You're the caffeine in my coffee cup

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

Though there are probably any number of people who might describe Remi’s approach to parenting as questionable on a good day, he is still a father first. The lie is written all over Kaisel’s face, so bold that it is almost affectionate in its own way, and something warm glints in the Bastion’s sea-glass eyes as he lets it pass without so much as a challenge. Nodding as though he has been given a perfectly satisfactory answer, Remi’s mouth curves into a small smile. "Oh, good," he says, a quiet chuckle colouring the words. "It can be difficult to explain, so I am glad you caught on."

He gestures out one hand between them, palm up, the question carried with the same easy patience as though they are deciding who should take the first turn at a game rather than navigating this strange bit of dream logic that Remi is very certain Kaisel has not yet figured out. "Did you want to go first, then? Or shall I?" Before Kai can answer, the house simply ceases to be there.

It does not crumble or shatter, and there is no sense of movement to mark the change; one moment the crooked painting, scattered sand, and abandoned gummy worms are all precisely where they ought to be, and the next, the familiar walls have been replaced by open sky. Remi finds his feet planted on a narrow shelf of pale stone at the very top of a cliff, clouds roiling beneath them in slow, enormous folds that swallow any suggestion of ground below. Wind catches at the loose hem of his chambray and curls through his hair, cool and clean enough to make him squint as he looks out across the impossible height and then back to Kaisel with an expectant raise of his brows.

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

When one has already dug themselves a hole, the best thing to do is keep digging, obviously. If you've made a good hole, you can make a better hole. The bright and happy good that Remi serves him, especially combined with an admittance of difficulty, ought to rouse a sense of accomplishment and pride. Even a fake sense of one, if he's sticking steadfast to his ruse, but it makes his stomach flop instead. That it isn't easy should reassure him, but now he's worried he's just missed his window to figure it out in the least complicated way possible, and what had started as a white lie is quickly feeling like it's absorbing colors he didn't mean. Fuck.

Too confident and proud to admit otherwise for the time being, Kaisel just forces his smile into place in response. This is not the first time he's had to catch up to his own words, and now that he knows he's supposed to be solving something, surely he actually can.

As Remi's hand extends a touch, Kaisel finds himself mimicking the motion, his palm flipping up a breath later. When he blinks, his lashes lower over a house, and lift upon the sky. This too is taken in the stride of dreams, although where's his body is still slumped on the floor of the house, muscles twitch, jerking from the cliff edge with an innate concern that translates into his dream self that crouches lower, hands flaring for balance. The wind rolls over his fingertips, and while heights do not alarm him outright, this place is not familiar the way Stormbreak had been, or anything else he remembers climbing up to.

"Fuck! We need some sails or something, the wind wasn't supposed to be this bad!" Where the brain searches for a reason for being here, for a point as to why they'd be so precariously planted in danger, he conjures something close enough to feel familiar.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

The wind worries at Remi’s shirt and curls, but the Bastion only rolls his shoulders beneath it, broad tawny wings unfurling from his back with an easy stretch. They catch the air at once, every feather lifting into the gust until he seems quite comfortably anchored against the edge of the world. It is an unfairly heroic picture, perhaps, but then this is a dream; there is no reason it should not allow him a little drama.

"Oh," he says, glancing over at Kaisel as though the answer is painfully obvious, "I thought we would just jump." His brows rise, the suggestion offered with such casual sincerity that it might almost pass for reasonable, despite the clouds boiling beneath the cliff and the way Kaisel has lowered himself instinctively nearer to the stone.

Remi lets the idea sit there for only a moment before his grin appears. Reaching out, he places a hand on Kaisel’s shoulder and gives it a gentle, grounding squeeze. "Kai," he says softly, "this is a dream." His gaze flicks out across the clouds, thoughtful now, though the amusement remains. "At least, I am fairly sure it is. I used to have magic very similar to this when I was Ludo’s demigod."

Glancing over the sudden bluff of cloud, Remi lets his gaze drift back to his future son-in-law with a slight tilt of his head. "I thought maybe you would like to try out flying." As an Accepted, Kai would never have a shift he can reach for when the sky opens beneath him, and though Remi knows he has flown on the backs of other things before, that is not quite the same as being the one at the helm. Besides, flying is the sort of thing people enjoy in dreams, and not knowing how long this particular one might hold them, Remi thinks it is worth offering.

