"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
05-30-2018, 10:35 AM (This post was last modified: 06-19-2018, 02:10 PM by kahzie.)
Tomorrow afternoon his world will experience a dramatic shift.
Today though, Ivar remains blissfully unaware of the encroaching paradigm. He is lounging on a shaded bit of beach, his belly full of a slow squid and a few flounder. The edge of his tail is in the water, and every now and again the piebald creature flicks it toward him, showering his scales with the cool water. It lands in glittering droplets across his body, shining most brightly on those that are pearlescent white.
Reclining in the shade of a mangrove, Ivar watches the distant horizon. He'd seen a pod of dolphins a few days back, but nothing breaks the blue line this afternoon. The kelpie's days have slipped into a familiar pattern; he spends the daylight hours hunting (prey both finned and furred) and his evenings with Kylin.
Some nights he returns to their shady copse later than usual, and he does his best to slip onto the western island where they live without waking the lavender mare. The pattern is reminiscent of his time in Loess, Ivar realizes as he pulls himself to his hooved feet, with Kylin taking the place that had once been occupied by Heda. Here though, there is the sea, deep and comforting.
No one to share the depths with though.
Shaking the sand from his scales, the piebald kelpie leaves the shade and begins to wade into the water. He doesn't go far - only up to his knees. The midday sun glitters brightly on the glassy water around him and Ivar half closes his eyes a the sun warms his two-toned hide.
@[Kylin]
timeline wise i guess this is post-birthing but also pre Ivar meeting Kyvi?
With Kyveli safely under another’s sharp eye, Kylin finally finds she has some time on her hands to spend on herself. Don’t misunderstand, the lavender and white woman loves her daughter, but finds being a single parent rather exhausting. It is definitely not the picture she had painted in her head when she had agreed to spend one last night with Klaudius: in her mind, he had chosen her and their child over everybody else.
How wrong she had been. But, as she has Kyveli safely with her in Ischia, it is his loss, and not hers.
Her day off is, not so miraculously, spend at the beach. She’s dozing in the sun, ankle deep into the sea as the tide slowly rises. A soft breeze makes her mane gently sway, as well as a few dry short strands of her lavender tail. The sun warms her back pleasantly, and everything together is a perfect cocktail for relaxation.
Except that the peaceful expression is only a façade. Underneath, Kylin’s heart and mind are a mess. It is the first time she is away from her daughters side and although it is something good, and that she knows Kyveli is safe, it makes her restless. Restless enough to find herself unable keep settled out in the sun much longer. Before she has made the decision to move, Kylin is up and around, water moving for her as she wades deeper.
Soon the water flows across her back, but unlike last time she had waded this deep, she does not stop there. Her hooves loose contact with the sand, and it only the movement of her fins and movement of her legs that keeps her going forward. Kylin’s lips are sealed together – less chance to get any of the salt water in her mouth – but she is smiling nevertheless.
It is only when she rounds a curve of the island that her hazel eyes find his familiar form. His eyes are closed, dozing in the sun just like she had not too long ago. Kylin approaches him from deeper waters, slowly making her way to the shore until she is, just like Ivar, standing only knee deep into the water. The corners of her lips twitch, and curl up, as she does not verbally greet him, but instead extends her curved neck to press it against his muscular neck.
06-02-2018, 04:04 PM (This post was last modified: 06-02-2018, 04:04 PM by Ivar.)
I V A R promising everything i do not mean
The winds that dance across the turquoise waters are no cooler than the heavy spring air, but even their gentle movement is pleasant. A few stray hairs, not locked into cords or dried stiff by the sun, blow across his dark neck, a tickling sensation that causes him to shake his head to clear them away. The kelpie opens his eyes as well, and happens to catch a flick of movement at the edge of his line of vision.
Ivar turns, already catching her scent across the water, and his amber eyes fix on Kylin. The pale edges of his mouth turn up into a half smile, but he waits for her to approach him rather than meet her halfway. A wise choice, he thinks, pressing his muzzle into er shoulder as she leans her neck against his. The lavender mare smells of salt, and her skin is warmed by the sun and the heat of her heartbeat, pattering against his ear until he pulls away to meet her eyes.
“You look different,” Ivar says as he catches her hazel gaze, gesturing to her sleek sides with a teasing grin. An improvement, the kelpie thinks, no longer weighed down with someone else's burden. He does not ask where the child is. He does not truly care, though a stray hope that it might have been lost to a riptide does cross his mind. He finds nothing contradictory in that thought and the tender way he smoothes the two-toned forelock from Kylin's eyes.
Laden with the smell of flowers, a playful breeze whips past them.
