Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run Bang, bang, bang goes the farmer's gun Run rabbit, run rabbit, run, run, run
Messalina's pallid lips formed the syllables of the rhyme over and over again in a soundless chant. It had been a tune the stable boys used to sing on summer afternoons, while they chased each other with sharpened sticks masquerading as swords. She had watched them from her room, condemning the game as silly so she would stop wishing so desperately to join them.
But that had been a long time ago.
The rushing wind whispered haunting things in her ear, of men and monsters and death. Messalina's pace quickened; her strides grew longer, her breath came sharper. Her thoughts turned to wicked things, to beasts ripping throats and hunters notching arrows. Something echoed through the trees, and her heart beat so fast she thought she would faint.
Run rabbit, run.
She shook the fear away. Whatever had killed Moore and Casper had gorged itself on their bodies. The thought turned her stomach, but she could not deny the logic. Whatever it was, its hunger was sure to be satiated. For now.
I must alert the guards. I must lead them back to King Somnus and Lady Eulalie. There is danger in the woods. Her hoof caught on a hidden root, and she stuttered on her rhyme as she fought for her balance. She won, just barely.
Her head ached. Her lungs screamed. She couldn't remember the last time she had run so fast, so far.
No — her breath caught when she remembered. When Mother disappeared in a cloud of smoke and stars. When they hunted me, the Witch's daughter. I had run faster than this. The memory sat bitter on her tongue, and she chased it away with a renewed sense of urgency.
The castle gates loomed in the distance, towers twisting to the night-black skies. She could not seem to get there fast enough. The shouts of the guards went unheeded as she tore through the open gates of the citadel, her moonlight hair a ribbon behind her. Her braids had long since unraveled.
"You there!" She caught the arm of a passing soldier, her grip as cold and unyielding as ice. His gaze snapped to her in wary surprise. Messalina's breath came in gasps and hacking coughs. She had barely enough air to speak, but she did not care.
"Find the warden. Tell him to assemble a troop of soldiers immediately and head towards Viride Forest. I shall meet them at the mouth of the trees." After a moment of thought, she added, "Double the guards at the gates."
She did not know if she had the authority to dictate so much, but they did not have a Champion of Battle. Dawn was a peaceful court; the lack of one had never been felt as sharply by her as it did now. She had to do what she could.
The guard hesitated. "What are you doing?" Panic had sharpened the girl's voice to a knifepoint. "Your Champion of Wisdom commands you," she said coldly, "and you shall do as I say." The threat in her voice surprised her, but it was enough to move him to action. He nodded at her once, murmured a quick "Apologies, my lady," and sped off down the hall.
All strength seemed to leave her body at once. She coughed again, wiped at the sweat dripping down her brow, and steadied herself against the smooth stone walls. Everything ached — her head, her chest, her legs.
But she could not rest. There was someone else she needed to find.
---
"Ipomoea!" She did not pause to knock at his door; she simply pushed it open with a grunt and stepped inside. Blindly, she fumbled along in the dark until the smooth glide of polished wood met her groping touch. Looking up, she made out the shape of a looming bed frame.
In the dark of the regent's chambers, the fear and weariness Messa had locked away poured out of her like blood from a cut artery. The room spun.
This time, she had not the strength to save herself, and down she fell to the cold marble floor.
Pain lanced up her leg when her cuts reopened, though she made not a sound in response. Tears sprang unbidden to Messalina's eyes. She hastily wiped them away.
With the last of her strength, she dragged herself to her feet and padded heavily to his bedside.
"Ipomoea. You must wake up." The softness of blankets pressed like petals against her when she stretched a trembling hand towards his sleeping form and shook.
"Something has happened." Blood fell like tears onto the silken sheets. Hair tumbled like liquid moonlight across her shoulders. Her eyes, the ice melted to pools of bottomless blue, were dilated wide with pain and fear. "I have done all I can, and still it is not enough."
I don't know what to do.
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: she'll gasp in horror at her boldness later ;D
is sleep was restless; dreams filled with dark shadows that lurked in the night. Ipomoea tossed and turned, his eyes sealed tightly shut as if he were attempting to block out the darkness. A light sweat coats his brow, his heart hammering inside of his chest.
