e can’t bring himself to leave - not yet, not like this - and so, he wanders.
The sand shifts like an ocean around him, and it’s warm and rough against his fetlocks. Perhaps it was foolish of him, for the desert is endless and he knows the only obvious water has been blocked off already. Ipomoea is not a desert horse, although he could have been, once; this desert is not his friend, and it will not treat him as such.
Yet there’s an instinct gnawing at him, and it draws him ever further into the desert. It’s easy to get lost and yet, he does not fear so. Wildflowers are blooming in his footprints as he treks through the sand, surprisingly sturdy despite the unwelcoming conditions. Grass springs to life around them, bringing life to a wasteland that would and should otherwise be barren.
It fills his chest with pride, when he looks back on the direction he’s come and sees their petals waving at him gently, their colors stark against the pale landscape.
He smiles to himself, although it’s a small and sad shadow of his usual joy. And then he turns and continues farther into the desert.
Ipomoea has not encountered many others since leaving the capitol, but still he turns each horse he finds in the direction of Delumine. Their ribs catch the sunlight and form deep shadows across their skin, and their glassy eyes stare at him wordlessly, hopelessly. But still he pauses and sends them away.
He is not sure if he should laugh or cry as he watches them go, for both seem appropriate to him. So instead he is quiet, and he lets his flowers bloom and form a trail back out of the desert, a trail for himself as much as others. He shakes off any feelings of love and softness as he continues farther and farther, until the sand becomes rolling dunes that threaten to swallow his flowers whole. Still he presses on, and on, and on, further into the place of his birth, until he’s stripped himself bare of his emotions and only the sun and the sand warm him.
And when he sees a figure in the distance, red and white and feral, he heads to him without trepidation.
His flowers curl in the sunlight, and they are the only soft things left of him.
@ramses | "speaks" | notes: at last!! I am so ready
Ramses moved quickly over the dunes, the ever shifting sands easily maneuvered by his well muscled frame. He was born and raised here, the sun upon his skin a welcome friend as his tongue darted over his soft lips. He tasted the air, the staleness of it usual as he waited and waited for someone, anyone. The stallion was a predator and he waited eagerly for his next victim and he couldn’t help but smile at the thought of it. It wasn’t so much the death that thrilled him, but it was the chase and the adrenaline; the blood splattered over the pale sand.
He’d stopped for a moment as the heat beat down upon him but it wasn’t long before a figure appeared on the horizon. The stranger’s painted coat was unusual here and the flowers that followed in his wake had Ramses confused. It was shock that appeared on his face as his memories surfaced, those that had been hidden deep within himself. The coyote’s chest hurt as something like emotion rose to the surface. It was him… the child he’d seen cast into the desert, the weak brother who’d he’d lost all those years ago….. But, he was different now, softer with an air of power about him, some kind of politician maybe?
Ramses inhaled, the hot air filled his lungs and crackled inside like fire. How? How had he survived? That tiny colt… there was no way he could have survived the ruthlessness of the desert. He had been so weak, so small….
The thoughts rattled around inside his skull as he slowly moved closer to the coming stranger, his blood boiled inside his veins. “How? How are you here?” Ramses asked, he voice filled with a savage confusion, it was almost accusatory. There was simply no way… did he even remember him? The man simply couldn’t understand what was happening.
A desert breeze clawed at his red skin, a reminder of where they were. Maybe it was a mirage, a hallucination. No… there was no way, he knew better. He’d grown up here, he was a creature of the sands, a viper hidden beneath the dunes. His face twisted as he stared at his brother, the softer male was so out of place here, a flower to be withered by the sun.
OOC: This is awful xD I am so rusty! I hope it's okay!
Tag: @Ipomoea
he desert clawed at his ankles as he walked, so that he had to hold his delicate wings neatly above the sand to keep them from dragging, to keep the desert from stripping away at delicate feathers in its savagery. It pressed in like a warm, thick sea, lapping hungrily at his fetlocks with every step he took. It was all his flowers could do to stay above the torrent.
