This is why the songs of heroes and victors lie dead on their lips, why their worship fell on dead ears, why they descended again and again into the madness of the sands and the blood they spilled like prayers out upon it. Ipomoea can feel it — the empty, barely-beating hearts in all of their chests, the spaces they could not fill quickly enough with their opponents' blood. The hollow spaces between their lungs. The ache of their bellies that refuses to be sated, that never relents, that never gives them a moment to rest without looking for the next best thing to fill it with —
— he knows.
He knows because he feels it, too, as he leans over the railing and watches the next two fighters begin to circle one another. He knows it because the desert lives in his chest now, or perhaps it always has and he is only now learning to recognize its miles and miles of dunes as yet another mouth full of teeth and begging to swallow all the still-soft chambers of his heart.
Even now he can feel it, every blood soaked grain of sand chasing down the last of the flower petals lain against his ribs, the sand in his soul calling him to come home, come home, come back home.
But where they are empty and desperate to fill every last ache with a skin-deep rage, he is full. So terribly, painfully full that it is spilling out of him, all that sorrow and wrath and the traces of war that bleed out now from the scars lining his sides. All of it carving holes in his lungs, in his bones, in his veins, and even with it falling from all those holes he still can't find the end of it. Not in the forest, or the desert, or his gardens — not in this grave yard where the heroes are already dead and no one, not a single fighter or spectator has the courage to open their eyes and see it.
And he hopes, oh how he hopes they will feel every bit of his rage when he lays his teeth at their throats and screams, look. This is what war is.
lt is not boys barely come of age killing each other for sport.
The flowers and trees in his heart start to sway like a forest caught in the wrath of a thunderstorm, snarling and trembling in his chest with something that remembers the feeling of being so close to death. He will dream of them tonight, of sharp-edged flowers and statues holdings bouquets of poppies instead of swords. But he is not thinking of any garden except a garden of bones now when he hears the sand below them start to sing.
And he wonders what it makes of him, that there is both a gentleness and a sharpness in his smile when he steps closer. That there are both petals and grains of sand glittering in his eyes, his teeth, his mane. Maybe that is why he looks at him like he has forgotten what it feels like to be anything but a contradiction, as if heroes could liberate without destroying in the process.
"Because their hunger is not the only thing that matters in this world." Ipomoea pulls away because he is still bleeding, and all those holes are only looking for something sharp like Torix's horns to rip themselves out on. But as the magic rises in his veins and the dunes outside begin to sing, he whispers to that bottomless pit of rage and sorrow and broken things, not yet.
Not yet. But soon.
For the first time, Ipomoea does not feel like all this softness the desert could not consume was a good thing. “Enjoy the tournament,” he tells the horned man with memories of war in his eyes, even when he knows that he won't. And if there is a moment where he thinks to ask for this stranger's name, it is as fleeting as the shadow of a carrion crow passing in front of the sun overhead. It is a reminder, or a promise, or both, that there will always be another war after this one. Either way it makes Ipomoea turn away from the ring as the pool of blood is raked clean again and again and the cheers turn to singing.
And he follows the song into the desert — always to the desert.
— he knows.
He knows because he feels it, too, as he leans over the railing and watches the next two fighters begin to circle one another. He knows it because the desert lives in his chest now, or perhaps it always has and he is only now learning to recognize its miles and miles of dunes as yet another mouth full of teeth and begging to swallow all the still-soft chambers of his heart.
Even now he can feel it, every blood soaked grain of sand chasing down the last of the flower petals lain against his ribs, the sand in his soul calling him to come home, come home, come back home.
But where they are empty and desperate to fill every last ache with a skin-deep rage, he is full. So terribly, painfully full that it is spilling out of him, all that sorrow and wrath and the traces of war that bleed out now from the scars lining his sides. All of it carving holes in his lungs, in his bones, in his veins, and even with it falling from all those holes he still can't find the end of it. Not in the forest, or the desert, or his gardens — not in this grave yard where the heroes are already dead and no one, not a single fighter or spectator has the courage to open their eyes and see it.
And he hopes, oh how he hopes they will feel every bit of his rage when he lays his teeth at their throats and screams, look. This is what war is.
lt is not boys barely come of age killing each other for sport.
The flowers and trees in his heart start to sway like a forest caught in the wrath of a thunderstorm, snarling and trembling in his chest with something that remembers the feeling of being so close to death. He will dream of them tonight, of sharp-edged flowers and statues holdings bouquets of poppies instead of swords. But he is not thinking of any garden except a garden of bones now when he hears the sand below them start to sing.
And he wonders what it makes of him, that there is both a gentleness and a sharpness in his smile when he steps closer. That there are both petals and grains of sand glittering in his eyes, his teeth, his mane. Maybe that is why he looks at him like he has forgotten what it feels like to be anything but a contradiction, as if heroes could liberate without destroying in the process.
"Because their hunger is not the only thing that matters in this world." Ipomoea pulls away because he is still bleeding, and all those holes are only looking for something sharp like Torix's horns to rip themselves out on. But as the magic rises in his veins and the dunes outside begin to sing, he whispers to that bottomless pit of rage and sorrow and broken things, not yet.
Not yet. But soon.
For the first time, Ipomoea does not feel like all this softness the desert could not consume was a good thing. “Enjoy the tournament,” he tells the horned man with memories of war in his eyes, even when he knows that he won't. And if there is a moment where he thinks to ask for this stranger's name, it is as fleeting as the shadow of a carrion crow passing in front of the sun overhead. It is a reminder, or a promise, or both, that there will always be another war after this one. Either way it makes Ipomoea turn away from the ring as the pool of blood is raked clean again and again and the cheers turn to singing.
And he follows the song into the desert — always to the desert.
@
”here am i!“
