Velvet Snow

Jigano nodded, able to give that much to their host. "Yes. There are at least three of us with tasks for Ludo." He tilted his smile at Remi, their little trio of Ludo's hands. "I will help her before I undertake my own, though." In case his courage and stubbornness were not enough. He was determined to survive, of course, and making plans for a future beyond LongNight, but he was not blind to the danger or the consequences to come.

He was glad that he had asked Remi, the alchemist offering good points about what to consider. He tilted his head, nodding slowly. "That's a good idea," he mused, but his brow rose a little in concern. "Do you need to save up your magic items for the Night itself, though? Perhaps we can come up with something of a more mundane nature?" He caught himself, giving a little shake of his head as his smile returned. "Not that I'll turn down your offer of a magical gift! But even if you can make a normal item with your creation magic it will be a big help."

Я

Exhaling upwards, his curls bouncing across his forehead, Remi merely sighed. Tapping out an uncertain rhythm with his fingers against his elbows he did some math. 'I do not have much left." He admitted. The amulets, the door to the Rathskeller, the parchment and shells...He was left with far less than he had planned on, but then again, ingenuity had always been his strong suit, and he had a whole lifetime of experience not-relying on magic.

"I could create a rope that is more heavily braided than human hands could make, that is true. Try and add chords of strong plant fibres, but there would be no guarantee of how it might hold against monsters." Releasing his arms he looks down at his hands. "Besides, the point of saving the magic was so that it could be used to keep everyone safe during LongNight. It does not matter that you are asking for it now, rather than as you rush out the door to face the demons."

Remi's calculations were met with patient silence and then a wince at the the sum total. Jigano didn't know all that the alchemist had been up to, but with the fortification of the Guild Hall alone he would have guessed that Remi would have spent his magic profligately to keep those within safe in the coming days.

"Perhaps... rope braided around a core of flexible metal?" he suggested thoughtfully. "Plant fibers around a cable of steel or aluminum?" They had no mithral or inubrix, not that he'd found on Caido so far, but this would not require anything truly fancy. "Something flexible enough that we can tie it around our waists and tie knots in it, but strong enough to resist the quick chop of a knife." He shrugged, giving Remi a lopsided smile. "The rope itself doesn't need to be proof against monsters, I would think. If they're close enough to attack the rope, we've got other problems to worry about. My concern was that one of us would see or hear something that would tempt us to try and run off, and if our minds are not our own we might try to cut whatever binds us in a moment of madness."

He nodded gratefully at Remi's willingness to offer his particular skills, the bard making the decision to trust the alchemist, and what he knew of his limits and abilities - and what the other man was willing to use them for. "If we can't come up with a more mundane solution, then magic can be the answer. I just have a bad feeling that there will be others who might need your help more than I do when the stars vanish."

Я

"Ahhh. That could work then." Brightening immediately, the alchemist shot the bard a joyful grin as he waggled his fingers. A device appeared that looked like two locks fused together. In truth it was like a crude carabiner with a few twists. There was a button on each end, and as Remi held the device out towards Jigano, he nodded towards it. "This controls the locking mechanism, but look—" Pressing the one on his side, absolutely nothing happened. "—but if you press both—" In so doing, the device opened. 'If it takes two to unlock it, hopefully there is less chance of someone making a panicky decision and running off, regardless of the strength of the rope."

Nodding grimly, Remi began to create the rope. The core began as incredibly fine strips of metal which were twisted to allow them to bend rather than snap at friction points. This was covered in a layer of beeswax to allow for lubrication. Over all of this various vines and dried but elastic bits of grass and bark were braided to create a sturdy exterior.

"Well. There is this for now. But if it comes to it, I will save a magic slot for you and Kiada."

The ease with which Remi could call matter from thin air would never cease to bemuse the bard, but the alchemist's grin was infectious and he returned it as he leaned forward to see what new wonder the inventor had come up with. Simple yet clever, eminently useful and sturdy enough to withstand significant abuse, the lock was a far more elegant solution than a mere knot in the rope. "Excellent," Jigano agreed, impressed and not bothering to hide it as he accepted the mechanism and examined it more carefully, at least until further magic began to take place, dancing in the air beneath the maestro's talented direction.

