Like a flower waiting to bloom - Ivar

[Ivar]

I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take “I’ve not been to Sylva in ages,” he admits, acutely aware of her warm presence at his side. They stand together against the cold of the spring night, and he chatters aloud to keep his mind from wandering. “Not since last spring.” He had bid farewell to his mother on a day not so different from this one, a whole year ago. It seems strange that the time has passed so quickly; it’s easy to forget that they are no longer carefree children when he is with Kylin. “I’ve been living in Loess for a while now, since the Taiga fell.” He doesn’t speak of that time often or in detail, and this is no exception. “I bet I’ve got siblings in Sylva by now,” he adds with a wry laugh. His parents had never been the most affectionate type, but it had always been clear there was something between them. Ivar never had a name for it, but it had resulted in him, so he expects that he might have a younger brother or sister living in the autumn woods. Perhaps it’s time that he visits. Pressed against Kylin, the water does not seem so cold. There are plentiful springs in Loess: some fresh, some salt, but none the perfect brackish blend. They are shallow too, all the springs that he has found. None were even deep enough to submerge himself in. He’s not been in this much water in almost six months, and he’d forgotten how wonderful it felt. Tentatively, Ivar lowers his head to the water. He ducks his head under only a second letter, tossing up his neck in an arc and sending a line of water down the legnth of his back. The sensation causes him to shiver uncontrollably, but he’s laughing as he does, and he bumps against Kylin’s purple and white shoulder affectionately. He had called her a friend, and he means to continue to do so. It doesn’t matter that the moon overhead, the press of the water, and the soft chatter of her heartbeat against the crash of the waves. (It’d be easier to hear it underwater,) Ivar muses, and the thought seems a logical one. She wouldn’t like that though. (Make her like it.) But he’d just promised to never use his hyponotism against her. He can’t break that promise so soon, he decides, steeling himself against those wayward and inappropriate thoughts. They are friends, after all. The torrent of thoughts tasks only an instant, the space between one blink and the next. “Kharon, right? Do you know where he went? Is he with the rest of your family, do you think?” kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis