IPOMOEA
eyes are bright, watching as we come undone
H
is sleep was restless; dreams filled with dark shadows that lurked in the night. Ipomoea tossed and turned, his eyes sealed tightly shut as if he were attempting to block out the darkness. A light sweat coats his brow, his heart hammering inside of his chest. Even Odet shudders in his sleep, tucked into his nest on the tree growing just outside the window.
The regent mistakes the door bursting open for a disturbance in his sleep; he turns again, clutching the soft blankets tighter to his body. His eyes flicker feverishly, but never open - that is, until, her touch finally rouses him from sleep, and he’s drawn awake with a gasp of surprise.
His cerise eyes are wide and full of shock as he takes in the scene his bedroom is in, the doors burst open and Messalina standing above him. She’s pale, paler than usual, her hair in uncharacteristic disarray. But it’s her eyes - stray tears still falling, wide with pain and fear - that draw his attention.
”Something has happened.” The smell of blood weighs heavy in the air; it’s staining the floor, his bedsheets, her skin. But that isn't right, there shouldn't be blood, not here, not now. Horror and gore had no place here in Delumine, those were reserved for places far, far away he had thought.
Ipomoea had gone to bed thinking of blue skies and flowers; but he had woken up to a nightmare.
’It should be raining,’ he thought sleepily to himself. After all, all good nightmares and horror stories started off that way: thunder rumbling in the distance, rain lashing at the windows, lightning carving brilliant arcs through the sky that were so bright, when they faded away they left a darkness so profound it was nigh impossible to get your bearings together.
But it wasn’t raining; the clouds had kept themselves at bay, as if waiting for the right moment to weep, as if the worst was still yet to come. ’This isn’t right.’
Ipomoea didn’t want to imagine what could be worse than what had already happened.
“Messa-“ his voice is little more than a whisper; it feels like his voice is betraying him, refusing to properly work. He coughs, sitting up in the bed. “What’s going on? What’s happened?” He struggles to blink the sleep from his eyes, his throat raspy and his brain still muddily surprised.
The gravity of the situation finally seems to dawn on him when he sees the blood staining the sheets. He follows the trail of red across the bed with his eyes, not wanting to believe it existed. Something unpleasant turned in the pit of his stomach, the taste of bile in his throat. The blood was coming from her.
”You’re bleeding!” He’s out of bed in an instant, nearly tripping on the sheets in his haste. He stumbles to the table across the room, jerking open drawers and rummaging through their contents haphazardly. "There's gauze in here somewhere, I don't know where, I've never needed it before-"
He had never expected to need it.
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: text
