"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 had been content in Nerine. The pied kelpie stallion had on the edge of her thoughts as she allowed her gaze to drift over the break of sea water but nothing more. Castile's concern and near disappointment always seemed to shove the painted stallion out. He had taken her purity, drowned her, created something strange in it's place. The seafoam queen had found herself so repulsive at times, she could not bear her reflection in the churning waters of her home.
Isobell awakes per usual on Nerine. The sky hung a grey overcast, reflecting it's soiled misery in her silver eyes. She frowns slightly but makes her way though the trails to meet with the land's members...except instead of veering left at the fork, she moves right. "Wait- Her finely made body seems to guide her despite her internal protest but then...then something simply -clicks-. Her mind blanks out except for the image of the kelpie king. "Ivar." His name burns her tongue but the pain felt good. Isobell moves willingly to the ocean as she can not seem to rid herself of the sand quickly enough, the dryness of her scales nearly suffocating her before she plunges into the ocean with such ferocity that the waves seem part at her whim.
She must find Ivar.
Isobell climbs the currents with expert ease that she did not know she possessed but she does become acutely aware of the throb in her head and the steady ache between her legs. Isobell moans softly as she becomes tender and the feel of water pressing all along her sides only seems to sate it briefly. Every time she must rest, the desire seems to consume her like a hungry fire. She must propel herself back into a frantic scurry for Leoss to find Ivar. He was all she needed. Food nor water could ease her pain. He was all she could think about.
Sopping wet with heaving sides, she pulls herself from the surf into Leoss. Her hair sticks to her throat and brow, her tail drags against her hocks and in the light colored sand, a shallow trail left in her wake. The silver eyed mare sweeps her gaze from one side of the beach to the other. "Ivar!" She nearly chokes on his name as she struggles to ingest enough air to keep her head from fogging up again. At least the ache in her head was easing but the carnal hunger for the kelpie was stronger as she emerges from the breaking waves. Ears are forward as she begins to walk like a starving creature, hungry for his body, not understanding what has come over her. All she knows is that he had better find her quickly or there would surely be hell to pay for keeping her waiting.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The shifting in seasons has not gone unnoticed in Loess, but the piebald stallion has had plenty to keep him occupied. The gathering of a harem has been his most excellent idea; Ivar has not had to leave Loess in months. All of his needs are met within the hilly kingdom, and since the turning of the leaves those needs have become disproportionately carnal.
The women are plentiful and willing, and for the first time in months Ivar is able to forget Isobell. She had been far too frequent a visitor to his thoughts, bidden or not. Now though, with the leaves tinted with gold and fire and plenty to distract him, Ivar is finally able to push her to the back of his mind.
The stallion is enjoying her absence entirely. He’s able to better focus on other things, like the giggling roan mare ahead him. He’s already had his way with her, and is now simply enjoying the physical satisfaction of chasing her through the hills. Perhaps he’ll take her again when he catches her, he thinks, or perhaps he’ll chase her all the way to the sea and truly satisfy his hunger.
He does not get a chance to make the choice. Instead, they are interrupted by someone appearing over the next hill. The weak autumn sunlight reflects off the moonstone of scales, and Ivar experiences the strangest sensation. It’s as though his physical heart has suddenly relocated to his belly, an uncomfortable and unfamiliar weight where it does not belong.
Ivar’s companion looks back at him in confusion when he draws up short, but he sends her away with one last possessive sweep of his muzzle across her ample hindquarters.
He turns back to Isobell more slowly than he wants to, his dark eyes taking in the seawater the still drips from her mane. She is lovelier than he remembered, but he does not let himself move from where he stands. She’s made it all this way from Nerine; she can make it the last few paces.
