There was very little that Sloane held to such high value. So very little that Sloane actually cared enough about to get herself worked up into this sort of frenzy. Perhaps Somnus should be thrilled that she cared enough to angry that he had stepped down, that he had simply abandoned his post. But really, such a thought would be giving Somnus too much credit. Sloane didn’t necessarily care about him, per say, but she did care about how he took his role as leader. He was coward for stepping down, a coward for not completing the job he had set out to do.
It was strange to see Sloane so worked up, especially over a leadership role. Sloane honestly didn’t give two fucks who ruled Delumine, but only that the role was upheld. It was a sort of an insult for someone to take the role of leadership, rule like an invisible being, and then duck out when the going got rough. But then again, don’t ask Sloane to do it because she would be the shittest ruler there ever was. She would rule by the “take care of yourself or die” policy.
The dawn had just arrived, the sky blue and full of life with clouds and birds and wind. The temperatures were dropping and it made it very obvious that Sloane was fuming. As she ran through the forests of Delumine, her breath was hot and visible upon the wind. Hooves pounded the ground, hard enough to leave indentions as she moved. Head was tucked, neck arched, and Sloane appeared much like a soldier charging into battle. But Sloane never entered battle, she couldn’t be bothered with such activities.
By the time she made it into court, her lungs heaved for oxygen, her neck slick with sweat. Ipomoea should be impressed that Sloane allowed herself to get sweaty at all. Normally she liked to keep her fur looking its best. She quickly sought out the new sovereign, slipping past any who might stop her. "Ipomoea…" Her words were short, gruff, to the point. They were loud enough to get the stallions attention. "I better get to keep my fucking island." Somnus has allowed her to live on the secluded island and she had grown rather fond of the piece of land. It was practically her kingdom to rule and damnit if a set of balls would take it away from her.
The sky seemed like a thousand shades of blue overhead, transitioning from nearly black to the west to a pale, watery look to the east where the sun was still struggling to rise. Somewhere he could hear an owl still hooting and, louder, a blue jay beginning to trill over it. It was going to be a beautiful day, albeit cold, he decided as he walked into the courtyard.
And all the Court was yet quiet, the few who had risen so early despite the hour and the weather bustling along about their business. Most of them were scholars, and aged ones at that; they hardly paid him any attention, save for a brief nod in his general direction. Most had scrolls held up close to their noses, or a determined look on their face as they marched off towards the forest.
Ipomoea watched it all with a hint of amusement curling at his lips. Whenever he spoke to one of Delumine’s ancient scholars, he often left more confused than when he had started. Each of them had some unanswerable question they were hunting for, ones that rarely made sense to his own mind. But to them it was of the highest importance, and pursued it without ceasing.
And upon the day that they finally solved their riddle - if they ever did - it was never long before they selected something equally puzzling, equally confusing, and equally difficult to solve to pursue.
Their knowledge and wisdom was without rival, but often he found it easier to let them go about their routines without attempting to interrupt - or worse, change - anything about them.
But of course, the silence would not be held for long. A tall, dark figure came striding quickly through the Court, and even before she called his name he knew who she was.
“Sloane,” he greeted politely, turning to face the brusque mare. He smiled warmly, but she did not seem to notice nor care, and wasted no time in divulging her reasons for seeking him out.
“Your island?” one brow lifted in equal parts amusement and curiosity.
Movement behind her caught his attention then, and he looked past her to where a guard was stepping cautiously forward. But he simply nodded and waved the man off. Sloane might be… difficult, at times, but she had never shown intention to harm him. He turned his focus back to her.
“I have no intentions of removing you from your home Sloane, of that you can rest assured.”
Sloane was almost insulted when Ipomoea did not immediately know about what she was talking about. Had Somnus not mentioned to him that he had given her permission to live on the island and claim it as her own? What a terrible individual Somnus must have been to simply forget to tell his predecessor that he had given away one of small islands off the coast of Delumine to her. The island was rightfully hers and she would put up a fight if necessary to protect that small piece of land. It was her home, it was where she was able to breathe clean, fresh out without thinking about a single thing interrupting her. The only thing that would have made it remotely better was for those fucking squirrels to be put on a different island besides the one that was directly next door to her island.
However, before she could throw up a fuss about why he didn’t know the island belonged to her, there was movement as a guard stepped towards her, intent to protect the new king. Was the guard really afraid of her? Sloane might be bitchy and hard to reason with let alone talk to, but she was hardly mean enough to try and take a crown. She didn’t want the king’s job and was not so easily bought to kill him herself. Sloane tended to stay out of that sort of trouble. She was a loner by nature and rarely got involved in any sort of political drama.
