aftermath of something lethal

DEIMOS

Success.

Just days ago, and what felt like eons, he’d been an apprehensive mess, a coiled cluster of nerves, consternation, and the potential for ruin – only because he and so many of them had already lived it, simmered and scathed against in along the bottom of the Spire, rooted into the basement’s columns and stones. Their goal had been singular, but potentially challenging, a barbaric form of vitriol and venom sent into the air –

And they’d conquered them all.

It hadn’t been smooth or simple, but it had been courageous and potent, a powerful prowess overflowing from every single one of them, an explosion of their own vehemence, sequestered and bestial, barbaric and savage, nefarious and undermining, a glorious sight to behold when everything settled, came to rights, and their triumph had become clear.

It was odd to walk away from such a quest without a demonstrative set of regret or rancor; bitterness twisted or consigned to his chest – but there was naught now. Instead, his arms were laden with alcohol, a proud step to his stride, winding his way back to the bakery along the settlement. Like a strange sort of tradition, they’d come back together, away from the calamity, away from the barbarity, to enjoy and revel in their victory (however little, however small, however miniscule). Amidst fallen stars, alchemists, wolves, shields, and swords – brandished killers of poisonous vectors – a celebration of their conquests.

The warrior knocked, then allowed himself in, sliding across the aperture, before finding the counter and placing the bottles down, a chime, a clink to their glassy exterior, that didn’t sound like horror or haunting poignancy. It echoed like reverberations of combined capabilities and a change in the air.

You aren't afraid of throwing yourself

in the path of danger

but you're terrified of letting anyone in

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

Where Deimos might have felt elated, the alchemist was crushed. The plants were dead, and Ronin? Well...Ronin was still dying. They'd accomplished nothing, save for adding to the deterioration of the spire (not that Remi much cared). Still, Remi owed the Shield and Sword an explanation. An apology, at the very least, though he knew not what to say precisely.  What was there to say, other than that he had to try? That he'd remained, let himself be buried if only to confirm beyond a shadow of a doubt that they'd accomplished what they'd set out to do?

Ronin had said to go, Remi had declined, and for that he wasn't sorry.

Nudging open the door, Remi offered the once-reaper a weary smile. Glancing around though not seeing the baker (presumably she was in the back, somewhere), the alchemist slumped down. "Sorry about.." Remi paused, his too-pale stare rising towards Deimos as he sighed gently. "Well, I suppose I went a bit off book." He said lamely, trying to infuse the words with a bit of humour but failing. "Ronin is not any better." He added softly after a moment, his eyes falling to the counter where his finger trailed along the wood grain.

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!

DEIMOS

No sooner than the satisfaction had appeared, rare, emboldened, then it defused – any grins mustered or managed fading away to grim, drawn lines, retreating straight into nonchalance the moment Remi slumped down. It wasn’t the off-the-book motions that bothered him (though it had in the moments – stretched far too thin and the crumbling rocks ricocheting, bounding for something that could’ve promised death), but the notion that Ronin was no better (which meant, in another regard, that Kiada wouldn’t be cured either).

Nothing. Nothing they’d done mattered. All that success, all that finality, all those hopes and promises plummeted just as quickly as they’d been surmised, and then there was naught but a wasteland – a waste of time, a waste of efforts, a waste of potential, prowess, and regard, wounds earned, ominous emblems cursed, and it hadn’t been the answer at all.

“I am sorry,” he uttered into the bakery walls, because he was, he was regretful and apologetic and burdened again that these accomplishments had been worthless, benign, inconsequential, that at some points they’d nearly been vanquished multiple times for empty solutions. What had they conquered? What had been the victory? Less poison, less venom, less vitriol amongst the air – but everything else still lingered in the throes and throngs of sickness. On a sigh, he found a chair nearby, pulling it toward the counter where he’d laid the bottles, opening one and sliding it towards Remi – who might’ve required it more than him. The warrior unlatched a second, raising it to his lips on a long, consuming swallow, pressuring it to burn down his throat and soak him in more of the forlorn, biting, gnawing parallels; the claws, the talons, clipping, dragging, tearing; familiar bouts of trials and tribulations. He placed it back down for an instant, eyes riveting back to Remi. “What can we do now?”

He was something solid

to lean against

violent and fierce and unmoving

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

"I am as well." Remi echoed, wanting badly to scrub his fingers into his curls and shake some hope back into his brain through the gashes his nails might leave. It wouldn't do any good of course, and though the alchemist wasn't terribly prone to violence, these days it seemed a tempting alternative to dealing properly with what was happening.

"Other than drink, you mean?" The alchemist replied with a wry and stony smile, raising the bottle to his lips and drinking deeply. The crisp bite of the alcohol was welcome, and never one to hurry into inebriation, today Remi thought that having the edge taken off of life was warranted.

