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I believe that we were supposed to find this - Remi - 03-08-2025
Remi moves through Torchline’s streets with a singular purpose, his steps precise, controlled, even as his mind howls with everything he’s just learned. He keeps his breathing steady, his expression neutral, his heartbeat measured—calm, calm, calm—because Ronin might not hear his thoughts, but he'll no doubt feel the way Remi's pulse has been hammering the past few minutes or so. And right now, the last thing Remi can afford is for his husband to sense the panic clawing up the inside of his ribs just in case it triggers something latent within him.
So he walks like a man running errands, like a husband coming home to nothing more than a quiet evening.
The smell of the ocean wraps around him as he steps onto the dock, the familiar creak of Northaven beneath his boots grounding him for a moment—before it nearly makes him sick. How many nights now had he slept beside him, held him, kissed him, never knowing? Remi forces his fingers to loosen, his breath to stay slow, smooth, measured.
The house is quiet as he opens the door.
A part of him braces, instinct kicking in, scanning every inch of the space in the span of a heartbeat—because now, suddenly, his own home is unfamiliar. Because now, suddenly, he’s stepping into something he doesn’t understand, doesn’t know how to fix, doesn’t know how to fight.
He swallows down the bile rising in his throat, shoulders rolling back, smoothing his voice before he lets it carry through the warm-lit space.
[say]"Ronin?"[/say]
A pause. The sound of the ocean beyond the open window. The scent of salt and home.
[say]"I'm home. They were all out of bread if you can believe that."[/say]
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Ronin - 03-09-2025
Oblivious to Remi's sickening revelations or the way they've seized and coiled inside him, Ronin will be exactly where the other man left him when he headed out to the marketplace. Curled on his side in bed, the Knight cares little for the sunlight that still plays across his cheeks or the cries of seabirds or the call of people on the beach nearby; he watches the world outside the windows of the Northaven with unseeing eyes, his face half buried in the pillow he clutches against him.
[say]"Mm?"[/say] Glancing belatedly around at the Bastion, Ronin manages a flicker of a smile that vanishes as quickly as it appeared, soon turning back towards the window and the view that holds very little of his attention. [say]"That's okay,"[/say] he says, his voice hoarse from lack of use and rough with thirst. [say]"I'm not hungry."[/say] He hasn't been for over a week, and even the supposed closure of Seren's funeral hasn't changed it.
[say]"Sorry it was a wasted trip, though,"[/say] he adds.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Remi - 03-09-2025
Ronin barely looks at him.
It's such a small thing, such a natural thing—he's grieving, he's exhausted, he's been curled in bed all day—but gods, it nearly unravels Remi right there on the spot.
Because if he hadn't spoken with Sunjata today, if he hadn't been told, if he hadn't seen the grave weight in the Flood's expression when he admitted what he'd learned—Remi wouldn't have noticed anything at all.
The realization tightens in his chest like a vice. For all the times he'd believed that he knew Ronin better than he knew himself, he'd missed this.
Taking a slow breath, Remi makes himself move. Not too fast, not too slow. Casual, unhurried, normal. Every step toward Ronin feels like stepping toward something unknown, something vast and terrible lurking beneath calm waters; Ronin has been a leviathan for years now, but gods he's never seemed more like one.
Remi forces himself to hum in acknowledgement, quiet, the sound an easy thing on the surface even if it claws its way up his throat. Not hungry. Of course he's not; but was that the grief, or the infection? [say]"You should try and eat, just the same,[/say] Remi murmurs, stepping past the bed, dragging his fingers lightly along the windowsill, and, noting a glass of water that had been left untouched the Bastion frowns to himself before sitting down, his hand strategically placed against his husband's shirt rather than his skin.
[say]"Would seeing her help?"[/say] They could find out what had happened and, painful as it would be, at least Ronin could say his goodbyes to her daughter rather than a pile of timber and bones.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Ronin - 03-10-2025
[say]"Mm, I suppose,"[/say] Ronin murmurs. Help what he isn't certain, exactly, because he doesn't see how some bread or a bowl of soup or a glass of water will do anything to change Seren's death. He hears Remi's footfalls like the gentle beating of a heart as they grow closer, blue eyes focusing on his husband at last for more than a moment or so when he sits down, the warmth of his hand searing through the fabric of his shirt and injecting him with heat and life.
