At first there is only the furious beat of the desert in his heart, twisting and churning like the sands in the Mors begging for more, more, more. He can feel it lingering there, ready to devour her body whole in thistles and vines and morning glory flowers. It is what keeps his heart beating, when he lets go of the magic and lets the stems of the thistle plant fall back into the snow.
It is what has always kept his heart beating, all this time.
And to their east the desert is watching. Ipomoea pretends not to notice.
He slows to a stop and turns, ignoring that part of him that wants nothing more than to go on and on and on. If it were not for Elena’s laughter pooling like the breath of spring from behind him, he might never have stopped running. As it is he only tosses his head and smiles back at her, lets her sunlight shine through all of his cracks like holy water in a leaking basin.
“Well fought yourself,” he bumps his muzzle against her shoulder in a manner that is far more gentle than the ending of a battle has any right to be. “You fight well. Who taught you?”
Already he is looking over her for bruises, tracing the path his legs had taken down her hip, eyeing the scrapes of her knees and ankles. But her laughter is infectious, and it is all too easy to lean in and forget the way they had crashed together like monsters instead of friends only moments before. “Who says we can’t still do both?” Something terrible and awful inside of him is curling back up to sleep, a desert-born fiend bedding down for the winter again.
“Come, let’s find somewhere warmer, and we’ll find better flowers for a friendship bracelet.” And just like that the Steppe is behind them, and Ipomoea kicks his heels up into a counter and turns south. Away from the desert — away from home — but towards a friend.
It is what has always kept his heart beating, all this time.
And to their east the desert is watching. Ipomoea pretends not to notice.
He slows to a stop and turns, ignoring that part of him that wants nothing more than to go on and on and on. If it were not for Elena’s laughter pooling like the breath of spring from behind him, he might never have stopped running. As it is he only tosses his head and smiles back at her, lets her sunlight shine through all of his cracks like holy water in a leaking basin.
“Well fought yourself,” he bumps his muzzle against her shoulder in a manner that is far more gentle than the ending of a battle has any right to be. “You fight well. Who taught you?”
Already he is looking over her for bruises, tracing the path his legs had taken down her hip, eyeing the scrapes of her knees and ankles. But her laughter is infectious, and it is all too easy to lean in and forget the way they had crashed together like monsters instead of friends only moments before. “Who says we can’t still do both?” Something terrible and awful inside of him is curling back up to sleep, a desert-born fiend bedding down for the winter again.
“Come, let’s find somewhere warmer, and we’ll find better flowers for a friendship bracelet.” And just like that the Steppe is behind them, and Ipomoea kicks his heels up into a counter and turns south. Away from the desert — away from home — but towards a friend.
@
”here am i!“
