you be the wind
i'll be the wildflower
i'll be the wildflower
In the half-silence before the stallion answers, in the space between heartbeats so labored they hurt, Ipomoea wonders if he made a mistake. The stranger is too quiet, too calm, too composed - it doesn’t feel right to him, it doesn’t feel fair; and in the waiting, he can feel his blood beginning to rise. Every second, every step he has taken in the woods since the nightmares began, every body found half-hidden in moss and snow - all of it he has held on to, all of it he has stored away in the dark and cracked parts of him. All of it he turns now to fury, spinning every memory to wrath like they’ve only ever been threads to the tapestry he now creates.
He wonders if this is what it feels like to fight the ocean, waves crashing over his head like the anger crashing against his ribs.
He’s drowning in it.
And when Sarkan’s eyes meet his then, he doesn’t try to smile. Guilty, guilty, guilty, the trees whisper around them, so loudly he wonders how Sarkan can’t hear them. His anger is turning every drop of magic in his blood to gold and rust and something sharp, something hungry. And it is in that moment when he looks at the grey man that his magic begs, let me go. Ipomoea starts to feel like the wolf setting the traps now, but still he says no, not yet, wait, even as the trees lean in and all the forest begins to tremble from wanting.
Until Sarkan tries once more to deny, to slip his way out of the noose he’s trying to slip around his neck. Then he cuts the last paper-birch thin thread holding his magic back. It swells and burns and oozes like all the blood that had drenched the forest soil, and he is glad to set it loose, glad to free the monster he had locked away in the deepest parts of himself. And when it takes over, when it stops listening to him and starts listening to the sound of the his hurt and his anger and his sorrow singing, he does not try to stop it.
With his magic leading the way, the forest rages.
The branches scratching together overhead start to sound like something wailing, tapping out a death knell that calls for a funeral to start. The earth is trembling as tree roots claw their way free of it, reaching their bone-white fingers for the man who had watered them with blood. The flowers around them start to chant, yes, yes, yes, the magic blooming like a flower that has never known rain until now.
For every root he shakes free, every vine he severs with his knife, there is another rising to take its place. And when Sarkan turns for him at last, and raises that silver-bright blade high, the beast in Ipomoea smiles with all its teeth.
In the fury, and the struggle, and the quicksilver second, he hardly feels the knife against his chest. He feels only the heat of his magic, and hears only the humming of that set-free beast. And as he leaps forward to meet the stallion, teeth raised to his throat, he thinks what a mistake it was for Sarkan to let the forest taste his blood.
@sarkan @thana
He wonders if this is what it feels like to fight the ocean, waves crashing over his head like the anger crashing against his ribs.
He’s drowning in it.
And when Sarkan’s eyes meet his then, he doesn’t try to smile. Guilty, guilty, guilty, the trees whisper around them, so loudly he wonders how Sarkan can’t hear them. His anger is turning every drop of magic in his blood to gold and rust and something sharp, something hungry. And it is in that moment when he looks at the grey man that his magic begs, let me go. Ipomoea starts to feel like the wolf setting the traps now, but still he says no, not yet, wait, even as the trees lean in and all the forest begins to tremble from wanting.
Until Sarkan tries once more to deny, to slip his way out of the noose he’s trying to slip around his neck. Then he cuts the last paper-birch thin thread holding his magic back. It swells and burns and oozes like all the blood that had drenched the forest soil, and he is glad to set it loose, glad to free the monster he had locked away in the deepest parts of himself. And when it takes over, when it stops listening to him and starts listening to the sound of the his hurt and his anger and his sorrow singing, he does not try to stop it.
With his magic leading the way, the forest rages.
The branches scratching together overhead start to sound like something wailing, tapping out a death knell that calls for a funeral to start. The earth is trembling as tree roots claw their way free of it, reaching their bone-white fingers for the man who had watered them with blood. The flowers around them start to chant, yes, yes, yes, the magic blooming like a flower that has never known rain until now.
For every root he shakes free, every vine he severs with his knife, there is another rising to take its place. And when Sarkan turns for him at last, and raises that silver-bright blade high, the beast in Ipomoea smiles with all its teeth.
In the fury, and the struggle, and the quicksilver second, he hardly feels the knife against his chest. He feels only the heat of his magic, and hears only the humming of that set-free beast. And as he leaps forward to meet the stallion, teeth raised to his throat, he thinks what a mistake it was for Sarkan to let the forest taste his blood.
@sarkan @thana