Even Odet shudders in his sleep, tucked into his nest on the tree growing just outside the window.
The regent mistakes the door bursting open for a disturbance in his sleep; he turns again, clutching the soft blankets tighter to his body. His eyes flicker feverishly, but never open - that is, until, her touch finally rouses him from sleep, and he’s drawn awake with a gasp of surprise.
His cerise eyes are wide and full of shock as he takes in the scene his bedroom is in, the doors burst open and Messalina standing above him. She’s pale, paler than usual, her hair in uncharacteristic disarray. But it’s her eyes - stray tears still falling, wide with pain and fear - that draw his attention.
”Something has happened.” The smell of blood weighs heavy in the air; it’s staining the floor, his bedsheets, her skin. But that isn't right, there shouldn't be blood, not here, not now. Horror and gore had no place here in Delumine, those were reserved for places far, far away he had thought.
Ipomoea had gone to bed thinking of blue skies and flowers; but he had woken up to a nightmare.
’It should be raining,’ he thought sleepily to himself. After all, all good nightmares and horror stories started off that way: thunder rumbling in the distance, rain lashing at the windows, lightning carving brilliant arcs through the sky that were so bright, when they faded away they left a darkness so profound it was nigh impossible to get your bearings together.
But it wasn’t raining; the clouds had kept themselves at bay, as if waiting for the right moment to weep, as if the worst was still yet to come. ’This isn’t right.’
Ipomoea didn’t want to imagine what could be worse than what had already happened.
“Messa-“ his voice is little more than a whisper; it feels like his voice is betraying him, refusing to properly work. He coughs, sitting up in the bed. “What’s going on? What’s happened?” He struggles to blink the sleep from his eyes, his throat raspy and his brain still muddily surprised.
The gravity of the situation finally seems to dawn on him when he sees the blood staining the sheets. He follows the trail of red across the bed with his eyes, not wanting to believe it existed. Something unpleasant turned in the pit of his stomach, the taste of bile in his throat. The blood was coming from her.
”You’re bleeding!” He’s out of bed in an instant, nearly tripping on the sheets in his haste. He stumbles to the table across the room, jerking open drawers and rummaging through their contents haphazardly. "There's gauze in here somewhere, I don't know where, I've never needed it before-"
Ipomoea’s voice, groggy with sleep, was the arrow that shattered the glass of Messalina’s stare. Shuddering, light rushed back into her eyes. What was she doing? When had she —
She looked down. Cerise eyes, wide and unfocused, blinked up at her. She thought she could make out the faintest traces of amethyst in those irises, like slivers of violet dawn. His eyes had always entranced her. Their rich hue, their shining warmth. So different from her own cold blues, so beauti —
Gasping, Messalina scrambled backwards. Her hair flew in a silver halo as she backed away from the regent’s bed, away from him —
She blinked, once, twice, her thoughts not quite catching up. Swallowed by the darkness of the room, she halted a few steps away. As bewildered as a cornered rabbit.
“What’s going on? What’s happened?”
Messalina jolted, yanked from her spiraling panic by Ipomoea’s soft — yet equally bewildered — voice. He doesn’t know.
In her distress, she had neglected to tell him. She had neglected to think. Mortified, the girl screwed her eyes shut. Scrambled for the words to explain.
Scenes of blood and slaughter flashed and flashed. Moore. Casper.The guards! She had come for the guards, to bring them back to Somnus.
Her eyes sprang open. Ipomoea had pushed himself up to sitting, sleep still heavy in his limbs. Guilt struck her, at awakening him to a world of nightmares. But she had to, everything had gone wrong, she didn't know how to fix it —
Her heart could not seem to beat correctly. Control slipped again and again from her sweat-soaked grasp. (Panic and fear and exhaustion, a monster of her own creation, wanted nothing more than to pull her down with it, and never let her go.)
Time. She had no time. It dripped dripped dripped like beads of blood, like her blood, when it had leaked onto the sheets. She watched Ipomoea look down at the crimson stains in the silk. Watched his eyes dawn with realization when he followed the trail to her.
