[open] could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Printable Version +- Beqanna (https://beqanna.com/forum) +-- Forum: OOC (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=24) +--- Forum: Archive (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=81) +---- Forum: Lands (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=98) +----- Forum: Tephra (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=85) +------ Forum: Ischia (https://beqanna.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=87) +------ Thread: [open] could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile (/showthread.php?tid=21801) |
could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Ivar - 11-20-2018 The dark haired kelpie stands knee-deep in the surf, watching the tide come in. The sky overhead is clear and blue, which is not typical for this time of year. Ivar is accustomed to the strong winds and grey clouds of springtime, but this year has been unusually full of good weather. Perhaps it is nature attempting to balance out the Plague, he thinks. He has not yet been stricken with illness, and so surmises that he must be either immune or uninfected. Neither seems better than the other, but at least he is not coughing up blood like some of the horses he has seen on the mainland. The kelpie is leaning toward immunity though; he has gotten rather near those hairless and pock-marked creatures beneath the waves. Ivar yawns widely, shaking away the allure of sleep with a toss of his head. Behind him, he knows is the large mass of Ischia. It is a far larger island than he is accustomed to, and the governing is rather dull. Time to pass it off to someone else, Ivar thinks, but to whom? A child? None of his are old enough, though the sapphire scaled king means to test Lothbrok soon. One of his consorts? Neither Jhene nor Carwyn seems capable. Karat had once been a strong contender but she'd left him (an offense that he will address in time), and Isobell is still so newly returned. All this thinking gives him an ache in his head. Ivar growls and plunges his head beneath the water, snapping at the little redeye goby that swim between his feet. They aren't a satisfactory distraction, so his golden eyes continue to rove the horizon until they detect some small bit of movement. RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - any - Castile - 11-20-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - any - Ivar - 11-20-2018 His clearest memory of Castile is the most recent: the pair of them engaged in battle. Ivar still bears the mark of it, a flame-shaped marking on his left elbow and a bit of his barrel, dark scales that have never returned to their pristine white despite the years that have passed in the interim. Their last meeting before that had been as boys, just before his turning of Isobell. The kelpie blinks, unable to miss the familiarity of his lover’s face in the strong resemblance to her brother. “Castile.” He says, nodding his head in greeting without making any effort to leave the warmth of the clear water in which he now stands belly-deep. The tide is continuing to rise; in a short while he’ll be beneath the water entirely if he doesn’t move. The piebald stallion appears to be in no hurry though, and shakes a bead of water from the golden tip of his sapphire ear. “First Isobell and the children, now you. If Raul and Santana come back tomorrow, I’ll know for certain that the past is playing a trick on me.” That’s not to mention his brother and the dark-eyed girls that he suspect might be sisters that he has seen at dawn a few days ago. There are other residents on this island, other families that – like Ivar’s – had managed a life unbothered by the brotherhood. It is those that he needs to find, those that fill his head with far too many thoughts for comfort. He snorts again, lowering and raising his head in quick successive movements, feeling the chattering pops of the sea foam against his now damp chin. “Did you ever find Sabra?” He asks mildly, suddenly recalling his Riverside run in with the pretty mare several springs ago. “She was looking for you, but that was…a while ago.” Despite the length of time that has passed since their last encounter, there is nothing in the kelpie’s mannerisms to suggest that he is anything but at ease with the sudden arrival of a dragon on his island. @[Castile] RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - any - Castile - 11-26-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Ivar - 12-02-2018 The kelpie's gaze turns swiftly from the sea back to Castile, drawn by the sudden change in the dragon's demeanor at the mention of Isobell. Ivar had been equally surprised by the arrival of his long absent mate, but his attachement to the piebald kelpie more is far less emotional than what he hears in Castile's voice. "She is." He replies casually, but his golden eyes are sharp and do not leave Castile's face again. "She brought our children with her too. Did you know you have nephews and a niece?" Ivar hadn't discussed where Isobell was during her time away - for all he knows she had been with the equally absent Castile a world away. 'You cannot escape us', Castile says, and the corner of Ivar's pale mouth turn up into a smile. He has never tried to, and with Isobell returned he doubts he ever will. She'd also brought Mist with her, but the girl was young enough that Ivar wonders if Castile would even know she was his sister. The two stallions had left Nerine before the girl's birth, after all, but perhaps Castile has been back to Nerine in the meantime. As the dragon edges closer to the water, Ivar returns the favor and moves a bit closer to the shore, making conversation between the two of them easier. He finds himself almost surprisingly at ease with the other stallion, an odd quirk of his kind that has categorized Castile as family and therefore not a threat. Castile has found Sabra, it seems, and Ivar tilts his head curiously at the mention of her murder. He'd rather liked her (and would have taken her if not for Castile's earlier claim). Perhaps his lack of concern at her death is telling enough (women die, it is simply something that Ivar has grown accustomed to) but he also appears unconcerned at the dark smile that crosses Castile's face at the mention of killing Sabra's murderer. 