IPOMOEA
let's be wildflowers
S
ometimes, when he would stand out in the meadows of Delumine, surrounded by dancing wildflowers and endless space, he would close his eyes and imagine the desert.The sun was never hot enough, not hot like it was here, but on a sunny, summer day it was just enough to pretend. To pretend it was not grass reaching up to caress his knees, but sand that his hooves sank into, and let the warm, westbound wind take him back in time. And he would wonder at what his life may have been like, perhaps should have been like, had he only been strong enough to survive.
He and the other Solterran orphans, the ones who had never known their families, would sometimes sit around and fill in the gaps in their memories with the wildest of tales they could imagine. They would imagine themselves as long-lost princes and princesses, heirs to the throne, sorely missed. Or children of the wealthy houses, Hajakha maybe, or Azhade, a long-lost relative that might one day be welcomed back with celebration.
Now, Ipomoea wonders how he could have ever imagined his blood to have been royal. Now that he knew how far his heritage truly lie, that he had not only been found in the desert, but had rather been born of it.
(For years to come, he’ll worry over each spike of anger as being his Davke heritage finally showing. And he’ll wonder how he could have ever imagined it to be anything other than what it is, that feral side of him that smiles with sharp white teeth-)
Even now he can feel that silent beast rising in his chest, and he prays that it doesn’t show when he looks at Orestes.
"All your people will ask you personal questions, Orestes. They will want to know you, and only by knowing you will they will claim you as their own." He doesn’t expect him to answer - Ipomoea is already pushing the bread away, ready to stand and turn away, when the Sovereign’s voice stops him.
He’s staring down at the jam the sovereign has brought with him, counting the dark black seeds pressed against the jar glass. The color is too red, too bright; he can’t look away from it.
"Where did they go?" His voice is a whisper, the words gone before he can stop them. Or rather, his mind whispers, why did you leave them? Ipomoea can’t help but wonder what would make Orestes a king here, when he might still have been a king there. But he doesn’t want an answer, nor does he expect one, so before the gold-etched man can answer, perhaps before he can even register the question, Ipomoea lifts his chin and says instead, "I suppose Solterra is lucky to have you now."
Lucky to have you instead of Raum. Instead of Zolin. Instead of another monster.
But Ipomoea has yet to judge the new sovereign’s fitness. Perhaps anyone was an improvement from the last, but the man who replaces the dictator is not always the man a country needs.
"An orphan. A beggar. A wanderer." He checks the names off mentally as he lists them, titles he hasn’t thought of in years. Not since he’s become someone, someone who might even be missed when the desert covers his bones under a thousand layers of sand. "It took me a long time to find a home, longer than it took me to realize that this was not it."
His heart is beating like something wild again, his wings fluttering against his ankles, stretching out and out and out like they’re reaching for the skies, like they need to fly or else they might die. The last time he was here he was running - running out of the capitol, out of the desert, afraid to look back or else he might see the stone faces again, and then he would stop. And if he stopped then, he might never have looked away, might have lost himself for the second time there in the Mors, alone and forgotten. So instead he ran.
All his life he’s been running, it took Raum for him to see that.
"Now I’m fettered to the same sense of duty as you. Emissary, Regent, now Sovereign; all we can do is give all that we are so that we might leave this world better than how we found it. We belong to our people now, you to Day, and I to Dawn."
He folds his wings, forces them to be still again. There’s something sad in his eyes, eyes the same color as the jam sitting on the table between them. But for as much sadness, there’s twice as much determination and steel as one king looks at the other, and silently makes a promise. Solterra may not be his home; Solterra may have forgotten him before he had even been given a proper name; but Ipomoea had not forgotten Solterra. And he would not let it fall back to ruin so easily.
@orestes | "speaks" | someone is questioning his entire life now isn't he
