She takes a step closer to him - and it’s a step further from the river that rages below. His heart is still wild and wary, but it doesn’t beat itself so fiercely against his rib cage. He has her attention now, moreso than the raging waters and the sharpened rocks they hide.
And for that, he’s thankful.
Ipomoea does not know what has brought her here today, nor what has made her contemplate death. He only knows that she’s here, and he’s here too; together they stand upon the edge, taunting death with every breath, every step, refusing to succumb to the pull. Mist still beats his face, the river’s cry near deafening in his ear. Like a soldier in battle, he thinks as he listens, although he can’t say he’s witnessed that side of the anecdote himself. But there’s a desperation in the waves that he imagines a soldier might feel, and he likens the noise to a war cry, fighting for life and freedom.
He could learn a lot from the Rapax, he supposed; here it raged, seemingly endlessly. But he knew that if you traveled just a bit further downstream, the river would widen and the water would calm and river otters would drift lazily downstream. There was a time for everything, a time to love and hate, a time to fight and make amends. A time to live, a time to die.
”All things come with a price.”
“I suppose you’re right about that,” he muses aloud, and there’s a pensiveness in his voice that was not there before. “But not all prices are so hard to pay.” Some he would pay willingly, if it meant seeing a friend again or fixing something broken. Others were hidden so well, they almost didn’t seem to be a price at all.
But he was learning, if only gradually, that a seemingly small decision might cause a bigger ripple than ever he imagined.
She says she’s never had a home, and he can’t help the sudden ache, the weight that rests upon his chest at her words. That is something he can relate to - Po had not had a home, not for the first few years of his life. Not until Delumine had taken him in. He remembers what it’s like; not knowing where he would sleep each night, never truly being safe. He had made the most of it - he always did - he had worn a smile and laughed and sang and danced with the merchants.
But he did not want to go back to that life. He always knew where he could return to now.
“Neither did I,” he admits. “Not for a long time.” The roaring of the waves has subsided, and he takes another step away from the water, cocking his head at the treeline beside the river. Just through those trees was a meadow, where the flowers bloomed in every color imaginable. The Court, his home was in the southern recahes of that meadow, where the Rapax was calm and bubbling.
“But Delumine gave me a home, and I found my niche.” Raising an orphan to a Regent, despite his less than appealing past or experience. That was what Delumine did; it inspired hope, it offered chances. It took one life and made another.
“Maybe your niche is already waiting for you,” his voice is soft as he turns back to her, his eyes bright and smiling. “Maybe it’s up to us to make a place for ourselves, and do with that what we will.”
He believed, with the naivety and optimism of spring, that Delumine could do the same for her as it had for him. It could help her blossom, like the wildflower meadows did each year.
hearts are breaking
wars are raging on
you’ve got me nervous
i’m at the end of my rope
hey, man, we can’t all be like you
i wish we were all rose-colored too
my rose-colored boy
@
a bit all over the place, sorry <3
”here am i!“
