missed you.”
05-25-2018, 08:45 PM (This post was last modified: 05-25-2018, 08:52 PM by kahzie.)
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
His breath catches for a moment, but he forces a deeper inhale, and by the time he breathes in again, @[Ichor]’s smiling and no longer pressed so tightly against him. He breathes more easily. The smile stays on the kelpie’s face as the knot of emotion fades, and a sharp bark of laughter escapes as the champagne creature pokes at the sensitive scales of his muzzle with her long nose. Ivar had forgotten how silly she was, the little moth-mare. The emotions she elicits fro him are a sharp and refreshing change to his usual mood of late, and Ivar’s initial task at the river falls away.
“Of course you did,” he replies, with just enough bravado in his attitude to match the good-natured amusement that dances behind his brown eyes. “I’m very missable.”
He takes a step closer, presses his cheek against hers like a kiss to the forehead.
“But no point missing me while I’m here.” Ivar adds. “You might as well make use of me.”
The kelpie pulls away, shivering at the cool night air that rushes into the space at his side she had filled. He has two feet in the water before he glanced back, remembering that fetching the flowers won’t quite be right. She doesn’t want them the way other mares might; they’re food more than something to look at. Gesturing to the water, he calls back: “Aren’t you coming? I saw you looking at those daisy-things.”
making those promises that i could not keep in my dark times, baby this is all i could be
ivar is a pro at flower identification, obviously.
@[Ichor]
It is so easy to revert back to the way she was always with him. So very easy. Frighteningly easy. So she is silly and simple and ever so happy that he is very much real after all.
The sharp bark of his laughter sounds good and familiar in her ears and she realizes then too, that Ivar has come to represent something of home to her. When did that happen? How did that happen? Because he saw her, really saw her and that meant something to her. Even after the planted seeds of suggestion that she go with him in the beginning. He’s taken root inside the mothmare and she couldn’t get rid of him like a bad weed.
(The kind that produces irresistible and beautiful flowers. Which is what they’re relationship is like.)
He makes her laugh. It pours out of her odd mouth as he insists that he is very missable. It might seem like an opportune moment to ask him why he left in the first place but she never asks, just accepts that he’s here now. Besides the touch of his cheek to hers like a kiss makes her forget to ask anyway.
For just the tiniest moment, so tiny as to be almost fleeting, her face scrunches up into a frown. Is he only sticking around for a little while? The way he phrases gives her reason to think he’s not going to stay. Which gives her a moment of anxiety and fretting shown by the way her teeth gnash and gnaw at her lips. She even looks away long enough to make her miss looking at his pretty face.
“True.” she concedes a little sullenly, wondering what he has up his scaly sleeve but he tells her soon enough and Ichor can’t seem to stay mad at him for very long. Plus she’s not sure her face looks comely in a pout. But then she’s a ridiculous creature so who cares what her face looks like? Ivar sure doesn’t seem to mind.
Suddenly she can feel the rush of night air between. She doesn’t shiver like he does. Instead she seems to come more alive because the night belongs to moths and she can claim some relation to them. By golly she looks more moth than horse! Her wings stretch out and quiver as if considering flight but she’s never managed more than a few beats of the wings during some hilarious looking hops. Her wings were more decoration and decoy than practical.
He mentions the daisy-things and Ichor laughs from somewhere deep in her belly. Poor Ivar! He tried but he never quite knew flowers the way she did. What he did know was that she was not a lay-flowers-at-her-feet kind of mare. This was not that kind of pony-play as she followed him to the river’s edge but did not step right in. The water primrose did look delectable though and she could do her part to help stave off the strangling chokehold it had on that little baby-river...
“Water primrose,” she murmurs to him from the cusp of riverbank and decision. But how can she resist the bright yellow petals that seem to be curling down and out in invitation to her? She can’t. No more than she can resist his easy charm. Before she knows it, Ichor is in the river and feels no fear. She blinks her big bug eyes at him as her gills flutter in anticipation of feeling water run over and through them.
“Why not?” she says more to herself than to him and plunges further in until the water laps at her breast like a lover’s (ha! she knows nothing of lovers and their like) tongue.
@[Ivar] ichor thinks it’s cute that he tried to be a flower expert. ?
05-26-2018, 07:25 PM (This post was last modified: 05-26-2018, 07:27 PM by Ivar.)
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
If Ivar notices the sullen cast to her golden face, he gives no sign of it. He only waits, silent and patient, until Ichor acquiesces and joins him in the water. She corrects him on the name of the flower, but still he murmurs, “Mhm hmm. Like I said, a daisy thing.” as she passes hm by.
The kelpie’s dark eyes are teasing; he doesn’t truly mind being wrong about things that aren’t important. He’ll never need to know the name of the little yellow flowers on the opposite bank, and he forgets it quickly in favor of looking at something much more interesting. Ichor is wading into deeper water now, and the dark water swallows up her golden figure. Ivar swallows as well, quelling the quiet urge to
(take her)
While his need is always present, the kelpie is not always victim to the hunger. There are times when he can ignore it, times when he can suppress it almost entirely. This is one of those times, yet when he slides into the water beside her, Ivar trails his dripping muzzle across the curve of her hip and up her back. He prods the quiet coals of his hunger and dances back out of the fire (pulling away from her as he dives beneath the water). In the same way he enjoys testing his physical prowess against the sea, Ivar finds enjoyment in affirming his mental capacities as well.
Beneath the surface of the water, the pale light of the evening is all but gone. Ivar dives to the shallow riverbed propelled by a lengthened tail and fin-like hind limbs. There, he spins back around, revealing in the icy bite of the water against his scales. The current tugs at his mane, but it is weak in this little tributary. Though he’d not mind staying down here, he knows that Ichor did want the daisies, so he surfaces with a playful flick of his tail that sends water spritzing across the champagne mare.
“C’mon, slowpoke.”
making those promises that i could not keep in my dark times, baby this is all i could be
Ichor laughs. There is a throaty note to it as if she’s become more frog than moth. So much for being alluring but then she has never been that. Strange, yes. Wondrous, maybe. Desired? Never. But things come easier to her when he is around. Smiles and laughs are more girlish as if there is a mare beneath all the grotesquerie.
She can’t forget about him despite how distracting the river is. It licks at her golden skin until it is dark from the river’s wet mouth. Dampened by each hungry kiss until she feels him looking at her. She swings her head to him, gills a-flutter in anticipation. Her eyes have no time to focus on him because he is slipping into the water beside her and it is his wet nose trailing across her hip and back.
Things stir in Ichor that have never stirred before. Embarrassed, she looks away and a ragged breath eases out of her when he dives beneath the water. She will inevitably join him as her atlas moth wings give one futile shiver of protest before Ichor is diving after him. The moth-mare must be a silly sight indeed underwater. Her limbs flail about momentarily as she’s forgotten how to swim properly since she has no tail and fins like him.
It isn’t long before she surfaces, spluttering like it was her first time in the water. Dazzling droplets from his splash rain down on her making her laugh. She ducks her muzzle beneath the river’s surface and flips water at him. “You have quite the advantage over me.” For once Ichor is teasing and sly. Her tail sprawls out behind her on the current as she pushes off the bottom and moves forward with short choppy strokes of her six legs.
“I should make you get them for me.” but she knows there is no fun in that. Not to mention that his time with her feels short and any moment, he might disappear. Ichor starts to sink as much from the weight of her own body and desire to let her gills work, as it is from those glum thoughts.