She wanted to laugh. She wanted to cry. Instead, Messalina bit down hard on her tongue.
She thought of the time she had fumbled her grand jeté, a lifetime ago. How choking-soft the hush of the crowd had been, how writhing-hot Mother’s fury had seethed. How neither of those things had mattered, because the pain had sharpened her will like a whetstone to a blade. Sharpened and sharpened until she had pushed herself back up, ignoring her twisted ankle and burning shame, and danced again. The smile never leaving her face.
The pain sharpened her again. Pushed her forwards, until she stood at the foot of the bed. Her movements were mechanical, like a puppet on strings.
“Moore and Casper. They are dead,” she began, her voice low and soft. It did not shake, but carried — cold and hollow and steady. She did not look at him. Her eyes remained fixed on something beyond; they fluttered closed. When they opened, she was back in the forest again.
“Murdered. By — by a monster. They were torn to pieces, there was so much blood. I could barely recognize them." She did not want to remember, but she did. The stench of blood coated her nose, her throat. Everywhere. It was everywhere.
“Do you,” Casper’s eyes, a green brighter than spring, were rimmed with red. “Do you know what the worst of it was?” Wide with horror.
“If it had been a wolf, a ravenous animal — on the brink of starvation, killing for necessity — it would have been better.” Moore’s laugh rang like bells in Messalina’s ear. She had always thought it pretty. She had never told the page so.
“But it hadn't.” She had always been soft-spoken, but now — now her softness was devastating. “It had mangled them — without reason, without necessity — and left them. To rot for the carrion.”
Her words hung, dripping dripping dripping, in the space between them.
Dully, Messalina looked down at her torn legs. The bandages Pan had wrapped so carefully around them had been ripped away in her mad dash, the wounds reopened. They hurt. She winced when she realized how much. "You're bleeding!"
“They are nothing, only shallow cuts,” she said, trying — and failing — to keep her voice indifferent. But when she looked up again, he was already out of bed, fumbling for supplies in the dark.
She shook her head frantically. No, no, not me. It's not me you should care about.
“Eulalie — Lady Eulalie and King Somnus are still out there, in the Viride, searching for answers. There are others with them, yet none I trust.”
Only now did Messalina's voice rise, in volume and in pitch. She sought his gaze and held it. Before she could stop to think (she didn't want to think), she closed the distance between them and pulled him around to face her.
“They are not safe. If something happens —” She opened her mouth and closed it again.
“I — I must go. I came to bring guards back with me, and I promised to meet them at the mouth of the forest. I only came here to alert you.” Yet she did not move.
For her eyes, cold and hollow, said what she would not. Please come with me.
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: you don't even know how much dialogue I had to cut out to make this manageable >.>
apers, pens, rose petals, odd trinkets and keepsakes; they clutter the drawer, all things he had selfishly held onto when other people might have thrown them away.
But each one was a memory. He’d plucked that seashell from the shores of Denocte, the first time he’d visited. He’d found it sticking out from the sand; although its exterior had been rough and dark and ordinary, he had flipped it over to reveal a colorful inside, blossoming with color, and he had been enchanted at the sight, finding inspiration in its conflicting appearance. Now it took up residence in his chambers, hidden away at the bottom of a drawer among other articles. Folded beneath it was a dried and pressed morning glory, immortalized forever on a bit of yellowing parchment, that had been plucked from the highest peaks of Veneror where he had almost died as a foal. He had gone back, years later when he was stronger; he had built a small shrine of his own to commemorate his achievement and taken a memento when he left. That journey had been particularly momentous for him at the time; he kept telling himself that he would return, that he would straighten up his shrine, and yet he’d never found the time.
Every rock, every handwritten note, every artifact crammed into the tiny space of his desk drawers had a story attached, an experience that he was proud of. They may seem forgotten, tucked away as they were; but they represented the rose colored boy and his youth, the innocence that refused to die. They were safe here, and he would not risk them being lost for good.
Occasionally Ipomoea liked to sit beneath the window and draw out items randomly, blindly; he would sit them on the windowsill, watching the light play along their features, and relive those memories all over again. He cherished them all, and no amount of persuasion could convince him to throw a single one out - he would just buy more drawers to hold them, more shelves to display them. He would make room in his life to hold all these memories, because losing one would mean losing a part of himself.
