the monsters turned out to be just trees

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

As Loren began speaking, Remi only tilted his head slightly to the side as he listened. He didn't know whether Loren was a liar—he didn't think so, not in the blatent lie-telling way anyhow—and yet the beginning of the sentence had every bit the making of a falsehood or excuse. Crinkling his nose further against the prickles of a sneeze forming from looking at the sun, his expression blanked as Loren admitted (or lied) saying he'd been alone.

Looking sharply to the side, sun-blinded and only able to see two disarming blue eyes floating in a sea of white, Remi's lips dropped open slightly as he tried to make sense of what he was hearing. Tried to reconcile it with what he knew. Running a palm over each eye, Remi swallowed hard as he tried to see and think and importantly, not feel all the things he was. To ignore how his heart hammered out a rhythm to forgotten memories and new truths.

Had Remi movable ears in the animal sense at that moment, they would have pinned back sheepishly at Loren's outrage and surprise. As it was feathers merely rippled through his curls and down his spine forcing him to sit up straighter.

And then..

Slowly able to see now, as good as he could see normally anyways, Remi blinked once—his heart thumping unsteadily—twice—so there was no one else then..he'd been abandoned, not replaced. That wasn't better, was it?—..and nodded. His mouth, suddenly far too dry to speak with, made him gulp slightly as he forced himself to swallow and take a breath, licking his lips before speaking. "I..I mean..we.." Clenching his jaw, eyes searching Loren's for some spark that would just make him remember, Remi sighed with near desperation as his brows knit together. "..In Northaven we...I told you I loved you..said I would give up what I needed to.embrace what I needed to to be with you. And then we were here and..." It was hard retelling a story where the main characters were himself and Loren, and yet he remembered none of it. It was hard speaking about a past he lived, but that he heard about from others. "..and you were gone for a time but you came back and...I...it seemed.." Fine? Like it was going to work? Like they could make a fresh start? Remi didn't know, because he'd never told anyone those details before. The pain had been too raw, too overwhelming. "..so when you left I looked for you everywhere. At least until Edy said.." Swallowing, he shrugged slightly against Loren. The summoner now knew what it was Edy had said.

"I suppose I thought being with someone else made the most sense." He said at last in a near-whisper, eyes trailing lower down Loren's face as he frowned sadly. "..and when you came back without much of an explanation.." Again Remi shrugged slightly, biting the inside of his lip as his eyes focused unsteadily on some of the blondish stubble on Loren's cheek.