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

"JUMP??" he demands, tearing his gaze away from the fixed point he's using for balance to properly stare at Remi and all his madness. Runs in the family, clearly. God-like in plenty of ways already, Remi stands like he's surveying his dedicated portion of Caido, particularly divine above the clouds with his wings shaping a route of deliverance against the wind. Kaisel's mouth falls open a touch, his sense of Remi's legendary status too softened by family dinners and raccoon thefts, he realizes. He'd forgotten in his moment of worry that Remi can do more than talk shit in another language and make massive gummy worms that are easily offended. "Oh!" The Bastion would be the backpack built for the sky. "Right. Jump!"

Remi's hand settles on his shoulder with a touch that feels equally like he might tug Kaisel into his arms, ready to tandem skydive, or potentially push him right over the cliff, because now would be a fortunate time to explain to Flora what a terrible accident it had been. The man certainly has a history with opening Mort's halls for others, after all, so it wouldn't really surprise Kaisel in the end.

The push is only mental after all, because the hand is kind and understanding. A nervous laugh lifts, the wind steals half of it, because "what!?" Now he's back around to Remi being mad. Except Remi isn't laughing, smile aside, he's explaining, and it all sounds very reasonable in the way Caido shit does. "So you're saying, a dream is why we're here? Why..." he trails off, because trying to look too closely back at the things that'd just happen make them run away faster from his grasp, fuzzy and distorted at the edges. Gummy worms, he remembers, but what about them? His mind fizzes like shaken soda pop as he tries, and he relents for the time being.

"Okay, so let's say this is a dream, and I can fly." He's talking as if he's only humoring the Bastion, aware that trying to rationalize with crazy doesn't work, he's argued with Flora enough times now to know. You have to meet the insanity on its level. "How do I do it? I just, imagine I'm a dragon all the sudde—"

Impossibly perched on talon-tips on the ledge, neck extending out in a coil over the expanse of sky, tail winding in similar fashion further back, dream-dragon-Kaisel stands where the man had just been. It's less like a shift for an Accepted than it is just something that once was one thing and now is another. Scales so deeply violet they're almost black gleam in the light, the color extending down most of his body except the underside of him, where the scales are longer for scooting over stone, and paler so that the countershading helps blend him into the bright sky when things below look up. He blinks, a nictitating membrane spilling over his slit pupil before pulling back, and Kaisel unwinds the length of his neck so that his face is level with Remi again. He snorts, the plume of hot air rushing out towards the Bastion, and a guttural rumble vibrates from his chest and down his throat in something remarkably gleeful for all its bass.

At first, his mind is content to believe that this too, is normal, filling in holes and patching up gaps to ensure nothing too shiny bursts though. Holding onto the thread of this being a dream though, Kaisel can understand a little bit better now, that yeah. I should maybe be wondering why we're in a dream together, if that's not your magic anymore, but... race you first? The canopy of pale leather that adorns his sides snaps out, membrane cupping the wind with ease, and Kaisel flaps experimentally once, twice, before tucking them in and snaking his way over the edge and into the clouds.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

Remi only smiles as Kaisel works through it, patient enough to let the soldier chase the thought until it slips through his fingers again. "If I had to guess, it was something in the bag you brought back from the desert," he says, glancing briefly toward the clouds as though the answer might be waiting somewhere beyond them. Nothing about the place feels particularly nefarious, though; no wrongness curling at the edges of it, no pressure building beneath the skin. When he had travelled through dreams more often, storms had sometimes gathered at the far edges of another person’s mind, distant thunder and bruised sky offering some loose indication of what waited beneath the surface. Here, there is only pale light and cloudbank after cloudbank, the horizon stretching so far in every direction that the world seems to have forgotten where it is meant to end.

The sudden dragon beside him earns nothing more dramatic than an approving lift of Remi’s brows, followed by a boyish, crooked smile. "Nicely done," he says, warmth threading easily through the words as he takes in the dark sweep of scales and the breadth of Kaisel’s wings. He is only just beginning to turn over the questions of how and why this dream has taken them here when the dragon spills over the edge of the cliff.