“Queen Isobell,” he greets her, a polite nod of his head that clashes with the hunger in his eyes. The kelpie is perfectly poised when he asks: “I assume you’re here on kingdom business?” His question is genuine; he refuses to allow himself think that she might be here for something else. Perhaps she’ll try to seduce him into allowing Loess to serve as a subkingdom of Nerine, he thinks; Ivar wouldn’t object to that sort of politics at all. Underhanded and ethically questionable have always been his favorite category of fun activity.
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She is not as poised as him. Isobell does not fight to remain the 'queen' in his eyes because she currently feels less like the well mannered matriarch of an sea land and more like the feral kelpie creature that currently flashes explicit poses of her and Ivar in her mind's eye. The carnal craving is more powerful and it drags at her soul but at least to have him in her sights was enough to ease the sickness in her gut.
"Ivar." She breathes his name again, no qualms to cover the little space left between them. Her silver eyes are wide and rolling like the stormy seas raging in her head. "Shut up." Her lack of formalities is a sweeping blow as closes the gap and presses her side to his. Isobell drapes her head over his withers in an act of possession what she had not currently displayed (or currently understand what is truly forcing her body). The painted mare lips at where his mane met the scales of his shoulders with lovely little -plucks- from her teeth (flat and not sharp like his thankfully). She did not pay any mind to the roan or the curious passing look. All Isobell knew was that as soon as she pressed her body against his, the sickness nearly dissipated. A small content sight flows from her lips despite the rising need to have him even closer and for now she would try to ignore it unless his terribly wonderful lips managed to fan the flame.
"I am here, Ivar, just let it all be." Her lips murmur the words against his neck after she had lifted her head from over his withers. Now, small presses of her lips against his scaled neck occupied her thoughts and will. Isobell does not even fathom if he had any objections to her hungry affections. "I need you" Her demand is as soft as a dawn sunrise, the words escaping in hot, shallow breathes as she can feel the kelpie inside taking hold of her body, mind and will.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
It would be easy, so easy, to sink into her embrace. The heat that builds between them would dwarf the boiling tephran volcanoes, Ivar is sure of it. Isobell fits against him perfectly, smooth curves to his rough edges. He presses the side of his face against her ribs, feeling the faint dampness of mingled sea and sweat against his scaled cheek. The kelpie allows her to lead, quiet and complacent as she presses fevered kiss along his neck.
The summer has been a dry one, and Ivar has not had time to swim.
The fine layer of dust in his scales grates against hers, causing an uncomfortable shiver down the length of his spine. Ivar takes a breath – long and slow – as Isobell whispers that she needs him. The words alone send a far more pleasurable shiver coursing through him, and he presses against her more insistently. One foreleg is half-lifted in the air, ready to run toward the sea. That is where they belong, he knows, where they should truly be. Ivar had asked it from her a half-year ago, but she had denied him.
Ivar has thought of that for months, and now here she is, throwing herself at him like his most idyllic fantasy.
She is perfection to the kelpie, but she is not the Isobell that Ivar knows.
“Has something changed?” He asks instead of hitching his foreleg over her withers. Ivar’s voice is low and restrained, a quiet rumble against her spine as he lifts his head to rest his throat there. “Are you forsaking Nerine for me and the sea?” Say yes, he wants to press into her, but he refrains. Run away with me, he doesn’t say, only me.
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She grows impatient with his questions, not one to play coy nor feel the need to entertain him for the sake of playful banter. He would know she was never one fake such stupidity like the little women that entertained him in her absence. She knows what she wants despite it being her own desire or one driven by feral savagery that she craved to invoke upon his stained skin. A low growl curls from between her lips but once again, the feeling of his body tight against her smaller one is enough to sate the sickness that threatened her with madness if he should try to elude her.
Isobell presses against him, a small nudge towards the waters as if she can almost read his mind. The sound of his heartbeat is enough to drive her mad with the fever of her need but she bites back at it though still attempting to guide the man to the ocean waters. She needed the water, she needed him. "Ivar...please." Her expression is a mixture of bated exasperation and irritation. Isobell does not understand what has taken control but she is willfully powerless against the kelpie nature of her beast.
