"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
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She is like him.
Oh gods of Beqanna what has he done to her?
The brilliant silver of her eyes are narrowed as she feels him touching her with an unexpected tenderness. Her jaw is gritted and she feels a sting where the new incisors prick the edges of her dark lips and there is a soft taste of copper on the edges of her tongue. Where he is a matte black and lustrous mother of pearl, she is a rainbow moonstone and glassy obsidian.
Isobell is angry.
She jerks from his touch, his mind penetrating her own, she glares at him openly. Liar, liar, pants on fire... The words ring just beyond his influence as she thinks to his demeanor, his soft words and gentle nudges. All along she had been
(prey)
but she had not (the word echoes in her head despite not being her own). She had been chosen but she does feel it despite wanting to not. She feels a pull to him under the grey of the winter's sky. "You're mine." It floats over her skin, lifting the scales and making her pulsate despite her quiet pleas of silence. She wants to tear his throat out and swallow the very heart that beats in his chest. "N-n--n" She tries but the word will not creep from her lips. She tries again but fails with a sigh. The mare begrudgingly takes his side, easing the ache that she had not noticed before (little does she realize now is that he will be the source of her pain in the upcoming months and to be near him was the only way to ease the dull ache).
She moves into the water (but it whispers like a soft lover) and the cold is gone. She feels a surge of pleasure and moans softly as it is overwhelming, her head falling back with closed eyes as the long dark hair tumbled down. "Okay." She consents without looking at him, waiting for direction as she could not do anything but just that.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The thrill of having overcome her hesitation is almost as heady as her presence itself.
Isobell has been taunting him since they met as adult at the beginning of the summer. She would come closer and then pull away, teasing both the man and the monster with her sultry glances and playful touches. Now, at last, he has won. He had known he would – Ivar always does – but the pleasure of it is more than he would have expected.
Ther is anger in the tense line of her neck, and a cold glare in her silver eyes when she meets his own.
He ignores this, because they do not matter.
She belongs to him.
She can hate him, want him bashed against the cliffs of Nerine, and still she will be his. The permanence of this revelation has him beside her again, pressing his shoulder to hers as she wades into the water. The moan she voices winds him all the tighter, and despite his recent exertion he feels the desire for her rise again. He sighs happily, his chin resting across her crest for a moment.
“Go,” he croons into her ear, “Farther out to sea.”
She will be lost there, he knows. She will have only Ivar to guide her, and the bond between them will only deepen. She will look to him for protection, safety, pleasure – as it should be. They will find a distant island, where she will lure in the unsuspecting native males. Stallions are larger prey than Ivar could hunt alone, but together they will be unbeatable. The image of Isobell drawing them down to their deaths elicits another primal growl from the piebald stallion, and he leaps into deeper water, knowing that she will follow.
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis minimal grullo tobiano king of loess
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
It was unmistakable that she is angry. A hot ball of seething rage boils just beneath her skin. He taunts her by the way he rests upon her poll but his nearness is soothing.
She is confused by all of this.
But when he urges her out to the water with the waves swallowing their bodies, fear clamps her chest from the rather vivid memory of her drowning not long ago. Isobell moves onward though as the scales ripple across her body, softer and smoother like gemstones scattered in a tidal pool. She cannot help but cast a look of worry, the anger only a ghost now, as she realizes that she cannot refuse the kelpie stallion and his request.
Painted legs move on as the water rises, old forced habits taking hold as she grips a lungful of air as the water surges over her head. She is scared and desperate as she holds her breath and leaning against the pied stallion to guide her. The dark hair streams like a pirate's banner, her legs loose an solid feel as she begins to swim, the whites of her eyes showing around the silver before she is forced to
(breath)
to inhale. She expects to drown -again- but instead it is easy and painless as her body thanks her for listening to her instincts. The water rushes and there are bubbles and she is still alive and whole and looking to Ivar with shock but a blossoming smile as the unbelievable is happening. The mare wants to speak but the current is strong and she struggles to maintain her buoyance and direction as the water threatens to tear her away. Isobell works to relax, legs slowing to tread as she finally gains come control.
A smile finally brightens her face as though it were the first to ever grace her lips.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Down here is where he feels at home. He had breathed fluid before he was born, and the air between then and this moment has always seemed temporary. This is where he belongs, with the press of the water against them and the current’s tug dragging at his dark hair.
The sun is rising in the sky overhead, putting light to the remnants of the Sylvan Festival.
