this madness of now

The sand, the ocean, the smell of brine...it was all he'd wanted for so long. Fate was cruel that way, but that's nothing new.

Waking up on the beach wasn't new either.

The ashy remnants of all that the proceeding night had burned down to seemed impossibly small in the garish light of morning. There were bones that instead of crippling his soul merely looked unimportant, haphazardly arranged as they were. They weren't Aoife. They weren't his rage. They weren't anything. Stretching his arms over his head and glancing around to see the beach empty of his husband, Remi merely pulled in a long breath through his nose, breathing it out in a steady stream.

Wherever Ronin had gone, he'd be back. Remi was infinitely sure of that. And so, with a last look at the charred remains of a life unlived, the alchemist kicked at the embers to scatter them as one might do to any old fire. It wasn't disrespectful after all, because it wasn't anything. It wasn't her.

Creating a shirt and pulling it over his head, the alchemist made his way towards the docks. If he couldn't catch them something for breakfast, Remi was fairly certain he'd manage to find something to trade for it.