Again and again, he returns to the desert.
It is always there, a memory waiting to surface, a grain of sand clinging to his heart. And always it comes when he least expects it, whispers against his soul like he was but a wayward son struggling to find his way home (but what is a home, to an orphan? What is a family to a boy who had none?)
Ipomoea can feel it creeping up again now, when the wind blows from the east and carries a bit of that wild scent with it. When it weaves around the trees like a song of sand and soil, a sound his heart is beginning to learn the beat of. It makes him want to follow it, this wind that curls through his mane like it holds the secret he has been looking for, the pieces of home he has never been able to find.
He knows, of course he knows that the desert is not his home, not while there is a forest that will always be waiting for him. The same as he knows the forest cannot be his home while the sand is still calling, the way he lays down in the meadows and imagines it is sand dunes rising around him instead of flowers. Ipomoea knows his home is nowhere and everywhere, and he knows —
— he knows it is tearing him apart.
He wants to pretend it is not. He wants to pretend the forest is all he will need, the way he had thought it would answer all of his questions when he was a boy. All at once he is that boy again, begging in the streets; and again he feels himself falling asleep in the sands, dreaming of clover and lavender, of trees tall enough to block out the sun.
When he looks at Elena he can see it, the golden glow of the sands in the sunlight, the fire in her eyes so much like the fire of the desert (are not all fires the same, even when they were different? Were they not all just a sign of the soul, of a passion that refused to be tamed?) And Ipomoea tries, oh he tries to believe that the family he has chosen is the same as being born into one. He holds his friends close for fear of losing them, for he has lost so many already. It was the way of the world, to take and take and take.
Ipomoea is almost tired of giving.
But when he presses his cheek to Elena’s and lets her words whisper their way down into his soul instead of laying against his skin like petals, he thinks he has a little left to give. “You are too alive to be yet a ghost,” he whispers back to her. He knows she does not see it; just as he does not see that he is still soft, when all he feels is sharp.
“Perhaps that is the blessing of it,” he says when he tilts his head back to the sky with her. “Perhaps it is a blessing, to walk through the world without disturbing it; to not cause pain anymore, or receive. To only admire what is.” He thinks he would not mind being a ghost. And sometimes, Ipomoea envies those who are still mortal, those who can see their end in sight instead of looking forward and seeing only years, and years, and years left of searching, and wanting, and aching.
And aching, and aching, and aching —
Ipomoea sighs. And when he pulls away, flowers are still blooming in his footsteps, and the loamy earth is still struggling to form itself into shapes to follow along beside him. A wood mouse with seed-eyes hops along in his shadow; a fawn colored with the earth lifts its head to regard him from a bed of wildflowers. Ipomoea feels more and more a god of this earth and he wonders if the Novus gods were right after all to abandon it.
It is a selfish thought, he knows. And he pushes it from his mind when he turns back to Elena with a smile that feels spun more of shadows instead of moonlight. “Anything that I have — anything that I am — is already your’s. You know that,” he says, bumping his muzzle against her as gently as a flower unfurling in the morning light.
And again the desert catches up to him. And again he thinks of family, of finding kin where they should have been none, of choosing the ones you love.
He thinks Elena may have been part of the family he was missing all around.
His breath is a sigh against her skin when he leans against her, his eyes closing against the night. Somewhere out there, there are still unicorns and shadows and fate circling around like wolves, but here — oh here there are only two friends in the world they have created, the world they have chosen, and Ipomoea realizes now he would have it no other way.
“I am honored you would think of me as such,” he whispers against her. “And I will look after and love Elli as my own, for you and her are as much my family already.” And secretly he says a prayer to whichever gods are still listening that fate should not be so cruel to take Elena away so soon.
He does not know if that is a thing he could bear. Not when she is one of the few left that are still holding him to this world, that are reminding him to be soft instead of sharp, a god of life instead of one carving out his pain from the world.
“Will you stay a while longer? The festival feels brighter and lighter with you here.” It feels like one more reason to stay, he does not say, when all the rest are telling him to go.
