old habits die screaming

REMI

Remi has paused to re-read Hotaru's letter several times before he manages a bewildered look in Ronin's direction. The letter possesses none of the Valkyrie's normal wit and charm, and while that would normally not be something Remi would point out to his husband—least of all during Leafchange—he does mutter it under his breath before abruptly standing up from their little table. Having no reason to suspect that Flora has been kidnapped and is not simply staying somewhere with the Valkyrie, likely in King's End, Remi allows himself the luxury of kissing his husband goodbye before drawing on the thread of his magic which will bring him directly to Flora.

He'd asked Hotaru for help convincing Flora to leave Jack, it's really no surprise that he should be asked to return the favour. (Though, leave Torchline? Surely that can't be what she means?)

The lower floor of the houseboat is dim thanks to the ever-darkening stretch of sky overhead as dusk comes to claim the ocean, such that as Remi appears in the little room on the even littler bed, he's forced to partially shift his eyes in order to make sense of the small space he suddenly finds himself in. Blinking, the room comes into focus in a whirl of blacks and greens, leaving the Bastion gazing confusedly down at Flora who is now sandwiched between her parents.

I thought coming would be faster than writing to say that I would come. Remi thinks along the attuned bond, presumably in an effort to keep from waking their daughter.

Who are you? They ask. Death?
Sometimes... I say. But not today

HOTARU

She's in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside

She misses Remi’s dream walking ability sometimes. It isn’t hers to miss in any capacity, but there’d been a part of her - quiet, but always selfish, she doesn’t know how not to be - that had drawn comfort from the idea that he could visit her any time. Distance never mattered then. There was no waiting while awake - something she finds she hates as she experiences it here and now. 

Her eyes are clearly visible when he materializes in the bed, the space softly illuminated by her mere existence. They settle on Remi’s face for a long time, breaths slowing just from knowing he’s here. That there’s someone on Flora’s other side who would also die for her, which means now there truly is nowhere safer in the world for their daughter to be. “She won’t wake. I put her to sleep.” There’s a touch of shame that hangs in the way her eyes slide away from Remi’s back to where she’s idly stroking their daughter’s hair.

She languishes in silence for a moment, chewing on her lip like a teenager and not the woman she is. “She kept insisting she would be safe here. She wasn’t making sense. I just - I needed time,” she stresses, shoulders beginning to hunch again as the urgency slowly creeps, the need to take her daughter and store her away so the Valkyrie can burn the world back to being safe for her again returning to breathe down her neck. When her gold-lit gaze finds Remi again, it has the likeness of a cornered animal. “I couldn’t stand there out in the open trying to explain. The more people that know she’s alive the harder this gets.” And maybe she’d thought of sailing further. Sailing until nobody could ever find them. But Hotaru has always tried to have her cake and eat it too; she wants Flora safe, near at hand, and not actively hating her. Convincing Flora and earning her consent is the only option that accomplishes all three. At least until Hotaru can show her that the Family isn’t dangerous. Then she can feel more secure in the idea of Flora being off on her own again. 

“She’s going to be furious when I wake her, but we can argue here without drawing attention. You’ll help me convince her?” And so convinced is she by the haze of void that her stare is plaintive and vulnerable, certain that Remi will understand her completely. He’s never failed to protect their children - Hotaru can hardly say the same - so why would now be any different?

singing "Baby come home" in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time

REMI

The soft glow Hotaru emits has the Bastion blinking away his predator's stare, replacing nearly black eyes with soft sea-glass green. The gold warmth reminds him so much of Ronin's dazzle that he can't help but immediately be lulled by it, and though he hadn't expected to appear in a bed on a boat—he can tell that's what it must be, based on the dimensions, the nearby scent of the sea, and the gentle way everything is swaying—Remi finds himself relaxing down into the mattress ever so slightly.

She... Surprise widens the Bastion's eyes, and had it been anyone but Hotaru to say such a thing, likely there would be claws already pressing themselves from his fingertips in order to carve out the tongue which had admitted it. But no one has ever loved Flora more fiercely than Hotaru has, not even the Bastien, and so while he doesn't understand, he does stay a premature reaction, reaching to shrug a shoulder and extend one of his wings across Flora, draping his longest flight feathers across the Valkyrie rather than aiming claws at her throat.