It turns the water around them to dusky rose, and Isobell’s face grows brighter with each passing moment. Emerging from the pre-dawn darkness of the sea, she is the most perfect thing he has ever imagined. Her pewter eyes are darker here, but her smile is brighter. Ivar moves toward her, and his pale muzzle slides across the sleek expanse of scales. They reflect the light like an endless field of jewels, a night sky made incarnate.
Her warmth in the cold sea, her heartbeat against the waves: they are intoxicating. Though he’s already done so above the water, he reexamines each inch of her reformed physique. He nibbles playfully at the back of a fetlock, a mischievous light in his warm eyes.
“You understand now.” He says, a statement rather than a question. Of course she understands now. This is their now, the water. Ivar will share it with her, and in return she will belong to him. Her injured withers will heal, he knows; the saltwater is good at that. She’ll probably be marked though, a scar that will match his sharp canines and speak without words. His cheek is against her barrel, one dark ear pinned to her side. They were too late, he thinks, but the hope still lives.
The rest of them were barren for him, fertile soil when he needed an open sea.
Isobell though? She has potential. There is certainty to her, and that makes her priceless. More so than any of the others, she is worth protecting. Loess be damned; he’ll spend the rest of his life below the sea with Isobell.
“Have you ever seen a coral reef?” He asks her, “Or an underwater volcano?” Ivar knows the answer, knows that she has spent her young lifetime in grey Nerine. He presses a soft touch to the whirl of hair scales between her eyes “There’s so much I want to show you.”
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis minimal grullo tobiano king of loess
So I saw that you were gonna do a post-ivar incident thread with iso and castile, so I figured you might want to wrap this up? If not, feel free to reply, but this would work as an ending too I think?
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She knows she should be angry with him. She burns to hate him and his flesh and the way he touched her body. She wants to hate the way he moves, his smile, the way he tenderly tugs at a fetlock. She hates herself for the way she looks back as she jerks her legs away and she hates the way she smiles at him with something so deep and strong that it may very well crush them both...
"Ivar..." His name is between the thin white cap of waves. Her breathing has eased to a natural give and pull but the word his name collapses her tongue with its heft. She watches how he moves with the ease of no land creature. He is on one side then another and then pressed to the thinness of her barrel and listing to the -woosh woosh- of her breathing. They were indeed too late but Isobell is not ashamed. This...all of it...has happened in the glint of a winter's eve and the thrash of bodies and tempers. There would be time and the way she yearned for his touch despite it all...there would be a blossom of promise in her womb soon.
His mark upon her withers would prove that.
"No-", she replies, "Show me. I want to see and know everything." Her hungry is strong to understand this change. She is ravenous with curiosity but the mare cannot hide the sheepish smile that is brought to her lips the way he touches the white scaled place of her brow.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Hatred is not something that Ivar understands.
Protection is the closest thing he has, the absolute surety that he would obliterate anything that threatened him and his. The way she smiles at him, the way she bumps gently against him in the water, the way she breathes his name – these inspire something far different than hatred in the kelpie.
Moments ago, they had tangled together in lust, but the sweet smile she gives him inspires something less passionate – but no less powerful. He touches her cheek gently in response, feeling the smooth slide of scales against his muzzle. The lust is not gone entirely, it seems, but Ivar only nips playfully at her jaw. They have time for that, time for that and so much more.
The water grows brighter still around them, morning spreading through the sky overhead.
The pebbled riverbed becomes more visible below them, and the streaks of beaten sand where the ocean current has met the freshwater. Ivar’s back hooves stir the sand as he moves ahead, clouding the water, as he nods encouragement for her to follow. There is so very much for her to see, but first he will show her the very depths of the ocean, where the water is so deep that sunlight never touches floor.
Then the coral reefs around Ischia, and the boiling waters around Tephra. They sweep down the coast of the common lands, around the western point of the plains. The blood there as has seeped into the water, but it inspires no hunger in the scaled stallion. He has Isobell, and the urge to hunt is no stronger than the urge to couple with her. The water around them grows colder with winter, and though he belly remains sleek and slim, Ivar grows more certain every day that this is the life he has always meant to live.
The pied mare is everything he has wanted, and as he watches her resting in the sandy shallows in the pre-dawn light of a late winter morning, he knows that he will not return to Loess.
They had made their way to the northern beaches of Nerine as the winter dragged on, all but completing a full circle of the waters around Beqanna. Ivar has not set foot on dry land in weeks, and he has never been more content. He runs his muzzle along Isobell’s neck, smoothing out her dark mane only to watch it drift away in the current again.
