my lavender bones.
F
or a moment, the wall of verdant ivy stretching floor to ceiling looks like a forest. The sunlight streaming in through the cracks in the wall are the dappled light coming through the canopy, the vines and leaves hanging like curtains between the trees. He can almost imagine that if he were to turn, it would be to step into the forest; that if he were to look, he might find a trail of golden orchids leading him deeper and deeper into the wild.He closes his eyes as the stranger steps forward, and sees it in his mind. That other-forest, in that other-world, with that other-Ipomoea who is a king of nothing but a god of everything.
Sometimes it feels so close, as though he might step through a doorway and be that other-him.
When he opens his eyes he wonders if he could grow a forest from the bones of this castle (his castle, he reminds himself). He wonders how hard it would be to split apart the marble and mortar, to crack the cobblestones with roots and tear holes in the ceiling by which his saplings might grow. To let the gardens run wild in a way they have never been before.
The magic bumps against his heart like they are two ships meeting in the ocean of his soul, and he knows he could do it. He knows he wants to (or maybe it is only a part of him, that wild part, that thing that is forever learning how to be sharp, and brave, and furious.)
But still he smiles, and begs it to be a kinder smile. A smile that does not reveal the desert-brutality of his soul, the way he sometimes feels like a self-righteous god instead of their king of flowers. And when he does not answer Willfur — when he does not tell him that Ipomoea fits better than sir — it is because he is afraid his teeth are too sharp to form the words without cutting them out of him.
So he flicks an ear towards the mule instead, and listens patiently, and waits quietly. And he tries, oh how he tries to be as fragile as the orchid, as soft as its petals, to forget the way it grows from the bones of rotten wood.
"Thana is not the easiest to befriend," it should feel strange, to feel both love and caution in his voice. But this has always been the way she has made him feel, like he was both soft and sharp, god and mortal, wild and tamed. And when he should be searching for all the things left unsaid in Willfur’s pause, he sees only a stranger his unicorn does not hate.
And anyone that Thana does not hate — "It’s Willfur, right? Please, this home is as much your’s as it is mine." Perhaps moreso, he does not say. He swallows the thought down (again and again and again, as if swallowing it down makes it any less a part of him.)
He considers him quietly for a moment. "What did you have in mind? I’ve seen you around — others have, too. There’s not many who can get along so amicably with," people like Thana "so many different people." Ipomoea turns back to the orchid. The ivy grows thick and wild around it, nearly strangling itself. He tips his head back to follow the growth of it from floor to ceiling.
"One might already confuse you for a Champion." He trims away a bit of choked ivy, letting more sunlight come in through the cracks in the wall.