The painted woman presses her face into the length of his knotted mane and inhales the scent of the ocean, the skin of other women, but she doesn't care for the fact that he was within her grasp was satisfying enough. The silver eyes close as she remains quiet for a few moments, slowly rubbing against his skin before pulling back and looking to meet his eyes. "Swim with me, please?" Isobell begs him in the softest and rather pleaading (to her at least) way, pewter eyes are big and round as she searches his, a silver flame has ignited deep in those eyes as she hungers for his flesh. Isobell nearly believes if he refuses her that the kelpie beast within her would shatter any resolve that she so desperately clung to. "Ivar, I know you would never be mine but let us just have this. Let us just have what we can." She admits the folly of a monogamous situation and recognizes with fierce acknowledgement of his harem. She does not give a fig about them. Let him have them but right now, in this moment on a jagged shore with salt breeze tangling their tails together, he is hers and she is his...if he would let them.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
Ivar has made no secret of his entertainment, of the myriad of ways (and whos) that he uses to pass the time. There is no reason he shouldn’t, after all – the threat of danger in Sylva had gone the way of the red eyed wraith; they live in a time of peace. Loess is a nothing kingdom, quiet and unobtrusive, of no threat or interest to powers great or small. In the old days, it might have been called a herd land were the geographical area not so vast. This does not bother Ivar; he lives a life of ease and satisfaction.
For most of the year, anyway.
Autumn has always been difficult for the kelpie.
It is only nature, of course, nature and base instinct. Nothing abnormal, nothing sinister, or indicative of aberrant psychopathy. The black and white creature is a kelpie more than he is a horse. He belongs in the water, deep beneath the surface where the light of the sun cannot reach. He longs for open spaces, for full moons and for plentiful prey. It’s only natural.
Here in Loess, where he has surrounded himself with willing prey, he is able to hunt for sport and not out of necessity. It keeps the mares safe – from the threat of the outside world and Ivar himself. That is all he needs, and he has reached a blissful sort of equilibrium even if the water situation is lacking in the most severe sort of way.
Ivar makes do.
He had been doing perfectly fine before Isobell had arrived this chill fall evening. The silver shores of Nerine and the silver eyes of its queen had been absent from his thoughts for all of a blissful autumn week, and she ruins that by suddenly appearing, in the flesh, for the first time in a half-year. That she has the audacity to even think of feeling exasperated or irritated is baffling. He is the one who has the right to those feelings, he is the one who has had his perfect day – his perfect life – interrupted by an old fling.
And yet, he lets himself by guided by her frantic actions, lets himself be shuffled closer to the sea. He doesn’t think of those ‘stupid little women’ that he leaves behind in Loess. He doesn’t think of much at all, and not until the sea swallows his pale legs does he really meet Isobell’s gaze.
“I did this to you,” he says, not in reply to anything that Isobell has spoken aloud, but in revelation of his own thoughts. Sometime, perhaps last fall when they’d joined beneath the ocean or when he’d floated beside her body in the blood red water, sometime: something had changed. He’d changed it. Isobell has not been the same since, and the coincidence of a full year’s passing does not pass by unnoticed. Castile had called him on it, but Ivar had truthfully denied recent contact with Isobell.
Now she is here, with eyes as brighter and more beautiful than the full moon overhead.
There is hunger in those eyes, a carnal need that is absent in Ivar’s mahogany gaze as he searches Isobell’s face. (He had spent himself on the roan not a half hour past and he is still not entirely sure that Isobell’s presence is not a dream; best to not rise too early to hope.) The salt spray leaves droplets of water that glisten in the moonlight, pale spots along her raven hide and dark against her snow white.
Despite his armor of dragon scales and weaponized jaw, the black and white stallion feels rather vulnerable as he listens to her plead.