The rope joined the double-carabiner in Jigano's hands and he had already started to bow before he stopped himself, remembering that such gestures tended to make Remi uncomfortable. Instead he gave the alchemist an earnest look of gratitude, giving him at least a deep nod of respect. "Thank you, Remi. These will help significantly, and hopefully confound the monsters' attempts to separate us. I wish we had more red antlers to go around as well, but I suppose it's too much to hope we'd get that lucky two years in a row." He quirked a wry smile at the other man as he rose, eyes widening as he remembered the initial purpose of his visit.

"Ah! But I have some gifts for you as well. I've brought as much tea as I could beg, borrow, and scrounge from the teahouses and gardeners around the Settlement. With so many people staying here for LongNight I hoped some comfort might keep tempers from fraying quite as fast. I have a few books as well, if anyone would like to read the week away." There was Aoife's gift, too, but he was hoping to find a way to surprise Remi with it if the opportunity presented itself while they settled the other items.

Я

Remi nodded in weary agreement. "I have looked from the skies for signs of them, but I have only seen the regular glow." That the luxere tended to stay away from the alchemist given the darkness lingering in his soul was not something he particularly felt like sharing at this moment. Even so, no one else had seen the red-antlered creatures either.

Raising a surprised brow that turned into a warm smile of appreciation, Remi beamed at the Sage. "And here Deimos and I were just planning on life-draining the more noisy guests." He said wryly, only half-joking. The tea and books were a wonderful idea; Remi had been so busy preparing the house he hadn't thought to prepare the inside of it for those who'd be locked away.

"Speaking of reading the night away..." Giving the bard a rather uneasy look, Remi bit the inside of his lip and searched his almost-mostly-sort-of-friend's face. "Sam will be here. He...mentioned a little about some of the conversations you two had had while you were blighted, and after as well. He thinks you hate him, now." All of this was said without judgement, laced with concern for their (hopefully) mutual friend. Knowing that the bard tended to keep his relationships held quite closely to his chest, Remi wanted to be careful not to overstep.

Alas, the red-antlered deer would seem to be quite rare indeed, and Jigano nodded in resignation at the news. It wasn't a surprise, but it would have been a nice one if the alchemist could have reported otherwise. The mention of life-draining people into submission had him snorting though, darkly amused at the thought. "Rude, but effective. Perhaps I'll spend the week tucked into the rafters in raven-shape, trying to avoid being noticed." He offered the alchemist a grin for how unlikely that was. He was a bard, after all. He might be silent for a week if he was alone in the woods, but if there were people about to entertain - or to entertain him - he was almost guaranteed to be around and offering a joke or a tale. Quietly, given the time of year, and not leading any sing-alongs, at least.

He was surprised at the change in Remi's tone, his attention sobering and focusing on the alchemist predator-swift as he searched for what had the younger man worried. Sam's name wasn't unexpected - the bookmaker had said he was staying in the Guild after all - but at Remi's words he frowned in surprise and shook his head. "Hate...? No, of course not. I... told you about my difficulty remembering the weeks when the blight was the worst." He looked away, not wanting to share the fear and pain of that weakness, that oblivion, even with someone who understood it. "I spoke to him once that I can remember before I lost myself to it. And once again, only a few days after I returned from it, while my blood was still black enough to show in my eyes and veins and the rages still caught me sometimes. I don't know if I... if I said anything to him while I was... lost. He said that I didn't, but..." Jigano shook his hard sharply, exhaling as he raised his head again to meet Remi's eyes, and there was pain there, a wound deep enough that he could not hide it entirely.

"If he thinks that either of those conversations were normal, that my growing claws and fangs and throwing chairs is normal for me, that shaking so badly I could not hold a quill was my unblighted, usual self..." The bard drew in a shaking breath, forcing it to steady as he gave Remi a forced smile to try and push the pain back. "Then I do not know what to say. No, I do not hate him. I was mad as hell at the Voice who was the source of the blight that had struck me and people I loved down. I lived my deepest fear because of her, and I am unlikely to forgive her anytime soon. If ever. But no, I don't blame Sam for being used against his will and without his consent."

Я

"That would be a neat trick, only I am sure Sugar would eat any food we left out for you." The alchemist returned with a grin. But given what the week would likely entail, he doubted if any of them would be able to get through it that easily. But, like so much in this conversation, it was nice to hope from time to time.

