Andras Demyan
"All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift your spear and say 'yes' as it flashes."
"All you want to do is dance out of your skin into another song not quite about heroes, but still a song where you can lift your spear and say 'yes' as it flashes."
Andras is biting his tongue--not in some metaphorical sense to suggest he is struggling to dam the bile that is rising in him, higher and higher every day; but in a literal sense. And he is biting his tongue so hard it hurts.
"Ipomoea," he echoes, "will do." He likes it, and someday he will say so - someday it will come out of him in waves - but today he is quiet, and still, and as the king steps closer the little black pegasus leans out of his way.
He is trying to listen to his heart, and it isn't that it is loud and groaning, the roar of an old engine that creaks with the effort of being, or that it beats as fast as a panicked bird or as hard as the drums or war--but rather that it doesn't. For one blissful minute he is an empty chamber full of nothing but the wind, a canyon with an open mouth and the sand that blows in from its cliffs only piles in the corners against the wall. Andras cannot remember the last time he was anything but a fist, or a snarl. He must look startled when he meets Ipomoea's eyes again, breathless and close to shuddering.
Were you reading? What were you reading? The king asks, and there is the hum again, the chattering teeth of a soul too big for its body - the sobbing ache of the damned.
Andras turns to his pile of books, stacked meticulously so they suggest disarray without drawing the eye: the first book is in line with the edge of the table, the next set down so each corner meets the middle of each flat edge, and the top (a thick tome bound in navy leather titled A History of Delumine) laid down the same. Each of them are marked with strips of paper to act as bookmarks and haphazardly stuffed with pages of notes.
He feels like he's been caught doing something wrong, or something taboo - and he cannot help the hot shame that walks its prickling fingers up his spine to the base of his skull. It turns his ears back and draws his mouth into a firm, grim line.
"I was." Andras mumbles, and then, louder: "I'm looking for something, but I'm not sure what. I figure I'll know it when I see it."
"Why? What are you doing?"
"Ipomoea," he echoes, "will do." He likes it, and someday he will say so - someday it will come out of him in waves - but today he is quiet, and still, and as the king steps closer the little black pegasus leans out of his way.
He is trying to listen to his heart, and it isn't that it is loud and groaning, the roar of an old engine that creaks with the effort of being, or that it beats as fast as a panicked bird or as hard as the drums or war--but rather that it doesn't. For one blissful minute he is an empty chamber full of nothing but the wind, a canyon with an open mouth and the sand that blows in from its cliffs only piles in the corners against the wall. Andras cannot remember the last time he was anything but a fist, or a snarl. He must look startled when he meets Ipomoea's eyes again, breathless and close to shuddering.
Were you reading? What were you reading? The king asks, and there is the hum again, the chattering teeth of a soul too big for its body - the sobbing ache of the damned.
Andras turns to his pile of books, stacked meticulously so they suggest disarray without drawing the eye: the first book is in line with the edge of the table, the next set down so each corner meets the middle of each flat edge, and the top (a thick tome bound in navy leather titled A History of Delumine) laid down the same. Each of them are marked with strips of paper to act as bookmarks and haphazardly stuffed with pages of notes.
He feels like he's been caught doing something wrong, or something taboo - and he cannot help the hot shame that walks its prickling fingers up his spine to the base of his skull. It turns his ears back and draws his mouth into a firm, grim line.
"I was." Andras mumbles, and then, louder: "I'm looking for something, but I'm not sure what. I figure I'll know it when I see it."
"Why? What are you doing?"
@ipomoea
they made you into a weapon
and told you to find peace.