A small hiss catches between Remi’s teeth before he moves after him, tawny wings snapping wide as he dives into the cloud cover. Kaisel ought to be much faster based on size alone, but dreams are not interested in the sort of rules that make sense once one is awake, and the Bastion catches up quickly, laughter warm in his throat as the wind tears it away behind him. "Look where you want to go!" he calls, angling nearer through the open sky. A fall will not truly hurt Kaisel here, Remi is fairly certain, but that does not mean he is willing to let the first attempt at flying end in a long, graceless plunge through the clouds.

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

The desert bag seems a fair consideration, the last thing he remembers before remembering became hazy. He considers what that means for a moment before the much more pressing testing of Remi's theory occurs, and the dragon shape to all of it.

As he abandons the cliff edge for the wide expanse of the sky, he does so with a certainty that if this is a dream, then he should not be able to die, and that flying should come to him. Of course, he has fallen in dreams before, jolting awake, and he has died in them too, also jolting awake, as if his consciousness cannot bare to reshape that truth or face its reality, so snaps him away from the dream's attempts at converting chaos into order. Then again, perhaps he ought to have asked the ex-Lullaby if dream magic works in different ways, especially the sort that comes spilling out of bags instead of Ludo's rags.

This becomes a more urgent thought as Remi catches up to him, not so alarmed as he is helpful, and one of Kaisel's slitted eyes rolls to glance sidelong at the Bastion as they both plummet. He realizes he's no idea where they're racing to, and soon enough, the competition is lost to the sheer joy of flight. That, and its uncertainties.

Remi's calm is comforting, but still, as clouds whip by in a white that extends all around them, disorienting and endless in a weightless echo of the sea, Kaisel needs to know. Are we safe? He does as Remi suggests however, head tilting up, wings partway extending out, gradually catching the drag of air along their leather bellies. His tail rudders behind him, legs tucked tight to his body, and slowly he levels out, becoming less of an arrow and more of a feather. The wind still cuts past them, and some of the clouds break apart, opening up the blue of the sky and the vastness of it all. He tests the cup of his wings and subsequent tilt and roll of his body with them, trialing a corkscrew not unlike the ones Charlie loves to throw at him. He can shortly see why, because yes, being the one in control, feeling the wind lift him, not bearing down with a vice grip, it's all much better than sitting astride his friend. Dygra has certainly earned a score in her favor after this.

A roar rumbles free, light and long, a dragon's delight. Kaisel alternates between tucking his wings and gaining speed, to flaring them out and hauling back up, wheeling and tilting and daring a manuever beside Remi, rolling just underneath him and catching the air to pop back up on the other side. Despite the fun, the reality of what they're caught in has been working itself out in Kaisel's mind, better done with the flight to focus directly on while his thoughts spin out in the background. If it is the bag. If this is like the dream magic Ludo gave you. Then, is the creature we fought, Ludo's?

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

As Kaisel begins to level out and test the shape of his new body against the wind, Remi’s attention drifts outward through the dream around them. Manipulating the architecture of the world around them is a skill the Bastion hasn't lost in virtue of no longer being the Lullaby, and as Kaisel banks beneath him, Remi lets his attention stretch outward, and the endless white begins to part beneath them in long, rolling banks. The Arclight appears first, shimmering far below in a broad sweep of blue and gold, and then Stormbreak rises above it in all its former glory; bright stone, soaring spires, and the impossible clean grandeur of a city recalled rather than rebuilt.

Yes, I think so, he thinks back, his mental voice more thickly accented than his normal speaking tone. But we are not in someone else’s mind, from what I can tell. I can reshape things too easily for that, and I do not feel anyone else here. There is the smallest pause in the thought, an acknowledgement of an exception rather than a true worry: if they weren't alone, whoever was with them was being very quiet and was very practiced at Dreaming. Conversationally, as though it is merely another detail worth mentioning while they race through the sky, Remi adds, I used to be able to teleport through dreams like this.

Banking easily alongside the dragon as Kaisel begins to wheel and roll through the open sky, Remi watches with a small, approving smile. When the roar echoes out between them, something boyish brightens in the Bastion’s expression, and with little more than a thought he shifts the air beneath Kaisel’s wings. A warm thermal swells up from below, broad and steady, giving the dragon an easy current to catch and ride.

