god make me pay like the devil i am; any

[Ivar]

i'll use you as a makeshift gauge
of how much to give and how much to take

There is nothing on the riverbank, nothing that he can see with his narrowed brown eyes.

There is something in the river though, something that he can see.

It rises, reminiscent of a water moccasin that Ivar had once startled from its bed of reedsand rushes. Yet it keeps rising, still smooth, still sinuous. Its only water, yet must be something more, and to Ivar – who loves the water – it is something that must be seen from a closer distance.

The smooth stones of the river are unsteady footing, especially with his gaze locked on the tendril of water. It seems to reach for something, and Ivar can see the invisible female the moment the water begins to explore her. It turns a head that must be attached to the empty space of a muzzle, and Ivar can see the protruding fangs that had avoided him before.

And then the water is gone, and Ivar appears to be alone again. He looks back and forth, from the water to the floating fangs, and at last something happens. The water horse – Ivar knows it must be the same one from before, and the same thing that had reached out of the river – begins to rise.

Ivar does’nt have the shield of invisibility over his own features, and the entranced curiosity is quite plain on his pale face. He too, draws parallels between the water horse and his father, but it only emboldens him. The water horse tells them to join, but the invisible girl balks. Ivar pauses with one pale foot lifted above the water, turning back to look at the empty space where her face might be.

“Why?” He asks her, and while the first word is merely curious, there’s a dare in the rest of it: “Are you afraid?”

IVAR