sad birds still sing
If summer was already hot, he should have known Solterra would be hotter still.
Sweat coats his flanks as he walks, dust rising beneath his hooves and sticking to his sides. There is no breeze, no clouds, no relief; only the sun, as proud and bright as ever, staring down at him like one great, unblinking eye. It feels like a god in its own right, presiding over the desert, judging him for thinking he could walk among the dunes. He shifts uneasily beneath the weight of its stare.
It feels like it’s laughing at him; like all the Solterrans eyeing him in the streets are silently laughing at him as he withers like a dying flower beneath the heat. He envies them, with their robes of cotton and their ease beneath the heat. Ipomoea tries to not let it feel like he doesn’t belong, tries to walk like the whispers that follow him do not bother him. But his mouth is dry, and his heart is beating far too fast for his lungs to comfortably keep up with, and he can hardly remember why he came, why he always returns when he spends so much time telling himself he never wishes to see a desert dune again.
The market feels too stifling, feels too achingly familiar and strange at the same time. The vendors shout the same things they had when he was a boy, but their voices are different now, everything feels like a memory laid overtop a scene he’s never played in before.
Without thinking he ducks down a side street, taking turn after turn and walking until the streets become wider and the bustle of the square fades into the distance. Ipomoea wanders until orchards replace the buildings on either side of him, and he finds himself wandering a path lined with date trees.
He wonders if the shadow circling far overhead of him belongs to a vulture or an eagle. He wonders if the bird knows he is not Solterran, not anymore. And he tries to pretend the thought doesn’t bother him.
Eventually he comes to a gate closed before him, the fence keeping him just away from the shade of the trees. A single line of sweat drips down, down, down from his brow as he stops. He knows he should turn around and return to the city. He knows the gate is barring him from private property.
And yet he stands there, and he stares at the dates ripening on their branches. And he starts to feel like an orphan again, staring at a bounty that would never be his.
@Pilate | "speaks" | notes: text
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