Corrdelia has spent these last two days searching endlessly for her companion, Hāsta. It's not like the crow to be separated from her for very long, but she had decided to go off and hunt while Corr spent more time in Delumine's library. She didn't think anything of it since the bird had to eat too and didn't have the magic or luxury that the equines did.
But then when Hāsta never came back to the camp that night, she became worried. They weren't planning to spend too much more time in Delumine. Just long enough for Corr to return a book and maybe skim the pages of a few others. The library is a fascinating place, not only because of all the knowledge it holds but because of its stunning architecture. She could stare at it for hours and still find more details she's amazed by.
Now that her crow has turned missing though, there isn't much else she can focus her mind on. There is a growing pit in her stomach and she's not liking what her gut is telling her. Corr so desperately does not want to start thinking of the worst case scenario, but the crow has never spent this long away. She hardly ever leaves Corr's side for that matter. They are like two peas in a pod- practically inseparable. Until now by some unknown force.
At the crack of dawn, the dappled mare set out again to try and search for the crow. Normally she can feel her through their bond, but there is nothing but dead silence. This is the part that worries her and is driving her mad. She refuses to believe that something bad happened to her. That maybe she -
No.
She's determined to find her. Somehow, somewhere. Corr gets her hopes up when she hears something nearby, but it just turns out to be another equine coming from behind her. She doesn't know many from the Dawn Court, but so far they seemed fairly nice. Maybe this one would be kind enough to help her look for Hāsta.
"Oh, h-hello," she stutters, wiping away some of the tears that had formed in the corner of her eyes. "I'm sorry to bother you, but would you perhaps be able to help me find someone? Her name is Hāsta. She's a crow about this big," Corr explains, raising her hoof off the ground to gesture the bird's size. "She went missing. I-" The mare's mind feels cluttered with so many thoughts and emotions.
"She's my bonded." The words come out like they are choking her, but she doesn't want to lose it in front of this stranger. She tries her best to keep her composure and prays to Vespera that they'll be willing to help, or maybe even have a lead.
flowers grow back
even after they have been stepped on
He knows he shouldn’t be alone in the forest, not now, not today. Seir had told him as much, as had Emersyn, and the guards who had frowned at him when he dismissed them in the meadows and continued on alone. He knows it the way he knows that the peace he feels now as he walks between the trees is nothing more than a fallacy, like a rope that’s fraying and about to snap. The silence has always hidden more than it gives away.
But today, he doesn’t listen.
The ground is hard and cold beneath his hooves, and the branches creak stiffly overhead as he passes beneath them. It’s all too easy to lose himself between the pines, to lose track of his surroundings in the many shades of green that make up the forest. Ipomoea can feel himself slipping into a lull as he walks, until the rhythm of his hoofbeats echoes the sighing of the trees.
And for a while, it’s easy to almost-forget that he’s here looking for bones, and blood, and bodies; that the snow covers a graveyard and the winter pretends it’s not hiding the tracks of a murderer. Here Ipomoea can almost pretend that there are flowers in his chest instead of rage. But when he looks over his shoulder and sees the dandelions and the violets and the asters clinging to his heels like they can’t bear to exist anywhere other than within his shadow, he can’t help but feel like it’s only fear that draws them so near to him, not love.
So when he sees the girl wandering through the trees, he is not sure if it’s with relief or disappointment that she appears to only be lost, and not the poacher.
“Hello!” his voice sounds far more even than he feels, as he turns to intercept her. “Can I help you?” And when he looks at her his heart starts to ache, like it already knows that she’s not simply passing through.
For a moment he can only look at her, and feel like the flowers in his chest are crumbling to dust petal by petal. When his heart starts again it’s painful, lurching forward in an uneven beat with each word she speaks.
Ipomoea knows what it feels like to lose a bonded.
“Hey don’t worry, she can’t have gone too far. How long has she been missing?” He can feel his heart pounding in his chest as he casts his gaze around the forest surrounding them, as if half-expecting to see the crow perched peacefully on a tree, waiting for them. But the woods are quiet, and still, and empty - and he can’t help but think how terrible of a time it is to lose a friend, and what else it might mean.
The man appears to be a child of Gaia as flowers come up through the snow and follow his footsteps. Corr would be more amazed by this if she wasn't so anxious about Hāsta. All the possible scenarios swim around in her head and make her feel dizzy. Part of her feels sorry for the way she's treated the crow in the past. Even if it just seemed like their usual banter, maybe she went too far and it made the bird leave. Maybe she'll never come back. A pit forms in her stomach.
