He feels warm, despite the cool autumn evening. He feels warm, like the first thaw of spring, ice slipping away from pine needles like so many tears being dried. He feels warm, whether from the wine or the magic or the simple joy of greeting an old friend — maybe it’s all of them, or something else entirely. Maybe it is only his heart relearning a song it hasn’t sung the notes to in years.
When Moira presses her dark cheek to his he smiles, and he presses back into her. “Hello again, Moira,” he echoes her, as stardust stains their lips and collects on their eyelashes. Every time he blinks he sees silver, and stars, and wishes all falling together in the meadow.
He wants to tell her he has, he has — in more ways than he can count. He wants to ask if she can feel how hollow his chest is, how each heartbeat echoes in all that empty space. He wants to peel back his ribs and show her the scars — from the cuts he’s made, from the sacrifices, from the violence of others. Oh, if he could he would show her all the things that have happened since he last saw here, starting with that morning in the desert and ending in a small cottage sitting at the edge of this very meadow. It’s all there, right on the tip of his tongue, begging, slipping —
But tonight is not the place for sharing nightmares and terrors.
So he swallows it down, all those knives and thorns and blood. And he smiles, and he says nothing of the bits of bone buried somewhere here in the meadow (and the bodies he thinks the flowers might be growing from.) Let tonight be for making wishes, he breathes onto the flowers. They shiver in response, dance beneath his breath. And Ipomoea wonders if the magic that had turned them to silver spun from light contained the power to grant wishes to orphans.
“And you look as radiant as ever,” he tells her when he looks up at last. “I’m glad to see you here.”
He runs his muzzle down her shoulder, leaves a mark of silver shimmering alongside the softly-glowing stars of her skin. “I should have known I’d find a little bit of Denocte here in Delumine tonight. It suits you, Moira, the lights.” And the happiness, he does not say — but oh it’s reflected there in his eyes already.
When Moira presses her dark cheek to his he smiles, and he presses back into her. “Hello again, Moira,” he echoes her, as stardust stains their lips and collects on their eyelashes. Every time he blinks he sees silver, and stars, and wishes all falling together in the meadow.
He wants to tell her he has, he has — in more ways than he can count. He wants to ask if she can feel how hollow his chest is, how each heartbeat echoes in all that empty space. He wants to peel back his ribs and show her the scars — from the cuts he’s made, from the sacrifices, from the violence of others. Oh, if he could he would show her all the things that have happened since he last saw here, starting with that morning in the desert and ending in a small cottage sitting at the edge of this very meadow. It’s all there, right on the tip of his tongue, begging, slipping —
But tonight is not the place for sharing nightmares and terrors.
So he swallows it down, all those knives and thorns and blood. And he smiles, and he says nothing of the bits of bone buried somewhere here in the meadow (and the bodies he thinks the flowers might be growing from.) Let tonight be for making wishes, he breathes onto the flowers. They shiver in response, dance beneath his breath. And Ipomoea wonders if the magic that had turned them to silver spun from light contained the power to grant wishes to orphans.
“And you look as radiant as ever,” he tells her when he looks up at last. “I’m glad to see you here.”
He runs his muzzle down her shoulder, leaves a mark of silver shimmering alongside the softly-glowing stars of her skin. “I should have known I’d find a little bit of Denocte here in Delumine tonight. It suits you, Moira, the lights.” And the happiness, he does not say — but oh it’s reflected there in his eyes already.
@
”here am i!“
