the monsters turned out to be just trees

hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

Remi didn't move away from the tree, but he did tense. Eyes narrowed and muscles twitching beneath the many layers separating Loren's hands from his skin, the alchemist looked precisely like an animal wanting to flee and yet held still beneath the weight of the summoner's hands. Close enough to kiss. Close enough to hit.

The muscles of his jaw feathered as he listened to Loren, pale eyes sparking with some inner but dark light. "Not with you? You?" Remi might have laughed, had he the emotional fuel for it. Instead he merely just shook his head ever so slightly, wondering how for a man so clever, he could be so naive. Then again, many wondered the exact same of Remi. "You can hardly look me in the eye most times. You argue with me constantly about wanting to help you, and I can see the tension in you just by being near me." Perhaps that latter point wasn't exactly fair, but with nerves, heart, and mind entirely frayed, Remi wasn't too concerned with fair.

"No reason?" Remi all but sneered, pressing away from the tree and towards Loren. Angry as he was the alchemist was probably not intimidating at all, but eye to eye with the Launceleyn he was clearly the more threatening of the two. "No reason to think that a few roses—only three you will note. I tried to pick more, and oh no. Only three—are enough. He has been sick for months. He is the farthest along."

Recoiling as if slapped to hear that Loren had been to see Ronin, the alchemist's lips tightened as did his gaze. "I am aware. That is precisely the point. That is how this parasite works."

Shaking his head, Remi huffed a breath equally as white. "We are nearly there. Probably. So long as the woods play along."