void

I swear I still believe but I don't know

Ronin has given up - he's taken all his rage out on the Temple and on Safrin and now Remi as well, and here he has the one person he wants to be punished by dutifully delivering on it. There's blood in his mouth and the bruising along his cheekbone and eyesocket will be extensive, but he doesn't try to block the alchemist. The warm sand whumps against his back as he is tackled, Remi straddling him, Ronin gazing up into his face with eyes filled with sorrow and madness.

"Then I'll take the blame, I guess," he says, his voice thick with blood. "It's all my fault. I killed my baby, and now I suffer." Forever. Ronin tries to sit up, not to fight back but so Remi can really get his weight behind his hits.

"I was at the festival. I saw. You were both dead - or I thought so... I thought I didn't have anything to live for any more. I still don't, not now."

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"You guess?" Remi has never fought before, not like this, but he knows it isn't how it's supposed to go. Ronin is meant to fight back and with any luck the two of them will just...pass out. Instead, Ronin is just...sitting up, suddenly looking so absurdly mortal and real.

Grinning through the blood in his own mouth, the alchemist merely shook his head. "Oh no. You have not suffered yet. I have watched you both die. Right in front of me. Now it is your turn." A dagger appears in Remi's hand, and he stabs it into the sand next to Ronin. Tearing off his shirt in an easy fit of strength, he points to the mass of scar tissue in the center, where only hours ago he'd been completely torn open. "The ice stabbed right through me and into her." He whispers, voice low with madness and grief, a finger trembling slightly above the flesh. "Finish it." He goads, leaning back to give Ronin the full measure of him.

I swear I still believe but I don't know

"You don't know what suffering is." Ronin's voice is a low growl that threatens to crack. "At least it all happened quickly. At least I didn't just start to bleed in front of you, and bleed and bleed, and there's no one around and no one to call, and nothing anyone can do. And it's dark and cold outside, and you just have to watch." When the tears came is beyond Ronin, and despite himself he flinches at the dagger sinking into the sand next to them, the sight of the scarring on Remi's chest.

Reaching out, the dagger utterly ignored, Ronin's fingers brush across the mass of scar tissue; his expression twists and he drops his gaze. "Why," he whispers. "Why is it like this?"

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Moments ago Remi would have thrown the words back, told Ronin if he hadn't been such a fucking idiot and spent LongNight alone with a pregnant wife, that maybe someone would have been there to help. But the tide of his anger had started to pull back, leaving him exhausted and naked in his despair with nothing to cling to. Only Ronin.

Always Ronin.

"It happened so fast.. She was so excited to show you her flower crown...we were just about to leave, and then there was just...ice was flying through the air. Everyone was screaming, and.." Looking down, Remi didn't see Ronin's fingers against his skin, instead seeing Aoife nestled tightly against him. "She didn't even make a sound.." He whispered through lips dry and cracked and bloody.

Raising his jaw, the scarred flesh there just as mangled as that on his chest from where his own claws had gouged out his throat, he picked up the dagger, turning the hilt towards his husband.

'It was my fault. I couldn't protect her."

I swear I still believe but I don't know

Always. Now more than ever it seems, for better or for worse. And it cannot get any worse, Ronin is quite certain about that. This is an open chasm into which they are falling, and there is nothing left to cling to but each other. And as Remi begins to speak about their daughter, the moments before, the little details and tiny, beautiful niceties, it is difficult to dig back into his vitriol. It's at bay - for now.

"You tried," he whispers, one hand splayed across the scar where the ice would have punched through Remi, the other taking the dagger in numb fingers. "She was happy with you. She was always happy..."

Gods, but it just hurts. It hurts like nothing he has ever felt before, or ever will again. Ronin tosses the dagger aside, feeling the thrum of a heartbeat beneath his hand and upon his finger, and it's that pulse and that alone that tethers him to his sanity. If only...

If only that had been there before he had unleashed himself on the Temple.

"I think Safrin put us here," he mumbles.

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"It doesn't matter. She's still.." Behind us in the blanket. Cold. Do her eyes still have stars in them? Dead.

Flinching as the dagger is tossed across the sands, Remi gives Ronin an uncertain look. He'd tried to take his own life in the fields to follow Aoife, but now...wherever they were, he was quite sure that the time for it had passed.

"What makes you say that?" He hasn't, of course, put two and two together, that attacking a temple would likely bring down the vainest of the gods.

I swear I still believe but I don't know

Ronin cringes at the end of Remi's sentence he knows is true and present, and he glances up just enough to realise that they are rapidly becoming the only ones on this coastline, wherever they have found themselves. Still, his husband is too warm and real (and packs a fucking punch) for his madness to reign for much longer, and he closes his eyes to relish the feeling of the heartbeat on his finger. "Because I attacked the Temple." He shrugged.

"I attacked it and the ceiling came down. People came and tried to stop me, so I fought them. I just wanted to take something from the gods that think they can take from us so freely. Then Safrin came... so I attacked her too." Gazing up at Remi, there's something hateful and cold in Ronin's blue eyes that tell his feelings towards those deities that rule Caido have not changed.

"So I think she's banished us here. And she brought Aoife with us. To punish us."

