IPOMOEA
there's no place i'd rather be
W
hen he closes his eyes, he can still see the trees burning. Every breath brings new smoke into his lungs, coating his throat with ash; the taste is bitter and acrid on his tongue.
He can't help but feel as if he's standing in a skeleton, looking at a sea of burned bodies that extend as far as he can see around him. Their trunks were twisted and warped, their branches broken and burned. Everything around him is black, black and sooty and charred to a crisp. A shiver goes up the Regent’s spine. Unable to look any more, his eyes tremble shut.
His sigh is lost in the wind whispering through the dry, dead, blackened branches of the trees.
For a minute, he's still. Only his mind wanders, opening, expanding, probing the dead blades of grass for life, for meaning. The magic trickles out of him, subtly at first, like a seasonal spring after the first rain, hardly perceptible.
But slowly, gradually, it begins to flow more naturally.
Flowers bloom around his hooves, tiny blades of grass sprouting and growing in an instant. The colors are bright amidst the ash of the destroyed forest floor, creating a vibrant spot of life in a desolate land. Slowly, slowly the flowers and grass begin to expand around him, turning the blackened soil into new life.
When Ipomoea opens his eyes it's as if he’s standing in a miniature meadow, tired but happy. A smile quirks at the corner of his lips as he looks over his handiwork.
It’s a small start - but it’s something.
A twig snaps somewhere in the distance, breaking his concentration. The magic stutters to a stop, slipping through his grasp like water - and then it’s gone. He frowns as the circle of flowers stops growing, disappointment blossoming in his chest. He had hoped to do more, to grow more -
He hadn’t expected to see someone else wandering the empty shell of a forest - maybe they hadn’t yet heard of the tragedy that had taken place here, didn’t yet know that this part of the forest was restricted. ’Go away,’ he cries in his mind, ’there’s nothing left to see here, it’s ruined, the beauty is all gone.’
But he doesn’t say the words out loud. He turns to the source of the noise instead, cerise eyes scanning the shadows.
“Hello?” he calls, his voice and skin alike trembling. The summer air was warm, the sun bright overhead, but the magic had left him feeling feeble and cold. “Is someone there?”
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: text
