even after they have been stepped on
It was spring.
Another season had come and gone. As Ipomoea lifts his head he can see new leaves budding in the treetops, decorating their skeletal branches with hints of green. He can still remember when the leaves had first begun to fall, and he had stood beneath them like they were his christening.
He has seen the leaves both slough away and return. And still, and still, the trees had not spoken to him.
And new blood still marked the trees in the morning.
Ipomoea considers the tree before him, with its bark marked with scars and eyes that left dark streaks against its pale trunk. All around him the trees seem to stare at him, and Ipomoea can begin to think of the other things they may have seen wandering through their groves. Even when he doesn’t want to imagine it, still he begs them to show him when he reaches out and skims his nose against the bark.
Of course, it doesn’t.
Once the trees had come alive at his touch, had never hesitated to tell him of all the things they had seen since last he asked. A wolf chasing a rabbit; a pair of laughing equines twined around one another; an old man sitting for hours between their upraised roots. Once they would have reached out eagerly for him, and whisper welcome home with their leaves. Ipomoea misses that - and as the silence stretches on he becomes more aware of how long it had been since they last embraced him like one of their own.
He moves on, but the next tree is no different. Or the next, or the next. All of them stare at him, and tremble at his touch. And he wants to believe he’s imagining it when the branches overhead seem to creak betrayer at his back.
If there wasn’t work to be done, a poacher to be found, a killer to stop, a forest of silent trees and a court of silent people to protect, he might have stayed until he had pressed his skin to the bark of every single tree in Viride and begged them for forgiveness (for a crime he does not remember committing). But after a half a dozen trees refuse to answer, the flower king admits defeat, and turns to leave the copse.
Only then does a shiver run down his spine, and Ipomoea thinks he may not be alone with the trees after all.
open to anyone.
"Speaking."