His voice is kind as he offers to help and she can feel warmth radiating from his aura. It doesn't completely calm her nerves, but it's still somewhat comforting. There is a flash of green-blue around him for a moment and she gives him a small smile.
But there is still that pang of anxiety. Corr isn't sure if she's just feeling her own or if this man feels it too. Does he know something she doesn't?
"Two days," she answers quietly, turning her gaze back to the ground. The mare fidgets and paws at the snow, which brings up bits of dirt along with it. Although it may not seem like a long time, it is for Hāsta. Corr can feel it- something is wrong.
"We live in Terrastella, but she came with me to return a book I borrowed from the library. It got late, so we set up camp for a night and I haven't seen her since. It… It's not like her," she explains, recounting her panic when she woke up that morning. The crow would leave for breakfast but she always made it quick. There was always a feeling Corr had too, almost like an invisible link or thread that connected them together. She can't feel it anymore and she's afraid to face the truth of this.
"Do you know these woods well? I would greatly appreciate your help." The forest has become a maze at this point being such unknown territory. She's tried searching by both land and sky, but without any luck. She feels hopeful this man may be able to help after all. Certainly another set of eyes could be useful.
flowers grow back
even after they have been stepped on
Two days. Ipomoea doesn’t need to wander at the sort of anxiety or fear that must have consumed her in that time - his own heart is already constricting painfully at the reminder of his own experience. And it’s a struggle to not let his mind wander to the fragile bird stature still keeping a silent watch over his desk, to not think of his own lost bonded (even if Odet was lost in a different way than this stranger’s bonded.)
But he doesn’t need to tell her what the chances of finding her bonded again are (especially today, especially in these woods, especially with so many other animals turning up dead each morning-). It’s written already in the lines of her face, in the uneasy way that she paws at the ground and glances too quickly back at the sky. He knows that feeling, he knows that haunted look; it makes his heart twist like something dying in his chest.
The flowers are still blooming, pressing their trembling petals against his heels and his fetlocks, but he does not feel them. If it had been another day, if they had been standing together a year ago, he might have plucked one to give to her (flowers had always been a symbol of hope, hadn’t they? Even when he stopped feeling it himself?).
“I do,” he finds himself telling her instead, but had his words ever had the same effect as a flower? “These woods are my friend; I did not see anything unusual on the way here, she may be deeper in the forest.”
All around them are waving trees, and soft sighs of the forest, and frost creeping over the blades of grass sprouting around him. The forest feels cold, and he does not like it.
But there’s something there still, running like a tremor beneath his hooves, something not-yet-dead. And Ipomoea, while his heart trembles like something that is afraid of the death it knows to be inevitable, steps forward to the nearest tree. The bark is cool and rough against his shoulder, scraping a line into his red skin, but he doesn’t mind. Because somewhere, deep in the sap-filled veins of the tree, he can feel something stirring for the first time all winter.
“This way,” he whispers to her, as he starts to follow a path he knows she wouldn’t understand. But the trees know the path the crow’s wings traced through the air, and he knows it because of them - and for the first time in a long time, he is speaking the same language again.
Anxiety is not an emotion Corr is familiar with. It seeps through her body and chills her bones. It feels like she got caught in the rain and is soaking wet, but there is no sun to dry her off. She's just stuck there with the weight of it and shivering. She feels alone without the familiar chatter of the crow or her presence on her shoulder. It feels wrong, wrong, wrong.
Having this man with her is a blessing, but it's hard not to still feel alone. She doesn't know him well and, while his tone is kind and he has a warm aura, it's not enough to shake the anxious thoughts. Her usual optimism has been consumed by a dark cloud and it's hard for anything to give her hope.
The crow witch watches the way the man presses up against one of the tree trunks and seems to listen intently. He did say the forest is his friend, so perhaps it speaks to him in a way that the spirit realm speaks to her. Her head tilts to the side as she wonders what it's saying. There is a small sliver of hope that the woods have seen her beloved crow.
And then he says "this way" with a sort of determination as he starts down a path through the trees. That small sliver of hope grows a little bigger, but her heart only beats faster with every step. The closer they are to her companion, the closer they could be to something disastrous. Still, whatever it is, Corr would need closure. She just truly hopes it'll all turn out to be nothing. Maybe she sucked in too much of a stranger's anxiety with her magic and it's still lingering all stubborn-like.