Reluctantly shifting enough to settle against the headboard, Ronin scoffs and shakes his head. [say]"No,"[/say] he says. [say]"I don't think... no."[/say] Seeing her wouldn't help if only because it would remind him of another of his failures, and gods but he can't take another scar on his heart. There's barely room for this one. [say]"I didn't ever think I'd have to consider which dead child I wanted to see,"[/say] he admits. See Aoife and perhaps not Seren? See Seren and lose time with Aoife?
It makes him feel sick.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Remi - 03-10-2025
Remi nods, just once. He’s lived in the shattered spaces between grief and want just the same as Ronin, between what is lost and what remains. Three dead children and three slots a year to bring a soul over Mort's threshold. The poetry of it is painful enough to have the Bastion closing his eyes and breathing against the sudden riptide he feels threatening to unsteady him. [say]"Alright,"[/say] he says quietly, watching as Ronin shifts against the headboard, curling in on himself as though Seren is still there to shield.
His husband—the Fallen and then Dark Star, the Huntsman and now White Knight who has burned brighter and fallen harder than anyone Remi has ever known—suddenly looks so small in his grief. Everything in the Bastion wants to surge forward and drape himself against the Knight, to tuck himself in and around every inch of his husband's body. It isn't fear of death that keeps him from doing so, even though Ronin might kill him at any moment for all he knows, but selfishness. While death would reunite him with their lost children and old friends, gods but the idea of being away from Ronin is enough to have his fingers flinching against the Knight's arm.
[say]"Sometimes I think our immortality is as much of a curse as it is a blessing,"[/say] he says softly. Cursed to just keep going, to keep living despite the odds.
[say]"We could destroy the Tower in Stormbreak?"[/say] It had been the Temple when Aoife died, and although the Knight had been the one to nearly give his life in defending the Temple once upon a time, Remi didn't think he'd be sad to see it fall now.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Ronin - 03-10-2025
Dragging a knee up to prop one of his arms upon it, Ronin is careful not to reach for his husband's bare skin, so Remi's avoidance of his touch at least doesn't seem out of the ordinary. The Knight doesn't want to feel the things he feels right now, let alone inject them into the person he loves the most. [say]"I think coming to Caido in general was a curse at this point,"[/say] he mutters through a tired sigh; unfair, given all the things they've gained, including each other, but such is the black hole of grief.
Shaking his head sadly, even his notorious temper has snuffed itself out before it had a chance to so much as flare. [say]"...I don't know what I'm supposed to do now,"[/say] he admits in a voice that barely goes beyond a whisper. [say]"After Aoife, I didn't know how we were supposed to carry on. We found a way... it took years, and we've never been the same, but we found one. I just... I don't know if I'm strong enough to do this again, Remi."[/say] The admission is small, nearly under his breath, but the pain in his eyes is louder than any scream.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Remi - 03-11-2025
Remi exhales, slow and steady, fingers pressing lightly against Ronin’s arm. His husband’s grief is a living thing, thick and suffocating, curling through the space between them like smoke—and gods, Remi would inhale every last bit of it if he could, just to make it easier for him to breathe. [say]"Maybe,"[/say] the Bastion concedes, because gods too many things had gone wrong for the pair since being sucked out of Northaven and spit out in the Grounds. [say]"But I'm not sure we would have ever found one another quite like this if we had stayed."[/say] Maybe they'd have found happiness with other people—certainly Ronin had had Vanya and been happy with her—but Remi was absolutely steadfast in his belief that nothing compared to the love they'd found and grown and fought for over the years.
[say]"You don’t have to do anything."[/say] Remi's voice is soft but firm, unwavering. [say]"You don’t have to find a way forward. You don’t have to be strong. You don’t have to survive it the right way."[/say] He shifts slightly, his thumb brushing the fabric of Ronin’s sleeve. [say]"Just going on is enough. Even if it’s messy. Even if it hurts. Even if you don’t know how."[/say] There is no standard, no expectation, no weight Ronin has to bear other than existing, hard as that might be at times.
