When they come they come to him as ghosts, appearing from the mist and the fog in a way that makes him think it’s his imagination playing tricks on him. But when his shoulder brushes theirs’, and he feels their breath on his skin, and the cool fall morning begins to warm in their presence, he knows that he is real, and they are real, and he is not only. He wants to breathe a sigh of relief, but instead he lifts his head towards the rising sun and allows himself one, small, smile.

He steps forward to meet each of them and his smile turns something brighter, something wilder, something that says I see you. Do you see me? It has been so long since he’s walked among the Dawn, so many of their faces are unfamiliar to him and he knows even without asking that there are those who would not raise their voices for him today. To them he is new, and he is foreign, and perhaps he is even a traitor for leaving them.

But what they don’t know is that Ipomoea would do all that and more for them.

A part of him still wants to be feral, still wants to run through a forest filled with magic and crashing waves and flowers brighter than the moon. Once, if he hadn’t come to Dawn, if he hadn’t become an emissary and then a regent and now a sovereign, maybe if things had been different he might have realized that all he wanted to do was run, and then he might never have stopped. It’s tempting still to just go back to the darkness of the forest or the brightness of the desert, to let either of them swallow him whole like he never existed outside of it in the first place. But instead he stands here, and he thinks to himself that this is where he should be not because he was born to it -

- but because he chose it.

He chooses them, even the ones who don’t choose him. And what they don’t know is they have a king who has gone and looked at death and still tries to bring back life. That adrenaline running still in his veins is all for them now.

He walks to @Andras first, a face he would not have recognized a short while ago. He is the first to come forward, and Ipomoea can feel the way the dark pegasus’ heart is crowing in his voice as he comes forward. The memory of their meeting in the library is still fresh and green in his mind when he stops and bends his head near. “I need that. I need you to do anything for us, as our Warden.” He holds Andras’ gaze long enough to see the way the fog reflects off of his glasses like smoke, like flames are dancing in his very eyes. And then he continues on.

Mateo is next, and this time Ipomoea’s smile softens as he draws near. Another dark pegasus, but he doubts he could find two better opposites. He pauses before him, and the more @Mateo speaks the more he can feel his own heart rising in his chest. “I couldn’t agree more,” he says, and comes forward to help Mateo rise back to his feet. “That’s why I need you here, Mateo. As our new Champion of Community, if you’ll have it.” He has no doubt as he looks into Mateo’s bright green eyes, green like the forest, green like sunlight shining through the leaves.

The next face is one he doesn’t know, but he studies the unicorn carefully, committing him to memory. Ipomoea has missed far too many newcomers, too many stories, too many memories - he knows he can’t make up for them all, as much as he knows that he will not miss more. “You are welcome here, @Atlaas. We are honored to have you and your skills here, if an Artisan you want to be, then an Artisan you are.” He lingers long enough to smile again, small and soft against the sharp planes of his face.

The chestnut is next, and although Ipomoea doesn’t know him there’s something about his eyes and the way he lingers, quiet and knowing, that makes Ipomoea feel as though he belongs. He watches @Seir from the corner of his eye as he moves amongst the others, so that he is ever present there at the back of his mind. And the longer he watches him, the more sure he becomes - both about what he is, and who he could be. So he steps up to him, and for a moment both are silent. And then, with a voice that feels more like breathing than like speaking, he says, “I need a Regent. If you are who I think you are, then you could be it.” He takes one step closer, so that the light from the other man’s lantern washes over his face. And then he smiles that half-soft, half-feral smile once more, and lingers just long enough to hear his response before moving on. But he already knows what it will be.

His friend, his brother in all but blood, comes forward next, and it lifts a weight from the appaloosa’s chest. He places his muzzle against @Somnus' shoulder gently, and lets his eyes slip shut for only a moment. “I think the position has already been your’s in a way, in all but name. Let’s make it official? Lift your head now as our Champion of Wisdom, Somnus.” @Messalina ’s handwriting is still emblazoned across his mind, her words echoing. She had left, the same as he - and he knows he could not blame her for it, without blaming himself the same - but nor can he help the way the reminder of her letter makes his heart beat heavy and slow. But to lift his friend into the position she left vacant, he thinks - he hopes - begins to make the hurt lessen. So he nuzzles Somnus’ shoulder one last time, and then continues on.

On to the unicorn that had stood with him in the woods. And when he sees her and turns towards her he forgets for a moment about the white dove and its thornless roses. @Thana would not have taken the time to carve each barbed spine from a rose’s stem, he does not think she would have picked the rose to begin with. Her words, the last words she had said to him, are still ringing through his mind that stormclouds and thunder. “You came back,” he says, when he stops before her, and while part of him wants to ask why (why now, why did she change her mind-) the other part doesn’t care. Because she’s only here, and that is the part that matters. “You would make for an exceptional Champion of Battle. I think there may be no one better suited to it than you.” The position has been empty for longer than he can remember - but the way she looks at him, the way she lifts her head until her horn looks like a spear stabbing the belly of the fog, it makes the feral part of him want to run again. And that, he thinks, is more of what Delumine needs.

And then there’s the girl from Veneror. She looks the same now in the light of this morning as she did then, and @Emersyn's familiar face makes him feel more like he belongs again. “There’s plenty of work to go around,” he says, and his eyes are laughing the way they did back on the mountains. It feels good to smile again, good to stand beside her and the magic and the sunlight. “You told me you wanted to help others, to move forward. I can’t promise you there will not be violence again, but I can promise you a home here. I would have you be our Emissary, if you want it - then, maybe, you can begin to understand more.” He had thought a lot since their first meeting, about wars and gods and sunrises. She had much to learn, had said as much herself. But he had once been the same, and far less experienced. Before he moves on to the next he smiles again, and in a softer voice he says, “come ask me another time, and I’ll tell you a story about a chicory plant much like this one.”

He passes through the crowd again as they begin to disperse, as the morning starts and they each go off on their own, six of them to begin a new life. When he comes back around to the plant growing in the courtyard, its flowers soft and blue in the sunlight, he finds himself standing beside @Eros again. “I hope you will continue to advise me when I need it,” he says when he turns to face him. “I think I’ll need plenty of it in the days to come.” The fog was beginning to disperse now, burned off by the warmth of the morning sun. And when Po turns to look at his friend, he thinks he’s never seen eyes that look more like sunlight than Eros’ do, and wonders if his daughter inherited them. “I can’t wait to meet her,” he says, and this time when he smiles he loses all the sharpness and the feral edge from before.

There is only sunlight, and flowers, and a new dawn rising.





who needs brevity

@‘dawn court’ Please welcome our new Regime and Counsel <3
Regent - @Seir
Emissary - @Emersyn
Warden - @Andras
Champion of Wisdom - @Somnus
Champion of Battle - @thana
Champion of Community - @mateo
Champion of Healing - tbd

and @Atlaas - I love him <3 his rank has been changed to artisan!