The time that they had spent in Thailand so far had been difficult for Ivarr. Normally, he could brush off any strange happenings within the circus, but the dolls and the nightmares and bruising and paranoia that accompanied them was difficult to ignore. Even harder than it had been to ignore the girl that had been murdered in his stables just a few weeks ago. What was even worse, though, was the heat. Kelpies did poorly in heat as it was, being creatures of cold, wild country. Heat and humidity made him feel sick, sluggish, and quick to anger. Other stable workers gave him a wide berth when they were in a hot location, so he found himself alone with the horses more often than not whenever he was in the stables. Sometimes he could smell the other workers, waiting for him to lumber out before they came in to do some cleaning.
He hadn't slept yet, not knowing that the nightmares had been taken care of sometime in the night. Ivarr had instead spent most of the day in horse form, standing listlessly in the river. The water temperature felt like it just might have been cooked to become as hot as the air was. In the afternoon, he took the horses one at a time down to the river for their daily swim and roll in the mud. He had taken River last and was standing in the barn aisle afterward with her, dressed in his robe which he had made no effort to tie tightly, sweat already beading on his skin. Ivarr leaned against her, idly running his fingers over her shoulder when someone came barging in, bumping into his back. Whirling around, he pressed his back against the mare, only seeming to grow taller in his protective stance.
Ivarr didn't say a word at first, slanted brown eyes staring at her, mouth drawn into a thin line. He took a deep breath, immediately sensing magic on her, though the smell was overpowering of horse and he couldn't be sure if that was because of where they were or not. At the moment, he couldn't be bothered to try to suss it out. He did recognize her after a moment. The new trick rider. She had him poking at computer keys for a long time last night. "You're short," he finally spoke, lifting a hand from River's side to brush sweat-dampened hair from his forehead. "Maybe you can come back when the sun sets to meet the horses. It's... it's just too hot right now."