"This?' Frowning, Remi's expression is similarly boyish rather than paternal as he tries to get a read on the woman curled on the opposite side of the bed; one who, in some sense, he knows intimately, and in others might as well be a stranger to him.

"Hotaru, convince her of what?" Splaying his outer feathers as if they were fingers, while there's no tactile feedback on his part, he hopes to soothe the muscles he can see coiling beneath Hotaru's golden skin.

Who are you? They ask. Death?
Sometimes... I say. But not today

HOTARU

She's in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside

Hotaru’s eyes slide back to Flora, a naked expression of dismay creasing her brow. “She needs it anyway,” she murmurs, hand straying from stroking Flora’s hair to gently brush one knuckle down her cheek. At least this way she won’t dream. Hotaru hopes she can’t - she’s not sure Flora will want to tell her regardless by time she wakes, but at least she’ll be rested enough to scream.

Blind to how vulnerable she leaves herself by virtue of her trust in him, Hotaru doesn’t so much as flinch as a wing emerges to cocoon both blondes. In fact she settles further. It’s not Sunjata’s draconic wing but it’s something close enough to the feeling that it soothes the frayed edges of her terror.

Frustration briefly wrinkles her nose, equally confused by Remi’s reaction. “That she has to leave Torchline. I’m sure she’s felt compelled to destroy the Family’s creations because of the fear everyone has, that her people have, but now is the best time to disappear while everyone thinks she’s dead.” It’s practically conversational, the way she lays it out. It makes as much sense to her as any other political move. Rusty she might be, there’s no denying an advantage as plain as this one. “I can take her to Frey - they’ll explain it to her, the same way they told me, that it’s not dangerous. She can step down without marring her name, stay out of the crossfire -” her momentum slams to a halt as her throat chokes up so fast it makes a pathetic clicking noise. Panic brightens in her eyes and she makes a pathetic noise like a strangled whine. “She didn’t need to be there. She shouldn’t have been doing any of this. I can’t -” survive it “- I can’t lose her. I won’t - I’m not you.” Her tears look like liquid gold in her own glowing aura as they finally fall. Silent, absentminded, as if she’s unaware it’s happening. 

It would be so easy to hate him. To resent him for being so much better than her in every conceivable way. For having the skill set to watch over their daughter more effectively. For living in the same region while her own heart is torn between two, and attempting to provide Ronin space to boot. Somewhere inside maybe she does hate him for it. But it is eternally overshadowed by the skeleton framework of a friendship blunted too soon, the appreciation of all he’s done for her, for their children, and the ways he has kept her connected to Enzo the moment he was able to. She can’t hate him, not really - so she hates herself instead. Always one minute too late, one step too far away. Combined with the haze of infection insisting she convince Flora to stop being an active threat, there’s no logical reason for Flora to stay where Hotaru can’t reach her. “I can’t be too late again. Please. I need you to help me explain that to her.” Just until the world is safe again.

singing "Baby come home" in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time

REMI

Lifting his eyebrows—there's no denying the exhaustion that has been writ clearly on their daughter's face ever since she came back from the Greatwood—the Bastion can only sigh and lean his cheek against one shoulder. It had been years since the three of them had been like this, though in those day there would have been another body pressed between theirs, and gods if that doesn't bend the Bastion's ear to the arguments the Valkyrie is trying to impress upon him.

"Creations?" Remi's accent collides with the sarcasm he wraps around the word as he too wrinkles his nose."Horrors, I'd call them." He mutters under his breath before shaking his head. "After the festival, I doubt if anyone thinks she is dead." Anyone who still believed that Jack and Flora had remained dead were quickly cured of that belief when the pair had arrived at the festival very much alive, if not still worse for wear.

Undoubtedly someone like Ronin would have picked up on the tells far sooner, but having never been the clever one and still too overwhelmed by the sound of Flora's voice in his mind telling him that she had died, Remi missed it. "Explain what to her? That what isn't dangerous?" He wonders in a tone nearly as mild, thinking perhaps Hotaru meant for Flora to hide away in the refuge as she should have done during the last war.