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Straddling Ronin if he wasn't going to punch or kiss him suddenly seemed so strange, and unsure if he wanted to do either ever again, he swung a leg over and slumped into a crossed-legged position. "Who the fuck cares about a temple." He groaned, wiping blood and spit from the corners of his mouth. Glancing at Ronin out of the corner of his eye and finding himself surprised at how readily he understood Ronin's explanation, he peeled off one of his shoes and threw it into the waves. It was a useless gesture, but weren't they all?

The mention of Aoife's name stiffened Remi's back, her presence on the sands looming behind him like some jump-scare that you know is coming but is still just out of frame. 'I hope the entire thing fell." He said bitterly, not asking nor caring about who had been there, who had tried to stop Ronin, who else might have died.

"Is this real, then?"

I swear I still believe but I don't know

"They seemed to care about it quite a bit," Ronin points out, glancing back at Remi as he slumped away from him, feeling quite naked without him close enough to kill or kiss. "It was close enough to falling. I don't know what happened to it." And he doesn't even care now, whether it fell or whether it didn't. To speak to Remi, even if they have said all of the worst things and Ronin doesn't know if there's any coming back from that... it is more than he had ever thought he'd get again.

And maybe, something whispers in the back of his mind, that is Safrin taking care of him. But it is a thought he crushes down ruthlessly.

"It must be. You punched me and it fucking hurt," Ronin mutters. "I don't know where this is, though. I suppose you got what you wanted. We're out of the Grounds, wherever this is."

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

From insults and words they'd never be able to take back, to what now felt like small talk, simply felt par for the course. For them, for fate, for fucking all of it.

Remi doesn't apologize, nor does he even think to. He merely grunts and nods his acknowledgment, before puffing out an unhappy burst of air. "Fuck you." He murmurs, though there's no more anger in it, and not just because Ronin is right. Remi might be changed in fundamental ways now, but anger is still exhausting. "Then again I suppose it isn't you. It's them. The gods. Safrin. Whoever the hell keeps toying with our lives."

He looks down the coastline, half expecting to see the Siren's Call or the Master Chief somewhere. He looks and sees people milling about as the sun sinks nearly below the horizon, sees carts packing up for the day. He looks and sees everything but Aoife. "Ludo, maybe. On a beach again, half naked, with you?" The alchemist raises a brow. It is the sort of sick humour he's come to expect from the ragged god.

I swear I still believe but I don't know

Ronin snorts, though there's no humour in it. "Fuck you too," he mutters, gazing out across the ocean. Once upon a time he would have relished this; to hear the waves again, slapping against the shore; to listen to the sea birds (and perhaps try to spot an osprey); to sail or swim; to teach their daughter all about where her mother had come from...

Enough of that. "They just pluck us up and put us down wherever," he says, a growl edging his voice at the thought of Safrin and the other gods. "They just can't leave well enough alone." Because honestly, without Safrin's interference there would be no Aoife. He'd never have fallen in love with his perfect daughter, and it wouldn't hurt so much.

Scoffing at the prospect of a Ludo illusion, Ronin shrugs. "I was more than half naked back then," he pointed out.

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"Can any of us?" Remi counters, wondering where he'd be now had he just set up shop and stayed there. Had his and Ronin's drunken kitchen fumble been a one-time thing. Had he not been idiotic enough to fight a spire demon like this was his world, or his place, to interfere with.

"You were, yes." Not even this softens his clenched jaw. Turning to look at Ronin, Remi sees only Aoife in his eyes and thinks he might vomit. Teeth clicking together he draws in a breath through his nose, turning his eyes to the brilliant colours streaking across the sunset-sky. "I know some did not think she was mine...but..she was.." The last words squeeze out through a throat quickly closing with emotion. "..she was...."

And then he does it.

He turns and looks.

I swear I still believe but I don't know

"No. I suppose not." Ronin scowls into the waves. He had come to Caido like he was still vying for general in Northaven, like he had answers, like he could help. And look at the devastation he has left in his wake since. A bunch of terrible decisions, a few wonderful ones, and a road of heartbreak behind him. It would have been better, to have left well enough alone. He's staring too intently at the sunset bouncing off the sea to realise Remi has turned to look at him, but when the alchemist speaks again it finally chips away enough at Ronin's grief for him to muster a response.

"She was," he agrees through half a whisper. "More yours than mine, I used to think. It made me terribly resentful." And now he is turning to look too, and gods but he can't do it, he can't face it. Not this, not her - anything but this.

"Why would she bring her here?" he wants to know. Lost, broken, it is too much. They have to bury their daughter.

the dark star

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"I hated that no one ever questioned you though. You were always her father, dead and returned it didn't matter. You never had to hear, but do you want a child. Of your own, as if she wasn't. As if I wasn't the one, when.." It didn't need saying. Old news, now. Too many deaths ago.

Bile rises in his throat and though he doesn't remember what he ate that morning—gods it feels like a lifetime ago that he did eat—it's covering the beach. Remi doesn't try and stop it, doesn't apologize when his stomach muscles finally cease spasming. He merely wipes gruffly at his mouth, eyes still on the bundle.

"Loren healed me. Or tried to. I tried to kill him for it. Phoebe as well, I think." He said, if only to fill the silence that stretched out between him and the blankets.