But now he pushes them aside without care for their in intrinsic worth; they were useless to him. They could not stop Messalina’s bleeding or solve the mystery in the forest, they could only distract him.
He could hear Messalina talking, but her voice is soft and oddly muffled, as if she’s speaking to him from another room. He listens, but he doesn’t hear her; there’s a ringing in his ears, a high pitched chime that tolled over and over and over, like a funeral bell. It consumes him, filling his mind with macabre thoughts.
Moore and Casper dead.
Something in the forest, something murderous.
Blood on Messalina’s legs.
Something killing for sport.
”Not safe,” his mind whispers insistently, ”Nothing is safe, no one is safe.” He shakes his head, trying to stop the ringing, stop the thoughts, but they flood him nonetheless. He doesn’t realize that he’s stopped searching for bandages; there’s a ribbon clutched in his grasp, hovering above the desk, and he realizes that he isn’t sure where it’s come from, he doesn’t remember the memory attached to it.
He swallows thickly, brushing it aside with the rest. The room is spinning, and Messalina’s tale has made him feel sick to his stomach. Her voice grows softer and softer, but her words echo in his mind. He can’t speak, he doesn’t know what to say, he only closes one drawer and opens the next, no longer sure what he’s looking for.
Until she spins him around to face her, and her grasp is cold and tight, and her eyes are wild and so glassy, so blue. He can’t look away, ensared by the intensity of her gaze.
”They are not safe.”
Her voice is suddenly clear, as if rolls of cotton have been pulled from his ears. “They’re still out there?” he whispers, but he doesn’t need her to answer to already know. Of course they were in the forest, of course Somnus would want to see for himself. That was who he was; he was not a king that sat in his castle and relied on others to keep his Court safe. He led the charge himself.
But inside was safe - or, at the very least, safer than out there. Outside it was dark, and a cold wind was whispering through the trees. Shadows stalked every corner, blacker than pitch, consuming everything that dared stand within them. There was no telling what those shadows hid, not until it reached out and dragged you into the dark.
That was where Somnus and the others still were; that was where Messalina was going.
She had come for him, come for the guards, come to warn him. But now she was going back.
His eyes are bright and wide with the realization, his mind whispering of peril, of the dangers she had relayed to him. ”Not safe.” Somnus had gone, knowing it wasn’t safe; he was too courageous to stay home and hide, too loyal to his court to leave it to fend for itself. Could Ipomoea be that brave, too?
Would he dare to be?
“I…”
His mouth opens and closes, and it’s as if the room is whispering for him to stay, his bed calling for him to return to the comfort of the covers. Perhaps if he went back to sleep, if he closed his eyes and dreamed of sweet sunshine and budding flowers, perhaps he would wake up in the morning and find it had been been one horrible, terrible nightmare. Perhaps in the morning Moore and Casper would still be alive, and Messalina would be safe, and there would be no danger -
- But he knows it wouldn’t be so.
“I’m coming with you.” The words surprise him, but they make him feel strong. He straightens his shoulders, lifting his chin, drawing himself up. He turns back to his desk to light a thick wax candle. The flame flickers into life, filling the room with a soft orange glow, illuminating his face. The door of the metal lantern creaks when he opens it; he places the candle gently inside, locking the door behind it.
“Take this,” he tells her, passing it over to her. He knows it won’t do much, but at least it will keep the darkness around them at bay. A moment later he lights a second candle, its flame quivering into life to add its glow to the first. With the second lantern alight, he turns back to face her. There’s a determination in his flushed eyes, masking the fear that he’s swallowed. He pauses, his gaze seeking her’s.
“Are you ready?”
He could be brave like Somnus - he had to be.
@messalina | "speaks" | notes: i had the opposite problem, po had 0 words
it is the sinking of things. always, always, the sinking of things.
In the darkness of the room, Messalina watched the shadows grow.
She had never been afraid of the dark. What was there to be afraid of, when your mother was a sorceress? (When you loved and feared her in equal measure?)