“Wake up, beautiful.” He says, nudging her shoulder. “I think we made it all the way to Nerine.”
Perhaps they will visit family, he thinks. Perhaps they will find her parents, receive their blessing. They do not need it, of course, but Ivar knows that his mate is fond of her parents.
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis minimal grullo tobiano king of loess
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
Time seems to slow here as she watches the granules of sand float like dust did in the sunlight. Isobell has stopped hiding the awe inspired by this change. Silver eyes are watching it all, drinking it all in with a savage thirst. She had not understood before but she did now and the world would never be the same.
She loves the way the water bends the light from the surface and cannot help but to lift one pale hoof to the beam and watch how it dazzles the color of her scales. She wonders if Ivar is watching her and looks over her shoulder to see him not far off. There is a heat in her chest when she looks to the stallion, something that makes her never want to look away, something primal that makes her want to protect him.
They had seen so much since they had stepped into the water that fall evening. There had been the warm waters and frigid ones with ice. Coral reefs, underwater volcanos, vast darkness that threatened to swallow them up. Isobell is content with it all when by the stallion's side. It was odd to feel so complacent and calm.
The scars had long healed on her withers with the distinct mark of fangs. No scales seemed to where her skin had been damaged but the white of her withers was still beautiful and shining beneath. They have had weeks to talk, bond, intertwine beneath the waves.
The soft nudge lifts the dark lashes of her eyes -once, twice- before the silver depths are focused. She wonders briefly is she had dreamt it all but the way Ivar floated near her with very little effort, guarding her, reminds her that they are beneath the ocean's surface and are being warmer by the current. She gives him a sleepy smile before sprawling out in a full body stretch with a rather unladylike yawn. "Already?" Her voice is meant to mimic a whine but it comes out more sleepily as she notices the dark sands have replaced the pale ones from Ischia. Her limbs pull underneath her to gather water as she glides in the direction of the surface but she stops abruptly to pirouette in the water (she has gotten much better control of the water and her new body). "Are you coming, Ivar?" Where there had been a burning need to be near him, to touch him, to be cupped by his eyes, Isobell feels the small grip to see her parents and Castile. The young mare would need to explain the change and they would have to accept it for there was no going back. Small ears are lifted forward as she awaits his response, admiring the wat the water shimmered over the pearl and matte of his respective colors. There was a possessive pride in her breast that she did not realize was beginning to grow.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
“Only to the shore,” replies the scaled stallion, following Isobell up in the water, and then past her until his head breaks the surface of the water. There, a few hundred yards to the south, lie the grey sand beaches of northern Nerine. The kelpie has never been to this part of the kingdom, but he is sure that Isobell knows it well enough. She’ll find her family, say her goodbyes, and return to him and to the sea.
“I have some things to take care of in Loess,” he adds, reaching out across the rosy pre-dawn waves to brush his muzzle across Isobell’s shoulder. She is perfect, he knows, and he glides closer in the water, hooking a foreleg across her dark withers and pulling her closer to him. The motion is reminiscent of their all-but-constant couplings beneath the waves, futile attempts to procreate which have done nothing more than make the goal all the more precious. Next fall, Ivar thinks as he presses a salty kiss to the mare’s cheek, and they have all the year to practice.
“I’ll wait for you there, and then we can finally see just how far south the ocean goes.” Ivar disentangles himself, pulling away and smiling at the thought of perpetually warm waters. A tropical paradise awaits them, he suspects, one far from Beqanna. They will spend the rest of their days there, sated, happy, surrounded by a gaggle of children’s with Isobell’s bright smile. Ivar nips at her shoulder – a little harder than before – a final squeeze to remind her what she is, whose she is.
kelpie mimicry | dragon scales | tactile hypnosis minimal grullo tobiano king of loess
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
The ambitions he holds for them have yet to appear for the painted mare. She is all new to this life, this role, the feelings that dread below the surface of her docile features. She is surprised that he has declined her offer to go ashore.
There is reluctance and hesitation but Isobell pulls one hoof in front of the other to drag herself from the cling of the water. Droplets fall like diamonds from her hardened scales as she offers a single look back over her shoulder with smoldering silver eyes as if she second guessed him.
She had not.
Her skin already tingled where he had left his caress as she slips passed him to walk across the dark sands of her home. The sun was still rising during the chilly morning of a struggling winter's dawn. Spring would soon blossom flowers and foals alike and Isobell wonders what young may have already arrived. The salt on her skin and the sand on her hooves seem to stir something primal as she frees herself from the water's allure and does not look back.
