A smile twitches at the corners of his lips, and the sunlight glinting off of his eyes could almost be mistaken for laughter. Maybe tomorrow morning when he tries to smile, he’ll mean it.
“I know,” he says.
It takes time to heal. I know, I’ve seen it.
Delumine deserves the best, she deserves Delumine. I know. I feel it, too.
Dawn is more than just the morning. I know, he thinks, it’s why I chose it. Why it chose me.
It has been so long since he has last come to Veneror. The whole walk up here he had thought back on his last night spent here at the feet of Oriens, when he had first talked to a girl with a whole ocean in her eyes. At night it had all felt muddled and confused, the pain hanging heavy over his heart like a shadow threatening to swallow him whole. But the skies were clear now, and so too was Ipomoea’s mind.
He studies the remains of the statue as he steps forward and collects the scrolls. Where are you now, Oriens? he wants to ask. Where did you go? He doesn’t know if the god is listening, or if he’ll ever return to Novus. Maybe the people would choose new gods, if the old ones were gone for long enough. Maybe gods were not so immortal as everyone thought.
“I hope you can,” he tells her when he straightens, the scrolls clutched tightly to his chest. “A lot of people have found their new beginnings here in Delumine, myself included. I think you can, too.”
Why he’s so sure of this, he doesn’t know. But he offers the girl one last smile and a tip of his head.
“I should be going, I fear I’ve taken enough of your time already. I hope to see you around Delumine, Emersyn.”
Shifting the scrolls to his side, Ipomoea retraces his step out of the temple, back down the twisting mountain path. Her words ring in his ears the whole way down.
Dawn is more than just a time of day.
It’s hope.
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!“
