IPOMOEA
there's no place i'd rather be
T
hen you will never come adventuring with me.Oh his smile is a sad one, and also a hopeful one. He knows she should be right, he knows his hope is one built on little more than the wishes of a child. But still he clings to it all the same, desperately, lovingly; one day, he thinks. One day, the world will be free of risk if only for a day, if only for a moment. And then I will come adventuring with you.
But for now their only adventure is through the woods of his home, where new growth slowly takes over the blackened shells of the trees that stood before.
Even as they walk through ash, he imagines green: green leaves hanging low overhead, blocking out the sky. Green grass bedding the ground beneath their hooves, sweet and tempting. Green moss clinging to the bark of each tree, always pointing them northwards. Eventually as the move deeper into the forest, the forest truly does begin to turn green, as they reach areas untouched by the fires.
And in that place the birds still sing and the squirrels still argue noisily above them, and the flowers still strive towards the sun. Ipomoea picks a violet as they pass, tucking the purple blossom in amongst the rest of Florentine’s petals.
"It’s impossible to know for sure," he hums as he walks alongside her. "I imagine they’re all wonderful, in their own way… a woman I knew as a child used to tell me, that flowers were the earth’s way of laughing." He had dreamed of flowers even as a child, flowers that had no names, flowers that came in colors not yet discovered. They had always been beautiful, the ones he'd seen in his dreams.
Ipomoea could not imagine an ugly flower.
And so they went on, his imagination running as wild as the forest that surrounded them, dreaming of flowers and brighter days.
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