“Do you remember the flowers you showed me on my first visit?” He asks quietly. Ivar doesn't really expect an answer; he is just enjoying the way the soft hairs of her ear feel against his lips. “I think this island has more of them than the main island. So we'll probably have to move.” Ivar is teasing, but he still drags it out, waiting for a reaction. The lavender and white mare is so easily flustered, and Ivar thinks that perhaps kissing her back to contentment might make this bright afternoon slightly more enjoyable.
I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
it has only been two days! you are not late at all <3
@[Kylin]
It is only when their eyes meets, that she realises two things. One, that she was already smiling, and two, that seeing him makes her heart ache only more. It had shattered upon Klaudius leaving. He had left both hér and Kyveli. While upon seeing their girl he was supposed to have to felt the desire to stay. Instead, it had only looked like it made him run harder.
And thus, as she looks at Ivar, it is hard to ignore the hollow feeling inside of her, while, at the same time, the sight of the smoky black and white kelpie her makes her feel all warm. Kylin has never been shy of close proximity, and she does not start being it now. Soon she’s pressed up against him, her muzzle against his wet scales as he wraps himself around her. A soft sigh – both content and troubled – escapes past her lips and she is hesitant to meet his gaze as she pulls back.
His words are met with a shrug of her shoulders, and a flush as she looks at him through her lashes. “I guess I am different,” she murmurs, a soft smile at her lips. The love she has for her daughter has definitely changed something with her, and yet, she is still as lonely and lost as ever. “And yet, I am not..” Kylin’s gaze searches his amber one, dished head tiling to the side. Eyes that soon flutter closed, as she leans into his gentle touch, even lovers her head a little.
“The flowers?” she repeats after him, blinking her hazel eyes against the sunlight as she opens them again to look at Ivar. Her nose is slightly lifted, tasting the air like he did, then unable to not let a smile curl up the corners of her lips as something sparks in her eyes. “You mean the flowers who’s pollen you inhaled?” After that, he had vividly vowed to not like the flowers, or at least, that is how Kylin remembers. And the thought alone is enough to make her chuckle. She wants to tease him back in return, but his sweet affection and caresses have her flustered, and Kylin finds herself unable to hold his gaze any longer. “But.. But I like the flowers..” she murmurs, glancing up through her lashes to meet his gaze.
@[Ivar]
Idk how me being sad turned Kylin into a sad pony..
/hits post button, runs and hides/
Ivar had come back to Ischia for Kylin, remembering on some subconcious level that the lavender mare always made him feel better. And she had, as he had known she would. Yet he finds that she is a sadder creature than he remembers, full of long sighs and tears always on the urge of falling. The kelpie cannot fathom such complex emotions, how one can be safe and full and protected and yet still sad.
Kylin seems readily able to feel a myriad of things all at once, and Ivar feels this as she sighs against him. A sad sound despite the contentment, despite the paradise in which they live and the safety and affection Ivar supplies.
The piebald stallion trails his damp muzzle across her far shoulder, tracing the pattern of her two-toned coat as he is prone to doing. He could do it in his sleep, he imagines; he can see their shape as clearly as he had once seen Isobell's. Those are more faded now, darker, as though they have sunk beneath the sea to where the light cannot reach. Ivar is aware of this fading on some level, but there is no tangled knot of emotion tied to that acknowledgement - it is simply something that is.
He cannot know that Kylin dwells on the past, that she has so recently seen the father of the child who she had told him was just one night. Where she goes when she is not with him is of no concern to Ivar; she is safe here on their island. When the purple mare tell him she is different yet not, Ivar only returns her gaze with a smile and a gentle touch of his nose to hers. The words she uses are philosophical, and the kelpie is not.
The mention of the flowers seems to cheer her, and there is a spark of his happy Kylin in her eyes when she corrects him.
“If I recall correctly, they attacked me.” Ivar replies, his voice purposefully droll. “No flower should have that much pollen. It's unnatural.”
He is unable to keep the facade for long, and quickly grins as he presses a soft kiss to the mare's pale cheek. She seems flustered, glancing away as she says she likes the flowers, and Ivar's pleasure grows. When she looks up at him from beneath her thick lashes, Ivar hums quietly, as if in thought.
“Hmm. I suppose I could tolerate them,” He finally says, shrugging his shoulders as though resigned to living in concert with the hibiscus. “There are other pretty things to occupy myself with, at least.” Kylin has never been as overtly flirtatious as the grey and white stallion, but they have always been physically affectionate. She lets Ivar hold her without a thought, and he has never been anything less than gentle with her. Teasing sometimes, like when he'd pressed his teeth against her throat, but he is curious how far he could push her before she reacts.