Remi nodded immediately as the bard explained, having expected to hear as much. "I did tell him that things said and done while blighted might as well be stricken entirely from the record. It was not you. Not any of you." Falling silent to listen as Jigano continued, Remi hummed to himself, nodding where appropriate as he chewed his lip. "I do think a good deal of it has to do with how sensitively he takes things. He even admitted that he needed to work on that. "

Fanning his palms up and shrugging, Remi pulled in a breath and let it out in a sigh. "He said you hate him and everything he is, and that you think he..." Squinting, the alchemist tried to recall the words as the bookmaker had said them. "...blindly follows the Voice like a stupid child?" The alchemist raised a brow and shrugged. 'It is not my place of course, but if we are all to stay under one roof, he might well like to hear from you that things are all right."

"I'd have to negotiate a deal with her," Jigano agreed with a chuckle, letting the bittersweet joking and optimism push the fear and stress of the upcoming LongNight back for a little while.

There wasn't much cause for smiling just then, but the bard managed a faint one, and a pulse of gratitude through the Attuned link for Remi's understanding and forgiveness of the blight's taint upon the afflicted tongues and hearts. "I spoke from anger at the Voice," he said quietly. "And I spoke harshly. Unkindly. I was not... I don't remember being dishonest, though," he admitted with a sigh. He was still stunned by how Sam had characterized their conversation, and how badly he had twisted the words spoken in blight-fueled anger towards the Voice. The corruption in him had made him unkind, even cruel in how he had spoken, but that Sam had outright lied to Remi about it? Jigano sighed, a sound that was more than half groan as he dropped his head into his hand.

"No," he said softly. "I didn't say any of that. Even blighted... I never said I hated him. Never said he was a child." A huff of pained laughter escaped from behind his hand as he raised his head again to meet Remi's eyes wearily. "I said I didn't trust the Voice, not after what she did to me and the people I cared for. And I didn't understand why he was still so willing to trust and follow her after she used him. I said that the Voice treated him like a child, but that he wasn't one... and he admitted to being afraid of the control she had over him. Afraid of what she might do to him, if he ever tried to leave her." The bard shook his head, voice becoming soft. "But at the same time he saw nothing wrong with that fear. He trusts her in spite of what she did... and he said that he doesn't trust me."

Jigano exhaled, shoulders slumping as he looked down at his hand where only the most minescule of tremors remained. "So I don't know that things are alright. Not when I'm so afraid that he'll do it again, the next time she asks. Hurt people on accident and without asking her what the consequences of what his tasks might be for others. He is my friend and I care deeply for him... but I'm worried sick over how far he's willing to go for his goddess." Fight for her? Without question anymore, it seemed. Kill for her? That was the question that woke the bard in a cold sweat at night.

Я

Perhaps inappropriately, the alchemist reached out a hand to softly squeeze the bard's shoulder. It was perhaps a gesture too intimate for the unsteady peace that had persisted over the months, but it was clear that the Sage had been wounded and upset by what Remi had said, and the alchemist would rather have the bard react in anger, than to suffer alone. "You know how he is. How his mind...changes things." The alchemist said in a low voice. He didn't remember his whole relationship with Sam, but he knew enough to know that the bookmaker's mental traumas did significantly alter how he remembered conversations, or what he ended up taking away from them.

As the bard mentioned how far however, the alchemist started, his cheeks flushing slightly as he recalled what Sam had told him. The Mathair. The portal. The fae who died and those who stood guard. Clicking his teeth together Remi offered the ceiling a pained expression before ruffling a hand through his curls, dismay clear on his features.

"Something has indeed happened, though he asked me not to say anything. Wessex and Ronin know as well, for what that is worth." The point of that being that minds far more level-headed than his and Sam's were in the know as well, so it wasn't immediately irresponsible that Remi wasn't revealing the secret to the Sage. "But..." Swallowing, the alchemist gave a slow shake of his head. "Your worries are not unfounded."

Before he had been blighted he would have taken offense at the unasked-for contact, and the casual intimacy it implied. Since returning from that nightmare, since shaking off the constant rage that had bubbled just beneath the surface, awaiting any excuse to rise, the bard had mellowed on some things. Perhaps it wouldn't last, but for the moment he found the simple act of feeling the warmth from another person to be reassuring, after so long spent chilled to the bone. He didn't even flinch at the light squeeze, though his head remained bowed for a time as he nodded slowly at the reminder of Sam's sometimes twisted memory. "... yes,", he agreed, drawing in a steadying breath. It still hurt, but the alchemist was right. Sam carried an unfair burden of demons, and they had a habit of making everything seem worse than it was. Not unlike the blight in some ways, in its early stages.

