the monsters turned out to be just trees

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

Maybe it was because there was already too much on his plate, maybe it was because his heart and nerves were frayed and cut to the quick. Maybe it was because even without memories, hearing that someone love(d)(s) him only to be followed by this simply required more goodness than the alchemist had in him.

"Loren, look at me right now." A long flight feather curled around the summoner's opposite shoulder, nudging him towards the alchemist. If that wasn't enough Loren would find Remi turning towards him, hands on his shoulders or cheeks if necessary to force him to meet his gaze. "How can you say that. How dare you say that. What does that even mean, too late? What did you think would happen? Were I not with Ronin, this...it..." It wasn't feathers now that indicated Remi's faltering mental state, but plants. Moss and clover raced out from beneath them, growing upwards from the inhospitable and compact earth with ease. Behind them ivy wove its way up the walls even as the alchemist searched Loren's gaze (or if not, tried to find it at least) for something he could understand.

"I never left you, Loren. Not for one second." Remi's cheeks were hot splashes of colour now, betrayal, an innocent sort of indignation, the rising crescendo of having been told he was loved by the man he always thought didn't only to fall careening off the other end into whatever this was. "And I will not let you do it again. Not...not because the timing was wrong. Not because I do not remember."