I P O M O E A
It’s easy to walk alongside her, this women of red with her tiger trailing along beside them. It’s almost easy to forget where they are, to forget they’re on an island that seems more than sand and palm trees but something alive, and intelligent, and full of magic. He can almost ignore the way the birds seem to watch them and the how the trees seem to bend the way light moves.
He almost doesn’t have to think about how he’s here looking for a god, and for a killer, and for the answer to why this place was necessary in the first place.
But he puts it to the back of his mind for now, in that place where tigers prowl. It’s a hidden place, one that only makes itself known when it’s already too late - when the tiger has her jaws wrapped around her prey.
He smiles, brushing his shoulder against Moira’s. “I believe it,” he says, and laughs. It sounds like glass shattering and waves crashing, like the streets of Denocte when the sun sets. “It makes me want to stay ever longer, knowing that each night brings with it something new.” He wonders if it’s the same sense of mystery and adventure that keeps her, that keeps all of them, wandering the streets of the Night Court like beggars holding out their hats, wishing not for copper pennies, but for stories. For secrets.
A million lifetimes. It made him feel homesick, but in a way that made him not want to go home at all. Denocte was enthralling, with enough mysteries to keep him entertained indefinitely. Delumine felt as stale as an old, discarded book in comparison; a book that was only half-finished, whose author had run out of things to write about.
The Night Court would never have that problem.
He tilts his ear towards the red woman, even as his gaze wanders again. To the waves, to the trees, to the sandy beach that stretches on and on and on. But at her admission, he can’t help but tear his eyes away so that he can look at her properly.
Slowly, a new smile begins to spread across his face, like a flower unfurling.
“Is that so?” he asks, and again bumps playfully against her. “I hope you find him here, then. Life is far too short to keep such passions to ourselves.”
His wings are fluttering now, matching the beat of his heart as they ride and fall and rise again.
And then, coyly, daring a glance at her from the corner of his eye as he pretends that he’s not trying to take notes from her, he asks: “What will you tell him, when you see him again?”
There was time yet for her, for him, for all of them.
He almost doesn’t have to think about how he’s here looking for a god, and for a killer, and for the answer to why this place was necessary in the first place.
But he puts it to the back of his mind for now, in that place where tigers prowl. It’s a hidden place, one that only makes itself known when it’s already too late - when the tiger has her jaws wrapped around her prey.
He smiles, brushing his shoulder against Moira’s. “I believe it,” he says, and laughs. It sounds like glass shattering and waves crashing, like the streets of Denocte when the sun sets. “It makes me want to stay ever longer, knowing that each night brings with it something new.” He wonders if it’s the same sense of mystery and adventure that keeps her, that keeps all of them, wandering the streets of the Night Court like beggars holding out their hats, wishing not for copper pennies, but for stories. For secrets.
A million lifetimes. It made him feel homesick, but in a way that made him not want to go home at all. Denocte was enthralling, with enough mysteries to keep him entertained indefinitely. Delumine felt as stale as an old, discarded book in comparison; a book that was only half-finished, whose author had run out of things to write about.
The Night Court would never have that problem.
He tilts his ear towards the red woman, even as his gaze wanders again. To the waves, to the trees, to the sandy beach that stretches on and on and on. But at her admission, he can’t help but tear his eyes away so that he can look at her properly.
Slowly, a new smile begins to spread across his face, like a flower unfurling.
“Is that so?” he asks, and again bumps playfully against her. “I hope you find him here, then. Life is far too short to keep such passions to ourselves.”
His wings are fluttering now, matching the beat of his heart as they ride and fall and rise again.
And then, coyly, daring a glance at her from the corner of his eye as he pretends that he’s not trying to take notes from her, he asks: “What will you tell him, when you see him again?”
There was time yet for her, for him, for all of them.