Still... Sam was an adult. Jigano would care for him and help him as best he could, but he wouldn't coddle the bookmaker forever, even if sometimes it seemed as though that was what Sam wanted - an eternal childhood, where he received all the love and praise that his parents had never given him, and none of the criticism he had known too much of as a boy.

When Remi pulled away and began shifting uncomfortably Jigano looked up, and it took only a few moments for his own expression to turn to something of resignation, and something of despair. Remi knew something, and for once the bard was silent, not sure he really wanted to know.

He could understand secrets, and appreciate keeping trust. As the words sifted through what Remi could and couldn't tell him the bard's jaw tightened in anxious worry, but he kept a tight rein on his desire to know more now that there was confirmation of something. In the end he only bowed his head, sighing again and giving shake of a head that felt heavier with every breath. "That is... unwelcome news. But thank you for sharing that much. It gives me more time to compose myself before I see him again, at least. Gods..." He felt the shiver ripple through him, not caused by the blight but by honest fear of what Sam might have done that could not be undone.

"Thank you," he said again after a moment, exhaling with a bit more control as he tried to pull back the raw edges of wounds he had never expected to share with the alchemist. Times changed, though. People changed. Sam... Sam had changed, for instance. So much for the better in so many ways, but there were consequences to that, too. "LongNight won't be the best time for that conversation, not with us all stuck inside for a week. I'll try to catch him before then, but if I don't..." He lifted a shoulder in a helpless shrug. If Sam was avoiding him... "I won't let things get out of hand," he promised at last with a sigh. "It shouldn't be too hard, in truth. Not between helping Kiada, and anyone else who would like the company of a lantern in the dark. But either way, I'll do my best to keep the peace."

Я

The alchemist's normal gentle-roster of expressions was replaced with a look of tight unhappiness as he nodded. He didn't like keeping secrets, but nor did he like leaving the bard without enough information to base his actions on. Still, Sam was easy enough to find, especially since they would all be sharing the same roof (for a time, anyways). And it was true that with Ronin and Wessex both in the know, that at least more-clever minds were happy to let the situation lay until after LongNight.

"Something tells me Sam and Nate might spend a good deal of the week, alone in their room." The alchemist said with a mischievous brow raised as he shrugged.

Jigano blinked at the mention of Nate, a man he'd heard of briefly but never met. He searched Remi's expression for a moment, seeking... something. Some lingering memory or sign of sadness at what he had lost. But for better or worse, when Ludo took those memories it seemed he had taken them all, and the alchemist had found a love the equal or more of any other in his life. Seeing the simple mischief there the bard relaxed, a tentative smile returning to his face. "I'm glad," he said softly, testing the words for truth and finding them to be not a lie, at least. "I haven't met Nate, but if he makes Sam happy... then I'm glad for both of them."

Whatever the bookmaker had done, he deserved some happiness. He deserved to love and be loved, and some of the pain seemed to ease in Jigano's chest at the hope that Sam was finding some of that love and support in the arms of someone who would appreciate who he was, and not simply what he could do for them. If Remi was so calm about this stranger sharing Sam's bed, then the bard would trust their soon-to-be host's acceptance of him.

Besides, it sounded like he'd be meeting the man soon enough.

And as they were getting ready to part, they should do so on a better note. Jigano carried the bag of tea and books to the kitchen to help Remi put the little bags of fragrant leaves and herbs, dried flower petals and fruits somewhere out of the way until they'd be needed. He pulled them out and handed them to the alchemist until the bag was almost empty, and then he offered it innocently to Remi - with a flicker of a mischievous smile of his own. "That just leaves one last thing to put away for later, but the kitchen might not be the best place for it."

Hidden in the bottom of the bag was something round and soft, roughly head-sized though shaped more oblong, with little nubs sticking off the sides.

Я

"He seems to." Remi agreed earnestly, looking nothing but infinitely pleased for his friend. It had been very nearly a year now since he and Sam awkwardly parted, and it had taken a better part of it for them to truly become friends again instead of awkward exes. Memory loss had both helped and hindered in that, but as it was, the alchemist truly wished nothing but the best for the bookmaker. "He is a doctor, apparently." He added with a shrug. Sam had seemed rather proud of that fact.

Pulling out small tins for the tea, Remi raised a brow as the bard handed him the bag. Glancing into the bag, and then glancing up again just as curiously, the alchemist offered the bard a confused smile. "What...am I look at, here?" He asked, nose crinkling softly as he tried to hold it up to the light to get a better idea of what was inside.