'Have you killed anyone?' Castile asks, and at last Ivar looks back out at the sea. His kind are cautious, careful. To reveal themselves is to invite danger, and a kelpie's sense of self-preservation is second to none. Has he killed anyone? Perhaps a better question is can he remember all of those he has killed, and the best answer to that is: probably not. Does Castile remember each blade of grass he's eaten? It is no different for the jewel-toned sea creature. "Your sister." Ivar finally says without emotion, tracing the edge of the horizon. A true answer, if not a complete one. "It didn't stick though." RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Castile - 12-03-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile @[Ivar] RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Ivar - 12-12-2018 The sharpness in Castile tone doesn’t alarm the kelpie; he has nothing to fear from the dragon and he does not begrudge him the affection of his sibling. While Ivar has never been as close to his own blood relatives (something confirmed with the arrival of Lochwood in Ischia) he recognizes that the dragon-born have tighter bonds than his own. Isobell is only dragon-born, after all; she is kelpie now. And his. He is looking out at the sea when Castile admits he does not know of his niece and nephews, and while the piebald’s tone is less than pleasant Ivar does not glance back. It is not the kelpie’s fault that Castile does not know them, and any guilt he might feel about denying him the knowledge is entirely absent. Isobell had kept the twins from him as well, after all. He barely knows the two children, but he knows enough to cherish them. Well, to cherish them as well as such a creature can. The mention that Sabra is healing – and not dead – does finally draw the kelpie’s gaze away from the moonlight horizon. So the winged mare is immortal then. It would explain her near-impossible recovery after her return from wherever it was that she had gone. Ivar had never asked – again, the apathy – but he had kept her sons safe as a good uncle does and had never probed further into the matter. That Castile plans to keep her secluded does cause one raised brow from the sapphire-scaled creature, more out of intrigue at their similarities than judgment for the dragon’s actions. There is a reason Ivar has claimed this land, after all. He means to keep his treasures all in one place. The expression on his face smoothes to stillness as he takes in Castile’s response to his confession. There is no flicker of guilt, at least not for the correct reasons. If he’d done it better, perhaps she might not have chosen to leave him. Her stubborn refusal to play the mild kelpie wife has been a source of constant frustration to the piebald stallion, and he wonders if that is not partially due to the iron strength of her blood. “Why do monsters do anything?” Ivar asks instead of answering the question, his golden eyes fixed on the mismatched gaze of his childhood friend. “Because they are monsters,” He adds, answering what might have seemed rhetorical. “I cannot change my nature anymore than you can.” @[Castile] RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Castile - 12-14-2018 and underneath the layers, I find myself asking what's left a hollowed out form, the skeleton of a ghost, the pitiful echo of what once was castile @[Ivar] RE: could i use you as a makeshift gauge - Castile - Ivar - 12-26-2018 The kelpie is not a creature given to confessions, so it is only natural that the only one to whom he has made one is the sort to have such a minimal reaction. Castile’s shrug settles a concern that Ivar hadn’t known he had (two can keep a secret if one of them is dead, after all), and the question the dragon asks brings a genuine laugh from the golden-eyed kelpie. “Why?” He asks with a crooked smile, “Do you intend to pursue Sabra’s killer into the realms of the dead?” There is no appeal in unnecessary slaughter; Ivar is a kelpie, after all, not some hellhound. Drowning a stallion is no more appealing to Ivar than drowning a child: there is no satisfaction in it, no satiation of his ravenous hunger. There are exceptions, of course, (like the copper taste of the blue-eyed stallion who had looked at Jhene for too long) but Castile is not one of them. He is family, after all – he was welcome to Jhene and any of the rest of them were he so inclined. It is unfortunate, Ivar thinks, that Castile is probably less inclined to share. He would not mind finding out exactly how immortal Sabra is. Castile capitulates that all is well so long as Isobell is happy, and Ivar only shrugs – the piebald woman is as happy as she wishes to be. Ivar has long since abandoned attempting to make her anything that she is not. It will frustrate him for eternity, he is sure, but some things are as ceaseless as the tides. “How do you know my plan wasn’t to lure you there so I could leave?” Ivar asks, his habit of refusing to give any solid answer as apparent as ever. This is Castile though, and so Ivar is willing to lose some of his charming glibness out of respect for his childhood friend, even if it means venturing closer to honesty than he has come in years. “I wasn’t ever happy in Loess. It is too far from the sea. Maybe I should have stayed in Nerine. But Isobell wanted to see the ocean, and so we went. She disappeared a year later, and I came back here, to that island.” He gestures to the largest of the western island, just visible over the rise of a leaning palm. “And when the Brotherhood abandoned the main island to flee from the Plague, I took my chances and claimed Ischia.” @[Castile] |