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  • Beqanna

    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


    burning cities and napalm skies; synapse
    #1
    The sunlight illuminates the water, casting the coral shelf on which Ivar rests into bright relief. The tricolored kelpie has been still for long enough to appease the aquatic residents on the reef, and fish as brightly colored as he is flit overhead and alongside him. They carry out their daily lives without thought: eat, rest, mate. It is not an existence so different from the kelpie's own, though the predatory animal is far less easily frightened than the glittering fish around him..

    He is reminded of this as he rolls to his side, scratching an itch on a bit of staghorn coral, and the reef is suddenly still but for the waving seagrass. None of the colorful little fish would be anything more than a mouthful for the seacreature, but they know danger when it swims alongside them. He barely notices their absense, but might have were he not distracted by the shifting of the water and the taste of something unfamiliar amid the salt.

    He rises with a few flicks of his finned tail, lifting his head above the water to better see exactly who it might be. The island of Ischia is quiet for the most part, populated by a handful of horses that Ivar knows well. This one is a stranger, coincidentally near enough that he has found her simply by chance.

    There is no one on the beach that he can see, but Ivar is cautious and unwilling to ignore suspicions. He'd let that grey horse take away the bone stallion, but that is only because he hadn't known the man, and hadn't cared for the presence of another stallion on his island. If this stranger intends to steal away with someone else, they will find a rather unwelcome surprise waiting for them in the sea.

    As he moves from water to land, the kelpie's figure shifts, from four claw-finned limbs to hooves and a tangled knot of a tail rather than a single fin. He remains otherwise the same: sapphire blue edged in gold and splashed with white, breathtakingly lovely even with the sharp teeth that are revealed as he tastes the air. There, he decides, his dark ears flicking toward the treeline.

    Someone is there.

    @[Synapse]
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    #2
    She knows he's there, standing with exposed teeth in the brilliance of the island's sun looking menacingly beautiful.  But his presence doesn't slow her down as she emerges from the treeline, doesn't cause her steps to falter or a drop of doubt to taint her mindset.  Instead, his presence in the path she treads merely earns him the flick of a sideways glance, her bright yellow eyes a stark contrast to the black that shades the rest of her body.  Pockmarked with lines of pink and grey scars and a mind frame shaped by the wear and brutalities of time, she is the product of an unforgiving past.  If looking closely, it's possible to see the beauty that might have known her many years ago, but now her body is just the worn husk of the creature she once was.

    If he doesn't take a step to the side, the brush of her sweat dampened side along his scales will be unavoidable.  It's not an attempt of intentional offense towards the guy, he's just standing in her way and she is unwilling to deviate from the course she had already set.  Purposeful strides carry her far enough into the shallows for the waves to rise against the underside of her barrel.  Syn stops far enough in to dip her muzzle into the briney waters, snorting an expulsion of air into the waves to cleanse herself of the dried blood that had accumulated there from her latest bouts.  The escape of bubbles cascading over her face soothe her senses and when contented inclines her head back upward.

    A shake of her head causes her tangled mane to fall over a single eye and turning back towards the shore that same eye narrows when the handsome stallion specimen is still there looking at her.  He doesn't seem too inclined to leave, and now that she's staring right back at him she might as well say something.  "What," she says eloquently, more of a statement than a question.  Her voice is thick with disuse, sounding grating against her own ears.  Today she hates the disruption of herself more than usual.

    @[Ivar]
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    #3
    She does not seem to care that he is there at all, and Ivar watches with curious golden eyes as the black mare passes him without a greeting, moving to stand in the waves as though he was no more interesting than a palm tree.

    Being ignored is not a frequent occurrence for the kelpie and if she had hoped it might dissuade him she is unfortunate enough to suffer the very opposite. While Ivar is undoubtedly vain, that is not his main motivation as he turns to watch the scarred mare. There is the smell of sickness about her, and the dried blood around her mouth that flakes off into his clear sea suggest the same. Ivar has long ago decided he must be immune to the Plague, probably due to the fact that he's no more horse than he is sea creature. He's wrong, of course, but who would correct him?

