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    COTY

    Assailant -- Year 226

    QOTY

    "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


    ivar;
    #1
    The scarlet sunrise finds him nestled in a bed of pines, his legs neatly tucked beneath him and his head resting on the cool ground. Light blinks through the tree branches and dapples across Castile, dancing across his resting body until the spotlight finds his eyes. The brightness stirs him, his eyelids no longer playing an endless black scene. A deep sigh escapes him as he moves, shifting uncomfortably only to take pause and groan.
     
    Lines of blood trace down him, dried and cracking with every hesitant movement. His muscles scream and his bones creak from exhaustion. Pain flashes white across his vision. It drains his energy, immobilizing him for a few long moments. As the sun continues to ascend its daily throne, Castile franticly wracks his mind and searches for causes and reasons. The fight had been exhausting, but he has since been active. It would make no sense; there had also been no spilling of his own blood.
     
    It ails him to turn his head, his neck whining with exertion as he scrutinizes himself with heightened curiosity. His heart thrums and his mind reels, but still no conclusion finds him.
     
    With a sigh of resignation, Castile eventually struggles to his feet and shakily determines where he is.
     
    Rock beds are speckled across the low-rising hills of Loess and behind him lies the thickening tree webs of Sylva. How he came here, he isn’t entirely sure, but he ventures forward with painful steps until the heat of his own body soothes the ache.
     
    Somehow, despite his personal struggles, his memories seem to trace back to Isobell and the changes that adorned her. It’s her life’s endeavors that draws him from solitude to find Ivar. A gruff call emanates from his chest cavity – his own voice clawing painfully at his throat – for the King. While in wait – still moving and refusing to stop – Castile searches the open landscape and eludes the minor obstacles dotting the area. His muscles ripple with every forced step and his wings desperately clutch to his sides, fighting the urge to drag across the ground with fatigue. In the eyes of his friend – of his King – he needs to appear strong always. His forelock cascades down his face, an obsidian curtain hiding his eyes as Ivar arrives.
     
    Deep down, he wants to smile, but even his mouth stings as he tries to speak in a leveled voice. ”Hello, my friend.” It’s all he has known Ivar to be, not royalty but as childhood playmates. Straightening himself, he slides immediately into his concerns with minimal prelude. ”Have you seen Isobell lately?” Castile peers up through the unruly threads of his forelock, trying to search Ivar’s expression. ”I was with her at the River. She has experienced some changes to say the least,” he pauses to shift his body’s weight, ”and oddly enough, she sort of looks and smells like you…”


    #2

    I V A R
    i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
    Ivar yawns, his brown eyes squinting against the brightness of the sun as it edges over the eastern sea. It glitters there at the horizon, a reminder of what he does not have. His wakeful movement seems to have roused the mare beside him as well, for she stretches her neck and blinks up at him with sleepy adoration. Her expression stirs a hunger in him that Ivar satisfies immediately, finishing with a pleased grunt and sending Jhene on her way with a playful nip to the rump.

    There are other things to do this bright fall morning.

    The kelpie is heading off to do them when he falls still, his ears twisting to pinpoint the source of the sound. It had been Castile – but from where? He does not call out again and the wind seems to be against him, so Ivar climbs to the peak of the nearest hill.

    There – coming from the south – is a familiar winged figure. The scarlet blood is impossible to see from this distance, but the wind is finally able to reach him here in the open.

    Blood.

    Castile is still moving, albeit slowly, and as Ivar makes his way toward the other stallion, he mulls over what might be facing him when he finds Castile. Had the stallion been battling? Who? And why?

    The questions fall away as they draw close enough to speak; Ivar does not even notice that Castile is not smiling. His attention is on the dried blood, and the way that Castile seems to be totally unaware of it. The dragon born prince has always been stoic, but it is solidified even more as he addresses Ivar as though nothing is amiss at all.

    Despite his concern, Ivar follows his friend’s lead. If Castile wants to discuss something other than his injuries, so be it. Of course, the scaled creature had not expected the ‘something other’ to be Isobell. Despite everything that has happened, the piebald king has always managed to avoid having the Isobell conversation with Castile. There is much that Ivar could say, of course, but he’s not at all certain how Castile will react. Discomfort flits across the stallion’s face, but there is nothing more.

    Perhaps it is best to start with a direct answer to Castile’s question.

    “I’ve not seen her since the start of spring,” he replies honestly. It’s been nearly six months, and Ivar has not laid eyes on Isobell. “I left her in Nerine, after she made it clear she wasn’t interested.” That is a bit of an exaggeration; neither of them was willing to accept what the other offered. Ivar doesn’t ever like to cast himself in a bad light, of course.

    “I think I made her a kelpie,” he finally adds, and as he says it something that looks just a very little bit like guilt flickers across his pale face. “But that’s all we have in common anymore.”

    Ivar has managed to skirt over the best-friend’s-sister bit of the complication, but the kelpie has always gotten the impression that Nayl might have raised her son to be as respectful of the autonomy of women as she had her daughter. There wasn’t any requirement that Ivar ask Castile’s permission to pursue his sister, though the piebald stallion does know that his friend might have appreciated a warning. Still, if Isobell had told Castile everything at the River, Ivar doubts that his friend would be as calm as he is.

    “But speaking off oddities…what happened to you?”


    king of loess
    minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus





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