Her response isn’t one he’s expecting - a stubbornly factual answer to her own fanciful questioning.
“Even so,” he’s persistent, as if the hope that lives in his heart is not yet ready to let go of its fantasy. “Perhaps it is death that makes a hero, but it is birth that makes the person who becomes that hero. Their life begins long before the story everyone remembers them for.” It was easy to forget, he supposed, that any fabled character could exist outside of the tale they had been caught in. But he has met heroes before they become heroes, and he knows.
It was only a matter of perspective, of choosing what parts deserved to be remembered.
Because try as he might, not even a scholar could remember everything. As a child he had been ravenous, he had spent each day with a different book (or two, or three, or more…) Now Ipomoea cannot remember the last time he picked up a book simply for the joy of unraveling the stories it contained. It had been so long, he wasn’t even sure where he had left off the last time, or where he should begin again.
He knew many would call it practical, to live through his own eyes instead of the eyes of an author of a book. And it had indeed had its benefits. But the world was beginning to wear on him, and more often than not he found himself day dreaming of alternate realities, of different worlds and different lives. Only he already knew, when next he picked up a book he would lose himself in it, and it would be a long while before he would be able to return.
He blinks back at her when she turns to look at him, but his smile is small. Thoughtfulness - or perhaps it is sadness? - keeps the edges of his lips downturned, and he’s thankful the darkness of night might hide the way his eyes refuse to dance the way they once did.
Stay. He had been ready to walk back down the mountain when she implored him otherwise. There was a small bluff hidden beneath a peak a little ways back, facing west. He knew from experience that it overlooked a great swath of the Viride Forest and, on a clear day, he might see the meadows of Illuster shining on the horizon. He had never spent the night there before, but he supposed so long as the wind stayed, it would be pleasant enough…
But her voice interrupts his reverie, and his plans. Please. For a moment, but only a moment, he’s still. But then he smiles again, and takes two small, light steps closer. Close enough to set the scrolls there at the bottom of the altar, a small pyramid of paper and ink and lives.
“They’re for the library,” he corrects her, even as he pushes the top most scroll into alignment. “But the legends say Oriens created the libraries, so I come to ask his blessing over the addition. Just some first and second hand accounts from the island in the south.” He tries to not let his voice sound flat, is careful to say what the legends believe opposed to what he believes. Because Ipomoea thinks here is the best place to see the sunrise in all of Novus, and it was conveniently on his way back to Delumine. He doesn’t say that he’s looking for confirmation, for something great to reveal itself to him. But maybe he doesn’t know that yet himself.
He bowed his head respectfully at the fractured statue, then retreats a few paces.
Overhead the stars are beginning to show themselves - shyly at first, then with more vigor. Ipomoea tilts his head back, lets their starlight anoint his features, bathes silently in the cool cloak of night. His mind feels far too slow tonight, turning itself over and around each time she speaks.
Perhaps the people have lost their faith, he wants to say, and because the gods abandoned us. But he doesn’t. He just tilts his head and looks to the ceiling of the temple, where constellations and tributes to the gods have been etched.
“Because it is,” he says softly instead, and lets her make of that what she will. The words feel like sin when he speaks them, but he pretends to not notice, pretends he’s talking only about the lack of worshippers present. But he’s not.
He gives a subtle shake of his head and looks back at her, the woman with the smoky voice concealing monochrome thoughts.
”You’re not from here,” he says, and it’s not a question. But his voice is soft, almost amused, like birdsong in a forest. There is no judgement there, only quiet wondering. ”What do you know about Veneror?” And somehow, it sounds like he’s asking her to tell him something, hoping it’s something he doesn’t already know.
there’s a bluebird in my heart
that wants to get out
but I’m too tough for him,
I only let him out at night sometimes.
I say, stay in there,I’m not going
to let anybody hurt
you
@
”here am i!“