    "If you came to get away from the Plague, you're at the wrong island." He tells her. In the distance, the Island Resort is a green spot no larger than the size of his hoof, nearly two miles away. It is safe from infection, he knows, but it is also populated by strangers. "Unless you meant to come to Ischia?"

    The questions seem harmless, as does the way he lingers on the sand rather than pursue her into the water. He cannot change the charm of his tone or the hungry way his eyes flick across her figure, but nor is he as dangerous this afternoon as he might have been on any other. He's fed recently, after all, his belly full and the blood rinsed away much as she does.

    "I'm Ivar," He adds.

    @[Synapse]
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    #4
    "I came to get away from most of the people."  Or as many of them as she could.  The rise of the Plague had caused disruption across the mainland of Beqanna. As close to the likes of rattling an otherwise docile hive, the hornets were disturbed and swarming, even striking against those harmlessly living amongst the outskirts as she had been.  The disruption and chaos had stung her, forcing her away from her usual refuges now over occupied with more horses in one day than she'd care to see in a single year.  An island susceptible to the illness seemed like the most likely place to avoid the chaotic majority, the most likely place for her to find her own type of safe haven.  As far as the contagion itself went, it hardly phased her; she'd rather suffer a cold in near solitude than be exposed to insufferable interactions with others on her best given day.  "Most of them are annoying and I prefer to waste my energy on more productive things than eye rolling."

    Thus far, he'd been the only one who she'd crossed paths with, so her theory had been proven true well enough to her liking.  When he mentions Ischia, her wandering eyes refocus back on the ornamental stallion momentarily before flitting back towards the treeline from where she'd come.  "Is that what this place is called," she mutters lowly, scrutinizing the brightness of the sun and sway of palm trees as if noticing them for the first time.  She'd heard of Ischia before, or at least she thought she had.  Far be it for her to have actually cared before today though--it had never pertained to her before so why bother to learn kingdom names?

    His name hangs in the air as she climbs further inland to exit the tame waters.  With her black coat slickened like oil from the sea's influence, her hawkish eyes bore into his before breaking their hold in favor of appreciating the edges of his own body.  She is aged and wary, but she is still a woman and unfortunately, he was one of the ones she probably wouldn't mind looking at every now and then when she might be feeling dangerously social.  At that thought, her expression shifts into an unapologetic look of disgust at herself followed by a plaintive snort.  Maybe she was sicker than she would have liked to let herself believe.

    "Synapse," she adds after a lapsing moment.

    @[Ivar]
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    #5
    Ivar's only experience with changes caused by the Plague have been the disappearance of the handful of Krakens who had lived on the main island. Their absence has been rather delightful, and he has had no cause for complaint. He is bothered by the fleeing of his purple companions, but has found plenty to occupy himself in the meantime.

    She says shes come to get away from the rest of Beqanna, and while Ivar's preference for solitude is borne from vastly different reasons, he is somewhat empathetic. Well, as close to empathetic as a creature whose emotions have been all but washed away by the sea can be.

    Ischia itself seems to be an unknown to her, something that causes the scaled kelpie to eye her somewhat more curiously. He's been to each of the lands of Beqanna save those most recently brought out of the earth with the sickness (they seem untrustworthy, having arrived with the sickness). To not know them - even the names of them - feels somehow wrong in a way he cannot quite put words to.

    It is not enough to put him off though, that much is clear from the way he holds her gaze and grins at her reaction to herself. It's not an uncommon one, after all, and it puts him somewhat more at ease.

    "That was almost an eye roll," Ivar tells her, the amused tone of his voice matching the smile that still lingers on the edges of his mouth. "Perhaps you need something more productive to do to distract yourself."

    @[Synapse]
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