i was born to make the world shatter and shake at my fingertips
Ipomoea.
She hears Ramses’ voice murmur the name in the back of her mind as she reaches the outskirts of Delumine’s looming citadel. Ipomoea, his voice repeats again and again. The name was never relevant to her- he was never relevant to her. In truth, the flower-spirited boy was just another king worth little to a khan... until, of course, his brother revealed him to be more than that. And then suddenly, Dawn Court’s sovereign began to cross her mind quite regularly.
A Davke left for dead now leading a nation of forest-dwellers: how fascinating.
Naturally, it was only a matter of time before Avdotya caved to her curiosity and traveled west. She shed her typical bearskin shawl back in Solterra, left under the careful watch of Feliks (who wasn't necessarily pleased about his instructions to stay put) and instead the mare walks bearing her ceremonious garb of red, gold and bone. She is a symbol of Solis and, to many passing eyes, simply a priestess of the sun; she glides under the radar and enters the citadel without hassle, even smiles softly at the offer of directions to a particular room. "The library, where may I find it?" Yet his response falls upon deaf ears.
The viper seeks only the king, not books and tattered parchment, but for a moment she pauses to trace the details of the sun room she find herself in. It is all so different, the way fingers of ivy reach in through the windows and sprawl overtop glass ceilings. Sand does not collect in the corners from being blown in by vicious winds and rather than a thousand shades of brown, there are brilliant shades of colour everywhere she turns. It's foreign, so entirely different from the life she knows... this is no home of hers, but it somehow appealed to a once-desert child. She wonders if he misses the dunes like her own heart does as she stands in a warm ray of sunshine; however, that is not why has come.
Though her thirsting mind is keen to know more about the Davke reject, she is more interested in stirring what may only be a whirling cloud of dust into something a bit more potent. Whispers a of quiet tension between two kings have been circulating in the darkest nooks of Novus, enough to have found their way to Avdotya's ever-listening ears...
...and who was she to ignore opportunity when it knocked upon her wicked door.
pomoea watches from a window as the Davke woman arrives, the red and gold of her garb setting her apart from the other visitors. The citadel, as always, was open; and she breezes through the open gates like a summer wind, the ends of her scarves flowing, every bead and bone clattering, each step heralding her presence. In a sea of bodies she alone shines, she alone demands attention - stalking through the courtyard like a lioness in the midst of her prey.
Even from a distance, he knows what she is, if not who - he sees them still in his dreams, the desert people. He knows the smell of the desert still clinging to her skin, and the bones hanging like tassels from her shawl. It all comes rushing back to him now, feeling once again like a child abandoned in the desert.
A part of him is thankful that he does not recognize her beyond her heritage, that her’s is not one of the faces he begged to come back for him.
But the rest of him is struggling to grow roots through deep sand, and thinks only that the rattling of her arrival reminds him of skeleton branches.
So he waits to rise until she disappears in the halls of the castle, struggling to keep down the questions rising steadily in him. Another Davke out of the desert; there was a warning bell ringing in his mind, a seed of worry knitting itself in his gut. The tribe was not known for their sightseeing or wanderlust, least of all to Delumine. A boy he passes in the hallway tells him where to look for the woman, and Ipomoea changes direction accordingly. It was only natural she find herself in the sunroom, he supposed - but still he wonders if it’s enough for her. The sun in Delumine was never as warm as the sun in Solterra.
He finds her standing there in the center of the room, looking at odds against the trailing leaves and planes of glass that made up the solarium. His eyes passed over the room in the same pattern her’s make, and he does not have to ask what she’s thinking. He sees it too. Delumine was nothing like her home. This room was nothing like the rooms she knew. It was almost a greenhouse, what with all the draped vines and flowers overfilling each planter, and Ipomoea picks up a watering can as he steps into the room.
