to
He was always returning to the forest, when he needed to think.Ipomoea wanders the woods now, never sticking to any one path, but slipping in and out of the shadows as he pleased. For a while Rhoeas stuck close to his side, close enough to be mistaken for a second skin - bones rattling with every step, crystal antlers catching the sunlight streaming through the canopy and breaking it into a thousand fragments. Flowers and moss and weeds trail in their footprints, turning the already-tangled underbrush into something even more wild.
But eventually the forest forces their paths to split, as the woods become all the more overgrown with flora. This far north, the well-kept paths cultured around the castle were a thing of memory.
It doesn’t bother either the stallion or the stag. Their hearts are beating together, and the faint rattle of Ipomoea’s lungs, so similar to the death rattle of his bonded, reminds him that he is not alone.
Leaves and brambles catch in his mane as he presses deeper into the forest, feeling more like a wild thing and less like a sovereign with every step that takes him deeper into Viride and farther from the Court. Ipomoea runs, petals and leaves tearing free from his crown and for once, he doesn’t think to stop for them. They lay forgotten behind him, and are soon lost as the forest closes back in around them.
By the time the mother boar steps into his path, Ipomoea can hardly remember that he is supposed to be a horse and not a boar himself. Only the vines wound about his leg - writing, flowers wilting, shifting itself into something new - only that reminds him that he does not have tusks for a weapon.
For a long moment he and the boar stare at each other. Distantly he can hear Rhoeas turning, running, forcing the forest separating them apart. He knows he’s too far away to help, but their heartbeats match, and his legs tremble as Ro’s quicken, and his blood hums loudly in his ears. And that is enough for him.
There were times when Ipomoea had to do something for himself, if only to prove that he still could.
By the time the boar begins to charge, the weapon’s transformation is all but finished. Without Ipomoea asking - without Ipomoea even knowing what it was he needed or wanted - it becomes a coiled whip, the vine looped and trailing as he raises it. At the first warning crack, the mother boar hesitates. For a moment he thinks she might turn then, and return to her den. But she only lowers her head, and doubles her speed. His vine curls itself into a rope.
In the moment before she barrels into him, he jumps to the side. The rope loops around her snout and catches; and the moment she feels it tighten she takes off, dragging the appaloosa along behind her. He digs his hooves into the ground, leaning his weight against her, stubbornly hanging on to the other end of the rope. But the force of her charge is too much for him, and all he can do to stop himself from being drug through the forest is to put more pressure on the rope until her head begins to turn.
Back and forth they struggle, neither willing to relent, each losing ground as soon as they gain it. Both their sides become slick with sweat, chests heaving, and the forest echoes with the sound of their hooves trampling the soil and their bodies crashing through the underbrush.
The sow gives in only a moment before Ipomoea does - and he knows as well as she that it’s from exhaustion alone.
They stand across from each other on trembling legs. Ipomoea struggles to catch his breath, painfully aware of the way she tracks him with her eyes. For several long minutes they can only stare at each other through the gold-and-green dappled light, silent save for the rasps of their breaths.
Slowly, slowly, he takes a step forward; and she retreats in kind. Tightening his grip on the rope - and his resolve - he takes another step.
She lets him approach, slowly, haltingly, every few steps skittering backwards in fear. He only speaks quietly to her, and presses on until he is standing beside her at last. It takes several tries before he can untangle the vine wrapped around her snout - she shakes her head and tries to gore him every time the rope shifts - but finally, she stands free.
The boar continues to stare at him, so quiet for so long he begins to wonder if she might charge him again, and start the whole process over. But then Rhoeas comes crashing through the forest, bones rattling, antlers lowered. And with a squeal, she takes off back to her den.
”You always get into trouble without me,” he accuses, pressing his snout into one of the many bloody streaks coloring Ipomoea’s sides.
Ipomoea winces, but lifts his head obstinately. The end of the vine sways slightly, reaching out for him; it curls itself neatly around his leg once again, the weapon hugging itself close to his body.
ooc notes
