01-12-2020, 03:32 PM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take Ivar is not a good husband, but he is a predictable one. Ivar hadn’t given Isobell a say in the matter, but the kelpie knows that she could have chosen far worse when it came to a spouse. The piebald mare is precious and treasured and valuable to him. Her wants and needs are always taken care of (so long as they do not contradict whatever Ivar might want at the moment). Isobell’s children are his favorite children, her rocky cave the one to which he always returned to at dawn no matter how far he had strayed the night before. Ivar has given her everything that she could have ever wanted, and she still had the audacity to think she could leave him without a word. The nights that Isobell refused Ivar a place in their cave were always the most dangerous nights – at least for the other women of their little island. The kelpie was always less cautious in his frustration, and eager to take out his irritation on anything he could find. He’d killed Jhene on such a night, shredding her golden body into pieces too small even for her immortality to save her. Breckin had died on another, and Mallek, and a few others whose names he had never learned. Since Isobell’s depature from Ischia, there have been far fewer children born from his mares. It is not that he’s forsaken them – the very opposite. When he is satiated, it is enough to watch his offspring grow in their mothers. When he is hungry, they are just something extra to drown. Ivar does not handle denial well. He’s too impatient, too impulsive. He would have killed Oceane this morning if she’d not smelled of Isobell. A chance encounter (Ivar’s sapphire brow quirks upward at Oceane’s use of the word ‘convince’, and he glances at Castile with a somewhat knowing twist curling his mouth) had saved her, and now Castile’s presence further impedes his plans. Even Isobell’s arrival cannot permanently delay the inevitable, but all thoughts of the opalescent mare disappear the moment he lays eyes on his wife. Ivar cannot look away, though he scowl does deepen as Isobell makes no effort to greet him first, instead gliding up to embrace both her brother and Oceane before making her way to him. He smiles at her, but it does not meet his eyes. You’re going to regret this, his metallic gaze says, even as he presses a kiss to her cheek. It is barely more than polite, but he’d seen the way her nostrils flared when she’d seen him, the way she’d fought against their bond. She’s his still, and he will remind her of that bond the moment they are alone. Ivar considers simply commanding her to feel regret with his magic, but that wouldn’t really teach her the lesson he wants her to relearn. “Not as much as you missed me,” he tells her instead, his voice pitched low for her ears, though likely still audible to the others. [You did miss me] he adds through the places where Isobell’s scaled side brushes against his haired one. It’s only ever been the opposite before, some small part of him realizes – his scales against her silky hair. There are a few more things said without words, secrets between a man and his wife, reminders of their nights together and their many nights apart. When he pulls away, his vision is blurred for a moment, and the kelpie shakes his dreadlocked mane while he waits for it to clear. Almost all the seawater has dried out of it, though a few cool drops splash down along his sun-warmed sides. “There’s not many things that could make me leave the ocean, let alone come back to these ugly mountains,” Ivar replies to Castile’s assessment of his visiting as nice. “Your sister forgot to tell me she was visiting you,” the kelpie continues, “and I was starting to get worried that she’d forgotten the way back home.” So I’m here to remind her, is left unsaid, though only because Ivar knows that Castile will understand. Isobell belongs to him in every way that matters, and she is Ivar’s to do with as he will regardless of her familial connection to Castile. “Has anything happened since I left you here with…” There’s the very briefest pause, a struggle to come up with the name of a child he’s not thought of in ages, “Lepis? She’s what: 3 or 4 now?” Ivar’s awareness of passing time is clearly much altered; more than a dozen years have passed since he settled on Ischia where there were no years, only days with more or less rain. “The place pretty much looks the same.” Ivar’s bright eyes flick out across the hills that rise into red mountains around them, breathing in the almost-forgotten tang of fresh and salt water all at once. that if you talk enough sense then you'll lose your mind |
@[Oceane]
@[Castile]
@[Isobell]