They walk and there is the sound of crunching leaves beneath her hooves. Newly fallen snow blankets the ground and over all the dead leaves. The crunching is a reminder of what's still left from before and what's to come. The earth is sleeping, but not for long. She can smell it in the air; spring is almost here.
It's a season that must truly speak to this man if he's already able to conjure flowers and talk to the trees. Corr looks over at him curiously before speaking her thoughts. "How long have you been able to talk to the tree folk?" All she can think is how unique of an ability it is to have. Though, if it is anything like hearing messages from the spirits, she knows it can be a burden at times.
"Thank you, by the way," she adds, speaking softly. "For helping me. I just… I hope we find her."
Hope, hope, hope. The word circles in her head as she thinks of it over and over.
flowers grow back
even after they have been stepped on
The shadows deepening in between the trees feels like an omen, have felt like an omen ever since the frost settled in the woods. It’s hard still for him to shake off the weight that has made a home inside of his chest, the pressure filling his lungs so that each breath felt heavy. It’s harder still for him to ignore the shadows between the tree trunks, and the emptiness of the branches overhead.
But when there’s a murmur in the roots wrapping around his hooves, everything else becomes noise in the background. And the aching inside of him begins to lessen, if only for a moment, if only because his connection with the earth has returned, however tenuous it may be.
“Always,” he tells her, and his voice is little more than a whisper, as if he’s afraid that too much noise would drown out the small voice of the forest entirely, and then he might never find it again. “Ever since I was a boy, when I first left Solterra -“ Funny, how he never remembered the flowers or the trees or the music of it all when he lived in the desert. It had always seemed to him as if his life had only ever begun outside of the Day Court.
Perhaps, in a way, it had; and perhaps that was why it had seemed to stop again after he returned last fall.
“My adopted mother used to have a favorite saying,” the words slip out before he can stop them, and he takes a half-step to turn and smile back at her. “There’s no sense in worrying about the unknown. Better to let it be a puzzle to unwind. All we can do is keep looking. And besides,” a tangle of roots smooth out in front of them, clearing a path that leads deeper into the forest.
“- The trees are on our side.”
And he turns down the path without hesitation, slipping easily between the shadows and the trees. In his mind he can see the crow flying, a dark spot against the morning light. And for half a second he feels something else, something darker stirring in the pits of his chest - a hunger that tells him to press on, a feral edge of teeth that makes him feel not like he’s chasing, but hunting. The hair lining his spine stands on end, and his wings flutter like broken things; but his feet skim the ground even faster, giving in to the urgency of the forest’s memory.
Half-running, half-fighting the urge to relent and become the hunter he half-felt like.
Stop, the command felt like it echoed through his body, locking his limbs in place. Stop… As always, he was quick to obey the forest, sliding to a halt at once as his heart leapt into his throat and his chest heaved violently.
…And look.
For a moment he couldn’t make sense of the sight awaiting for them, crowned by a semi-circle of trees. Had the sun been shining it would have anointed the bits of feathers and flesh in liquid gold; as it was, they nearly blended into the shadows of the forest.
Ipomoea stepped forward slowly, and all the forest seemed to go silent at once. Only the leaves crunched underhoof, and somehow, he didn’t need to ask Corrdelia to know her bonded lay in pieces now before them.
He tells her of his magic and it manages to distract her, even for a little bit. Corr imagines what life would be like if she could talk to the trees. What would they say to her? What stories could they share? She has always done her part to respect the Earth and its creatures, so she hopes they would appreciate that at the least.
The man then shares a saying his adopted mother used to tell him and it makes Corr smile. It's accurate for their troubles right now. It's also good that the trees are on their side, so hopefully that makes this puzzle a little bit easier to solve. She tries to stuff her worries away, like what she does to the clutter she doesn't feel like cleaning in her house. She stuffs it somewhere that she can't see for a time and she can deal with it later. Maybe not the best solution, but it could work.
"Your mother sounds like a wise lady," she says, thinking back for a moment to her own family.
Then, she realizes she still has not introduced herself to this man. It's incredibly uncharacteristic of her, but her mind had been muddled by all this worry.
"My name is Corrdelia by the way- Corrdelia Maude." Her introduction does not have the same flare as usual with her bow and longer title. They don't have time for that as they wind through the trees and follow an invisible trail set by the woods. Put that way, it does seem a bit crazy. "And your name, kind sir?"
