IPOMOEA
let's be wildflowers
H
e can’t bring himself to leave - not yet, not like this - and so, he wanders.The sand shifts like an ocean around him, and it’s warm and rough against his fetlocks. Perhaps it was foolish of him, for the desert is endless and he knows the only obvious water has been blocked off already. Ipomoea is not a desert horse, although he could have been, once; this desert is not his friend, and it will not treat him as such.
Yet there’s an instinct gnawing at him, and it draws him ever further into the desert. It’s easy to get lost and yet, he does not fear so. Wildflowers are blooming in his footprints as he treks through the sand, surprisingly sturdy despite the unwelcoming conditions. Grass springs to life around them, bringing life to a wasteland that would and should otherwise be barren.
It fills his chest with pride, when he looks back on the direction he’s come and sees their petals waving at him gently, their colors stark against the pale landscape.
He smiles to himself, although it’s a small and sad shadow of his usual joy. And then he turns and continues farther into the desert.
Ipomoea has not encountered many others since leaving the capitol, but still he turns each horse he finds in the direction of Delumine. Their ribs catch the sunlight and form deep shadows across their skin, and their glassy eyes stare at him wordlessly, hopelessly. But still he pauses and sends them away.
He is not sure if he should laugh or cry as he watches them go, for both seem appropriate to him. So instead he is quiet, and he lets his flowers bloom and form a trail back out of the desert, a trail for himself as much as others. He shakes off any feelings of love and softness as he continues farther and farther, until the sand becomes rolling dunes that threaten to swallow his flowers whole. Still he presses on, and on, and on, further into the place of his birth, until he’s stripped himself bare of his emotions and only the sun and the sand warm him.
And when he sees a figure in the distance, red and white and feral, he heads to him without trepidation.
His flowers curl in the sunlight, and they are the only soft things left of him.
@ramses | "speaks" | notes: at last!! I am so ready