Mother had never told her tales of monsters and repentant children. Messalina had not needed to be scared to keep away from the woods. She had not needed to be warned into being polite, tricked into being obedient.
She had always been obedient. She had always been polite. She kept away from the woods, because Mother had forbidden it.
“They’re still out there?” came Po’s soft voice, and there was a trembling in it she could not place. The shadows in the room swelled like a blood-starved mosquito, until Messalina could think only of monsters and men and bodies and blood.
She forgot she was clutching onto him. When she remembered, her grip on the regent tightened like a hangman’s noose (her thoughts shifted to legs kicking, tongues blackening) until a foggy piece of her mind wondered if she was hurting him.
She let go of him like she had been scalded.
A soft “Yes,” was Messalina’s only answer. She watched, guilt growing in her chest like the shadows on the wall, when his cerise eyes widened in dawning realization. When his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed. A thousand words clawed through her head, but none of them felt right, none of them were right, so she did nothing but watch him with her darkening eyes.
“I’m coming with you.” A featherlight breath rushed past her lips, one she had not known she was holding back. Then – no, he cannot come, he must stay here as the regent! She did not know where Pavetta was, but there was no time to send for her – if Ipomoea left, and if something happened to them all –
But he had already turned back around, and when she saw the way the regent held himself she knew she would not be able to convince him to stay. And a black part of her heart had never wanted to.
“Take this,” and she mutely took the lit candlewick he handed her, bringing it closer to her chest when the warmth of the flames soaked into her frozen bones. She had not realized how cold she was. Before a shiver could set in with gnashing teeth, Messalina clutched the candle tighter and tighter, and prayed the wax would hold.
She lifted her chin up to him when he finished lighting his own candle, and tried to school her expression into one that would appear brave. “Are you ready?”
“I am. If you are, too.” Frowning, she leaned towards him to probe behind the mask of his determination. (She knew, because she was wearing one too.) And then, before she realized what she was doing, she reached up to smooth over a piece of his curling mane with her muzzle. (Later she would convince herself it had simply bothered her – the regent’s disheveled hair had been just a bit too endearing.)
“I have faith in them, Ipomoea.” She lifted her lips into a not-quite smile, before turning on her heels towards the still-open door.
“They will be alright.” They had to be.
@Ipomoea | "speaks" | notes: so much love for these two <33
His words hang in the air between them, and he realizes that he’s asking himself as much as he’s asking her. Perhaps his words are meant more to ready himself, to prepare himself for the darkness he was about to face. He had never been in the forest at night, after all; let alone when a monster was stalking amongst the trees.
But thoughts of Somnus are emboldening his heart. A wildfire is alighting within his blood, spreading like a revolution through his veins. Ipomoea would be strong. He would be as brave as the king who had raised him up, from an orphan to an Emissary, from a springchild to a Regent of the Dawn Court. There were monsters walking amongst them, and they would not be safe until they were gone - neither Ipomoea nor Messalina, nor the king whom he loved nor the people he had vowed to protect.
It was funny, in a way; Ipomoea had never questioned whether or not he would be willing to die for his Court.
But as the wind whispered through his window, carrying wisps of blood and terror and change on its wings, there is no doubt in his mind. If his life was what the gods required, his life is what he would give.
Even in his youthful naivety, he did not truly believe it would come to that tonight. But he was learning from stronger kings and braver queens, and he was determined to be as selfless as them.
I am, Messalina tells him, if you are, too. He wants to smile at her, to reassure her with his words and his voice - but his lips are frozen. They will not budge, will not offer comfort tonight.
But she leans forward, and his breath catches.
His heart turns into a wild thing, beating frantically within the ribs that cage it in. As Messalina leans forward, he can’t help but worry that it’s about to burst from his chest; that it’s running so fast he won’t be able to keep up with it. His head is dizzy, the candle lowers as his grasp weakens.
Her touch is featherlight, but it makes his skin burn. He had not realized before this moment how much of a mess his hair must be; he was sleeping, after all. But his eyes trace the crease of her brow, the tilt to her lips, the curl in the hair that tumbles freely from her own crest. She was usually so composed, so put together and tidy…
But now she was in his room, in the dead of night, breathless and afraid.