It is always there, a memory waiting to surface, a grain of sand clinging to his heart. And always it comes when he least expects it, whispers against his soul like he was but a wayward son struggling to find his way home (but what is a home, to an orphan? What is a family to a boy who had none?)
Ipomoea can feel it creeping up again now, when the wind blows from the east and carries a bit of that wild scent with it. When it weaves around the trees like a song of sand and soil, a sound his heart is beginning to learn the beat of. It makes him want to follow it, this wind that curls through his mane like it holds the secret he has been looking for, the pieces of home he has never been able to find.
He knows, of course he knows that the desert is not his home, not while there is a forest that will always be waiting for him. The same as he knows the forest cannot be his home while the sand is still calling, the way he lays down in the meadows and imagines it is sand dunes rising around him instead of flowers. Ipomoea knows his home is nowhere and everywhere, and he knows —
— he knows it is tearing him apart.
He wants to pretend it is not. He wants to pretend the forest is all he will need, the way he had thought it would answer all of his questions when he was a boy. All at once he is that boy again, begging in the streets; and again he feels himself falling asleep in the sands, dreaming of clover and lavender, of trees tall enough to block out the sun.
When he looks at Elena he can see it, the golden glow of the sands in the sunlight, the fire in her eyes so much like the fire of the desert (are not all fires the same, even when they were different? Were they not all just a sign of the soul, of a passion that refused to be tamed?) And Ipomoea tries, oh he tries to believe that the family he has chosen is the same as being born into one. He holds his friends close for fear of losing them, for he has lost so many already. It was the way of the world, to take and take and take.
Ipomoea is almost tired of giving.
But when he presses his cheek to Elena’s and lets her words whisper their way down into his soul instead of laying against his skin like petals, he thinks he has a little left to give. “You are too alive to be yet a ghost,” he whispers back to her. He knows she does not see it; just as he does not see that he is still soft, when all he feels is sharp.
“Perhaps that is the blessing of it,” he says when he tilts his head back to the sky with her. “Perhaps it is a blessing, to walk through the world without disturbing it; to not cause pain anymore, or receive. To only admire what is.” He thinks he would not mind being a ghost. And sometimes, Ipomoea envies those who are still mortal, those who can see their end in sight instead of looking forward and seeing only years, and years, and years left of searching, and wanting, and aching.
And aching, and aching, and aching —
Ipomoea sighs. And when he pulls away, flowers are still blooming in his footsteps, and the loamy earth is still struggling to form itself into shapes to follow along beside him. A wood mouse with seed-eyes hops along in his shadow; a fawn colored with the earth lifts its head to regard him from a bed of wildflowers. Ipomoea feels more and more a god of this earth and he wonders if the Novus gods were right after all to abandon it.
It is a selfish thought, he knows. And he pushes it from his mind when he turns back to Elena with a smile that feels spun more of shadows instead of moonlight. “Anything that I have — anything that I am — is already your’s. You know that,” he says, bumping his muzzle against her as gently as a flower unfurling in the morning light.
And again the desert catches up to him. And again he thinks of family, of finding kin where they should have been none, of choosing the ones you love.
He thinks Elena may have been part of the family he was missing all around.
His breath is a sigh against her skin when he leans against her, his eyes closing against the night. Somewhere out there, there are still unicorns and shadows and fate circling around like wolves, but here — oh here there are only two friends in the world they have created, the world they have chosen, and Ipomoea realizes now he would have it no other way.
“I am honored you would think of me as such,” he whispers against her. “And I will look after and love Elli as my own, for you and her are as much my family already.” And secretly he says a prayer to whichever gods are still listening that fate should not be so cruel to take Elena away so soon.
He does not know if that is a thing he could bear. Not when she is one of the few left that are still holding him to this world, that are reminding him to be soft instead of sharp, a god of life instead of one carving out his pain from the world.
“Will you stay a while longer? The festival feels brighter and lighter with you here.” It feels like one more reason to stay, he does not say, when all the rest are telling him to go.
@
”rooting / rotting“