[say]"We can go back to the mountains, or even live under the sea if we want. There's a whole ocean out there that we can drag the Northaven around on if you don't want to be here anymore."[/say]
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Ronin - 03-14-2025
[say]"That much is true, yeah,"[/say] Ronin concedes with a nod and a smile that's gone as soon as it appears, the Knight's hand coming up to gently grip Remi's forearm over his sleeve. [say]"One silver lining in a curse, mm?"[/say] Because thick as his grief may be, Ronin will never deny the love that he's found in the Bastion, though he wishes they weren't held together by as many stitches and scars as good times.
I don't know if I want to go on is what he doesn't say, because it's unfair to his husband to have to shoulder that atop everything else (including things he's recently learned that Ronin remains ignorant to), and so instead he simply shakes his head. Whatever wrong way he goes about this, he does at least know that time, like it or not, will continue to march on, and his feelings won't be permanent however much it feels like a betrayal to let them go.
[say]"I won't leave Flora or Mateo,"[/say] he says quietly, his tone like soft steel. [say]"However bad a father I might be to them, I won't go away again. Not now."[/say] Not when, really, only Mateo has remained unscathed by death. And who knows how long that might last.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Remi - 03-14-2025
For the first time since stepping foot back onto the Northaven, Remi lets his thoughts shift to someone other than Ronin. Mort, he pleads silently, a whisper of a prayer that he isn't sure will even be heard. If I’m wrong—if he turns on me—please, please don’t let him do something he’ll regret. It’s the only thing he has time to ask before he moves.
His fingers close around Ronin’s hand, skin against skin, and it hits him like a storm breaking over the sea. Grief; raw, searing, endless. It pours through the various bonds they share like black ink in water, staining everything in its wake, drowning him in a pain so deep it has no edges, no walls, no escape. Ronin is hollowed out by it, and yet somehow it still overflows. It claws at Remi’s ribs, spills over into his lungs, into his bones, into the cockles of his heart until he isn’t sure if he’s himself anymore or if he’s sinking inside Ronin entirely.
Remi's own emotions echo back through the touch, blooming like a flower bursting open too fast, too violently. He tries to keep it contained, to bury it beneath his own unwavering love, beneath his steadiness, but gods—how could he, when the thing he loves most in the world might already be slipping away?
He doesn't pull back. Doesn't flinch. But his breath comes shallow and his pulse beats like a war drum, and Ronin will feel that too. [say]"Ronin, you're..."[/say] Remi says, barely a whisper, but his grip tightens like an anchor.
Using my 1x a year to call down Mort!
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Mort - 03-14-2025
Mort’s bright, boyish form materialized in the doorway as if summoned by the very hope in Remi’s silent prayer. His expression was gentle but quickly turned serious as Mort stepped forward, his eyes alight as he finished Remi’s unfinished thought.
[say]"-infected,"[/say] Mort declared quietly, his tone both tender and unyielding. He paused, letting the weight of his words sink in, then continued with a wistful smile. [say]"And before you ask —"[/say] Because of course the Knight's focus would be on his family rather than himself, the god smiles warmly. [say]"Seren is not lost to sorrow. She’s found her place, a happy haven among those who moved on before she had a chance to meet them."[/say] With the likes of Aoife and Vai and Enzo.
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Ronin - 03-14-2025
[say]"Remi--"[/say] Ronin's voice raises to something more like it's usual timbre as the Bastion reaches for his bare hand, but before he can jerk away it's too late, and he physically winces to know the cascade of oil-slick grief that will be flooding through all the bonds they share. Shame-faced, the Knight drops his gaze to the bedsheets, still trying to pull his white-knuckled grip away from Remi's. He's barely cognizant of the words the other man is saying, not until the sudden, golden presence of the god of death fills their little houseboat.