“What if I want more than just this?” Too bad, he answers himself; Nerine is more important. Nerine, with its high cliffs and frozen winter sea; it is no more a home for a kelpie than Loess. Isobell will not let him live the life he needs, and he despises being kept more even than his father had. Two generations, locked in the cliffs. No, no he will not repeat Stillwater’s mistakes.
When he’d asked her last, she had not been like this. The thought is wayward – unexpected. It is true though, he muses. Whatever this is, whatever he has done…perhaps it was for a reason. She’d come up breathing from beneath the ocean once before. Perhaps it is time to make sure she can do it again, even with Ivar complete.
That is what it had been, of course, the horse was an adult but the kelpie needed more time to mature. Shooting blanks and scrabbling against an undeveloped tide; Ivar was a juvenile the last time he’d left Isobell. Mimicking, that’s all he’d been doing.
Stepping deeper into the surf, Ivar slides a longer muzzle down the curve of Isobell’s belly. The stallion catches the wind tossed strands of her tail between his sharp teeth, tugs them down as he lets his forelegs buckle beneath him. His upper body disappears beneath the black water, and a white finned tail follows it down. Below, the light is dimmer and the world clearer. Ivar twists back to nip at Isobell’s pale ankle, the deeper water and his tail allowing him far more freedom of movement than he’d had during their last swim.
He’d asked, he reasons with himself, he’s made it clear that he wants more. That he wants this swim to be more than a swim, that he wants it to mean something more. He isn’t quite sure what that something might be (doesn’t dare think it) but is sure of what will make Isobell more amenable to the idea.
Ivar’s playful bite at her ankle happens again on her opposite hind leg, but the contact doesn’t end with Ivar pulling away. Instead, he slides his muzzle up the mare’s leg, feeling the cool click of her scales against his. He stops abruptly, catching a few locks of hair in his gentle teeth that place a teasing nip on the dark of her inner thigh before he is gone again in the night dark water.
“A swim?” Repeats the pale faced stallion as he bobs up above the water, a little farther out to sea than a moment before. “That’s all you wanted?”
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She indeed ruins the fantasy of this symbiotic daydream. She is the ruin of what he hopes could equate to a sense of normalcy. She does not want normal. She does not want boring and plain equilibrium. She wants his anger, she wants the blood of his kiss, she wants to feel his fangs sink into the thick scars of her withers and to breath life into her saturated veins to bring her to his mercy and never release her from his harboring embrace.
Her heat is not shielded away but instead offered as she presses her body tightly against his with searching eyes and lifting lips that curl to a smile despite how he boldly claims her to be made in his image. Isobell only tightens the edges of her lips in a quiet reply, brushing it off with the shrug of her thin shoulders. She hungers for his flesh, to feel the throb of his love.
Isobell craves the grip of his arms over her shoulders as water fills her lungs.
"Ivar..." Her voice ripples the moonlight as she reaches her lips upward with soft words and even softer tongue that flicks at the edge of his dark ear. She hears the question he offers. Isobell does not believe he could want more than the lushness of Loess with it's plentiful women and vegetation...but then again why bother to ask? He is a charming creature with a sly tongue and glittering eyes. All the women want to be seen with someone pretty. It makes them smile, walk on air, nurture the confidence that has laid dormant in their breast till the right face comes along to draw it out of them. She draws a breath close to his skin, her lips nudge the scales of his neck with a slow deliberation as though she could truthfully answer his inquiry.
The touch of his mouth to her belly would lead to a promise that would potentially be offered in the coming spring. Silver eyes watch how his painted form edges into the surf. She is beginning to laugh just as she suddenly feels the weight of his body dragging her tail first under the rage of a white surf. She is disoriented for a few moments but the glint of moonlight through thick water manages to capture the flitting edge of Ivar's tail. The woman rights herself, twisting with a practiced ease that she had gained in Nerine and her time away from him.
But he is quicker, sharper.
