closest to home

all this time i was finding myself & i didn't know? i was lost

Hopelessness was not an emotion the alchemist wore well. Never in his life had he had the desire to simply stare at the wall, or the empty fireplace. But now, with Ronin all but banished from the guildhall, it was all Remi seemed to have energy for. That, and Aoife of course. As when Ronin had died the first time, it was easy to pour everything he had into the starry-eyed girl. Now was no different, but when she was out, it was hard to find motivation to do anything more than breathe or rack his fingers through his curls endlessly, whispering silent prayers that he knew were going unheard.

Like a mockery of all that he'd tried and failed to do, Vi's roses sat in a small trough filled with soil, that Remi had made. Sitting and staring at them for a long while, eventually the alchemist forced himself from the couch.  Reaching in with bare hands, Remi grabbed at the rose which was the most wilted—the one Ronin had crushed and the alchemist had tried to bring back to life—and and stomped outside before he could think better of it.

In the dirt, directly below the stargazing platform he'd built not so long ago for Ronin, Remi clawed at the earth with talons and paws. He could move it with magical means, but something about the soil beneath his nails felt cathartic.

THE

ALCHEMIST