Ipomoea can no longer remember a time when he had not felt the weight of all his flowers and sand growing a wreath about his shoulders.
He tries, sometimes. He tries to remember when he was a boy, seeing for the first time the dancing caravan that had arrived in Solterra. He tries to remember the wonder he had felt, the hope that there were places beyond the desert that were gentler, that moved in ways that did not remind him so much of violence.
But it slips away from him now, even when he stares at the sprig of rosemary he had tossed into the flames for remembrance, curling in upon itself until cracks appear, and widen, and finally shatter it into an ash that flashes brightly before his eyes. He can feel that, too, adding to the pile of memories that slip slowly through his grasp despite how tightly he tries to hold to them.
So he turns away.
And he sees her.
He does not think it strange, that she should always come to him when he feels the cracks of his soul beginning to widen and split him apart. How could he, when to stand beside her is to feel her sunlight shining through all those cracks, tugging them back together? Pulling him back to wholeness?
There is a part of him that envies her for that. A part of him that knows he has passed the point of innocence and softness, that he is now shattered as much as he is whole in the remaking. There is that darkness in his eyes now (and oh, a part of him mourns now to realize that it has been there since she met him, that she has never known him when there was only light and lightness in his soul.) And that darkness does not fade when she presses herself gently into his skin with all the gentleness of a spring breeze against a wild-eyed thing.
And he smiles at her. His teeth flash like weapons ringed in firelight but his smile, at least, is whole. “Elena.” He sighs between his teeth and the almost-soft kiss against her cheek.
Ipomoea does not tell her that he has given up pretending. And he does not tell her that he does not remember what it is like to be young, or innocent, or soft, or to run between the trees like he is only playing a game instead of racing towards some unknown that terrifies him almost as much as what he is running from. He only turns with her, and with the scent of the rosemary-smoke clinging still to his skin, he follows after her.
The earth echoes with his hoofbeats, trembling like a living thing that wants to tear itself free and run beside him (to him it has always been a living thing, but now, oh now he can feel its heartbeat beneath his hooves in a way he had never known before. And he can see the way it bucks in his shadow, the way dust rises up like a breath of smoke in his wake.) Elena disappears into the darkness of the forest, but Ipomoea does not need to see the gold of her skin to know which path she runs — the earth tells him. It presses understanding in the shape of flower petals against his legs, lets him feel the thud of her hooves in the loamy soil like they are his own.
He follows her without hesitation. As the shadows close around him like a cloak and the earth carries him to that unknown like an arrow to its target.
He tries, sometimes. He tries to remember when he was a boy, seeing for the first time the dancing caravan that had arrived in Solterra. He tries to remember the wonder he had felt, the hope that there were places beyond the desert that were gentler, that moved in ways that did not remind him so much of violence.
But it slips away from him now, even when he stares at the sprig of rosemary he had tossed into the flames for remembrance, curling in upon itself until cracks appear, and widen, and finally shatter it into an ash that flashes brightly before his eyes. He can feel that, too, adding to the pile of memories that slip slowly through his grasp despite how tightly he tries to hold to them.
So he turns away.
And he sees her.
He does not think it strange, that she should always come to him when he feels the cracks of his soul beginning to widen and split him apart. How could he, when to stand beside her is to feel her sunlight shining through all those cracks, tugging them back together? Pulling him back to wholeness?
There is a part of him that envies her for that. A part of him that knows he has passed the point of innocence and softness, that he is now shattered as much as he is whole in the remaking. There is that darkness in his eyes now (and oh, a part of him mourns now to realize that it has been there since she met him, that she has never known him when there was only light and lightness in his soul.) And that darkness does not fade when she presses herself gently into his skin with all the gentleness of a spring breeze against a wild-eyed thing.
And he smiles at her. His teeth flash like weapons ringed in firelight but his smile, at least, is whole. “Elena.” He sighs between his teeth and the almost-soft kiss against her cheek.
Ipomoea does not tell her that he has given up pretending. And he does not tell her that he does not remember what it is like to be young, or innocent, or soft, or to run between the trees like he is only playing a game instead of racing towards some unknown that terrifies him almost as much as what he is running from. He only turns with her, and with the scent of the rosemary-smoke clinging still to his skin, he follows after her.
The earth echoes with his hoofbeats, trembling like a living thing that wants to tear itself free and run beside him (to him it has always been a living thing, but now, oh now he can feel its heartbeat beneath his hooves in a way he had never known before. And he can see the way it bucks in his shadow, the way dust rises up like a breath of smoke in his wake.) Elena disappears into the darkness of the forest, but Ipomoea does not need to see the gold of her skin to know which path she runs — the earth tells him. It presses understanding in the shape of flower petals against his legs, lets him feel the thud of her hooves in the loamy soil like they are his own.
He follows her without hesitation. As the shadows close around him like a cloak and the earth carries him to that unknown like an arrow to its target.
@
”rooting / rotting“