The sharp clip of his teeth tease his intentions. Isobell twists with a grin, favoring his toying antics, but the sudden touch of his sensitive lips to the tender place of her thigh makes her gasp and her body tense. The playful smile is gone and her face is replaced with hard, hungry eyes. Isobell rolls to her back as the water has fully encased her. She floats in the dark oblivion with nothing reaching her. No sound, no light, not even Ivar in this moment. It is all shapeless.
Water works its way through her lungs as she draws it in and exhales with tiny bubbles glancing across the bridge of her nose. The woman stretches her body out with effortless movements, to spur herself after the kelpie stallion. She finds him easily, bobbing above the water, her own head emerging near his as her legs move rhythmically to keep her afloat. "If that is all that it is then that is up to you Ivar." Isobell replies with a tilt of her head. She dips her head to the water and tosses a small wave at him that would certainly end win a splash, a grin falling to her lips after she has gleefully anointed her kelpie in the blessed waters of her hungry desire.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
She seems unconcerned; at ease with with the part that Ivar must have played in her transformation. When she presses against him, there is an invitation in her pewter eyes that he had almost forgotten. She was so ready to be rid of him in Nerine, yet as they sink beneath the water he can find no reluctance in her playful eyes.
Ivar pulls back to watch her sink; the vision is a sight from his darkest dreams. This where it always ends with the others; they succumb to the pull of the deepest current and Ivar surfaces alone. It would have sated him for month - watching Isobell drown - but instead she rises with him, bobbing in the evening dark water with laughter in her silver gaze.
Instinct that makes him lunge for her, but it is an instinct that he hasn't felt before. He'd pressed it into Isobell, of course, that night that he'd pulled her below the water, but this is the first time he's felt it himself. The siren call of his own kind of his own mate - is impossible for him to resist.
Ivar would have lingered, toyed with the desire in the black mare until she caved with an acceptable answer but the kelpie does not have time for teasing. He has time for nothing but Isobell and the water and his own need, and as he lunges he closes his too long jaws around her perfect scaled throat and forces her beneath the water.
There is no gentleness in his grasp, and Isobell's blood melds with the seawater into an intoxicating elixer that slides more easily down his throat than even the water of coldest mountain spring in Hyaline. He releases her when they are beneath the waves, but it is only to kiss and bite nip in a frenzy at her neck and throat and shoulders, shallow wounds that turn the water maroon until all the he can see and taste and touch is Isobell.
Ivar floats besdie her now, his muzzle resting on the thick scar across her shoulders that he had given her a year past. There he is lingers for the first time, there he lips gently at the permanent reminder that she is his - even if she might deny it. With a flick of his tail, the kelpie moves trough the water, his ale mouth never leaving the piebald mare. He traces the line of her back, slides along smooth curve of her hindquarters to where the water tastes of both her blood and her need.
It's easier now to settle atop her, to wrap a leg on either side of her scaled body. With the others he is gentle, teasing and toying until he knows they are ready.
With Isobell, he doesn't bother.
He buries himself within her without warning, deep and hard and infinitely satisfying. He fits within her perfectly; Ivar is reminded of that with each thrust. There is no gentleness, but as they drift in the dark water, he knows that she does not need gentle. She alone can take him for what he is, and so he does not hesitate to give himself to her (n more ways, perhaps, than he had originally intended to do).
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
i'll wait for inside the bottom of the deep blue sea
She allows him to lead. The kelpie man with his throbbing ego and scouring eye never misses a mark. She falls into the still-warm waters of a late summer near him. The weightlessness is intoxicating, her two toned hair streaming in a flowing banner, her tail spread prettily for his eyes. She smiles at him as she posed as though a prima ballerina for his hungry eyes before shooting in a wicked grace to the surface.
