the monsters turned out to be just trees

hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

Steeling himself for the walk home, he was surprised to hear Loren's voice ring brightly out and up from the pit. He thought certainly he was about to be scolded for creating the clothes for Loren, but just as the summoner saw nothing wrong in expending a little healing magic when the alchemist needed it, so too Remi found it hard to stand by and even think about his almost-friend shivering if he could do something so easy to prevent it.

"Loren." The alchemist began, meaning to stop the apology before it began, but what the summoner said next made the words halt immediately in his throat. Narrowing his eyes Remi could feel his wings wanting to edge from his shoulder blades to carry the alchemist down so that he might shake some sense into the summoner. "Don't." He said instead, his voice terse and softly wounded. "Do not say th at. That no one will ask or care." At his sides, Remi's fingers clenched and unclenched, finally conjuring a feather to keep themselves occupied. "It is because you were so cared for..so loved that.." Again Remi's voice failed him but he pressed on just the same. "It only hurts to be left by someone you love." He concluded, which was just to say that the somewhat hostile response to Loren's return to the Hollowed Grounds had not been because those in the summoner's life didn't care. But because they did.

"Everyone makes mistakes." Remi added lamely, brows knitting together as he gazed down into a pit comprised entirely of shadows and darkened smears, save for Loren's pale skin and clear blue eyes.