The pleasantries and nostalgia immediately disappear when she feels the tone change. She can't easily describe it other than that it's dark. There are no colored auras, just darkness. Black. Her heart races again and despite his mother's saying, despite her stuffing away that worry, it didn't do any good. It's all back to the surface again as they quicken their pace.
Suddenly, they stop.
The man comes to such a sudden halt that Corr almost crashes into him. She manages to secure her footing before that could happen and she turns to follow his gaze. There is a pit in her stomach.
He steps forward first to observe the scene, but even before her eyes take it in, she knows. She knows what he sees. She almost doesn't want to look, but she has to.
Hāsta's body is mangled. At a quick glance, it almost doesn't look like the corpse of a bird. It's been torn apart like some savage had at her. There are feathers everywhere, blood, bones. No wonder her mental link was gone because Hāsta was gone.
Gone, gone, gone, g-
Corrdelia's thoughts become cloudy as the tears well up in her eyes. How could this happen? Why? Who would do such a thing? She knows there are predators out there that need to eat, but why a crow? Why her Hāsta?
It's been so silent, but there are no words. Corr can't find them.
As if the questions spinning in her head weren't bad enough, she thinks that she never told Hāsta how much she loved her or appreciated her. Although the crow was usually in a grumpy mood, she cared deeply for Corr and was always watching over her. Now the only way she can do that is in spirit, but it just isn't the same.
"I… I don't," she manages to say, her voice cracking while tears stream down her face. "How- who could've done such a thing?" she finally asks one of the questions out loud. It just seems so much more violent than a creature simply getting a meal. For that reason, this feels more wrong and more dangerous.
She so badly wants to think this is a dream, but she knows it's not. It's her worst nightmare.
flowers grow back
even after they have been stepped on
She makes small talk, as they walk through the woods together, the trees guiding him. With each step his heart begins to tighten, with every whispering tree they pass he sees more and more shadows where before he had seen only sunlight. They feel like an omen; the forest feels like it is hiding a secret from him. So he is thankful for the distraction.
“My name is Ipomoea,” he tells her, trying to ignore the way his throat constricts around the words, choking him. “It is lovely to meet you, Corrdelia - I only wish it was under better circumstances.”
But the distraction is fleeting, because all too soon they reach the copse, and the secret he knew the trees to be hiding becomes all too clear.
He knows, in the same cold and terrible way by which the trees are pulling their roots away from the tainted soil around that corpse, that they are too late.
He knows the crow is dead. And he knows the hollow look in Corrdelia’s eyes as she looks upon the remains of her bonded. His own heart beats painfully slowly, like it, too, has forgotten how to beat with a piece of his soul missing, like the reopening of his own wound is draining the blood from his veins. He wonders, distantly, numbly, if the trees would pull their roots away from his blood, from his body, if he were to die in these woods. Perhaps a stone death was a mercy after all.
Ipomoea lingers near the trees as Corrdelia steps forward, one shoulder pressed against a birch to hide the way he trembles like a leaf caught in a storm. The pain is too familiar, too sharp and dreadful; the forest presses in around him, the trees are suddenly too close. He wants to run, to forget this forest and all the dark secrets it hides; and yet he stays frozen, as immobile as the trees, rooted to this spot and his memories.
His heart starts to race again; the tremble he tries to hide shivers down his spine.
And when a flower presses against his ankle in comfort, he crushes it beneath his heel.
“I’m sorry.”
His voice is as dry and paper-thin as the bark sloughing from the birch trees. He knows the words wouldn’t, couldn’t make a difference to her; how could they? There was nothing in the world to replace what had been stolen from her, this he also knows.
Bile rises again in the back of his throat, his stomach twisting itself around a knife of guilt. But with it, too, rises the anger that is now almost-familiar - how long, he wondered, how long would the forest bleed, how long would a murderer leave bodies like gruesome presents between the trees? It was starting to feel like he was allowing this to happen; by not catching the poachers, by always being one step behind them, Ipomoea was the reason the cycle continued.
Despite the blood, despite the smell of death and rot hanging thickly in the air and making his lip curl, he steps forward. Too-quick steps bring him to Corrdelia’s side, where he leans against her. Too long, too long, too late, his heart thumps out a mantra in his throat.