"I have absolutely no idea." Remi said after a moment with a sad and final sort of honesty. "Everything I have tried...everything I have studied, it all comes to naught." He added setting the bottle down hard upon the table. Immediately regretting this small display of anger, magic bled from the alchemist's fingers into the table, smoothing away the subtle lines the bottom of the bottle had added to the wood. Humming an apology to Amalia though she wasn't present, the alchemist raised his shattered stare to Deimos and shrugged helplessly. "Phoebe has made samples that have yielded few results, all of my notes and studies of its progression in Ronin tell me little about what to expect next. Safrin has given him a season to live—" Biting his tongue and steeling himself for a moment, the alchemist shook his head as he corrected himself: "—had a season I suppose. It is less now."

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!

DEIMOS

If violence had always been the answer, Deimos would have felt at home anywhere, anytime, anyplace; and though lashing out, striking at something, crushing bits and pieces into fragments might have granted them solace in their restless piques, it wouldn’t solve the current dilemma (which was a shame – because the Sword could always conjure some targets and weapons in Amalia’s garden). “Other than drink,” he offered a brief smirk before following on the movement again, guzzling and swallowing in a rapacious, ravenous motion; though it wouldn’t hit him terribly hard; he’d earned his endurance and fortitude in alcoholic ventures long ago.

But thereafter the earnest consuming and the burning down throats, there was still nothing. They had tried far more things than Deimos had (again – vehemence had been his favored friend, down in the doldrums of the Spire, yearning for that to be their saving grace – death, destruction, ravaging, pillaging, condemning). There’d been studies conducted by Phoebe, straying down the same paths, Ronin’s progression, seasons and cycles in which they had left. The last though caused him to fall silent for a moment, breathing rapid, heart pounding, jaw clenching; hands holding onto his bottle a little tighter, rigid in his composition, taut again despite the assuaging contortions of booze in his veins. “Kiada has the blight too,” but he hadn’t realized the short span, how winter’s bones and marrow might be the last of it all. Remi’s urgency made sense now; desperate to find a way, a notion, an enchantment, anything and everything, to right the wrongs, to cease and desist the spread of the pestilence’s might and bite. “Along with many others, I am sure.” His breath came along a harsh, rumbling sigh, and if he were more inebriated, he might’ve taken his skull to bang across the table – frustration gnarling and crawling its way back into his entity, his existence.

“Do we still believe the Spire has something to do with it?” Or was it a lost cause altogether? He tried to recall more than just the poison when he’d first lingered in the basement throng. “There was water when we went down before, and a black sludge.” But then they’d been distracted by magical creatures not meant to live. Perhaps it had been a contortion to the initial release and circulation; he hadn’t seen it when they returned. He was behind on their information gathering – but willing to listen, add another mind with machinations and calculations to the mix – resisting again, rebellious and seditious to the core, intrepid, refusing to give in to the probability, the possibility, that they had no chance.

He was something solid

to lean against

violent and fierce and unmoving

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

Looking up sharply, the alchemist's fingers twitched into rigid claws around his bottle as his breath caught in his throat. Exhaling a chord of disbelief—not for a moment thinking the Sword was joking or lying, merely that fate might be so endlessly and needlessly cruel—Remi let his gaze rise to the ceiling as his lashes slid down.

"Ronin seems to be worse. Whether because he has had it the longest or because it came directly from Safrin." The alchemist said after a moment of silent stewing, leaning his chin forward again as his eyes opened. With a slight snarl on his lip, an indication of the stirring predators within his body, Remi trailed a finger along the glass of the bottle. "And here we sit, completely fine." He said dryly.

With his fingernails becoming dangerously pointed and decidedly claw like, the alchemist bit the inside of his cheek and offered his friend an unhelpful shrug. "What problems have we that don't come back to the Spire?" He mused. "If it is the Voice doing this...I...it cannot be so simple. Why did the Greatwood not become infected before, if the poison was always there? Always present in the water and trickling past the barrier?" Running a hand through his curls, Remi exhaled. "The portal. The snake that Jigano mentioned...the tulmhainar being down there...all of it could mean something. Or nothing. So far out of those who have gone into the basement...who has the blight? Safrin, but you? Amalia? Ashetta seems fine. What of Jigano, or Rory? Roana? Is it selective, or are some of us immune?"

These weren't questions Deimos could answer on the spot of course, but Remi felt he had to perhaps post something potentially helpful.

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!