Sloane glared at the guard as Ipomoea waved him off, thankful that at least her new king understood that she was relatively harmless. She was like an annoying fly, always buzzing around your ear but never really able to hurt you.
Attention turned back to Ipomoea when he began to speak, telling her that he had no intention of taking back the island and displacing her. Good. She had half a mind to tell him she would be far less passive if he did. But the new Sloane was trying to be more social so she grit her teeth in an attempt not to say what she truly wanted to say.
"…so what are your intentions?" The words were spewed from her lips before what little filter was there was able to filter out. "…regarding Delumine." What she really wanted to know was what he had planned for her. She didn’t give a rat’s ass about anyone else, only what would ultimately effect her. If he wasn’t after her island, would he demand her actually become a productive member of society? Fight in wars? Go on peace-talking missions? None of those things were things that Sloane was particularly good at. In fact, Sloane wasn’t very good at much of anything. "Or are you going to just keep Delumine in the shadows like the last king…" Alright…filter had officially failed. That was probably NOT something that Sloane should have said, but she couldn’t help it.
If he took offense from the dark mare’s brusque words or demeanor, he did not show it. The music of the fountains seems, to him, louder than any anger lingering in Sloane’s voice. He lets that fill him, instead - a backdrop of music, the sound of shattering glass, the colors of the sunrise transcribed into a symphony. Like the wellspring embodied the heart of the court, ever flowing, like the blood in each of their veins -
Ipomoea tilts his head back to regard the gardens from the corner of one eye. The flowers were beginning to unfurl now, as the sun continued to rise. Their delicate petals reaching out like hands for the sunlight, edges limned in gold like a cloak.
She asks him what his intentions are, but Ipomoea is not honestly sure.
What were his intentions?
He had come home to take the crown from his own brother, and while he had not had to fight for it, it would have been a lie to say he had not gone looking for it. The soil of the earth was crying out to him, the land had been weeping in silence for far too long. Ipomoea has only recently learned to listen to it, to not only look, but to also see. He takes a moment to choose his words, letting them turn over and over and over again in his mind.
“I intend to give it a new beginning.”
He looks back to Sloane as he speaks, considering her quietly. “Delumine seems like it’s several paces behind the rest of Novus at the moment - too little happens, or changes, or improves. We’re stagnant, perhaps sleeping, and it’s time we came back awake.”
He tilts his head to her, and while turning away he asks, "And what are your intentions, Sloane?"
Had she come here only for her island, for herself? Even if she had, perhaps there was something more for her here than she yet realized.
A new beginning. Was there ever truly new beginnings? In all of Sloane’s very short life, she had seen many attempts to start anew, but most times the individuals just seemed to start the same old things with a new twist or flourish. Nothing was every truly new. So when Ipomoea said that he intended to give Delumine a new beginning, Sloane was hardly in agreement nor did she trust that he would actually do a good job. But the new Sloane would give him a chance to do things right. So she only smirked and made a “humph” sound. That was all the answer he would get on the matter. After all, she was trying to be a new and improved Sloane. It was so damn hard though, so hard.
He continues, telling her that Delumine seems to be several paces behind the rest of Novus. She’s been saying that for ages it seems but no one seems to want to listen to her. No one ever wants to listen to what Sloane has to say, so naturally when someone comes up with their new idea and she’s been saying it for ages, she simply grumbles a little more than usual. But today, she simply nods at him. "I’ve been saying the same shit since I got here." Fuck. There went her filter again. She wasn’t supposed to say anything.
But then he’s asking her what her intentions were and for the first time in a long time, she’s stumped on what to say. No one had ever cared to ask her what her own intentions were, what she wanted out of Delumine. Most just let her go off and do whatever she wanted just so they could keep the peace between her and them.
She looks around at the gathered crowd, the guards, the people silently wondering if she was going to fly off the handlebars today. Not today people of Delumine, not today. "What my intentions have always been. I’m just here to talk shit, eat, and annoy the hell out of most people." It was the truth and at least she was being honest with himself. "Should I have any other intentions?" She was relatively harmless. Annoying, yes, but harmless.
Ipomoea, for all the rest of his faults, had never once stopped to consider that perhaps Sloane was not the sort of friend he needed.
