12-28-2017, 11:18 PM
 i'll use you as a makeshift gauge of how much to give and how much to take
The light is hazy around them. The thick clouds of late autumn make it impossible to tell what time of day it is, but Ivar doesn’t mind. Darkness does not matter to the water creatures; they are accustomed to dim surroundings. He’s only faintly aware that they’re leaving the water at all, so focused is he on the mare beside him. His dark mouth is tracing the pattern of her coat, mouthing gently as though he is not already intimately familiar with each scale and every wound. Maybe the scales will grow back differently, he thinks, the way that scars often do. Maybe they’ll be a reminder of this day, of this thing between them. He’d tried again, tried to tell her, but she hadn’t acknowledged him. There was no doubting that twitch though – Ivar knows the piebald mares, knows that she had heard him. But she’d wanted sex. Just sex. And he wants that too, of course, and so it is easy to forget the more complicated things. It’s easier to lose himself in the kelpie queen, to bury his face in her dark hair and give himself over to pleasure. There are languid times between the frenzied, times when he holds her tightly for a while afterward, content to taste the pulse of her throat beneath the sleek plane of her throat. She gives as good as she gets, of course, and Ivar trusts the silver-haired mare without hesitation. She is no longer than slight creature of their first encounter – virginal and fragile. She is stronger now, more mature, more beautiful. Even when she drop to the ground, Ivar is too in awe to think anything less of her. He follows her down to the sand, laying so that she can rest her head across him rather than the sand. He’s lying halfway in the surf when he finally drifts off to the sound of scuttling crabs and Isobell’s deep breathing. He wakes just as slowly, though ahead of him the grey horizon is now tinted with rubies and rose. The cloud cover has dissipated to reveal a glorious sunset, and Ivar cranes his neck to look back at Isobell. She is kneeling on the sand beside him. Ivar rolls over to his own knees, shaking of the sand as he rises to his feet. “Where should we go now?” He asks the ridge of her neck. He traces it with his dark mouth until he reaches the top of her head, kissing her poll gently before pulling away. It never occurs to him that she might intend to go somewhere without him. She had come back to him, like he’d told her that she could. This is the end of their time spent on land. They will raise the child that Ivar has planted in her belly – because of course he had, so perfectly had they coupled – and they will never look back at this shore again. minimal smoky grullo tobiano | equus kelpus |