She looks so meek and fragile, looking up at him, and it is early enough in the year that Ivar feels safe giving into the urge to
(take her. mine mine mine.)
at least for a while. Here in the shallows there is no danger, even with the way her warm hide tastes of the sea. Ivar presses a kiss to her neck, to the place he'd rip open beneath the water and watch her turn the world around them red. There is no urge to do that here in the sunshine, but he can almost taste the coppery blood beneath her skin as his caresses grow firmer and slide up the column of her neck, until there is just as much teeth to them as lip when he reaches her throat and feels her pulse against his tongue.
I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
With his damp muzzle trailing her coat – her lavender and white hide occasionally twitching under his touch – Kylin finds herself relaxing. He grounds her, and pulls her back to the present time with just his presence alone. Her loneliness is driven away, and the longer his touch lingers, the more her thoughts of the past are pushed to the back of her mind. She leans into Ivar’s touch, her attention focussed on his muzzle against her skin, with high anticipation where he would move next.
“They attacked me.” Those words, together with droll voice and the expression on his face, is enough to make her laugh. Just a soft, chiming giggle as peek up at him. “You are the one who plunged your nose into the heart and inhaled deeply” she muses back softly, the remainder of her laugh still audible in her voice. “Don’t you think the poor things would say you are the one who attacked them?”If they would be able to speak and feel.
With Ivar reaching out, the lavender and white woman offers him her cheek. Hazel eyes are first cast down, then closed. Only to glance up once the piebald speaks again, meeting his gaze with a small smile. Other pretty things? The question is not spoken out loud, but shown through body language either way. Her cheeks flush, and unconsciously she presses herself more into his side.
She wants to tease him, and ask if he really could, then advise him to not repeat his mistake of many years ago. The thought alone enough to make her smile, but Ivar has other plans for them. Instinctively her breath stocks in her throat, and het muscles tense ever so slightly under his touch, but she does not pull away. Instead the muscles of her stomach clench, and her stomach tingles as anticipation rises.
“I-Ivar?” her voice nothing more than a whisper, her ears flicking back and forth as her tail is lifted slightly from her buttocks, allowing the dry strands to sway in the breeze. Her hooves are frozen to the sandy sea bottom, but Kylin cannot help it but to tilt her head slightly back, giving his lips – and teeth – more space to work with. Soft sounds escape past her lips, created in the back of her throat.
Shifting her weight she leans her now sleek form against his scaled side, fins protesting momentarily before settling. She fits again, with no round barrel as an obstacle between them.
Ivar's reference to the flowers make her laugh, and Ivar smiles into the warmth of her neck. That had been his goal, after all, and the stallion is satisfied when the inexplicable sadness seems to leave her eyes. It is replaced by shyness at his compliment, and he responds to that with a wordless affirmation, trailing his cheek down her side.
She leans against him, warm even in the summer heat, and Ivar does not have to watch the way her eyes flutter closed to read her reaction. She is still beneath his caresses, and her quiet noises are wordless encouragement. For a moment he considers pulling her down, tightening his grip around the rapid pulse of her throat and dragging her out to sea. She'd sigh just as contentedly below the waves, he knows, watching her blood tint the water as he pressed wordless commands into her, enhancing her obedience and pleasure.
The reminder that he cannot comes with a soft growl, but it is buried in the steady crash of the waves on the beach nearby and the way his toothsome kisses make their way down the slope of Kylin's lavender back. She is so soft and willing, offering up her throat and raising her tail as though Ivar is no danger at all.
The water slips around his legs as he pulls away, rounding the piebald mare and pressing his chest against her hindquarters just as she turns his name into a question. As though he does not understand (Ivar has always enjoyed playing with his food), the kelpie pulls awy, his shoulder sliding against her rump then ribs as he draws even with Kylin.
“Yes Kylin?” He asks innocently, his brown eyes amused. “Did you have more to say in defense of those terrible flowers?”
I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
She trusts him. Probably more than she should. He had promised to not do whatever he had done to her at the beach ever again. It had scared her, but the memory is not one she carries with her. Instead, Kylin prefers to remember how they had watched the baby turtles hatch from their eggs and witnessed them struggling their way down the beach towards the sea, who had welcomed them with open arms.
Even back then, she had liked their close proximity. Up to today Kylin still does. She likes – no loves – how it makes her feel. Ivar’s attention and presence always making her feel guarded, and yet the former kelpie king carries with him an aura and attitude that screams potential danger. Before, the lavender and white woman had never really noticed it, only seeing her piebald childhood friend, but there is no way in denying the thrill of it now. It is so different from how Klaudius, or Svedka, makes her feel. Desired.
When he moves away, her eyes stay closed, though she cannot stop her head from rising. Her neck bends, and ears turn in his direction. Her breath is hold back, afraid to miss whatever Ivar was about to do. Wordlessly she leans back, pressing her buttocks against him, and she does not stop this while he moves to stand at her side again. Her hip presses against his, just like the way her shoulder leans into him.