And he was the one she had gone to.
His heart stops, just for a second.
When it stutters back to life, the smile that had been hiding just out of sight springs into place. It’s small, and it’s shy; but there’s an edge to it that makes his lips tingle, just a little bit. She turns on her heels, striding to the door that he hadn’t realized was still open - and he follows.
"I know they will."
It was Somnus and Eulalie, after all; the bravest people he knew. There was no monster he had heard of that would be able to tear them down, of that he was sure now. But the rest of the Court…
The air outside his room is cool, a draft blowing through the hallway. Their hooves echo across the tile, ringing out loudly in the stillness of the castle. The rest of Delumine is still sleeping, he supposes; sleeping or already out there, in the forest. He can see torchlight bobbing in the distance, can hear the distant thunder of hooves galloping through the Illuster.
A pair of guards come into view around a corner, and he lifts his voice to call out to them. "Come!"
They stop in their tracks at once; but it takes only a moment before they follow. "Where are we going, my lord?"
He breathes in slowly, holding his breath for only a moment before he lets it back out in a sigh, as soft as the moonlight overhead. "To Viride." He looks sideways at Messalina, and nods once as they step out from beneath the safety of the castle walls.
Outside the moon is bright, and the grass is soft underhoof. Ipomoea can count how many steps it would take to cross this meadow, to get from the castle to the forest’s edge, but tonight he doesn’t. Tonight he lets the wind guide him, lets the hoofprints of other horses lead the way. A shiver raises the hair down his spine, and for just a moment, he wishes they had brought a cloak, or perhaps a blanket torn from his bed. But as they walk, their candles bobbing along in front of them, guards taking up the rear, Ipomoea brushes his shoulder softly, sweetly, up against Messalina’s own.
"A part of me hopes this is a nightmare," he says softly. "Even though I know it isn't."
He steals a glance, her blue eyes drawing his gaze to her, lit up as silver pools beneath the moonlight.
"But monsters seem more a fable from Denocte than a disaster in Delumine."
He can't stop the words as they pour from his once-frozen lips; nor does he want to.
@messalina | "speaks" | notes: i had the opposite problem, po had 0 words
better the wind, the sea, the salt in your eyes, than this, this, this.
She did not notice the way the regent looked at her when she leaned in to smooth back his hair. A part of her had never left the forest, and her terror was too freshly buried, the grave too freshly dug, for her to think of anything else.
(But, there was a moment when she leaned in and in and in, that she wished she could simply stay.)
Instead, Messalina held the candle aloft and pulled herself away. Out the door and down the hall and through the echoing courtyard she wove, Ipomoea fast on her heels. She glanced up only briefly when the guards joined them, though it was enough for one of them to recognize her and start to pull the other down with him into a bow. Before he could, however, she stopped him with a shake of her head.
"Forget your manners — it is alright. We must hurry to the mouth of the forest.” The men settled on an obliging nod.
The click of their hooves on the footpath resounded through the silent castle. Unsettled by the quiet, Messalina leaned towards Ipomoea and murmured, "There should be troops there already, waiting. I alerted the captain when I could not find Ulric — have I overstepped my authority, regent?” Her lips twisted into a weak, wry smile. A way to ease both their tensions, however poor of an attempt it had been.
A breeze sliced through the glade like a scythe just then, cutting into her very bones, and Messalina’s teeth chattered in her skull. She pressed closer towards the regent's steady form, and tried to think of warm things.
When he bumped his shoulder to hers, she glanced up at him, wide-eyed and inquisitive. “A part of me hopes this is a nightmare, even though I know it isn’t.”
She nodded as she puzzled over a suitable reply. He had put into words her own unspoken worries, of nightmares and — a shadow twitched in the looming distance, and her heart plummeted. Monsters. Nightmares and monsters.
The moment she realized it was nothing more than a cat, to avoid becoming jumpier than a rabbit, she poured all of her nerves into finding the words.
"I have read a few of the Denoctian fables, in my time here. They are very… creative. More creative, and haunting, than the ones my mother had told me.” Her breath puffed from her lips in little clouds as they started up the hill that led to the forest.