And he couldn’t help but wonder, briefly, idly, if it had been this way when he was a foal. All he remembers from his youth was the sun, the way it beat down upon his skinny ribs; and his mouth, the way it dried up completely and made it painful to talk. He remembered that that was unusual, that desert foals were supposed to be more accustomed to the harsh elements, that the other boys and girls his age had thrived where he had nearly died -
Once he would have pushed away those thoughts. He would have smiled and reminded himself of the wildflowers and all their color, how the blossoms of a weed could be so prized. Ipomoea would have thrown his negativity out and locked the door behind it, and focused on things in the present. "Leave the shadows of the night where they lie, child," Grainne had told him while braiding his hair, "See the way the sun rises on the horizon, the way the sky brightens? The sun is faithful, always." He wonders what she would think of him now, with his hair unbraided and his mind turning once again to things he could not change.
But he couldn’t help it. As he looked across the desert he wondered if he had been here, in this very spot, once before; and he strove to recognize it. He wondered if the chestnut man he walked towards was someone he had known growing up, but the faces of his childhood slipped away like water. He wondered if anyone here might remember him, too, or if he had vanished from their minds the moment they’d tossed him into the desert to die.
He does not blame them for it - although his newly-found anger stirs at the turmoil of his thoughts - it was the way of Solterra.
But still, he wished…
Finally he shook his head, and wrestled the thoughts back, afraid of the truths he might have revealed to himself then. No, it was better to remind himself that he was from Delumine now, not Solterra; this place was not his home. Could never have been his home.
He moves closer to the stranger, and is just about to open his lips in greeting when -
"How? How are you here?"
He stops, one hoof lifted in the air still to take another step. He slowly lowers it back down into his hoofprint that was left on the sand, uncertainty unfurling like a flower within his chest.
"Hello," he says softly, and he dislikes the way his voice sounds thin and papery, like something dried out beneath the sun. He clears his throat, and tries again. "I came from the city," he says, and gestures behind him where the Day Court lies, hidden by the sand dunes.
He doesn’t say for how long he’s been walking, or how long it’s been since he left the city. But he takes a small step closer, eyeing the man’s own red gaze, the rib bone necklace around his throat - the skull of some animal tied to its pelt upon his back.
Are you a Davke? he wants to ask, but the words dry and crack on his tongue before he can speak them. He lifts his head higher - be brave - and looks the taller stallion in the eye instead.
"Are you hungry?" like a rabbit asking a wolf, and the sapling of a fig tree begins to raise itself from the earth, slender leaves sprouting beneath the hot, unblinking sun.
@ramses | "speaks" | notes: making all my replies out of order oops
Ramses had no words, the turmoil within him boiled just beneath his skin. His jaw tightened as he stared at the man who had once been familiar to him as a boy. It just didn’t make any sense, he simply couldn’t wrap his head around it.
The coyote tilted his head as his crimson eyes moved over the other stallion, curiosity replaced the shock on his face. He wasn’t surprised that this man wouldn’t have survived in the desert, he seemed soft and kind, two things you wouldn’t find here.
The sun was unrelenting as it beat down upon his thin hide and he observed the man silently. Honestly, there were simply no words for the other painted equine as he stared into the same red eyes he had. “Hello.”
That was all he had to say? All he could say? He had no questions? Did he not remember?
These thoughts all raced through his mind as his tongue remained twisted behind his lips. “I came from the city.”
Ramses nodded slightly as he glanced in the direction of the day court’s capitol, longing in his eyes. How he wished he could fit in there, to have women in his bed and a crown upon his head. “Are you hungry?”
What an odd question for a stranger in the desert. Did he not know anything about life here? Did he not know what the davke were capable of and the blood lust that stained their souls?
“No,” he replied gruffly. “What is your name?” the wildling asked, his voice softening as he continued to analyze this situation, the unlikeliness of it.
Did he know? Did he know that they shared the same blood? Did he know that he had an older brother?
These thoughts all raced through his mind as his eyes remained focused on the man he knew was his lost brother.
is heart is still dancing - so fast, so haphazard, missing beats it knows from years and years of recital. He thinks it might break, and then what? The desert would claim another, one more soul lost to Raum’s reign. But he doesn’t let it. The deserts had failed to take him once before; why then, should they be allowed to now?
