I P O M O E A
—
I
t almost feels, for one small moment, as though all the world had spiraled down to only this: a Sovereign and a Regent of two courts bathed together in firelight, the smoke between them making up for any space that might have otherwise felt like division. It’s the moment she laughs, a woman who’s reputation did not lead him expecting warmth instead of fury, that has him remembering they are each more than what their stories say about them. He had been afraid of fire once, but the light of it can lead the way as often as burn. He had been afraid of so, so many things before.
Now all those fears have been whittled out of him by sorrow, and anger, and duty, by a world full of teeth and hunger. He feels more a weapon than a flower, a torch holding a flame that once kindled, does not know how to settle again into anything less than an ember waiting to erupt. The magic running beneath his skin feels as much like an inferno as the forest has, and whispers to him now that he could do more, could be more, than the devastation the gods had brought into his home.
And he does not need to wonder now if it was magic enough to remake the world. The truth of it is there spiderwebbing across the backs of his eyelids every time he blinks like a promise.
“It’s quieter than Denocte,” he warns her, as the crowd and music filters back in, as his world brightens again and opens. “But sometimes, you might find the quiet is exactly what’s needed to listen. I’ll be expecting her then,” and here he brushes his nose against Morrighan’s shoulder and smells smoke and ash. And it makes him wonder if stars and their wishes smelled anything less like a fire raging, as they burned themselves down to nothing. Did promises equal wishes, he wonders now, did they cross worlds the way stars did?
“And you are always welcome in my Court. I would be honored if you would make the trip.” And he hopes she will. He hopes that maybe she’ll see then that the world is bigger than Denocte.
Each of his eyes reflect the flames around them back at her when he blinks and turns back to the performance.
“Denocte feels quieter than it used to,” he muses quietly. And although he does not look at her, it feels more like tell me why that is than it does a question.
He thinks he may already know, the longer he scans the crowd and thinks only of what he sees missing.
you have dug your soul out of the grave
do not go back to what buried you
@morrighan