What might have been a compliment is heard as an accusation—I'm not you—such that Remi feels himself wince before shifting uncomfortably in the bed. Looking toward Flora, the Bastion bites hard at the inside of his cheek, wondering how it was the mother of his child thought that he didn't care. Her tears seemed evidence of that, and as she makes her plea again, it was all he can do not to scrub his palms across his face and rake his fingers into his curls. "She knows, Hotaru." Remi whispers gently, his feathers splaying like fingers across her shoulder. "I...used my last revivify feather to bring Jack back, but I am sure I can find another.." That combined with the powers at his and Ronin's disposal, they could continue to cheat death anytime their children needed it.

Who are you? They ask. Death?
Sometimes... I say. But not today

HOTARU

She's in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside

Her frown twitches at the corner, belying the clearly suppressed desire to worsen her expression. She hadn’t lingered at the Festival after finding Sunjata - now she regrets that she hadn’t. It changes…well. Too much. 

It’s why she lapses into uneasy silence. A vague noncommittal hum meets his denigration of the Family’s evolutions as her eyes drift time and again to Flora. Her eyelashes - so faint in the daylight without coatings and colors - glow in the light cast from Hotaru’s skin. There are new freckles on her daughter’s face in places she doesn’t remember. She is a familiar stranger. When did that happen?

She knows, Hotaru.

It’s so damning that it’s equally a blessing Remi isn’t touching her lest he feel the devastation that occurs in her chest. What is there to fear indeed if he is so certain in his ability to provide where Hotaru cannot? What is the purpose of her presence here, her efforts to prevent Flora from being corrected by the Family again if the answer is so simple in Remi’s mind? Just never be too late. Never falter. 

Oh, how she’s tried. But as he said - Flora knows. She knows she can’t rely upon Hotaru to be the one to save her. Maybe that’s why she refused to see Torchline as unsafe or to envision leaving it - because Remi and Ronin wouldn’t be nearby. The fact Hotaru would be wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t assure more meaningful safety. 

Her tears dry tacky in diagonal trails across her cupid’s bow and the bridge of her nose as her unblinking stare unfocuses and turns Flora’s features indistinct. Sunjata is grieving a love so great he can’t be near her. Her daughter hides beneath the safety of plentiful parental wings without needing the inclusion of her own. Hotaru holds the answer to safety in her hands and yet…because she hesitated, because she trusted Remi and believed she was skilled enough to maneuver this scenario in a way that would preserve everyone’s collective happiness, she can feel the opportunity slip through her fingers. 

Fine. Ru can protect them even from arm’s length. It just requires her heart being the one sacrificed. That’s hardly a new thing, right?

“I doubt Frey can make one, but perhaps something else. A long-distance exchange of sorts, a trading of places…” her voice is musical and placid in the glow reflecting against the underside of Remi’s wing. A cocoon of light that feels darker than anything she’s known so far. “If you remain close…then maybe she’s right. Maybe it is safer.” Hotaru smiles, but the corners of her eyes draw down to paint a tableau of grief. Her eyes rise to Remi’s and manage to hold at last. If there’s one thing Hotaru can do it’s lie. “It was selfish of me to think of bringing her to the Refuge. I wasn’t thinking straight - I wasn’t thinking at all. I just knew I had to get here as fast as I could.” Place the blame on her shoulders. Distract with vulnerability Remi has always found uncomfortable. Blind him with empathy through the freshness of his own feelings about Flora’s death. “It’s hard to feel on the outside. Like I can’t offer her anything she doesn’t already receive…like I’m giving all this space and time for her to find herself and being forgotten in the process.” Cue the watery eyes. A hiccup of a breath, the slightest shake of her head as if she’s caught herself being too transparent and regrets it immediately. Wouldn’t the prideful Valkyrie do that?

Muster a smile. A touch of a wobble to it. Withdraw - like she's tired and defeated, not actually avoiding the possibility of him reaching to console her. "I think I'll just...go home? Get my thoughts together enough to tell her she was right and that I'm sorry." It will be easier to deceive Flora through parchment; she wonders if her daughter can read her any better than Remi can and aches anew. "Just...try not to paint me badly when she wakes?" Her lip trembles naturally this time. "I love her. I tried to do this right." Regret gnaws at her stomach. She never should have hesitated. She never should have given weight to Flora's desires or Remi's cooperation. But that ending would have been just as painful, weathering their combined hatred and distrust until she could convince them of the Family's safety. This way, only she has to know the truth. They can hate Dahlia and the Family in her stead until the final moments where they will be forced to evolve regardless. Then they can be together like this again. 

Hotaru only has to wait until the end - and do anything in her power to hasten its arrival for the sake of her own selfish heart.

singing "Baby come home" in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time

REMI

Reaching out for Hotaru feels like what he's expected to do, and yet the strangest feeling of infidelity stays Remi's hand. Perhaps it's the Valkyrie's recent engagement, but more likely it's what the Bastion knows his husband's feelings toward her are. However this ends, if he comes home smelling of fresh tears and Hotaru's scent—in this of all seasons—he can't be sure he'll be able to claw the Knight back from the repercussions of what he's likely to do. What would Remi have to say in his defense, anyway? It's in my nature to comfort those in pain? You didn't see her Ronin, but her tears looked like gold in the light? Still, it gnaws at him, this doing nothing as Hotaru silently weeps for the safety of their daughter such that he's all but primed and ready for the Valkyrie's manipulations.

Lifting his gaze to meet Hotaru’s, Remi manages a fragile, sympathetic smile. In the hush that follows, he can almost imagine they share a secret, something just between them—survivors’ guilt, parental dread, the understanding that sometimes the only way to protect one’s child is by bending the truth until it shatters silently in your own hands. "There’s no shame in panicking," he hears himself say, voice subdued but steady, nowhere near the music that spills from the Valkyrie's lips. "I’ve done more foolish things than I care to count, all in the name of protecting my children." The admission is honest, flecked with regret and humility, and it tastes bitter on his tongue. He hopes it might serve as olive branch, anchor, or both, to whatever Hotaru needs him to be in this moment. "Please don't let yourself think that. What you two have together...that is not something anyone else can give her. It is worth just as much if not more than someone like me who could only answer the prayers of the dead and take a beating."

Shifting his wing in an effort to blanket Hotaru all the more with it, Remi shuffles himself closer to Flora now that it's abundantly clear she isn't going to wake up on her own. "Ru," he whispers, using the nickname carefully as if testing the weight of it in the space between them. The shape of her name is softer than Valkyrie, less formal, and he hopes it might remind them both that they are not strangers, not entirely. "Wake her." His gaze is warm, a pale contrast to the golden light that still clings like a halo around Hotaru. "We'll talk to her together and I'll help her understand, like you said. She will, I think." Would Flora be understandably dramatic about it? Of course she would. But a mother's love...the urge to protect? Even Flora would have to see the reason behind the Valkyrie's actions even if she didn't fully support it.

Somewhere behind his eyes flickers the thought of Ronin, the instinctive recoil at how any of this might look to his husband, but Remi tucks that thought away. Right now, this is about Flora, about a mother’s desperate love, and he will not forsake that cause for fear of misunderstandings later. In the hush that follows, he extends his wing a fraction more, as if to shield them both from the shadows of old hurts, giving Hotaru just enough space to find her courage without making her feel alone. To trust him enough to wake their daughter.

Who are you? They ask. Death?
Sometimes... I say. But not today

HOTARU

She's in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside

The irony is that this too is love. This silencing of her heart as she takes up the threads once so naturally woven between her fingers and begins to pluck. Strong lies are built by stones of sincerity. To pierce her heart now will ensure its preservation in the days to come. Her hand doesn't waver as she guides that dagger through her own ribs.

"My foolish attempts hang longer and heavier on my neck than yours. Even to you," she whispers, recalling early days of similar desires that had led to this exact punishment of distance that awaits her now. Remi's use of her nickname tells her they aren't strangers, but Hotaru will never forget that he was also once her judge and jury. Ironic then, that she cares for him enough even now to want to spare him the burden of being her executioner. To insist on the Family's safety now would do exactly that, and even before his inevitable realization of wrongness on that matter she likes to think - perhaps as a cold comfort, or an insistence to herself of worth that doesn't exist - that he would be burdened all the same by doing so with his own hand.

In truth, she knows he would regret out of the goodness of his own heart. Not out of any reverence for her.

So she gives a wan smile at his hollow words of comfort. To distract him with this notion of otherness is to ensure the protection of weightier insecurities. What is the worth of a feminine touch and permissive encouragement when weighed against safeguards against death or assured victory in battle? Hotaru fears Flora inherited it from her, that easy choice between love and power. And why compromise when two parents can offer both? Why need three at all?

Still, Flora's conscious state will distract him further and allow Ru to slip away gracefully. This will merely be one more twist of the knife before she is free. Must you always sound so noble when you ask me to bleed for you, Remi? But there is no open bond for the words to find purchase in. Instead what he hears is what she allows him to hear; curling back toward Flora, Ru closes her eyes for a moment to commit her daughter's scent and heartbeat to memory. Then she whispers in her ear, magic unfurling like a blooming flower. "Wake up, petal."

singing "Baby come home" in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time

REMI

Why he should bear the weight of guilt, Remi cannot say, yet it’s there: a sluggish heaviness in his arms, his fingers, as Hotaru leans toward their daughter. He smothers the current of emotions that might otherwise rush through the bond—trepidation, half-formed pleas, words hovering on his tongue like a trembling hush before a storm—and offers only a muted understanding. Between them lingers a quiet love, a shared understanding that what they both mean to do is likely not something either can return from.

But because it's for Flora, they have both made their bets. Now all that there is left to do is set down their cards and see who has the upper hand.

As soon as the words leave Hotaru's lips, Remi reaches for the thread of power that inexorably connects him to Ronin. Yanking upon it with all the force he has, he calls the Knight to him. Of course the Bastion isn't to know that the arrival of Sunjata's letter will likely have Ronin all but waiting for such a call if he wasn't out prowling Torchline's shoreline, such that Remi wastes little time in breaking the silence heavy in the little room with a cry. "RONIN, GET FLORA."

And then he is in motion.

If there were ever a time to be swift and sure, it is this one.

He lunges across the bed and over Flora’s wounded form, muttering silent apologies he cannot speak aloud, wings and sudden tentacles and strong arms all reaching for the Valkyrie. He expects to feel her teeth, her nails, her fury. He will endure all of it. After all, Flora is not the only one who needs protecting, and Flora is not the only one who isn’t safe. And yet, in the violence of their collision, there is something almost tragic—an echo of the unspoken truth that both are doing this for Flora, both believing they know what’s best. Remi’s jaw sets; he swallows the taste of regret that pools in his mouth.

Beyond these walls, seagulls might be crying over the shoreline. Outside, the wind might be changing direction. But inside this little room, all the world has narrowed down to the clash of wings, tears, and the raw, aching certainty that none of them can afford to fail.

---

Magic: Rescue | Remi can bring a fellow Old God demigod to his side in a time of crisis for three concurrent posts. One use per thread. If the summoned demigod also has mastered this ability, they can remain until the end of the thread.
Type: Light | Rank: Mastered

Who are you? They ask. Death?
Sometimes... I say. But not today

HOTARU

She's in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside

Is it crueler to use their daughter as bait in a way that ensures she will witness what will come? Hotaru doesn't know - maybe she never will. In fact, the rug is so swiftly pulled from beneath her feet that her reaction is utterly instinct.

He lunges - she meets him halfway in the knee-jerk response to brace over Flora, back utterly bared to him in an effort to shelter her daughter. But once it's clear those hands and appendages reach for her -

Hotaru screams, formless but terrified. 

Every cognizant part of her brain shrills and alarms as she writhes, skin shifting in gruesome waves in desperate attempt to find a suitable counter to Remi's grip. Scales, feathers, fur. Electricity sets her hair to floating, but the confined quarters and surrounding ocean - Flora, Flora is still right there - don't hurt her, can't hurt her - ensure it remains caught beneath her skin.

In disturbingly chaotic layers the Valkyrie floods the space with the violence her body can't safely carry out; the shrill of her voice, the Attuned bond's simultaneous echoes of each spoken word, the secondary emotional spill of utter terror and denial wherever his hands touch her skin. No, please please no "- I didn't do anything -" wrong! She isn't here. She's everywhere she's been before; tiny newborns being taken from her hands, empty beds and filled graves, a shattered unicorn horn in someone else's palm, a veil of flames and a wall of bars. Hotaru is no stranger to having everything taken away because of her mistakes. But where did she go wrong? Her only plan was to leave. Has he been waiting all this time to tie up the loose end she's always been to an otherwise perfect family?

Desperately she rips her magic to the fore and tries to reassert it over Flora with an animalistic scream of, "SLEEP!" Don't let her watch her mother die the way I had to. There is no other ending to this violence that she can think of, not with Ronin's name echoing in her ears. So she fights. She fights with every drop she has left to give. Every talent, shift, and magic. Claws, teeth, venom - anything that might loosen Remi's grip. Ru knows she can't win this fight even without the handicap of Flora's presence. Her fighting is just a testament of her spirit. Given she hasn't rested since the transmission, it won't be much of one either.

What a fitting, cruelly ironic punchline.

What few tethers she may have instinctively reached for in this moment - Sunjata, Deimos - they are far away with no hope to intervene. And Gods she wants to be with her sons at last, but she promised Enzo she would live. Frey, she sobs with every ounce of worthless soul the herald once saw fit to remake. It's functionally worthless - Hotaru came to this world tainted and unwanted by its gods, she's never known the security of answered prayers - but like a dying soldier calling for their mother halfway across the world, it's an instinct she can't fight.

- - -

Magic: Compulsion | Outside of a KQ/PQ+, can influence a target within 10ft of her to do something they would realistically find themselves doing. In a KQ/PQ+, gives disadvantage against 1 target within 30ft. ((END+LUCK+d100 contested roll).
Type: Dark | Rank: Upgraded

singing "Baby come home" in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time

flora

Flora’s first sensation is the sharp tang of salt in the air, biting at her lips and filling her lungs as she jerks awake. Her body feels heavy, her limbs slow to respond, like she’s been dredged up from the bottom of the ocean. The next thing she registers is the sound—the deafening cacophony of her mother’s scream mingling with a growl she knows too well.

Her vision swims as she struggles to pushes herself upright, the weight of sleep still dragging at her. When the blur resolves, the sight in front of her makes her heart lurch painfully in her chest.

“Wh—” Her voice cracks like brittle glass, barely more than a whisper in this charged air. In front of her, her mother and Remi thrash and tear at each other, wings and claws and writhing limbs making monsters of them both. Magic sparks against the walls and floor; Flora swears she can feel it vibrating beneath her fingertips. “Stop!” She cries out, voice breaking on the word, but it sounds small in the confined space. Her hands fumble at the blankets twisted around her legs, heart leaping into her throat as she tries—and fails—to stand. Her legs refuse her commands, shaking as if weighted with chains. She blinks against the tears gathering in her eyes, vision rippling and distorting, unsure whether what she sees is real or some fevered dream.

Screaming seems to be the only thing she's capable of doing with any real efficacy, Flora twists on the bed as wild panic surges inside of her. And then Hotaru’s magic slams into her again, sharp and all-consuming, her mother's scream echoing in Flora's ears as darkness threatens to pull her under once more.

what doesn't kill me makes
me want you more

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

RONIN

A combination of letters - one to Remi that has him disappearing with the taste of him still lingering on Ronin's lips, and another from Sunjata - has the Knight on edge and waiting. For what he doesn't know, but it has him up and dressed and outside the houseboat to lean against the rail and watch the churning waves long before he feels the tug of magic from within. And when it comes, the pull of Rescue as inexorable as any Accepted channelling him for assistance, he's ready.

Appearing in the bowels of the small boat with all manner of shifts and rippling tension locking his body, it takes only a second for Ronin to realise where they are and that the cramped space is no space for wings or claws. Already there are too many people present, and amid the flailing limbs, feathers, fur and teeth and the crackle of static in the air, the Knight ducks around towards Flora on the bed with Remi's words still ringing in his ears.

"She's sick," he tries to tell the Doubletake (who looks woozy at the very least) his words clipped even as his arms reach to encircle her. "Remi is going to take her to be healed. She isn't going to be hurt. Come on, I'll take you home." And providing there's no resistance, he'll gather her into his arms like she's little more than a child, a radiant light emanating from him as a result of so many emotions bubbling to the surface.