Instead he lives, perhaps because of or, even more likely, in spite of the desert. Even now he causes life to flourish where the sun and the sand and the heat have strangled out everything but the hardiest of plants, and he does so with barely a thought. The fig tree claws its way out of the desert and stands, proudly, as its fruits swell and ripen and tough desert grass sprouts around its base. It’s one of dozens, raised up seemingly overnight.
Ipomoea does not know how long his magic will sustain them, but he knows that every bit of food he can bring to a court of the starving is worth every bit of death and exhaustion he’s seen.
He looks into the stallion’s eyes - a red so similar to his own, it’s a wonder how he doesn’t see the same roses and cherries in them as others have claimed to see in his. And he smiles as he plucks a fig from the small tree’s outstretched arms.
“I am Ipomoea,” he says, and the name sounds more like a commitment as it falls from his tongaue, spoken in full for the first time in months as he named himself.
Because to him, it was not simply an introduction; he had shied from his own name for months now while living in the Night Court, like a dog shaking loose its collar so that it might wander free and without guilt. In the midst of finding himself he had had to first deny that which he was, a name that tied him to what he perceived then as a source of shame. And now, having finally reconciled himself with his purpose, he was putting the pieces of himself back together and in the process, claiming each one as an inseparable part of himself.
It did not feel odd to him, that he might renew himself in a place he had once run in fear from. It simply felt right, like fate had finally bitten its own tail and completed the circle.
The fig is rich and honey-sweet when he bites into it, wetting his tongue for the first time all morning and that, too, feels proper.
“And your name is?” he prompts.
Maybe fate is laughing, but all he hears is the wind whistling through the desert’s dunes.
@ramses | "speaks" | notes: making all my replies out of order oops
Watching quietly the coyote witnesses the magic that responds so easily to its master’s command. From the parched earth, a petite fig tree emerges and reaches for the heavens. Crimson eyes widen as he admires the beauty before him before he directs his attention back to the other stallion.
“I am Ipomoea.”
Allowing the name to roll around in his skull, Ramses continued analyzing his little brother with that predatory tilt of his head. This boy before him (for that is how he recognized him) was a contradiction and something the wildling couldn’t quite understand. He was born here under the sweltering sun and yet he was delicate and literally filled with life. “And your name is?”
Ipomoea asked as he sunk his teeth into the plump fig, the juice running from his maw, dripping to the sand at his hooves. Ramses’s eyes drifted to that spot on the ground and he licked his lips, lost in thought for a moment.
“Ramses,” the sorrel man muttered as he lifted his eyes and peered at his brother once more. Narrowing his scarlet eyes for a moment, Ramses found himself smiling, a sly, devious smirk.
“But you should know me…… little brother,” the man said, his voice curling around him, a slithering snake of emotion and deception.
Would he remember now? Could he?
“The desert has called you for she is in your blood,” Ramses whispered, his tone laced with a muted severity.
For once in his harsh life, he felt that beast within his chest pause for a moment to ponder the creature before him.
he desert is drifting through his mind, bringing with it sand and sweat and memories. He had been too young to understand when they tossed him out into the desert, but that is the first thing he remembers: the sound of hooves galloping away from him, of desperation to get back to his mother. She was not there though when he called for her - she was gone like the rest of them, and although he tried to follow their hoofprints the wind is washing them away like it, too, is stripping away his life before it has even begun.
He can’t stop looking at the red-skinned man that wears the fur and bones of others, as if he’s trying to recognize him from those hazy memories that tell him he should.
But he does not recognize him.
He sees only faceless horses in his mind, horses that are black and white and grey and plain, horses that are ghosts and silhouettes instead of people. Horses he does not know, for time and youth have blurred them out almost entirely.
"I don’t have a brother." The words fall like judgement from his lips. He lets the fig fall from his grasp, tumbling head over heel to the ground where it rests, the sand sucking out its moisture until it is as dry as a fallen leaf. No brother, no father, no mother. There's a hollow space left where they should have been.
He turns then, and as wildflowers follow he walks away into the desert.
If Ramses calls to him, he does not hear it. His thoughts are too loud, drowning out all but the sound of his own hooves as they sink deep into the sand.
@ramses | "speaks" | notes: making all my replies out of order oops
