I P O M O E A
—
W
hen did he start looking at people and places and seeing only what they used to be, instead of what they could be?He looks at the streets and remembers when there were more moonstones than rubies. And he remembers a time when a king with dark hair and flashing eyes had welcomed him home like an old friend (and perhaps they had been — all orphans were bonded that way, a lifetime of shared experiences knitting them in place of blood.) It still feels as though he is looking for Erynvale, and Reichenbach, and Isra, and all the others he has lost.
Sometimes he wakes in the middle of the night and sees the walls of his castle surrounding him, and feels the press of love’s ribcage against his own, and none of it makes sense. And the world doesn’t feel right again until he steals out into the moonlight and falls back asleep with the poppies dancing on long stalks all around him.
And even now, he’s surrounded by a court of dreams and dreamers and yet —
he is not dreaming with them. He is only looking back, at the way the streets used to look when a unicorn with scales dusting her belly had pressed her cheek to his.
“I know,” he tells Morrighan, and even his voice sounds more like a memory than anything else. “I was here for it.” He had lit their lanterns beside the lake, and when he wandered through the markets afterwards no one in their autumnal costumes had recognized him (he had hardly recognized himself.) It was, in some ways, why he always returned to Denocte. To remember.
So why, then, did remembering also feel like forgetting?
Why did it feel as thought Denocte were slipping past him like water through a creek?
Morrighan sighs beside him, and he has to hold his breath to keep from joining her. Instead he has to force himself to smile, even when it feels as though a part of his heart is dashing itself into pieces against his ribs. “I’m happy she made it home safely.”
There is gentleness in his smile now, that feels as foreign as if he were a wolf instead. “Your daughter,” is nothing like my daughters, he wants to say — but then again, was there anyone like his unicorn twins? “is quite the adventurer,” he says instead, soft laughter punctuating his words. “She is welcome to visit Dawn whenever she’d like. There are some vineyards near the court that she liked, I should have thought to bring a bottle of cider back with me.”
Next time, his eyes promise.
you have dug your soul out of the grave
do not go back to what buried you
@morrighan