She is smiling playfully despite the darkness that deepens her pewter eyes. She churns the water lazily as she feels the sting of her lust, her love, her inhibitor, bloom in her breast. He inches closer and she can feel the air catch in her throat as her scales tingle just out of his reach. She is vibrating and does not attempt to hide her desire for his flesh. The slic of pink tongue touches her top lip in a coy grin as she sucks in his scent. Salty, musky, more masculine than any other she had ever even met. Isobell must attempt to cull the purr that he strokes from her when he is so close she could fall into his saturation of pleasure.
Ivar nears closely enough but Isobell allows it. The clamp of his long teeth prickle her scales as she suddenly drags her beneath the waves. The painted mare moans softly, vibrating he grip surely. She is not delicate in his grasp now. She welcomes every tear, every nip. Isobell loves the way he clips and claims her flesh for his own to abuse. The precious scales seem to splinter in his mouth and with each tug coaxed a soft melodic groan from her lips, long lashes and lids falling over her silver eyes as she rhythmically begs for more by the way her flesh thrust into his mouth. She wants him to tame her yet she wants to be the one to destroy him.
The feel of his mouth against the thick scars of his mark cause her eyes to snap open. She watches from the edge of her vision beneath the dark waters. This was her lover's mark, his mark. Isobell does not balk but instead sighs when he nuzzles the hard place with his tender lips. her desire mingles with the water as she can not contain her want of the kelpie man. He has been the only one to satisfy her thus far (tough he is the only stallion she has only ever known). He is the only one to have ever touched between the soft place between her legs, to taste the damp need of her heat.
The breath she has is caught in her lungs and clutched when he moves atop her. Isobell watches with anticipation in her eyes, wanting him to hurry and find his place inside her body. She is desperate and feral in her actions as she presses the roundness of her hips against his in her need to feel him buried deep inside of her. The mare turns her head to look over her shoulder- "Please, Ivar..." She moans softly as she arches her back against the throb of his manhood, her tail moving to the side as she aches to feel him. It is when he finally forces himself deep into her warmth that she gasps. He is large and full and filling. Isobell moans loudly, the water in her lungs and his thrusting ,making her vibrate with every movement. Isobell groans his name softly as she has longed to feel his warmth against her body while encased in the cold waters of the sea.
I V A R i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
After enough time, the others fail him. It is something that he has come to expect, and it no longer stings the way it once did. He was young then, and wanted too much from so many.
Isobell, though, she’s never lied to him.
Frustrated him, certainly, disappointed and enraged him. But she is always unapologetically herself, and as he stretches nudges her chin so that she’ll meet his gaze, he admits to himself that that is why she is so much better than the others. His forelegs hold her tightly against his chest, and the claws of his rear fins grip her hips relentlessly despite the frenzy of their motion.
He gives to her exactly what she wanted, heeding the commands from her body. Thrust and rhythm and intensity just as she craves them. Ivar is also a little defiant, playful in his own way in spite of his instincts. Sometimes he doesn’t give exactly what she wants, he teases hers – holds that small bit of power over her. He makes her fight against him, to take it herself, only to suddenly provide what she needs again, his satisfaction hidden in a smile pressed to her shoulder.
Only when he feels her moan against him does he truly lose himself, pressing gentle kisses and possessive nips down the tender column of her throat until he stiffens and spill himself within her. There is nothing but silence around them, and Ivar holds her to him for moment longer before releasing her from his embrace. He sinks down into the darker water only to slip back up again, nudging her up to where the early morning sheds light on their hours of lovemaking.
“You are my favorite, you know,” he tells her as their heads breach, where the dawn tints the surface of the water with a soft pink light. Below, the saltwater is equally pink, the red of a dozen shallow wounds coloring the warm water. An expected twinge brings Ivar attention to his chest, where a few of his own scales are sore from the friction of their coupling. The kelpie touches them gingerly, but is soon distracted by the way the water laps at Isobell’s dark neck a few inches away.
His previous compliment was as true as any he could utter, and he presses his shoulder to hers to see if simple nearness to her might rouse him again.
It does.
Ivar lifts a foreleg, intending to draw her nearer, below him again.
king of loess minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus
