[Training] test cutting

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

"Poking feels very blueblood." Remi counters slyly, his smirk one-sided as he allows Ronin to relieve him of his sword. "You can't tell me that real soldiers during battle go about trying to stick each other like that." Or gods, maybe they did. Maybe all this time what was beyond the Wall was just an endless supply of men with tiny swords.

The simplest of gestures from the Knight never failed to draw a sigh of affection from Remi's lips, so as Ronin pressed a kiss to the Bastion's temple it was with an entirely boyish smile that he reached out for his husband's hand. "I actually was counting on you to do just that." He admits, laughing dryly under his breath. "I thought that the Tournament would make all of this strategizing easier, but it hasn't, really. Deimos is perhaps the strongest of us, especially with those gloves, but he's also the only one who isn't immortal, and now with a new baby..?" It felt unfair to ask something of the Sword that couldn't be accomplished just as easily by someone else who'd undoubtedly come home to their family.

"Noah...after that display on the beach I can't say I trust him to make smart choices." The Bastion admits, clucking softly with his tongue. "Really it just leaves you or Sunjata. You're easily the most experienced, and where a 1/10 chance are pretty good odds, your firebolts are deadly at a distance." As for Sunjata...he hadn't hit as hard as he could at the tournament, which left Remi at a bit of a loss as to his real skills.

"I don't want pride or some misguided sense of finders keepers to be our downfall in this, you know?"

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

"Oh, it absolutely was," Ronin assures his husband, grinning and putting the practice blades away. "The rapier you've got was the sort of shit I imagine the Launceleyns would have used. All tucked away to look like a cane or an umbrella or something," he says with a roll of his eyes. "In war you'd use a short or long sword, something you'd probably find much easier to use." Stabbing, slashing, brute force as well as finesse - not nearly as delicate as the style required by the rapier.

Surrendering his hand and scoffing to hear that he had, in fact, been expected to magic up an answer for the other man, Ronin draws Remi close against him, letting his chin drop to rest on his shoulder. "Mm, Deimos also uses his magic and shifts more than weapons," he says. "I'd not want to accidentally make him weaker by making this his responsibility. Also, can you imagine Wilde's rapier in comparison to him? Like giving a bear a toothpick."

That it's between he and Sunjata has his brow furrowing, Ronin sighing and pressing a kiss to the Bastion's jaw. "And both of us prefer to punch our problems in the face," he says with a smirk. "I'd have suggested someone else - someone less involved in all this, but gods, keeping an ace in the hole like that at home seems foolish."

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

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

Leaning his head softly against his husband's as if the pair were about to start dancing in the middle of the rainbow road, Remi hums in the affirmative before snorting laughing against Ronin's ear and having to mumble an apology. "Gods, but I would sort of like to see it." He admits, thinking of Deimos inching forward with his feet parallel on some invisible line, trying to poke at the shoulder of a monster.

"To be fair, so do I." Remi points out, emphatically raising his eyebrows and widening his eyes. Maybe he could have Mort just make it into a ring.

"Who else? The Messenger who intentionally got himself an item that meant not having to be up close? Sah who killed Melita because he wasn't paying attention? Hotaru.." Sighing and trying very hard not to point out that as the mother of his children, he'd keep her from harm if he could, Remi ended up shaking his head. "She could probably make it work, but is she even immortal yet?" Seren was too inexperienced and Melita was still coming into her own abilities, leaving almost no one else.

Flora? Isla?

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

"I bet he'd swing it around for you, if you bribed him with snacks," Ronin says with a grin, and though the obvious innuendo naturally has him tittering against the other man's throat, the mental imagine of Deimos armed with a needle against something like the kraken of the Maw is just as funny.

Grumbling an affirmative - yes, that definitely goes for Remi as well - Ronin does turn them a little in place; it's to direct them towards the path home, it's true, but if there's enough of a flourish to call it a dance move, he'll never tell. "Gods, when you put it like that..." Wrinkling his nose at the rest of the candidates, though he does still feel a tug of something unpleasant to hear Hotaru's name, the Knight forces himself to be a grownup about it.

"Of all of them, it would probably suit her the most," he agrees. "Though I'm not sure if she's ever used a blade before, either?" Not a sword, in any case.

"I did consider Koa, briefly, but gods, I'm not sure whether Flora would kill us both for even thinking about it." Also another man who likes to punch his problems in the face, for the record. "Gods, maybe we should hold another tournament and the winner can have it. Obviously we won't invite all the people we've already discounted."

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

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

"I'm going to tell him you said that next time I see him." Remi threatens good-naturedly, and though it's a complex old world that they're navigating through, the golden rush of Ronin's laughter against him makes it all seem impossibly easy to bear.

Resisting the urge to prod Ronin as to how he'd know anything about Hotaru's background, Remi lets his arm slide around his husband's waist so that they can begin to walk properly back in the direction of the Northaven rather than continuing to sway against one another (which, don't get him wrong, he does enjoy).

Snorting at that, the Bastion nods. "Mmm. I feel like one day she'd kill us if we didn't protect him, and the next she wouldn't care if he ever came home." Certainly that's the general vibe he'd gotten from her recently. "Gods," having to laugh at that to keep himself from grating his teeth, Remi glances over his shoulder and fixes the Knight with a look. "Me throwing another Tournament would probably go down as well as Maea throwing another ball."

Speaking of.. "I saw her, the other day. Maea. She came over to the Houseboat." Remi explains. "She's...gods, things sound rough in the Grounds right now."

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

"You tell him and I'll bring the bribe," Ronin suggests with a bounce of his eyebrows, turning to walk with Remi back through the Rainbow Road, shifting to hoist the practice blades up and over his shoulder as they go. 

Humming an exhausted sounding sigh at Flora's changeability when it comes to Koa (or any boy she likes, he imagines - such is the life of a 21 year old), the Knight gives his husband a little nudge with his hip and grins. "Okay, maybe let someone else host it, then? You'd have plausible deniability if anything went wrong."

Not expecting the conversation to turn to Maea of all people, Ronin raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. "Rough? In what way?" he asks curiously. The Grounds have always been rough to Ronin, of course, so he'll need a little more before deciding if this is out of the ordinary for the region.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

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

"Oh, well in that case I nominate you. You're able to charm your way out of anything it seems like." Remi says with a laugh, and if he's a touch jealous what of it? We should all be so lucky to be married to someone better than ourselves.

"Gods, where to start?" Remi says on the heels of a sigh, his fingertips drumming against his husband's hip as they walk. "She was worried about...well about another race war it sounded like. Apparently, there's an ancient who works security for the Dusklight, a man called Asta? who is eating people." Knowing more questions would follow, the Bastion lifts his eyebrows in an expression of I know as he continues. "No, I don't know how often or who knows or if there's anything more to it than that. Just that Maea was upset when she found out and when she tried to talk to the man about it, she....sort of let things go too far. That's the part she wanted to talk to me about, whether or not she'd crossed a line and if she had by how much, but..." Again he raises his eyebrows, this time letting his expression properly crumple as he shakes his head.

"And all the while in the back of my mind I honestly couldn't figure out if I cared or not. In the big scheme of things, with the Grounds being run by someone else, do we care? Should we?"

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

"Sorry, I can't. I'm washing my hair that day - the day you want to do the tournament. Whatever day it happens to be." Ronin grins to his husband, chuckling and letting his fingers walk gentle patterns across the other man's shoulders as they stroll back down towards the coastline.

As Remi begins the conversation with where to start? the Knight's eyes widen a fraction and he straps himself in to listen. Which is apparently much more difficult to do than not with so many questions buzzing on his tongue, most of them headed off before he can think about them too much, since the Bastion doesn't know either.

"Well, fuck," he blurts when the other man is done. "I... I mean, if I were living there I'd absolutely care if I were someone who visited the Dusklight," he says slowly. "But I... well, I assume that Maea has let the leader of the Grounds know, if she's let you know?" He tilts his head. "Do Ancients eat people, then? I assume the man is an Ancient, based on..." He waves a hand - 99% of the people in the Grounds are, after all.

Letting out a low whistle, he shrugs his shoulders. "I mean... There are thieves, murderers and all kinds of horrible people everywhere, unfortunately. I wouldn't be surprised if someone in Torchline has done something just as bad that we don't know about..." And so, on a similarly grey scale as his husband, despite the purity of his title, Ronin winces. "I feel as though I should get involved, but if I do, shouldn't I also go and investigate every similar sort of rumour that comes to us?" He'd never be at home, if that was the case.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

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

Rolling his eyes as if he should have known Ronin would have an excuse like that at the ready, the Bastion nevertheless sends a pulse of affection through the bond—even if he does suddenly tilt his foot sideways in the hopes of making the Knight stumble on their stroll home.

"Mhmmm." Remi agrees with an emphatic nod. "I don't know if Danta knows about that specifically. Maea had had problems with this man before and told Danta, but I think he told her just to leave it alone. It's entirely possible that was to do with something else entirely, though." Remi says with a shrug, before biting at the inside of his cheek and considering. "Well...I've hunted with Isla before and while I can't ever imagine her doing it, they are all predators at the end of the day. You remember what I was like, when I was first made into a proper predator?" Though he doesn't mean to try and downplay cannibalism, that Remi had nearly killed a stranger just for passing by the day after he'd first received his lion shift wasn't something he'd ever forgotten.

"Yeah, I thought that too. Torchline is hardly free of murder for the sake of it, and while there's something about cannibalism that just...feels wrong, you might be right that it isn't actually any worse than what already goes on." Gods it's a strange line to draw in the sand, but with the Grounds so far away and Starfall so near, Remi couldn't deny that it felt far less like the making of a race war that Maea had made it out to be.

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

Stumbling as if it's his role to do so, Ronin continues the conversation without missing a beat. "Mm, if he works in the Dusklight and that's Danta's place of..." Rule? he wants to say, but it doesn't sound quite right for a brothel. Anyway. "I can imagine he perhaps wanted to deal with it himself. Maybe it's the same for this?" Ancient or not, chaos incarnate or not, the politics of being a region that engages readily in cannibalism is likely not the look Danta is going for.

Or maybe it is - fuck if Ronin knows.

"Mm, I remember," he agrees, leaning in to press a kiss against Remi's bearded cheek as if to soothe that particular memory all over again. "And I mean... if someone had told me there was a serial killer loose in the Hollowed Grounds, I don't know if I would immediately go up there myself and start playing detective, you know?"

However - and gods, it's the kind of however Ronin ends up hanging his coat on every time.

"I do know about this, though. And that it's bothered Maea. I think the least I could do is maybe reach out, see if the Grounds needs any help?"

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

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

Silently Remi is filled with utter delight as Ronin stumbles, and though it isn't quite an apology, he does nuzzle his nose against the side of the Knight's neck for the next few steps.

"Maybe." Nodding uncertainly, because after having met the Maverick a few times the Bastion still hadn't gotten a good read on the man, Remi can only shake his head. "Gods, she'll be mortified that I told you." Not quite slouching, Remi nevertheless seems to shrink into himself for a moment as he gazes at the colourful stones littering their walk. "Hey, can I—" Stopping himself, because of course he could ask his husband a question, the Bastion glances at Ronin over his shoulder, his lips a crooked frown. "So, I know between the two of us that you're the good one. The better one." He'd go so far to say the hero if he didn't think he'd get an elbow in the ribs for it. "But am I..." Squinting up at the sun, Remi gives his head a small shake as a cold wave of self-doubt sloshes up through his ankles and into his belly.

It wasn't a feeling that he was overly familiar with, having not really ever had cause to be self-conscious, and yet something Maea had said at the end of their conversation had stuck with him, and wouldn't quite leave. "...am I really that far behind? That...I don't know, bad overall?" Still frowning hard enough that when he smoothed his brows out there would be white creases across his forehead, the Bastion pulled his eyes away from the sun to glance at Ronin.

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

Humming an agreement under his breath - Maea can only be mortified if she finds out, after all - Ronin is already composing a letter to the Maverick in his head by the time Remi speaks again, the Knight having slowed his steps somewhat to concentrate, leaving the other man a few paces ahead. "Mm?" The affirmation is already on his lips when Remi cuts himself off, and Ronin falls quiet to listen.

"Er, I mean, I wouldn't say better," he objects gently; for all that his moniker makes him seem like some sort of paladin, shining armour included, Ronin has done some very morally grey things in his life - and one or two of them are black as pitch, no matter how hard you try to scrub them clean.

Still, this isn't actually about him, he realises, his brow furrowing as he steps up to slip his arms around Remi, drawing him tightly against the warmth of his chest. "Are you bad?" He shakes his head, running his fingers through the Bastion's curls and leaning in to cover his cheeks and forehead in kisses. "Absolutely not," he says with abject certainty. "What would ever make you think that? You are just as good a man as I am, if not in different ways. I might help little old ladies cross the street, but you literally let people speak with their loved ones again from Mort's halls."

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

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

"You know what I mean." Remi counters softly as he falls to a halt, twisting slightly and holding out a hand for Ronin to catch up only to find himself tugged against the Knight's chest. Slipping his arms around his husband's shoulders and sighing against the side of his neck, the Bastion tries to shrug it off as if his feelings hadn't been hurt by the ancient's words, though it was all writ clear as day in the murky pallor of his emotions.

"Just something she said." He mumbles. "I told her I wished that I could have given her better advice and she said that I was good enough for her, which...on its own, fine, I don't think she meant it negatively but then.." Pausing, his eyes closed, Remi sighs into his husband's collar, suddenly feeling very foolish and perhaps all the more hurt for it. "Then she said she couldn't have told any of it to you because you'd always been a hero of hers, and that confessing her secrets to a literal white knight would have been mortifying." Maybe it should have occurred to Remi to think that perhaps Maea had a bit of a crush on his husband, which, who could blame her, but still the words had a certain sting to them that the Bastion hadn't quite gotten out of his system.

"Maybe I'm being silly about all of it, but.." Straightening, Remi brushes his nose gently against the Knight's. "I really did try, with her. To listen, to give good advice, to try and...be objective and helpful."

and I said "only ever other memory"

and on to the glory at my right hand

He does know what Remi means, Ronin falling to a halt properly now and sighing against the slow, dark tide of the other man's hurt and upset, letting him take as long as he needs to explain. "I... what?" Tilting his head, the Knight peers down at Remi just in time for his nose to come brushing against him, meaning it's all too easy for him to steal a kiss from his lips. "You are not being silly," he mumbles, kissing him again for good measure and turning to march them off back to the Northaven with the other man glued close against his side.

"It sounds as though you were everything I would have been and more," he tells Remi. "I'm sorry that she said that to you. And whatever anyone else says, you're my hero, so they can all wait in line for your advice from now on." He might be pouting and overdramatic about it, perhaps, but gods, it's taken Remi long enough to step out of the shadows, he feels protective about this new sense of peace in his husband.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)