you be the wind
i'll be the wildflower
i'll be the wildflower
Ipomoea has never been foolish enough to believe that anything could live forever. As a boy he had often found himself wishing so, in his naivety imagining a life where the flowers bloomed year round and the nights were always short and warm. His daydreams had always been the opposite of his reality, the opposite of Solterra, creating a world that was as far removed from his actual childhood as he could make it. Sometimes he isn’t sure which came first - the desert rejecting him, or his musing of another life.
He thinks he can hear the desert laughing at him in the distance, in between all those leaves falling around him. ”Stupid boy,” he listens even when he doesn’t want to. ”You never should have come back here.” Maybe it was right. People like him never lived for long in places like that.
When he breathes in his lungs feel heavy, like they’re filled with sand. Even back home, even here in Viride the desert is still trying to drown him.
“No,” she tells him, and he thinks she would have done just fine in Solterra. The leaves are still falling down all around them, each breath of wind sending them tumbling from the branches. He can see more sky than forest now, but he’s tracing those pale arms above him with his eyes, sorting out the tangle of interwoven branches. Ipomoea knows that if he whispered to them, they would come awake at once. They would untwist each bough if only he asked, and if he pressed his skin against their bark they would replace all their falling leaves with fresh, green buds.
He doesn’t. He only lets them sleep.
But he wonders if he could convince an aspen to grow a rose, or a sunflower, or a locust blossom. He’s never tried before, never asked a tree to be anything other than a tree - the forest as it is has always been enough for him. But now he wonders. Would a sapling change into something else for him?
He wants to tell her that it would be okay if the forest had nothing to fight for, if it could simply be for all its life exactly what it is now. But the words turn to ash before he can say them, because he knows they would be a lie. Even wildfires, in all their destruction, allow for new growth in the end. And the next generation always rises up to take the place of the ones that die.
So he doesn’t say it.
“Would you?” he asks her instead.
The words sound something like the falling leaves, like wondering, in the moments before they hit the ground. In that instant where they aren’t yet sure if they’re living or dying, when the air is so full of red they think they might still be on the tree. It all sounds like winter, when he should be sounding like spring.
“Would you miss seeing something green, if everything turned to rot?”
He wants to whisper the words against her skin, to brush the dust and the rot and the frost away from her spine with his lips. But the forest is watching, and waiting, and Ipomoea knows her answer matters more to the forest.
Because she could still make the trees either love her or hate her, but Ipomoea has already lost his choice.
@thana
how many times can i say "all those falling leaves" in one post
He thinks he can hear the desert laughing at him in the distance, in between all those leaves falling around him. ”Stupid boy,” he listens even when he doesn’t want to. ”You never should have come back here.” Maybe it was right. People like him never lived for long in places like that.
When he breathes in his lungs feel heavy, like they’re filled with sand. Even back home, even here in Viride the desert is still trying to drown him.
“No,” she tells him, and he thinks she would have done just fine in Solterra. The leaves are still falling down all around them, each breath of wind sending them tumbling from the branches. He can see more sky than forest now, but he’s tracing those pale arms above him with his eyes, sorting out the tangle of interwoven branches. Ipomoea knows that if he whispered to them, they would come awake at once. They would untwist each bough if only he asked, and if he pressed his skin against their bark they would replace all their falling leaves with fresh, green buds.
He doesn’t. He only lets them sleep.
But he wonders if he could convince an aspen to grow a rose, or a sunflower, or a locust blossom. He’s never tried before, never asked a tree to be anything other than a tree - the forest as it is has always been enough for him. But now he wonders. Would a sapling change into something else for him?
He wants to tell her that it would be okay if the forest had nothing to fight for, if it could simply be for all its life exactly what it is now. But the words turn to ash before he can say them, because he knows they would be a lie. Even wildfires, in all their destruction, allow for new growth in the end. And the next generation always rises up to take the place of the ones that die.
So he doesn’t say it.
“Would you?” he asks her instead.
The words sound something like the falling leaves, like wondering, in the moments before they hit the ground. In that instant where they aren’t yet sure if they’re living or dying, when the air is so full of red they think they might still be on the tree. It all sounds like winter, when he should be sounding like spring.
“Would you miss seeing something green, if everything turned to rot?”
He wants to whisper the words against her skin, to brush the dust and the rot and the frost away from her spine with his lips. But the forest is watching, and waiting, and Ipomoea knows her answer matters more to the forest.
Because she could still make the trees either love her or hate her, but Ipomoea has already lost his choice.
@thana
how many times can i say "all those falling leaves" in one post
