even after they have been stepped on
He knows he shouldn’t be alone in the forest, not now, not today. Seir had told him as much, as had Emersyn, and the guards who had frowned at him when he dismissed them in the meadows and continued on alone. He knows it the way he knows that the peace he feels now as he walks between the trees is nothing more than a fallacy, like a rope that’s fraying and about to snap. The silence has always hidden more than it gives away.
But today, he doesn’t listen.
The ground is hard and cold beneath his hooves, and the branches creak stiffly overhead as he passes beneath them. It’s all too easy to lose himself between the pines, to lose track of his surroundings in the many shades of green that make up the forest. Ipomoea can feel himself slipping into a lull as he walks, until the rhythm of his hoofbeats echoes the sighing of the trees.
And for a while, it’s easy to almost-forget that he’s here looking for bones, and blood, and bodies; that the snow covers a graveyard and the winter pretends it’s not hiding the tracks of a murderer. Here Ipomoea can almost pretend that there are flowers in his chest instead of rage. But when he looks over his shoulder and sees the dandelions and the violets and the asters clinging to his heels like they can’t bear to exist anywhere other than within his shadow, he can’t help but feel like it’s only fear that draws them so near to him, not love.
So when he sees the girl wandering through the trees, he is not sure if it’s with relief or disappointment that she appears to only be lost, and not the poacher.
“Hello!” his voice sounds far more even than he feels, as he turns to intercept her. “Can I help you?” And when he looks at her his heart starts to ache, like it already knows that she’s not simply passing through.
For a moment he can only look at her, and feel like the flowers in his chest are crumbling to dust petal by petal. When his heart starts again it’s painful, lurching forward in an uneven beat with each word she speaks.
Ipomoea knows what it feels like to lose a bonded.
“Hey don’t worry, she can’t have gone too far. How long has she been missing?” He can feel his heart pounding in his chest as he casts his gaze around the forest surrounding them, as if half-expecting to see the crow perched peacefully on a tree, waiting for them. But the woods are quiet, and still, and empty - and he can’t help but think how terrible of a time it is to lose a friend, and what else it might mean.
@corrdelia
