IPOMOEA
let's be wildflowers
T
he desert clawed at his ankles as he walked, so that he had to hold his delicate wings neatly above the sand to keep them from dragging, to keep the desert from stripping away at delicate feathers in its savagery. It pressed in like a warm, thick sea, lapping hungrily at his fetlocks with every step he took. It was all his flowers could do to stay above the torrent. And he couldn’t help but wonder, briefly, idly, if it had been this way when he was a foal. All he remembers from his youth was the sun, the way it beat down upon his skinny ribs; and his mouth, the way it dried up completely and made it painful to talk. He remembered that that was unusual, that desert foals were supposed to be more accustomed to the harsh elements, that the other boys and girls his age had thrived where he had nearly died -
Once he would have pushed away those thoughts. He would have smiled and reminded himself of the wildflowers and all their color, how the blossoms of a weed could be so prized. Ipomoea would have thrown his negativity out and locked the door behind it, and focused on things in the present. "Leave the shadows of the night where they lie, child," Grainne had told him while braiding his hair, "See the way the sun rises on the horizon, the way the sky brightens? The sun is faithful, always." He wonders what she would think of him now, with his hair unbraided and his mind turning once again to things he could not change.
But he couldn’t help it. As he looked across the desert he wondered if he had been here, in this very spot, once before; and he strove to recognize it. He wondered if the chestnut man he walked towards was someone he had known growing up, but the faces of his childhood slipped away like water. He wondered if anyone here might remember him, too, or if he had vanished from their minds the moment they’d tossed him into the desert to die.
He does not blame them for it - although his newly-found anger stirs at the turmoil of his thoughts - it was the way of Solterra.
But still, he wished…
Finally he shook his head, and wrestled the thoughts back, afraid of the truths he might have revealed to himself then. No, it was better to remind himself that he was from Delumine now, not Solterra; this place was not his home. Could never have been his home.
He moves closer to the stranger, and is just about to open his lips in greeting when -
"How? How are you here?"
He stops, one hoof lifted in the air still to take another step. He slowly lowers it back down into his hoofprint that was left on the sand, uncertainty unfurling like a flower within his chest.
"Hello," he says softly, and he dislikes the way his voice sounds thin and papery, like something dried out beneath the sun. He clears his throat, and tries again. "I came from the city," he says, and gestures behind him where the Day Court lies, hidden by the sand dunes.
He doesn’t say for how long he’s been walking, or how long it’s been since he left the city. But he takes a small step closer, eyeing the man’s own red gaze, the rib bone necklace around his throat - the skull of some animal tied to its pelt upon his back.
Are you a Davke? he wants to ask, but the words dry and crack on his tongue before he can speak them. He lifts his head higher - be brave - and looks the taller stallion in the eye instead.
"Are you hungry?" like a rabbit asking a wolf, and the sapling of a fig tree begins to raise itself from the earth, slender leaves sprouting beneath the hot, unblinking sun.
@ramses | "speaks" | notes: making all my replies out of order oops
