He watches her the way a bird might watch a stranger approaching, with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. Her words, her stance, her implicating words have him on alert, wary and ready to fly away if things take a sudden turn; and yet, his desire to understand has him rooted firmly in place. Like a bystander at the scene of an accident, he cannot will himself to look away.
Something in her eyes is unsettling familiar in a way he can’t quite put his finger on, let alone admit. Ipomoea, normally so vibrant, so happy - but there’s a shadow growing in his heart, a gloom settling in the back of his mind. It crept in so slowly, so subtly, he’d hardly noticed it at first. A flicker of doubt in the morning, a glance of uncertainty at the day’s end, an eerie silence in his thoughts during his free time. When the world began growing dark and heavy around him, it began also to overwhelm his own light that flickered lonesomely into the night.
He hadn’t realized, perhaps by sheer willfulness; not until he saw that same darkness reflected in Sloane’s eyes.
It both repulsed him and drew him in.
Is that my future? The thought was intrusive, unwelcome; he pushed it back as soon as it flickered into his mind but still it stuck, stubbornly, at the forefront. He didn’t know Sloane, and it was presumptuous of him to believe she had once been different, to assume how she might have behaved in her youth. But still he couldn’t help but wonder if her thoughts had started the same way as his, if they had grown like a seed buried in soil: unseen, unknown, uncared for until it burst from the earth and erupted in growth, fighting to be recognized. Was that the point of no return, the point when fighting those thoughts became more effort than they were worth?
Would the shadow over his heart grow the same, so that he woke up one day standing upon the edge of a cliff?
It was a disconcerting notion, but Ipomoea couldn’t help casting his gaze down to the water below. It churned and frothed over the rocks, its white capped waves spraying him with a mist that was slowly dampening his face. Every so often they parted, and he caught a glimpse of the slate-grey stones that they hid, their precipices ending in wicked points. At a loss for words, he could only sit there and watched as the water fell back again, consuming the boulders whole, concealing their secret.
Sloane sighs and turns to him. A speckled ear flicks in her direction, but otherwise he is still. Thinking. Waiting.
”Tell me, what is Delumine like?”
He almost sighs with relief at the change of subject. He uses it to push the cloud back, to lift the weight from his chest so that he can breathe again. “Delumine,” he says, and his voice is equal parts quiet and thoughtful.
“It’s many things. It can be a quiet place, a place of tradition and learning. And it can also be a very loud place, a place that celebrates life and living.” He wonders if she catches nuance in his tone, the double meaning to his words. “And it can be a somber place. We love knowledge, but sometimes knowledge can be heavy, or come with a price.” He hasn’t had to pay that price, not yet. Oriens paid when he miscounseled Caligo; not even gods were immune to being wrong, he knew.
“But above all,” he says, meeting Sloane’s gaze evenly, “it’s a home.”
Ipomoea had found a home there, one that had welcomed and even upraised a scraggly orphan that knew little about life. He had seen the Court take in strangers before, like a pink-striped mare, a tattooed stallion, and a pale-eyed dancer. Never had he seen them turn away someone who was searching to belong. Their faces are appearing in his mind, bringing the smallest of smiles to his face.
“We all have our own niche here, but it only works because he have each other.” And it’s my home, too, he doesn’t need to say, even when I'm not happy all the time.
hearts are breaking
wars are raging on
you’ve got me nervous
i’m at the end of my rope
hey, man, we can’t all be like you
i wish we were all rose-colored too
my rose-colored boy
@
”here am i!“