Glancing at Hotaru with a mix of apprehension and pity, his eyes soon flick to Remi's, nodding once before he's trying to back out of the cabin.

soft spoken with a broken jaw
we step outside, but not to brawl

REMI

Hotaru’s screams tear through him as if they were nails raking down his spine. Remi can feel them as surely as he can feel her body shifting beneath his grip, skin and bone stretching into something else with each panicked breath. There’s a violence in it—trembling, erratic—and it seeps into his own muscles as he struggles to keep hold of her. Every press of her body, every bite of her nails, comes wrapped in the violet-tinted surge of her emotions. They wash over him like an undertow, full of terror, of devotion, of a fierce, ragged love that’s shredding them both to pieces. He dares to breathe “I know” against her, though it’s swallowed by the snarl in his throat, the predator in him roused and furious at what he now fully suspects she might have done if left unchecked.

Then Flora’s voice cuts through the chaos, and the Knight’s presence is sudden and startling. Ronin’s arrival should be a balm, but before Remi can take strength from it, Hotaru’s voice lashes out with a word that sends the world tilting wildly beneath his feet. He should have bound her mouth, not just her body. He chances a helpless glance at Ronin, a plea tucked in his eyes as his husband lifts Flora from the bed. In those silent heartbeats, Remi’s mind crackles with an urgency he can't give voice to, but can send just the same: Keep her safe. I’ll come back to you as soon as I can. How long would it take to fly a mountain lion to Halo? How much more difficult would it be with a falcon scoring at his throat with its talons? How much weaker would the bite of a komodo dragon render him?

Clenching his jaw until it sings with tension, Remi wrestles harder, tentacles coiling around her waist and legs as his arms try to trap her own. Having no idea of the layout of the little houseboat but only knowing that the stairs on the other side of the open door likely lead toward a deck that he can fly from, he angles her face toward her shoulder, pressing her close to his chest, desperate to still the storm and the screaming and the threat thrumming between them. Her magic prickles at his senses, and he knows nothing he says will soothe her now, but he speaks anyway. “You’re going to be healed, just like Sunjata was.” The words come out hollow and urgent, a fragile attempt at justifying the brutality of his actions.

Who are you? They ask. Death?
Sometimes... I say. But not today

HOTARU

She's in a long black coat tonight
Waiting for me in the downpour outside

Flora's distress is the key to it all. Hotaru heaves for breath through strained lungs, glowing skin and electrified hair turning her into a comet blazing in its death throes - but when her daughter screams, when her magic finds only partial purchase, the Valkyrie cuts the cord on her own terror to preserve her child's.

Hotaru falls slack in Remi's arms the moment Ronin pulls Flora free from the fray. "It's okay, it's okay sweetheart," she tries to comfort, voice hoarse and trembling. Her eyes flick up at Ronin. When was the last time she truly locked eyes with the man? That night he'd held out his hand and helped her onto his nimbus before they'd known about the twins? She knows he won't hurt Flora, not when he's the reason she's alive. Please, take her away, she begs. She has asked nothing of Ronin, but she begs with the fervor of a final request. 

None of this makes sense. She is so certain this is meant to be her final hour that nothing else matters but ensuring Flora is shielded from it. Or do they intend to use her presence as a way to force Hotaru to fight less? Remi doesn't need the security of hobbling her that way. Is it to degrade her? Why else would it be taking so fucking long?

Whether her plea is answered will remain a mystery to her as Remi takes advantage of her pause to entrap her limbs and lurch free of the houseboat into the open air. She presses her face into his chest, teeth aching with the desire to carve past bone and sinew to find his heart and force it to feel the agony hers does. But she can't unleash her lightning, not until his feet leave the ground. "Healed? What - Sunjata? Don't fuck with me, " she snarls, the cornered viper finding fresh venom now that death is not immediately breathing down her nape. Why? "You want to kill me and now you want to heal me?" Snarling, she writhes in his grip. He's insane is what he is. There's nothing wrong with her, no harm greater than exhaustion and a broken heart. If his psychotic nobility is her only chance to escape then she'll take it.

singing "Baby come home" in a melody of tears
While the rhythm of the rain keeps time