At the question of the creature, Remi’s shoulders lift in a small shrug. It is normally Safrin or Ludo who have control of dreams, so I would say so. Though, from what little I saw of the creature in the desert, I am not sure which of them I would think it is. The violent nature made him inclined to think it was Safrin.

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

His gaze rolls over Stormbreak's edges as they fly, the look lingering longer than it should. It delivers a surprising ache, the sort that comes when lost things resurface without warning, feeling suddenly fresh all over again. He had not expected to see his old home here, whole as it once had been, not after marching up and down its ruins like the bones of the city needed to be properly catalogued to face the reality, an open casket funeral. If he still had any doubts about this being a dream, that's the final proof he needs. Glancing away and leaning into the press of the wind, Kaisel doesn't look at it again.

The threat of another being here with them had not crossed his mind until Remi gives it voice thought. He doesn't like it in the slightest, and a low rumble of unease tumbles through his frame, felt more than heard as it vibrates through the air. How can we be in a dream if not in someone's mind? He quiets for a moment before more reluctantly adding. Perhaps we are in the creature's mind? He hadn't though there'd been any mind left, but maybe that's exactly what the bag had been. A collection of dreams, and that feels like a suitable component for creating a mind, alongside memories and thoughts.

Could we teleport now? he wonders as Remi tears out another page of the book. Maybe the Bastion has already tried, but it only seems proper to limit test, Kaisel not quite certain when they might wake, or if it'd be so abrupt as their sleep.

Catching the thermal with a snort of surprise, Kaisel shoots up like a kite alongside Remi. He shakes his head into the warm wind, the motion rolling down his neck in waves and washing out over the stretch of his wings. It is nice, he admits after leveling out more from the updraft, coasting along its push with little effort. Dreaming when you know you're dreaming, and choosing what to dream like this.

The tip of his tail curls behind him in thought, Kaisel weighing both Safrin and Ludo. Perhaps it is one of their dreams, he hums the theory, thinking the creature had not shimmered with enough starlight or punishing beauty to deserve Safrin's leash, and neither dramatic enough to feel like Ludo's. Or a nightmare. The best description for the thing, really. I don't know if gods dream... but if you can enter inside of them with their magic, it seems like their magic could push them into the world. The thought disperses for another spiral and a dive, the wonder at why losing out to the wonder of fun for the time being.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

Remi shakes his head, though the movement is small enough that it is less refusal than clarification, his wings holding steady as the dream wind combs warm fingers through the pale sweep of his feathers. No, I mean I think we are just in our own minds, he says silently. Sometimes you can enter the dream of someone else, or be pulled into it, but this does not feel quite like that. Dreams have rules, even when those rules are soft enough to be bent by will and memory, and Remi has known enough of their architecture to recognize when a wall is load-bearing and when it is only pretending to be. If we are in the creature’s mind, it is not like anything else I have experienced before, he thinks, and there is a faint pull of dry honesty beneath the words as he angles one wing to keep himself level. And I used to dream-walk quite often.

The question of teleporting draws a thoughtful frown from him. It is possible, Remi allows, but I do not wish to be anywhere other than where I was when I wake up. His jaw feathers tighter for a moment, something protective and practical crossing the bond of his expression before it eases. If you would like to try, though, I can let Flora know that you have... gone somewhere. The pause is not quite amusement, but it leans near enough to it to keep the offer from becoming grim.

When Kaisel catches the thermal beside him, Remi’s expression changes, the seriousness giving way to a grin that looks younger for how genuine it is. The air lifts them both, and for all his caution, for all the questions snarling unseen beneath the dream’s bright surface, there is still pleasure in this: wings spread wide, sky beneath them, the world willing to answer imagination with movement. Would you like to give it a try? he asks, banking slightly so that the invitation opens out with the clouds ahead. Choosing what to dream, I mean.

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

The reassurance that they appear to be quite alone is immediate, unwinding in the shape of a massive sigh that grants a lazier tilt to the pathway through the sky. It's not absolute, but it's enough. Good, he says firmly, not particularly fond of the idea of facing off with something in a world where reality could contort itself so easily, the feeling far too similar to angling for a fist fight and tasting lightning instead.

