IPOMOEA
eyes are bright, watching as we come undone
T
he wind is cold, impersonal; it tugs at their bodies, pulling strands of hair loose from the Regent’s carefully plaited braids. But it doesn’t stop, doesn’t linger, doesn’t grant them the floral fragrances of the garden just on the other side of the courtyard. It passes them by as if they’re nothing, and no one; sweeping towards the forest as if to say follow me, here is where the adventure will start.But was it an adventure worth taking? Ipomoea couldn’t be sure, not yet. Perhaps if it were dawn, if the sunset were peeking across the horizon to shed light on the forest, maybe then his steps wouldn’t be so jerky as they were now, and his blood wouldn’t be flowing so turbulently in his veins. Maybe then he could look past the shadows and see the way dust motes floated weightlessly through the forest, specks of gold hanging forever in the air.
He wished he could hear birdsong greeting their arrival, or see deer bounding between the tree trunks. He wished the forest didn’t feel so heavy, or that the clouds were not so thick in the sky that they obscured any traces of light. The forest is so different now, when only a few short weeks ago it had been filled with light and laughter and festivities…
But wishing didn’t make things so.
He shivers mid-step, his stride faltering for a moment. But then he presses into Messalina, both for her warmth and comfort, begging his heart to be still. It thumps away like a frightened rabbit against his ribcage, desperately looking for an escape yet finding none.
The canopy closes around them, blocking out the cloudy sky from view and silencing the wind. It feels oddly quiet, too quiet; as if everything in the forest has died or gone into hiding. Bile rises in the back of his throat, and Ipomoea swallows thickly, pushing his thoughts away. He dips his heard lower, low enough so that the flickering flame of his candle illuminates the planes of his face until every angle is sharply defined and every edge traced in an orange glow. The crude lantern barely highlights the ground in front of him - casting more shadows as the grass and bushes lining their path bend away - still, he clings to whatever small amount of comfort he can get, letting it bolster his confidence.
He frowns slightly as she speaks, his imagination filling in her pauses for her. The libraries had an entire section dedicated to stories brought in from Denocte, some etched upon age-old scrolls, others scribed from fables and word of mouth. Ipomoea had browsed the catacombs himself - surely there was a book even now tucked into his personal bookshelf - but many were illustrated with fearsome drawings, drawings that caused him to promptly shut whichever book he’d found it again and never wish to open it again.
Now, of course, he was wishing he’d paid more attention, to prepare himself for the unknown. This was Delumine, but disaster could strike anywhere it pleased.
"What happened to the monsters in your mother’s story?" he asks, even when he dreads to know the answer. "Where did they go, if they were immortal?"
His mind was whispering the unthinkable: maybe they’re here, it says, maybe they’re coming for us now.
He shakes his head, in an attempt to clear his thoughts. But instead, it takes him back to a time when he was younger, yet just as naive. When the bonfires of the traveling caravan he’d sheltered with had thrown sparks into the night, when the elders had pulled the children close and warned them of the boogeyman lurking just outside of the firelight. "All the stories I’ve heard take place at night." He doesn’t realize he’s speaking until the words have already left his tongue, but it’s too late to pull them back. "Every disaster, every terrible thing; they happen when the darkness is thick enough to hide the culprit’s face."
He had been scared of the dark as a child. As he peers into the surrounding darkness now, he knows better: it’s not the dark one needs to fear.
It’s who hides within it.
And now it is the two of them facing it -- as they stride shoulder to shoulder into the darkness, passing stories like secrets to keep the monsters at bay. Ipomoea's only thought as they dissolve into the trees and his heart begins to ache in his chest, is how he hopes it will be enough.
@messalina | "speaks" | notes: <3
