IPOMOEA
yesterday i was wise
T
he air was thinner this high up in the mountains, and it is perhaps for that reason alone that Ipomoea has delayed his journey to the peaks. He was content to stay within Denocte - there was always so much activity, so many ships arriving and departing, so many owls flying through the night with letters clutched tightly within their talons. Even since the fires and the marketplace burning, it never stopped, the Night Court never stopped. He had asked a trader once about it, and the old gypsy man had laughed and waved him close. ”How can we stop?” he had asked him, spinning a golden coin across the table cloth. ”When there’s still so much to live for?” It was a mindset he had embraced wholeheartedly since his arrival - or at least, he had tried to. There was still a cloud hanging over the appaloosa’s head, a sense of foreboding that refused to release him from its grasp. Something was coming, he knew; something disastrous.
His bonded swooped lazily along the path in front of him, oblivious to the steep drops that ended in pointed rocks hundreds of feet below. The songbird didn’t have to be careful of the slippery and rocky slope, not the way Ipomoea had to be; the stallion picked his way slowly across rocky ledges, his wings pressed tightly against his ankles. They would not help him in the case of a fall.
But despite the treachery, despite the darkness that swam in the back of his mind, the climb was proving itself therapeutic. With every step he took, gravity’s effect seemed to lessen, his body seemed to lighten. He undressed his burdens like a robe, piece after piece falling to the ground like a trail he leaves behind him.
On his way back, he’ll undoubtedly find those doubts and worries to adorn himself with once more; but for now, Ipomoea feels as free as Odet as the blue bird twists and dances through the air.
The Arma Mountains have always reminded him of Veneror, the way they reach their craggy fingers into the sky. At the bottom each were covered densely in forest; but at the top the foliage thinned, and the world seemed to bend away at the edges. He was hoping to see a glimpse of the Mors; despite the many times Ipomoea had made the journey through these peaks, his eyes had always been set on Delumine or Denocte. Never Solterra, not until now.
His eyes were bright and pink as he came around the corner and saw her, a young dun coming in the opposite direction. The path here was hardly wide enough for a single horse - let alone two trying to pass side by side.
Ipomoea stopped in his tracks, the wind tugging stray petals loose from the flowers that adorned his brow. “Hello!” he called, his tone as light and airy as the breeze that sung as it wove its way through the mountains. “Are you on your way to Denocte?” He can’t imagine where else she’d be going along this path, but it was still polite to ask he thought.
“I suppose this would be easier if one of us had wings,” his eyes were laughing, a soft smile nodding to the path that stretched between them.
@Maerys | "speaks" | notes: sorry for the wait!! i'm so excited for this thread <3
