 IPOMOEA lay me down in golden dandelions ‘cause i’ve been waiting
Ipomoea had not planned to return to Solterra so soon. He remembers the desert, remembers hating the way the sun burned and the san scratched at his delicate skin, the heat drying his mouth. He had not adapted to the desert—he wondered if he had even been born here, or simply left to suffer its elements. He doesn’t like to think about why he might have been left. The dawn boy follows the rising sun, his usual crown of flowers replaced with an arrangement of only the darkest hues he could find. With nearly every step, a petal or two seems to cascade down around him: a funeral veil, as he mourns with the citizens of Solterra. As he looks up at the stacked pyre, he doesn’t see the bones: he sees Maxence’s face, a memory from the unofficial meeting he’d had with the Solterran King along the rivers of the Rapax. He remembers how fierce the painted man had been, how sure and confident—if also brash and hotheaded. Ipomoea had been so embarrassed watching the King fly off, having not recognized him until after his name had been spoken. He’d made plans to arrange a meeting between his King and Maxence, perhaps take a visit to this garden he claimed to be building. But he’d waited too long. Shaking himself out of his reverie, he gets in line behind the huddled equines, allowing any who wish to move past him. This isn’t his King, despite his being born in the desert—it seemed only proper that true Solterrans should be the first to bless the stallion into his afterlife. He shuffles along at the back of the line, patiently waiting for his turn, reciting lines all the while. ’Oriens blesses you—no, Solis blesses you…’ He doesn’t feel ready when it becomes his turn at the altar; as he takes each step, slow and deliberate, he can’t help but become aware of young and inexperienced he feels. For a moment he wishes Kasil had come with him; he could have watched, but now he is expected to speak, to make some sort of move that would represent Dawn? Words fail him, and he doesn’t want to disappoint his Court—or worse, misrepresent the people of Delumine. Stalling for time, he looks to Seraphina: a woman he knows only by name, the Emissary of Day Court, and for a moment he is ashamed that he has not yet met her. He tries to catch her eye, if only briefly, to offer a smile or some other sort of encouragement, but time continues to pass. As his stellar’s jay of a companion alights at his withers, Ipomoea bows his head low to the funeral pyre, unsure what he is meant to say but finding words leaving his mouth anyway. “Commander Maxence, may you spar and jest with Solis in the heavens.” His voice drops to barely a whisper as he lowers his head further, his next words meant only for the King: “Oriens be with you.” With a nod to Seraphina, he leaves the altar and takes his place back among the crowd for the burning. |
art by neverrmind
<3
