trapped in an endless garden
Tonight, like most nights, sleep does not come easy for him. His dreams are full of wild things, of full moons and rivers that burn brighter than the sun, of songs that sound more like screams echoing in the dark, hollow spaces between his lungs. And above it all, a question —
Something was calling for him.
He has heard it before — in the forest, while tending his gardens, while watching his daughters learning to run on legs that grew inches at a time, years passing in days. Sometimes he thought it was always calling for him, like a lamb at his turn for the slaughter, a sacrifice about to be made. Three times he has died, or almost-died (or was it almost-lived?) and now — now, perhaps, it had come knocking.
He can feel the rattle of it in his lungs, each time he breathes too deeply. And he can feel the heaviness of it pressing in around his heart, closer and closer with every beat.
But it his death was drawing near, it was only to whisper to him not yet.. He knew of course, from watching Thana — you did not always feel it coming. There were some lambs that would forever be surprised to see their own blood running away from them in little rivers, or old men who expected to see just one more sunrise.
And if it was death knocking on the door, he should not rise so easily, so readily, to answer it.
But he does. He rises when he hears the call of it, with notes that ring in every root-filled chamber of his heart instead of in his ears, a language of which he would recognize long after it fades away. It makes him feel something like a wolf, rising to answer the call of his pack beneath a full moon. Rhoeas scrapes the tines of his antlers down the corner of the castle, and in the sound of bone against stone there is that question again: the question a monster asks its creator when the noose around its neck slips.
He shivers, and begins to run. Ipomoea runs, and he runs, and he runs and he is chasing after something more immortal than the hunt of wolves. He is hunting memories and monsters; he is finding the answer to questions that have not been finished. And when the grass brushes his ankles and he grows thorns from every wildflower, the forest knows better than to try to stop him.
Soon it is the desert spreading out before him, pale as bone in the moonlight. Bits of desert weed and sandstone crumble beneath his hooves and there is a part of him, a distant part of him, that begins to cringe the moment he feels the heat of the sleeping Mors.
But it is the immortal rest of him that smiles as he walks onward, through the sand that shifts restlessly while he looks at the shadows they create like they are maps instead of darkness closing in. And he does not take his eyes off that place on the horizon that turns lighter and lighter with every step he takes, bruise-blue fading to gold. He does not stop chasing.
Yet when a shadow flashes on the sand that is not caused by the dunes rearing up above him like a mouth, he can’t help but turn to it. Only Rhoeas runs on, as every bit of moss and flower begins to dry along his ribs and flake off like scales. Ipomoea does not know which instinct it is that has him turning to the mare instead of following that immortal call that runs free beneath his bonded’s shadow.
Maybe it is because he recognizes the ghost living in her as the same one that lives in him.
Something was calling for him.
He has heard it before — in the forest, while tending his gardens, while watching his daughters learning to run on legs that grew inches at a time, years passing in days. Sometimes he thought it was always calling for him, like a lamb at his turn for the slaughter, a sacrifice about to be made. Three times he has died, or almost-died (or was it almost-lived?) and now — now, perhaps, it had come knocking.
He can feel the rattle of it in his lungs, each time he breathes too deeply. And he can feel the heaviness of it pressing in around his heart, closer and closer with every beat.
But it his death was drawing near, it was only to whisper to him not yet.. He knew of course, from watching Thana — you did not always feel it coming. There were some lambs that would forever be surprised to see their own blood running away from them in little rivers, or old men who expected to see just one more sunrise.
And if it was death knocking on the door, he should not rise so easily, so readily, to answer it.
But he does. He rises when he hears the call of it, with notes that ring in every root-filled chamber of his heart instead of in his ears, a language of which he would recognize long after it fades away. It makes him feel something like a wolf, rising to answer the call of his pack beneath a full moon. Rhoeas scrapes the tines of his antlers down the corner of the castle, and in the sound of bone against stone there is that question again: the question a monster asks its creator when the noose around its neck slips.
He shivers, and begins to run. Ipomoea runs, and he runs, and he runs and he is chasing after something more immortal than the hunt of wolves. He is hunting memories and monsters; he is finding the answer to questions that have not been finished. And when the grass brushes his ankles and he grows thorns from every wildflower, the forest knows better than to try to stop him.
Soon it is the desert spreading out before him, pale as bone in the moonlight. Bits of desert weed and sandstone crumble beneath his hooves and there is a part of him, a distant part of him, that begins to cringe the moment he feels the heat of the sleeping Mors.
But it is the immortal rest of him that smiles as he walks onward, through the sand that shifts restlessly while he looks at the shadows they create like they are maps instead of darkness closing in. And he does not take his eyes off that place on the horizon that turns lighter and lighter with every step he takes, bruise-blue fading to gold. He does not stop chasing.
Yet when a shadow flashes on the sand that is not caused by the dunes rearing up above him like a mouth, he can’t help but turn to it. Only Rhoeas runs on, as every bit of moss and flower begins to dry along his ribs and flake off like scales. Ipomoea does not know which instinct it is that has him turning to the mare instead of following that immortal call that runs free beneath his bonded’s shadow.
Maybe it is because he recognizes the ghost living in her as the same one that lives in him.
