IPOMOEA
somedays i am wild child
M
oonlight was still trickling in through the window when he rose, painting the floor in tones of silver and shadow, shaking the sleep from his body and drawing him into the darkness that awaits him outside. It won’t be long before the dawn chases the stars and moon away, he knew, but for now the night still reigns supreme. For a long, unsteady moment, he simply stands there in the moonlight, the snow glinting around him like a thousand shattered diamonds. The night is still and cold and silent, and somehow that makes it all the more alive. Wonder and promise stretch in the spaces between heartbeats, tension stretching the air so thin he fears a single breath may snap it like a thread. And yet the wind still creeps in from the ocean, a dancer upon a tightrope who defies both gravity and death with a rhythm.
The grasses press in close around his fetlocks, straining to rise into the air despite the elements. Ipomoea shivers at their touch, but he doesn’t shy away like he once had. They twine about his legs in embrace, braiding their long stalks into ropes that anchor him to the ground, the dry rustling of their movement turning into whispers. A story, a memory, a guide; this way, they tell him, with the image of a sea-kissed unicorn with arrows at her side fresh in his mind. It wasn’t long ago.
He breaks from their grasp, following the trail the queen has left to the lake. When he arrives the sun is rising, its colors melting from the sky into the water’s reflection to frame her silhouette at the lakeside.
She’s quick to hear him, quick to line him up with another one of her arrows, and he wonders idly if she would not have hesitated to loose that quarrel had she not known him.
"Isra," he greets in turn, but he’s not looking at her. Ipomoea is watching the flames dance along the arrowhead that she holds, as she lowers the weapon to the ground. It takes only a second for the fire to extinguish itself, but he can still see its light when he blinks.
The morning seems darker then, without the moon to light the edges of their faces.
"How long has the night queen been practicing?" he asks quietly, stepping over gold and yellow apples. The field mice don’t flinch as he walks amongst them, and he weaves carefully around them. "One might think she’s training to become a soldier, ready to set aside her crown for a bow made of moonlight."
He stops beneath the willow then, picking up one of the discarded apples from the ground. Slowly, almost reverently, he turns the fruit around and around in his grasp, so it revolves in midair.
Then he holds it out towards the unicorn, inches away from his own flesh.
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: <3
