Ichor
it came from somewhere in the stars
Beneath the river, he is brighter than on land. His scales take on a better shimmer here, the pale abalone-like ones almost glow. The darker blacker ones remind her of shiny black stones unearthed by a multitude of hooves that had no idea what kind of treasures their feet churned up in gallops and sliding stops across the dirt in some places. She had seen such stones before, as a foal with far more normal eyesight than she has now but she keeps her focus on him, compound eyes awash with his watery shape in between the shadows and the places where the light is able to pierce the river’s gloom.
Down here, time passes differently than on land. She has nothing to count the passage of hours (or heartbeats) by and Ichor doesn’t care to. Her fascination is paramount to all else, and him of course, since he is there too. Not just there, but encouraging and looking at her. If his constant stare is meant to cause discomfort, than she cannot feel it - she grins at him, somehow goofy even underwater for all that it almost makes her just a tad bit more graceful from the flutter of her gills to the way the river-light moves on the wings pressed tight to her sides. Bits of them still fan out and mimic fins unbeknownst to her.
She is looking at something under the river when she feels the current of him buffett her as he moves closer. Ichor cranes her head to look at him, curious. His muzzle finds the joint of wing and shoulder and rests there for the length of a heartbeat. She is surprised by how infinitely gentle his touch had been, though she cannot say she had expected anything other than that from him since he showed her no harm the entire time they’ve been together. He might have given her a few odd looks, no more odder than the ones she gave him, but she felt no threat from him. Not even down here, in a world that he was clearly more at home in than she could ever be.
Somehow, they are deeper than she first realized. Panic does not seize her and she thinks it should even as she turns to follow him with her compound eyes. Except he is sinking fast and his feet touch the bottom, stirring up small clouds of silt that do not seem to bother her. He starts to walk a few steps along the bottom and Ichor’s mouth almost drops open until she remembers that she’ll swallow water and nix the function of her gills in doing so. A few bubbles escape her mouth just to show her lapse in concentration for the moment as he raises his head and gestures upstream. She doesn’t know if he’s been there or not, is not aware he knows downstream like the back of his hoof, but she trusts him or else she’d not be down here like this, breathing underwater and seeing a whole new world.
Except now there comes the problem of movement. She has managed to keep herself submerged but buoyant and now she has to conquer that. Ichor reaches the only conclusion that she can - she might not be able to walk underwater but she’ll damned if she can’t swim! Besides, she has four legs in the front and two in the back to aid her in this strange quest to follow him. Somehow, Ichor manages to pull her six legs into some form of synchronized swimming and manages to draw even with his flank, well her nose is anyway. She is nothing if not determined!