DEIMOS

In truth – only some portions made sense: Ronin getting worse because he might’ve been amongst the first struck by the pestilence, or because Safrin was effected, the potential spread from the Spire’s adornments, cast into water and trickling along barriers, the tulmhainar suffering below earth mounds. The other notes didn’t in particular: based on the amount of poison Deimos ingested amidst the Spire (now multiple times), constantly curling and coiling beneath his mask, making him cough, making him hack, making him burn, he should’ve been infected long ago. “Zuriel healed us soon after. And helped to aid Arduinna when the Undine was inflicted.” But maybe that was pure happenstance too – luck and fortune and kismet when he wasn’t used to those nuances. There might’ve been an answer in there, between all the muck and mire and confusion, but he wash aving difficulty plucking it out. A measured sigh flowed through his chest and he swallowed another swig; contemplating more as he swallowed.

It was difficult to choose pathways now – after they’d already riveted upon one and found it sorely lacking, a dead, dismal end, time shortened, wasted, despite their well-meaning sojourns and crusades. “I do not know,” which seemed to sum up the entire damned event – didn’t know a single thing that could aid them now, to buy them more time, to instigate cures and containment of contagions. “Are we aware of how many have been infected?” Or the symptoms? Was there a rhyme, a reason, a way they’d all become bitten by the blight? Or did it even matter now – with everything falling away?

He was something solid

to lean against

violent and fierce and unmoving

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

"Isla as well." Remi added. She had healed both he and Ronin and was present when the Undine was wounded as well. Perhaps...a doubling down of unicorn magic provided some sort of...but no. For she had healed Ronin and he was still as he was. Though again, perhaps that had more to do with Safrin. Pinching the bridge of his nose, Remi tried not to grind his teeth together or mark Amalia's table with his claws, much as he might have liked to.

"I do not...no, I do not think so." Remi said with a wearing sigh, releasing his nose and setting an unhappy stare upon Deimos. "I suppose we should find out. Make a list...I don't know. Places not to visit, things not to do." Go into the Spire, be made in a god's image, eat blighted foods. This he said with utmost reluctance, as if this helpful administrative task was too far beyond his weary mind for the moment.

Raising the bottle to his lips and draining it in one long pour, Remi closed one eye as he fought off the carbonation. "Tell me a happy thing." He implored the large man, offering him a lopsided and fatigued smile.

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!

DEIMOS

The fierce bout of determination in the Sword stilled for a few moments, sketching out details too long and too lengthy, a rounding of numbers of things that didn’t work or couldn’t possibly, beings that had somehow been instilled with the pestilence, and everything too little too late. They hadn’t understood it in time. They hadn’t withstood it in time. They were ignorant, especially him, as to where to go or what to do – and the most frustrating part was that they tried, they tried, they tried, and none of it seemed to matter, tailspins and labyrinths and warrens, coiled and contorted into nothingness. The only contortion to violence didn’t work – and because it was amongst the only notions and motions he understood, he was at a loss. A damned, mumbling loss, and it wasn’t getting any easier.

But he wasn’t going to give in. He refused. He rebelled. He ground his teeth and clenched his jaw and stupidly rose in defiance against all these stupid onslaughts and swore oaths to contortions he had no control over.

“Perhaps it does not matter now, anyway,” he murmured, mouth already half on the bottle, dragging down ample swallows until the fire burned, scorched, and seared, and he was alive again with vitriol and damnation. We cannot do anything for them didn’t follow, but it was there, in the insinuation. “We will find something,” settled there, somehow, someway, when they weren’t so world-weary or half-broken, jaded and torn, barely reassembled themselves, while the rest of the earth, the ether, became all the more distorted and shambled.

The challenge thereafter, issued and ensued from the alchemist, caused the Sword to arch his brow. “A happy thing,” smoked on his tongue as if it were an entirely foreign concept. Maybe it was to serve as a distraction, or so the entire conversation wasn’t a long-drawn out segue of disaster and ruin; already too tired from the rest of the preamble. “No one died in the Spire.” Was that jovial enough? Probably not. “We have another wedding to plan for,” which actually launched into a chuckle, because if anyone had ever asked him if he’d assist in plotting out nuptials twice now, he would have thought them deranged, demented, or insane. “Rexanna and Bastien’s,” he added, in case Remi hadn’t heard yet.

He was something solid

to lean against

violent and fierce and unmoving

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

The alchemist raised a brow, but then quickly let the expression fade as he looked away. Would they find something? He didn't know. But right now, he didn't at all feel like labouring the point. It would do little good and as both men had agreed, were out of ideas for the time being.

"Mmhmm." The alchemist returned, lips crooked and dimples deepening, knowing precisely what a strange request it was, especially posed to the man before him. "Ahh." Leaning back and crossing his arms, his face a youthful mask of amusement, Remi nodded. "No one died at the Spire." Raising his empty glass, he cheersed Deimos across the table.

