[AW] I lived like a man, oh, I'll die like a king

[Eik]

It strikes him as funny, the grand dance they do. Po from Day to Dawn, and Eik from... Elsewhere to Day. And surely, as they move from one place to another, someone from Dawn set off to Nowhere. Elsewhere. Anywhere, whatever.

(where words! ? a baby giggles, and the wheel keeps turning, and the dust rises and settles again,, always)

He understands why the flower-crowned man left Solterra- Eik had wanted to, too, in the beginning. Even now, that desire is still there. Dim but persistent. It explains why he is here, looking at trees, instead of there. But the desert has more similarities to his home than he initially realized, and a combination of homesickness, a faint sense of familiarity, and slowly developing relationships have started to anchor him to the sand.

Honestly, his mind is confused most days, but in the moments of clarity he can see that, for better or worse, home is becoming Solterra. Or the other way around?

All this to say he understands completely. And so he does not press further for a reason.

"It's just how it is, I suppose," Po says, and this too Eik understands. He knows his question had been just as unanswerable as why is the sky blue or what happens when we die, but of all the questions to ask his favorite are the unanswerable ones. Or the debatable ones. "I've never really thought of it before," is the follow up, and Eik almost smiles. "You must have more important things to do."

He carefully watches Ipomoea's response to the title flower picker- it seems to surprise and almost confuse him, which Eik finds slightly disappointing. He had hoped to find out if the saying was derogatory. Po's response does not add much clarity, either. It is as straightforward as why the blacksmith chose his craft, or the healer; each mind has its own interests, everyone has some part of the universe and its workings that intrigues them.

(As for Eik, he is interested in all of it, every how and why and maybe)

"They are beautiful." Eik muses. He's always been more drawn to grand, dramatic beauty- thunderstorms, mountains, great bruised horizons. But there is beauty in small things too, not just their colors and shapes but their intricacy-- and their impermanence. Flowers live and die with the seasons, while the mountain outlasts them all. There truly is something beautiful about that.

"A shame they don't last."

The rain thickens now, the drops growing fatter and more persistent. Small pools start to form and he has the urge to roll around in them and carry the forest with him back to Solterra. "You best leave fore Odet is drenched." He never met a bird who liked the rain. Actually he's never met any birds at all, but he's seen them hunched against the storm enough to figure these things out.

"Will you show me Dawn Court, the next time I am here?" He has to speak louder now against the rain splattering on the leaves, and he wonders suddenly what the rain would sound like if it had a voice.

-     -     -
There is no better way to know us
E I K
than as two wolves, come separately to a wood

@Ipomoea no worries <3