05-22-2018, 02:44 PM
In the west, the last vestiges of orange light have faded, and the stars begin to emerge overhead. Ivar watches their reflections in the glittering surf, and he glances up at the slim crescent of moon. Two months, he thinks, two months have passed with no sign of Isobell and their children. She is dead then, dead or gone, and to Ivar there is not much of a difference. The kelpie knows that he should mourn their passing, and while he does feel a tightness in his chest at thier memory, he cannot summon anything more. He has never been much good at complex emotion, after all.
Want and need are easier to process than sorrow and regret. They are more comfortable too.
Kylin is the perfect example of this, with her downcast eyes and the harsh words she applies to herself. To Ivar, who has left countless bodies at bottom of the sea, being a fool and a mess seem trivial things. Regret is futile, and though he wants to press it from her mind, he instead brushes his muzzle across the crest of her neck.
Her heavy barrel presses close to him, a reminder, but the thing is still within Kylin, and so safe for now. Later, he decides, he will deal with it later. She asks why he didn't stay, and for a while he does not answer. There are many reasons, each as valid as the next, but he knows that she does not want to hear them. That will not make her feel any better. The second question she asks, that one he can answer more easily.
"Of course not." is the hesitationless reply. "You belong in Ischia." And she does, more even than she'd belonged in Hyaline. Ivar has never felt the same attachment to the land, but he feels it to the sea, and he suspects knowing that might bring another smile to Kylin's face.
"I shouldn't have left the sea. Not for Loess." He does not regret his time in the hilly kingdom - how could he, when the need to kill had left him, when he had been surrounded by women more than willing to sate his hunger? - but he knows that the time might have been better spent elsewhere. In the sea with Isobell, though the damn woman had refused to leave her own kingdom, or perhaps here in Ischia.
He remembers asking Kylin once if she wanted children. She'd not thought about it, she'd replied, shortly before declining the offer to stay with him in Loess, to join his harem. Now, as he trails his cool muzzle across the side of the swollen barrel that is not pressed against him, he decides that perhaps he should have forced the issue. It would have been better, after all, to have Kylin with them in the sea. Isobell had been plagued with the need for monogamy, but with her gone, the concept seems foolish. Kylin would have swam with him, he thinks as he lips at the translucent fins at her side. The kelpie is careful of them, as careful as he is to not press too hard against the swell of another stallion's child.
Ivar keeps forgetting as the stand in the moonlight, and each time he is reminded all the more forcefully. "Who is the father?" He asks mildly, tracing the pattern of her piebald hide with white lips. "Will I have to get rid of him?"
Want and need are easier to process than sorrow and regret. They are more comfortable too.
Kylin is the perfect example of this, with her downcast eyes and the harsh words she applies to herself. To Ivar, who has left countless bodies at bottom of the sea, being a fool and a mess seem trivial things. Regret is futile, and though he wants to press it from her mind, he instead brushes his muzzle across the crest of her neck.
Her heavy barrel presses close to him, a reminder, but the thing is still within Kylin, and so safe for now. Later, he decides, he will deal with it later. She asks why he didn't stay, and for a while he does not answer. There are many reasons, each as valid as the next, but he knows that she does not want to hear them. That will not make her feel any better. The second question she asks, that one he can answer more easily.
"Of course not." is the hesitationless reply. "You belong in Ischia." And she does, more even than she'd belonged in Hyaline. Ivar has never felt the same attachment to the land, but he feels it to the sea, and he suspects knowing that might bring another smile to Kylin's face.
"I shouldn't have left the sea. Not for Loess." He does not regret his time in the hilly kingdom - how could he, when the need to kill had left him, when he had been surrounded by women more than willing to sate his hunger? - but he knows that the time might have been better spent elsewhere. In the sea with Isobell, though the damn woman had refused to leave her own kingdom, or perhaps here in Ischia.
He remembers asking Kylin once if she wanted children. She'd not thought about it, she'd replied, shortly before declining the offer to stay with him in Loess, to join his harem. Now, as he trails his cool muzzle across the side of the swollen barrel that is not pressed against him, he decides that perhaps he should have forced the issue. It would have been better, after all, to have Kylin with them in the sea. Isobell had been plagued with the need for monogamy, but with her gone, the concept seems foolish. Kylin would have swam with him, he thinks as he lips at the translucent fins at her side. The kelpie is careful of them, as careful as he is to not press too hard against the swell of another stallion's child.
Ivar keeps forgetting as the stand in the moonlight, and each time he is reminded all the more forcefully. "Who is the father?" He asks mildly, tracing the pattern of her piebald hide with white lips. "Will I have to get rid of him?"