The latter piece of information was genuinely a happy thing to be sure. "I had heard. I was conscripted to make the rings. Bastien certainly wasted little time in proposing, though...I suppose they have been together for nearly a year now." He mumbled, closing one eye thoughtfully to try and recall the first instances of the couple. He thought it during LongNight, but of course that time was a scramble of chaos in his mind.

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!

DEIMOS

It turned out discussing contentment and happier things was out of the ordinary for the Reaper turned Sword; because his worlds had never been much for glee or exuberance – too dark, too nefarious, too touched by unholy enamel. He raised his glass, also now empty, to clink against Remi’s, celebrating a lack of death in a futile effort. The beast shook his head, muffled a snort, and poured them each more, refilling, refilling, refilling, uncertain of what would come after.

He wasn’t surprised to hear Remi had been conscripted to make the rings – he’d christened his own, after all. Deimos had only made ring boxes and a brazier, signed emblems and posted to boards, but he tilted his head in curiosity at timelines, thinking to arch his brow at the notion of wasting time when Remi and Ronin’s nuptials had seemed quick. He smothered down that chuckle too – understanding the likely reasons why (because blight scorched and flailed and broke them down into nothing, amidst numerous others things threatening to topple them down, and the alchemist had surely craved anything he could have in the span of those moments). The warrior also failed to mention Rexanna’s previously botched marriages – none of his business or concern – but he could comprehend why she’d taken a far less rocky road, had snagged at the opportunity for a man quite unlike Tembovu. “As long as she is happy,” he shrugged, swallowed another round of liquor. Then, on an entirely different whim, he conjured an inquiry of his own. “How did you know when your creations could be enhanced?” He paused, pondering if that was enough – because he’d been able to concoct bigger items for a time now, but there was something brewing and brooding underneath, and he wasn’t entirely certain what it was. The hunch wasn’t quite enough.

He was something solid

to lean against

violent and fierce and unmoving

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

"Indeed." The alchemist readily agreed. Flashing the Sword an appreciative smile for having refilled his glass, Remi raised it to his lips and drank. Not so quickly this time; slow enough to savor the taste and the burn, whereas before it had been to drown and dissolve all that was lodged inside of himself.

With a sly grin, Remi raised a brow. "Well." He began, looking entirely impish suddenly as mischief spread rampant across his features. "We had not been here long, only a season or two perhaps. One day Ronin came into my shop with a device he had called an echo. It could replicate various sounds. He asked to see if I could amplify it. In so trying...it...well. It became something else entirely." Now the alchemist's grin was entirely crooked. "A lobster, as it turns out."

None of which properly answered Deimos' question, but he was getting to that.

"Which is all just to say, you will not know until you try. But be warned." He added with a cheeky grin, raising his glass to his lips once again.

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!

DEIMOS

His brow arched as impish qualities flickered back on the alchemist, awaiting some grandiose efforts or tale, hoping to gain some sort of abject quality to discern any potential growth, any tactics, any plans, any machinations. He savored a few more swallows of his liquor, listening intently, placing the glass down before some burn of amusement found it elsewhere. The fact that an echo machine or device had somehow become a lobster was impressive and bewildering all at once, and he took a moment or two to smother down the sharp chuckle threatening to escape from his throat. Instead, his lips drew into a boyish grin, shaking his head and downing another gulp.

You will not know until you try; which meant he’d keep experimenting, keep applying, keep rendering whatever means anyone or everyone found necessary. “I have been warned,” he resounded, fighting the notion to roll his eyes. He’d never been capable of concocting anything of Remi’s stature or prowess though – especially not something living. Perhaps one day he’d either tip the scales or continue hovering in the same notions, given the right motivations, the correct aspirations - pulling his hands apart absentmindedly, as if imagining what they could conjure between palms once more.

He was something solid

to lean against

violent and fierce and unmoving

there are so many lines that I've crossed unforgiven

i'll tell you the truth

but never goodbye

"So you have." Remi agreed, cheersing the air again before draining his glass dry once more.

Leaning back, the alchemist watched the invisible ministrations of the Sword's hands, imagining cathedrals forming within the man's mind. "Where I came from...magic was...learned, I suppose. You had to have the gift of it, but it would grow from there. If you were not born with it, it was never reachable." He said, running a finger against the wood grain once more, following the maze-trail with his shattered stare and shrugging to himself. "I am sorry I cannot be more help. I truly have no idea how any of this works. I barely have the language to describe what it feels like, much less how to improve upon it or describe how things came to pass." Offering the reaper a boyish half-smile of apology, the alchemist let his eyes drift back down.

"Did you have magic before? In the world you came from?"

Remi

Table coding by Sky, inspiration from Jae!