"What struck me the most about them, though, was how each fable ended with the monster vanquished. My mother’s stories had not. The monsters in her stories had lived forever and ever, carrying off children, ravaging towns. And though Denocte's monsters were more terrifying in nature, I found them to be much more favorable than my mother's.”
A sigh of relief blew past her lips when they crested the hill. Her eyes drank in the sight of soldiers stationed by the mouth of the forest.
“Only because, they were as mortal as we are,” she finished, thoughtfully. As mortal as we are.
he wind is cold, impersonal; it tugs at their bodies, pulling strands of hair loose from the Regent’s carefully plaited braids. But it doesn’t stop, doesn’t linger, doesn’t grant them the floral fragrances of the garden just on the other side of the courtyard. It passes them by as if they’re nothing, and no one; sweeping towards the forest as if to say follow me, here is where the adventure will start.
But was it an adventure worth taking? Ipomoea couldn’t be sure, not yet. Perhaps if it were dawn, if the sunset were peeking across the horizon to shed light on the forest, maybe then his steps wouldn’t be so jerky as they were now, and his blood wouldn’t be flowing so turbulently in his veins. Maybe then he could look past the shadows and see the way dust motes floated weightlessly through the forest, specks of gold hanging forever in the air.
He wished he could hear birdsong greeting their arrival, or see deer bounding between the tree trunks. He wished the forest didn’t feel so heavy, or that the clouds were not so thick in the sky that they obscured any traces of light. The forest is so different now, when only a few short weeks ago it had been filled with light and laughter and festivities…
But wishing didn’t make things so.
He shivers mid-step, his stride faltering for a moment. But then he presses into Messalina, both for her warmth and comfort, begging his heart to be still. It thumps away like a frightened rabbit against his ribcage, desperately looking for an escape yet finding none.
The canopy closes around them, blocking out the cloudy sky from view and silencing the wind. It feels oddly quiet, too quiet; as if everything in the forest has died or gone into hiding. Bile rises in the back of his throat, and Ipomoea swallows thickly, pushing his thoughts away. He dips his heard lower, low enough so that the flickering flame of his candle illuminates the planes of his face until every angle is sharply defined and every edge traced in an orange glow. The crude lantern barely highlights the ground in front of him - casting more shadows as the grass and bushes lining their path bend away - still, he clings to whatever small amount of comfort he can get, letting it bolster his confidence.
He frowns slightly as she speaks, his imagination filling in her pauses for her. The libraries had an entire section dedicated to stories brought in from Denocte, some etched upon age-old scrolls, others scribed from fables and word of mouth. Ipomoea had browsed the catacombs himself - surely there was a book even now tucked into his personal bookshelf - but many were illustrated with fearsome drawings, drawings that caused him to promptly shut whichever book he’d found it again and never wish to open it again.
Now, of course, he was wishing he’d paid more attention, to prepare himself for the unknown. This was Delumine, but disaster could strike anywhere it pleased.
"What happened to the monsters in your mother’s story?" he asks, even when he dreads to know the answer. "Where did they go, if they were immortal?"
His mind was whispering the unthinkable: maybe they’re here, it says, maybe they’re coming for us now.
He shakes his head, in an attempt to clear his thoughts. But instead, it takes him back to a time when he was younger, yet just as naive. When the bonfires of the traveling caravan he’d sheltered with had thrown sparks into the night, when the elders had pulled the children close and warned them of the boogeyman lurking just outside of the firelight. "All the stories I’ve heard take place at night." He doesn’t realize he’s speaking until the words have already left his tongue, but it’s too late to pull them back. "Every disaster, every terrible thing; they happen when the darkness is thick enough to hide the culprit’s face."
He had been scared of the dark as a child. As he peers into the surrounding darkness now, he knows better: it’s not the dark one needs to fear.
It’s who hides within it.
And now it is the two of them facing it -- as they stride shoulder to shoulder into the darkness, passing stories like secrets to keep the monsters at bay. Ipomoea's only thought as they dissolve into the trees and his heart begins to ache in his chest, is how he hopes it will be enough.