“Don’t look,” he says hoarsely, “it’s better to remember her as she was.” He doesn’t know if he believes himself, if he would listen to his own words if their places had been reversed. He still keeps the stone remainder of Odet on his desk; still looks at him every day when he rises. And yet a stone seemed less permanent, less real, than the mangled body they look upon now.
“I don’t know who did this,” his voice wavers, and the trees seem to shudder and whisper we know, we know, oh we know- “But I will find out. I will find them for you.”
And they will pay, for Hāsta, for all their sins, he doesn’t need to say.
She knows the words are supposed to be genuine and comforting, but it's like they scrape against the already open wound. Corr is frozen, yet her insides are screaming at her in all different ways. Her head feels heavy, yet it's spinning too.
Then Ipomoea is at her side and she presses into him. Even though they've just met, he feels like a friend she's had for years and his presence is comforting. Her crying has stopped for now, but she knows she can't hold it back for very long.
He tells her not to look, but it's hard not to. She wants to piece the bird together and breathe life back into her. She wants to hear the grumbling voice that only she could hear in her mind every time they did practically anything. There was so much eye-rolling, but still, the two were inseparable… until now. For now, she follows his advice and looks away. Instead she looks at the bare trees and the way her breath turns to vapor in the chilled air.
When he vows to find who did this for her, she realizes who she's really been speaking to this entire time. What a terrible circumstance to meet, indeed.
"Thank you, Ipomoea," she says softly, still pressing into him. She selfishly feeds off his aura because it's the only thing keeping her together right now. "You're the Dawn Court Sovereign, aren't you? Not exactly how I would've wished to meet you, but I'm glad that we have now." Her eyes look down again. She can't really make herself stop looking because she keeps hoping for some miracle where she'll blink enough and the illusion will be gone.
"Would it-" she starts to say, but it feels like her throat is tightening up. "Would it be alright if I stayed here a while? In your Court? Until we can find who did this. I'll help you look… I want to get justice for her." There is some determination in her voice, even if the rest of her doesn't feel it.
But then a wave of exhaustion hits her and she sighs. Maybe this had been what The Tower was foreshadowing all that time ago. Not the island, not Raum- this. It felt so much worse than a lightning strike to a tree. The tree may as well be her heart shattering in two.
"I think for now though… I need to be alone for a bit," she manages to say. As much as she doesn't want to pull away from such a kind man, she needs to clear her thoughts and wrap her head around this. She needs to figure out what she's doing next. Plus, if he does let her move in to Dawn Court, she'll need to figure out how to pack all her things and bring them here.
It'll be a process, but she must pull through. For Hāsta.
flowers grow back
even after they have been stepped on
Even while he is telling her to look away, he cannot manage to do so himself. He stares at what remains of the crow and tries - but fails - to not think of what remains of his own bonded. Eyes that will never open again. Wings that will never rise. A heart that will never beat.
Sometimes, he wishes that it had been his own heart that Raum had turned to stone. Perhaps it would have been easier that way, maybe then he would have been able to stalk the woods and hang a killer without asking all the terrible what if’s, without feeling like his chest might burst from all the aching and the wondering.
But Ipomoea has learned that monsters, no matter how terrible, could be killed just as easily as any others. And he has learned that waiting for others to kill them only makes the suffering worse.
So he looks at the crow, at its feathers and blood and bits of bone, and marks it down as one more tally against the monster’s soul.
“You can stay as long as he likes,” he tells her, pulling away. “I hope Dawn gives you more peace than pain.” The aching returns to his heart, as he faces the woods again. He can feel the trees trembling, can hear their branches trembling above them - winter was here, and it had brought war with it. His magic, his once-beautiful, blossoming magic, turns black and hard from it, thorns wrapped around it.
As with all things in life, disuse had turned his softness weak with disuse. And yet -
Before he leaves, Ipomoea has one last gift. He whispers to the dead and brown grasses, to the roots lingering in the frozen soil, to the seeds hibernating in the cold. His magic, the parts of it that have not yet grown thorns, reach out and brush the dust from their faces, and coaxes them to rise, to thrive, to live. They respond eagerly, and the snow begins to melt away as around Hāsta’s body, dozens of wildflowers begin to bloom.
“If you need me, you need only call and I will come,” he promises. And when he looks over his shoulder at her, he prays a silent prayer that she will not end up the same way as her bonded, as a nameless unicorn, as a thousand other bodies buried between the trees. But as he makes his way back through the forest, he knows it is his job now to make sure she doesn’t.
