The world feels lighter now, as he circles around the stone formation. The breeze coming in from the ocean is salty and crisp, the incoming twilight spreading in glorious blue, gold, and pink streaks across the sky. Ipomoea is bathed in light and color, his flowery crown thrown askew on his brow.
His legs are still restless, but not in the run-for-his-life way as before. Now he just wants to run for the sake of running, to dance for the joy of dancing. He can’t stand still, won’t stand still - not when there’s so much left to see and do.
Starting with the strange rocks.
His heart is still pounding, like a drum beating out a new and exciting rhythm. He circles the dark rocks, his head craned back to study their smooth surfaces. A flash of blue catches his eye overhead, as Odet peers down at him.
“I haven’t run like that since I left Solterra. It’s much more pleasant when you aren’t doing it for your life, but doing it for enjoyment,” Eulalie tells him, and he flicks one ear back to listen. “What were you running from?” his voice is subdued, his eyes full of carefully restrained curiosity as he looks back at her. He doesn’t know much of Eulalie’s history - a fact he’s more than a little ashamed to realize, given how long he’s known her, and how dear she is to Somnus.
But he brushes it off with the ocean spray. If she wanted to tell him, she would; it was not his place to press her.
“It is,” he breathes when he turns his gaze back to the rocks. Their surfaces were worn smooth from years beside the ocean, but when he looks closer, a slight irregularity catches his eye. He extends his muzzle, quivering ever so slightly, to run across the rock. Strange runes are carved into the rock, nearly invisible with age. Runes whose meanings were unknown to him, whose lines made no sense as he tried to decipher them. A language that has since fallen out of use - making it old indeed.
A slight frown tugs at his lips.
He breathes over the stone as Tabbris approaches, so engrossed in the mystery that he hardly notices their idle banter. His mind is at work, scouring through the many texts he’s read and memorized over the year, any clue that might tip off the stones’ origins. He feels as if he should remember them… but he can’t, and it’s maddening.
But as Eulalie steps closer, lowering her voice and speaking of dragons and magic and beasts, he can’t help the way his eyes widen and his breath catches.
“Do you think so?” he asks, turning quickly back to the stones. “What if these are ancient spells? Magic we’ve forgotten about?”
He traces the barely-visible runes with his eyes, and now his heart is racing for an entirely different reason.
“I wonder what they would say,” he says, and his eyes are bright as he turns back to Eulalie, as if begging for a story. A story more grand and exciting than their reality, one without a monster that hides in the forest at night.
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
@eulalie !
”here am i!“
