new beginnings

RORY

He knew that nothing could go back to being the way it had been: the comforts of the way of life he had known for nearly three decades, gone in an instant, more profoundly than ever before. Things had changed, both in Caido and in Rory, but this time.. he wasn't sure there was a way back to who he had been before. And yet, he didn't know in what way he had changed. More lost than before? More abandoned?

But he had gained so much. He thought of Remi's sparkling eyes and charming smile; Isla's horn pointed against his chest; the warmth of Jigano's hands; Amalia's lithe frame pressed against his body in the Spark Bird's light; holding the recalcitrant Wessex close.

So perhaps not more abandoned, merely more lost.

Then the door was opening, and Remi was there, beautiful and innocent and awash with spring sunlight. Rory's heart did its usual little complicated flip, tinged with sadness, and again he was struck by how dark and grim he always felt in comparison to the alchemist. The way his own soul just ate up all the radiance Remi spilled out, until he, too, seemed darker.

He wanted to be done with dragging him down, wanted to match him smile for smile, stride for stride, until they rivaled the sun, but Rory was tired and change was daunting and he wasn't capable of such brightness. He was the lean and bitter dreamer shaped by a lifetime in Caido, and not strong enough to change himself.

"Hello," he said warmly, a smile curving his own lips, and he stepped into Remi's lair.

And straight into another world.

Shelves upon shelves cluttered with things, some which he could figure out what they were (or had been), and some which he couldn't fathom why on earth Remi would have in a shop—or what they were at all. Most of the emotions drained from Rory's face, replaced with a look of wonder as he tried (and failed) to take it all in. Silently, as if any noise would prompt some of the items to launch themselves at him, he turned around, taking care not to accidentally brush the flaming feather against anything.

He wondered if Remi remembered all the objects he had upon the shelves, or if some of them had slipped his mind. He wondered where they came from, what they were, how he thought of them—how he made them, and what for.

Then he turned back to Remi, once again struck by how he—a man who had always been considered bright and cheery, if sometimes mellow—paled so utterly in comparison to Remi. He was a storm cloud to his sunlight. "Much better," he said, knowing it was half a truth and half a lie, but his body had healed, so there was that? "Largely because of your pet pointy pony friend. And you look better than last time we spoke." He wanted to narrow his eyes and say, are you though?, but... Wasn't he going to try and not drag Remi down anymore? So instead, he swept his feather-free hand towards the shop. "I've never seen anything like this," he breathed.

as if you were on fire from within,
the moon lives in the lining of your skin.