Stunned into silence - had Remi just summoned Mort to their home? - he can barely comprehend what the deity is saying at first, clearing his throat and sitting up properly. She should be here, he nearly seethes about Seren, the wound of losing her still too raw for him to accept her presence in Mort's halls, however happy she may be. But then the word infected filters through, and he gently shakes his head.
[say]"That's an ugly term,"[/say] he says with quiet conviction. [say]"Dahlia didn't infect me, she just made me understand that fighting back against the Family is a lost cause."[/say]
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Remi - 03-14-2025
Remi doesn’t let go.
Ronin’s grip shifts, his fingers twitching like he means to pull away, but Remi holds fast; his palm stays firm against Ronin’s, the heat of their skin pressed together as if he might physically keep him from slipping away. The grief, the slick, unnatural thing curling at its edges—it pours into Remi like a slow, smothering tide, but he doesn’t flinch, doesn’t recoil.
And then—that. "She just made me understand—"
Remi’s breath leaves him in a sharp, shuddering thing, and for a split second, he sees it. The worst of what it all might become: Not now, not yet, but someday. A day when Dahlia’s honeyed whispers have twisted deep enough, when her influence has turned every scar Ronin has into proof that the Family was right all along, when his conviction becomes something ironclad. A day when Ronin looks at him with that same surety in his voice and decides that Remi is standing in his way.
His fingers tighten, too tight now, maybe even painful, as his gaze flickers toward Mort, helpless and raw. [say]"Should I be worried?"[/say] He swallows hard, his stomach twisting. [say]"About this new...understanding?"[/say] The Bastion doesn't have it in him to offer context, but he doubts if the god of death needs it.
Do I have to worry about my husband killing me?
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Mort - 03-14-2025
A shadow flickered through Mort’s warm, golden presence—not darkness, but something softer, something like sorrow. He lifted a hand, splaying his fingers almost apologetically, as though he’d heard the words Ronin hadn’t spoken. [say]"She was never meant for permanence here,"[/say] he murmured, his voice gentle but steady. [say]"Seren has spent as much time in the stars as she has on the sands. She was always caught between them, between Vi’s breath and the vastness beyond. And now, she is where she belongs."[/say]
His gaze lingered on Ronin for a moment longer, full of quiet understanding, before shifting to Remi. The Bastion’s raw, helpless expression carved something deep into the god’s features. This was not a moment he could ease; this was grief, twisting and relentless, edged now with fear.
[say]"Alone,"[/say] he admitted after a long breath, [say]"I do not think you need to fear for your life. Not yet."[/say] It wasn’t reassurance, not really, because Mort never lied. His expression darkened, though the warmth in his gaze never wavered. [say]"But in the presence of the Family?"[/say] He let the thought settle between them, weighty and unspoken. That will be far more dangerous.
Mort’s dimples didn’t appear this time. Instead, he simply studied them both—Ronin, whose conviction had already begun to shift into something colder, and Remi, whose grip said he might never let go, even if it killed him. [say]"Things are not impossible,"[/say] he murmured at last, the words thick with meaning, with warning, with the tender sorrow of a god who had seen too many loves tested beyond breaking. [say]"But they are becoming very, very difficult."[/say]
RE: I believe that we were supposed to find this - Ronin - 03-14-2025
[say]"It isn't my place to quarrel with the god of death,"[/say] Ronin says, softly and carefully and looking anywhere but at Mort. One day he'll understand, undoubtedly, as he'd learned to understand with Vai and Aoife and Vanya, but that day isn't today. Not when things are still raw and every where she belongs sentiment is like a scalpel blade across his flesh.
Struggling to flit between the subject of his dead daughter (another one) and how she's better off, and the somehow problematic nature of his deciding not to risk anyone else's life in the fight against the void, Ronin's frown is quietly calculating as his gaze finally flicks up and darts to his husband. [say]"I would never hurt you,"[/say] he says as if insulted, his own fingers closing around Remi's. The tide of his his conviction is as steadfast and golden as ever, if not marred by a thread of something violet and insidious; a quiet not unless that remains unspoken.
[say]"You'll forgive me if I feel as if I'm missing a lot of this conversation..."[/say]