The bother seems contagious. A pupil thins and a section of lip smears up over a row of teeth as Kaisel grimaces back in response. I did not realize you meant the body also teleported. I thought it was jumping from one mind to another...but no, I prefer just our minds. A helpful escape, perhaps, if this was the creature's dream. He would not be so persuaded by white clouds and gummy worms as to think that beast's brain would stay so soft. Maybe their own wouldn't either.

Snaring the warm winds once more in the grasp of his wings, Kaisel's prior dive is undone in an effortless upheaval, and he tilts for a moment into the feeling of the invisible pressure sliding along his side and fluttering beneath the edge of his wing. The change of momentum from rising to falling and the brief inertia in between is exhilarating, leading to Kaisel performing a series of aerial bounces, as it were, rising and sinking in succession. His attention swivels noticeably towards the Bastion at the query, and though his ears have no external shape, they surely prick for the tautness that draws over him.

Yes, he decides after a pause of consideration, gathering an idea more than courage. All too soon, the sky unravels, and it can no longer hold them up, their wings requiring faster beating, which still isn't enough. It's a graceful matter of falling, an as inevitable as something tossed up bound to return, not jarring or alarming so much as it is recognized.

What awaits them below is a cobblestone street, deserted save for one lone structure gleaming in its urban shrine. He doesn't remember landing, or changing, but this doesn't seem to bother him as Kaisel stands before the house, quietly observing it. "Seems to have worked," he declares, the shift in the reality obvious now. A cottage made entirely of candy awaits, its sugar-spun ornamentation and colorful, chewy surfaces glinting with winks of light and invitation. Kaisel steps forward, reaching for the cinnamon-roll knob and jerks open the solid-chocolate door, the edges of it already wilting beneath the heat of his hand. "This is entirely stupid and also amazing," he grins, leaning in to gnaw at a section of door.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

Remi chuckles as he glances at Kaisel over one shoulder, the dragon’s expressions writ far too large across a face made for something much more intimidating than a thoughtful frown. It was certainly an interesting ability, he agrees, the wind running pale fingers through the feathers of his wings as he shifts their angle to keep them easily aloft. But not very timely. There is a wryness to the admission as he continues, his tone conversational despite the sky rolling endless around them. I could put anyone into a deep sleep, myself included. But if I wanted to teleport to someone somewhere else, I had to wait for them to be asleep first. A life spent reacting to danger does not lend itself especially well to waiting around for the right person to drift off, and Remi’s mouth twitches faintly at the thought. I spent a long time in the Dreaming, because of that. He does not elaborate on how easy it had once been to prefer the pliant, forgiving logic of sleep to a waking world that kept asking things of him. The memory touches something muted beneath his ribs, and he lets it pass without giving it more shape than it deserves.

When Kaisel’s choice makes the sky begin to unravel beneath them, Remi doesn’t bother fighting it. The air turns thin and unhelpful, wings needing more work for less lift, and rather than beat against a world which has plainly decided it wants to become something else, he simply lets go. The sensation of falling lasts only long enough to register before the clouds give way to cobblestones, and the Bastion finds himself standing on a quiet street with his feet planted neatly beneath him. He rolls his shoulders once, letting his wings disappear as easily as a held breath, and looks up at the cottage with a grin already beginning to form.

"Seems to," he agrees, though the sight of the candy house has him pressing his teeth briefly into the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing. The sugar-spun roof gleams above them; the chocolate door softens beneath Kaisel’s hand, bright and ridiculous and entirely too pleased with itself. Remi stays where he is as the soldier leans in to bite a piece from it, his voice carrying lightly down the street. "How does it taste?" Then, without fanfare, he is gone.

Inside the house, the world rearranges around him with the satisfying certainty of a costume being pulled on. By the time the chocolate door wrenches open from within, Remi is no longer Remi at all: plump-bodied and crooked-nosed, warts scattered across his cheeks, an apron printed with cheerful little frogs stretched far too tightly over his middle. One gnarled finger jabs accusingly toward Kaisel from the doorway, and when he speaks, his voice has dropped into a theatrical, gravelly croak. "WHAT ARE YA DOIN’ EATIN’ MY HOUSE?" The Remi!Witch demands of Kaisel, who is now no more than a boy of ten.