"Suddenly I feel underdressed," he says conversationally, slipping into a smile. He moves further into the room, wrapping his wings tightly about his legs to hide the nervous way they flutter. A nearby plant reaches for him, and he leans gratefully towards it, tipping the spout into its pot.
i was born to make the world shatter and shake at my fingertips
An ear, idle and half-hearted in its gentle motion, pivots towards Ipomoea’s approaching footfalls that grow louder and louder; closer and closer. She listens to each step and slowly curls her neck around her shoulder to the tune of the chirring bone of her garb, catching his eye just perfectly when he enters the room. ”Don’t fret,” she coos back to him, ”the outfit is the perhaps only lavish thing about me.” Avdotya smiles then, and she turns to face him while he tends to the plants that so eagerly seek his attention. Odd, really, to watch leaves and vines follow a man like lost little ducklings.
She tries her best not to mind them (but truly, it is somewhat creepy).
”Avdotya. Sans the ‘Lady’, it does not suit me.” She pauses after, leaving the silence to hang heavily in the air while she ponders his question. What does he owe the pleasure- a Davke come to finish what the desert should have done long ago? No, not today. Surely Solis spared this man for some purpose - she is keen to find it. ”I simply come out of curiosity, Ipomoea, for I have heard tales of a Deluminian King borne of the sands- or, perhaps more specifically, the Davke.” Her head tilts with child-like interest, yet somehow still lacks that youthful innocence.
And it is not long before the viper slips over to him, brushing away those reaching vines with sharp swipe of her tail. ”Do let me know if Ramses has fed me lies.” She is very precise in her use of Ramses’ name- it has meaning to him, she knows this, and the tone of her voice seems to carry the touch of a threat for that reason. Tell me a story, Ipomoea.
erhaps in another life — one in which he had stayed in Solterra, in which he might even still be a Davke — perhaps there was an Ipomoea who knew who the sun-gilded woman was, and the significance of her garb.
Perhaps if he had grown up with a mother, or a father, or a brother who cared more for him than for tradition, a family to teach him about the heritage he knows nothing about. It is now, standing within the same room as she, that he realizes how little he knows of her — of their — people. Only that their roots grew as deep as any of the trees in Viride, and thrice as feral.
In some ways, believing his family was dead (as he had for so many years), was better than knowing he came from a pit of vipers.
“Pleasure to meet you,” he says still, and wonders how the words can taste like so much sand in his mouth.
He watches her from overtop the crown of a creeping fig as she introduces herself (as if it could protect him, as if it could lessen the shiver her name sends down his spine.) Ipomoea supposes he should be grateful that his brother’s name is Ramses, and that he does not have a sister (that he knows of) named Avdotya. He supposes that should bring him some peace, and yet—
And yet as she cuts through the silence with her words, he wishes she would keep her voice down.
How many servants might pause to hear the word Davke thrown about so casually? It was one thing to find the king walking beside his bone-clad brother in the gardens, and another to find him privately greeting a — he was not yet sure what she was. A priest? A holy woman? A queen? He is not sure the Davke had any of those things. He is not sure if they have titles such as king-killer or bear-slayer, or if being called a “Regent” ever meant anything to her.
He sets the water can aside as she comes near, and with a single sweep of her tail sends leaves scattering away like lambs before a slaughter. “Do you know Ramses well?” he answers her with a question, letting his eyes flicker to her’s like an antelope watching a lion prowl around it. Nothing about the space between them is soft, or gentle, or innocent. Ipomoea looks at the scars on her skin and thinks that in another life, he might have worn them just the same as she.
“I may have only known my brother for a short while, however he does not strike me as a liar. But, I suppose you know more of this tale than I would. I was only a child when it began, after all.”
Do you remember me?
The words are there on his tongue, begging — but he does not ask it. Not yet. But oh, he can feel the bitterness of them already sinking in like teeth to a bone, like a wolf that knows too much about hunger to ever feel sated. Like an orphan that grew up on stale, stolen bread while somewhere in the desert, a boy with the same blood-red eyes laughed and danced around a fire.
He takes a step away from her. “I’m afraid my tale is not quite so exciting as the ones you’ve heard. Gossipers do love to exaggerate the details.”