Don’t stop. Her pale lips part to speak those words exactly. She is ready to plead for it, to beg him even, if not for Ivar breaking the spell. Her hazel eyes find his and she’s instantly laughing softly. Her hindleg raises, to be slightly bumped against his form. “That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” she tells softly him with a grin, the twinkle in her hazel eye hidden by tossing her head and then looking at the horizon of the late afternoon. “But if you are determined to bring up the subject again, I would happily rule in their favour.” Perhaps, next time, she should ask him to bring her a flower.
Then her smile softens, and the twinkle disappears from her gentle eyes, as she sways her head to look at Ivar again. Tentatively her muzzle finds the corner of his lips, pressing against his skin before deeply breathing in his scent. “I.. I’m glad that you’re back..”
The breeze that brought them the scent of the flowers is gone as quickly as it had come, the short-lived sea breezes shift as quickly as the little silver fish beneath the water. Ivar feels them against his legs, their curious mouths tapping against his impenetrable scales before they dart away, those little pilot fish without fear.
Kylin is as fearless, pressing back against him in a delightful invitation. He almost accepts, but the opportunity to tease her about the flowers had been too much. The kelpie does not worry he might miss his opportunity; Kylin belongs to him, after all. He has the opportunity anytime he might want it.
That's not what she had in mind, she tells him, and Ivar returns her smile with a grin. He knows exactly what she had in mind, that grin says, and the scaled stallion makes no effort to argue her decision. The flowers, as terrible they had been, are trivial. He is about to tell her as much when she slips away again, the brightness fading from her hazels eyes.
The emotion is inexplicable, and the constant flux infuriating. Why must she constantly fret and worry and darken a perfectly good afternoon?
Perhaps teasing her had not been the best tactic. If he lets up for even a moment she returns to their status quo, with Ivar the instigator and Kylin nothing more than the reaction. I'm glad you're back, she tells him, and Ivar responds with a brush of his muzzle against her forehead and a playful: “Of course you are.”
He does not linger, having already decided to pursue a different course of action. This one might be more interesting, the kelpie knows. Kylin leans against him, and he reaches back to nip at her opposite flank, a startlingly sharp movement after his gentle caresses. Ivar means to startle her forward, so that she heads for deeper water and so that his neck nip (only slightly gentler) lands nearer the base of her tail.
“What exactly did you have in mind, then?” Asks the kelpie. He steps forward, and while the water only splashes against his belly with the taller waves, the call of the deeper sea rises more quickly than he'd anticipated. Though he quirks a brow curiously and keeps a half-smile on his scaled face, there is a deeper hunger than lust in his gold-flecked eyes as he presses his chest against her hindquarters and the deeper water.
I know my lies could not make you believe in my dark times, baby this is all I could be . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Both her ears flick forward as their gazes hold one another. She’s grinning right back at him, head tilted to the side ever so slightly. The longer she looks at him though, the harder it becomes to hold his gaze. Eventually she has to glance away, hiding it by playfully bumping her nose against his neck, as to non-verbally say to not tease her.
The action is repeated when he teases her again, whereas Kylin had been serious. Her lips part, nipping at this scaled hide, but never with the attention to really let her teeth sink into him. They only scrape lightly across his scaled throat. “Of course I am..” she mutters right back, with a shake of her head that sends her mane flying as she pulls back to look at him. Although her words are serious, it is impossible for the lavender and white woman to not let his playful spoken words affect her.
A high-pitched throaty sound escapes past her lips as his nip lands on her hip. Her hindquarters are raised ever so slightly, in a very small buck, as her ears flick backwards as she sends him an almost offended look. A look that reads; you-could-have-just-asked-too. Nevertheless, it sends her forward into deeper water, only to have Ivar’s lips target her behind a second time. This time her wet tail makes contact with his shoulder, the sound of the wet strands cutting through the air harsher than the actual impact.
Her hazel eyes narrow ever so slightly as she glances back across her shoulder to look at the piebald kelpie. It is the curl of her lips that give her away, but it does not stop her from shrugging her shoulders. “Hmm, what did I have on my mind? Wouldn’t you like to know?” she offers in return, gaze on the horizon again as her slim but strong legs force the water to part for her while wading deeper. Soon the water flows across her back, and her finds unfold from her sides to push her body forward. Automatically her legs start moving too, her hooves no longer connecting with the sandy bottom.
Another quick glance across her shoulder, reading catch me if you can, and then she launces herself forward. Kylin does not believe in the illusion that she might beat him in the water – that race had been held years ago – but it does not stop her from trying with an advantage.