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

He's done it before to Remi, curiosity bringing him too close to old worries and wounds, but this time his bright optimism and sparkling wonder do not press further. He catches the gentler way the tone shifts, which could be the result of reaching back into distant things in order to pull them close enough to remember the details, but he's watching the creases on Remi's features too, and they appear to be doing more than fighting to grab hold of distance. There is a reason, Kaisel assumes, that he does not continue to live in the Dreaming. Sounds like an easy way to get lost, Kaisel concludes simply. Dreams are fun, usually, as are illusions and pretend, but only for so long. Too easy to lose yourself to them, and Kaisel doesn't know the half of it in Remi's case.

The world warps with a natural ease that does not register as unusual. Understanding it instead of being blind to it exists now with Remi's observations and knowledge, the dream known instead of just lived, but still there's no panic or fear at the way the impossible establishes itself so easily here. A chocolate door does not need to be anything more than a chocolate door, and there's a neat simplicity to that which makes a place like this appealing enough.

"Mmf-0od!" He shouts his rating, the sound muffled by the gob of chocolate still set between his teeth as he works it down. The bite of it from the door is revealed in a drag path of lines and a missing chunk off the previously smooth edge.

Now young Kaisel startles at the sudden yell that thunders from within. He swallows his evidence quickly, oblivious to the glistening swath of cocoa against his round cheek. His eyes widen at the accusation, the finger thrust forth sending one of his feet back, as though the air's been displaced by the motion and collides forcefully in response with his limb. "I-I wasn't!" he stammers back, straightening out all sense of guilt with his best attempt at innocence. "I only opened the door, didn't eat it, I swear." He lifts to fingers to his heart as proof.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed

He said "I bet you don't remember me"

The witch’s one good eye narrows until it is little more than a suspicious slit; the other bulges wetly from its socket as Remi stoops forward, and somehow, with the movement alone, he seems to grow. His shoulders swell beneath the frog-patterned apron, his stomach rounding more grotesquely over the tight waistband, until the doorway behind him appears much too small to contain him properly. Remi’s head tips to one side, his crooked nose almost brushing the chocolate door as he peers down at Kaisel with all the dreadful consideration of someone deciding precisely how much salt a recipe requires.

"Cross yer heart an’ hope t’die?" he rasps, wiry brows climbing high over his mismatched eyes.

His gaze drops pointedly to the glossy brown ring around Kaisel’s mouth, then returns to the boy-soldier’s face. A gnarled finger rises between them, wagging once in slow, ominous warning. "’Cause y’know what happens t’little boys who lie, don’tcha?"

and I said "only ever other memory"

Kaisel

He cannot help but be transfixed by the horror that is the witch's face. From every bulbous wart swollen with excess flesh to each wiry hair that sprouts long and crooked out of place, it draws him in. She's too grotesque for seeing her to be pleasant, and yet, his gaze is unable to leave her, reflected back at him in the wet sheen that encases the one eye working hard to leave the socket of her skull as it bears down on him. For the moment, Kaisel forgets this is a dream, forgets he isn't ten, that the witch is just Remi. He knows only the gripping terror of being caught, and the consequence, it is ugly.

The gnarled figure of Remi!Witch doesn't move so much as looms closer, edges seeming to spill further out of the house the way shadows elongate in the absence of light. Kaisel takes a weak-kneed step back, inching away with all the careful appreciation of keeping attention off his retreat. The word die makes his shoulders flinch up, as if instinctively guarding his neck. "Hope to d-die?" he repeats, a thin chuckle giving an exit for his nerves. He certainly doesn't want to invoke the grave binding pact of that particular childhood vow, especially when he's hoping to do the exact opposite of dying.

His lips press his sound back into silence, a wariness folding his hands at his sides, fingers fighting for purchase on his pants. "They...get let go?" He hopes, more than answers, but he doesn't waste time in waiting for it to be handed to him. Quickly, he reaches to the side and wrestles a gumdrop from the corner, drop kicking it at the witch before hauling ass the opposite direction.

And when the day broke, buried in violence
Somethin' made my mind up
I could do this with my eyes closed