Somnus had told him once to keep an eye on her; and perhaps, that first time they met on the river, he had wondered just a bit if there was any weight to the pegasus’ concerns. But any caution he may have felt surely had been thrown to the wind by now, as he dismisses the guards and leads her through the garden. Ipomoea was an optimist still, and as he looked at the mare falling into pace beside him, all he saw was opportunity for growth.
And like a gardener, ever obsessive about the slightest hints of growth, Ipomoea was determined to nurture any sprout he might see growing.
He pauses to look at her and smile, but it’s a small, thoughtful smile. ”Yes,” he agrees. ”And it’s time the rest of Delumine sees it as such.”
Brushing off the vulgarity, as he was wont to do, he continued on down the path, pausing every so often to admire a blossom. And all the while he listened, and his mind turned over her words like fresh soil in a flower bed. For a moment as her words ended in a question, he was quiet.
”That depends,” he says, lowering his head again to smell a rose. ”Do you want any other intentions?”
He leaves the question hanging between them as he moves on to the next corridor, distancing them more and more from the rest of the courtyard.
”I think you could help me, if you were so willing. You get around more than many other members of the Court, and it seems you know more about the state of things as well.” It seemed odd to him, to ask her how she might better serve the Court - he may be an optimist, but he was not blind. Sloane had told him as much herself, she was not here to dance for the monarchy. Nor, did he expect or want her to. And yet -
It's a good thing that Sloane didn’t have magic that rendered her the ability to read minds. If she had any inkling that Ipomoea thought of her as his new project, she might have damn well set him straight. She might be trying to be a new and improved Sloane, but that did not mean she wanted someone to swoop in and make changes to a template she had been perfecting since her birth. She was doing minor editing lately, but there was no way in hell she was ready for a complete overhaul.
They talk of Delumine and how the court is so many paces behind the rest of Novus. While she has made the observation time and time again, no one has stopped to listen to her. People just pass her off as the annoying lowlife (which she probably was) but no one stopped to think that just maybe she had some talents of observation. No one stopped to believe that she was capable of ideas that might -gasp- help people. Most of the time Sloane just kept her thoughts to herself. It was easier that way.
She follows quietly down the path through the gardens, following the sovereign down a relatively secluded corridor. Either she was going to get the shit beat out of her, or perhaps this was her opportunity to do the same if she wanted. Ipomoea didn’t have his guards and there was no one here to come to his aid quickly. But that took effort and it might get bloody. There was no way in hell she was going to get blood in her white feathering. Sure, it might go with the streaks in her hair, but blood was something that did not simply wash out. And so, the decision was made to simply walk beside him.
But it was his words that brought her from her thoughts. Did she want any other intentions? What the fuck was that supposed to mean? Was he trying to offer her some sort of job? Sloane was not very good at time management, accountability, or dependability, something that most bosses looked for.
But he continued, noting that she seemed to get around (which was true…because being on lockdown was downright boring a hell) and knew about things. He was offering her a job. She took a moment to crane her head around to look at him. If she had eyebrows, they would have surely risen in questioning. Why was he offering her a job? "What’s the job and what’s in it for me?" While she had made it very clear that she was not here to serve a monarchy, if the compensation was right, perhaps she could be persuaded to go a thing or to for him. The key here was compensation. It had to be worth her while. Was it something that would be worth her while?
He watches her carefully for her reaction, and thinks for the first time that he is learning how to play the game. Gone is the Ipomoea who had met her on the rocky shores of the Rapax, gone is the boy who had failed to recognize the look in her eyes as that belonging to someone who was drowning. The Ipomoea walking beside her today in the gardens - this is an Ipomoea who has felt drowning himself, someone who no longer has to look away from the shadows he sees in someone else’s eyes.
There might be a part of the ever-optimistic youth left inside of him, and perhaps it was the reason he still walked beside Sloane and asked for her help. But if it was, it was locked far enough away so as to not show in his eyes when he turns to face her.
Sometimes, he decided, the means truly do justify the ends.
“What is it you want?” he asks her idly, turning over a stone with his hoof as if they were talking about something no more important than the weather. For a Sovereign, there was little he could not afford. If Sloane’s cooperation came with a price tag, he was sure he had it well within his disposal.
“If you think you could be my eyes and ears in the places I can not go, I believe we could come to an agreement.”
All he wanted was information.
But he smiles, and tilts his head to her. "If that sounds like something you would be interested in, come and find me sometime." And then with a nod of his head to the guards, he leaves Sloane alone in the garden.
