you are the poem wildflowers write to spring
Later — after the light-flowers lose their magic, after the ghosts of the world tire of their dances and return to that other-world everyone is whispering about — later he might wonder that tonight was made for secrets. And he might wonder if it was something in the air, or the magic, or the ghosts that made them all feel so close to the surface of him, burning up his skin like so many flames trying to get out. Later, later, later —
But for now it’s all hidden in the shadows cast by the lantern-light. He doesn’t have time for dishonesty, or regret. He has only his memories spread out before him like the glass shards of a shattered mirror.
“Perhaps it is,” he muses. Asterion brushes against him, muzzle to skin, and he leans into the touch for a moment. It grounds him — a reminder that he is more alive than dead, not yet one of the ghosts that seem ready to steal his place. The bay is both earth and stars and Ipomoea has always felt at home in them both.
He looks back to the other horses lingering near them and wishes he could say the same for them. Most days Ipomoea would give himself up to keep them from slipping into that other-world. But today —
“I’m happy to hear it,” he says, the firelight flickering along his jaw when he smiles. His hoofbeats are soft against the dirt path as he leads the once-king away from the table of un-carved statues. There was a garden full of secrets to discover tonight, a hundred winding paths with a hundred hopes and dreams standing guard over it all.
He looks at them now as they pass, from the smallest carving of a single leaf to the rearing, roaring horse marking the entrance. All of them are limned in light in a way that he knows he will never be. When he speaks at last, his voice is softer than a king’s should be.
“Did you ever wonder, when Florentine first made you king — did you ever think she was wrong?”
@asterion “speech”
