snatch a star, you can reach [SE]

I am aware that we're not much closer to the stars. Remi thought with playful annoyance. He small and winged, and Ronin ever-more a man from a fantasy book sat upon his cloud as he was, the hawk just continued to fly higher and higher that they might reach the top of the volcano. If Ludo and you have taught me anything, it's that gestures themselves can be meaningful. So it was that with bits of pyrite, the most opulent shells, and some sweet grass to burn, that they'd headed as high up as Torchline would allow.

The tops of volcanos were apparently dry and unhappy things, and as they neared the top, Remi's keen eyes spied only a dry reddish ring that encircled a gaping and dark earthen mouth. Shifting, a large blanket appearing in his hands, he grinned bashfully up at Ronin. "Good thing I brought us a blanket."

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RONIN

"It's closer than we have been for a while, and that's good enough for me," Ronin murmured, smiling and settling back on his nimbus as they sailed higher up the mountain. It was a strange sensation to say the least, riding upon a cloud whilst telepathically conversing with your husband who was a hawk at the time, but hey - Ronin had seen and done weirder things. He gazed over the top of the volcano with unabashed awe, having never seen something like this.

His attention was drawn back, of course, by Remi's comment, and the nimbus dissipated to allow him to hop down while the alchemist shifted back. Of all things, Ronin had not expected Remi to arrange a gesture on Ludo's suggestion - but he would be lying if he didn't say that his husband had seemed more... put together, perhaps, since his encounter with the ragged god. And that, really, was all he gave a damn about.

"A blanket of stars above, one to sit on with you down here, and everything else we need to hand. What do I have to complain about? Let's find a good place." He winked.

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"Oh, you'll find something, surely." The alchemist quipped back with a grin. As they walked, the alchemist tugged up latent shoots from deep within the earth, coaxing a bit of greenery and life into the dusty volcanic cliffs that they walked by. Laying down the blanket, but not before making an obnoxious show of flapping it a few times to get every single wrinkle out, Remi reached for Ronin's hand to tug him down upon it.

Laying himself down, fingers interlaced behind his head, Remi studied the stars in silence for a moment. "If Vanya is there...as you were, and Aoife is with Mort now..." The alchemist's brow furrowed as if just realizing something. Were mother and daughter separated, then? "Much fun as it probably is to watch you all day, do you think Vanya ever longs to be allowed to fully go?"

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RONIN

At Remi’s quip Ronin would try to give his partner a playful shove, though whether it connected or not was irrelevant. He followed contently at the alchemist’s heels, watching with a warm smile as the shoots peeked up from the barren earth under the influence of Remi’s magic. When he finally chose a place for them to sit, Ronin let himself be tugged down, laying beside his husband to stare up at the blanket of stars.

Of course one in particular caught his eye - one always did - and of all things, he did not expect Remi to bring her up. Not just bring her up, either; whether because they were alike in their way of thinking or had been through enough shared trauma, Remi managed to voice something very dark and very precious that Ronin had been avoiding thinking about for some time now.

If the alchemist glanced across it would be to see the sudden tears in his husband’s eyes, and when he spoke his voice was rough with emotion. ”I think she put on a very brave face, when I left her up there,” he admitted. ”More and more I look at her and wish that she could be with Aoife, now that we can’t.”

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It was all so easy between them, this dance of life they found themselves in. It made the alchemist wonder how it was they'd ever drifted apart. How the man playfully shoving him near the mouth of a volcano was one who he nearly walked away from.

Remi didn't look over, not right any at least. It took hearing the emotion in his husband's voice before the alchemist realized just how crass and careless he'd just been. Had murder and death changed him so much now, that he was empty of all the emotion and kindness he'd once been so synonymous with? Rolling over to look down at Ronin, Remi hummed a note in the back of his throat.

"Perhaps she can ... If Safrin only put her there to make you happy, if you could bear not to see her anymore, surely she'd release her. Or perhaps Ludo might...?"

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RONIN

"Maybe she would... I don't know. I'd prefer to ask her first before going to Ludo," Ronin said, managing a playful tone as he blinked back his tears and gave Remi a wobbly smile. "I feel I am more likely to be cursed by that ball of rags than I am Safrin, at least." Letting out a trembling sigh, Ronin rubbed at his face before hauling himself to sit up beside his husband.

"I'll ask her," he decided quietly, gazing up at the bright Vanya star and ruffling a hand through his hair. "I don't think it's fair, for her to be separated from Aoife any more. Nor the other way around. She only got to hold her once." And given how soon their daughter had been taken from them, that very small occasion seemed pitifully short to Ronin.

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Remi raised a silent brow at that. He thought it would only invite chaos into their lives to voice the thoughts loudly whirling about in his mind, even if he couldn't deny them. Was Safrin the more reliable out of she and Ludo? Was her council the one which should be sought first?

"Vanya, or Safrin?" Remi chuckled, though didn't sound at all joyful just then. Leaning forward and then slouching against Ronin, his fingers trailed across the hunter's back as he sighed deeply. "And if she says no?" He asked quietly, though there was an unspoken conclusion in his voice: If she doesn't set things right, I'll find a way to.

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RONIN

Honestly, given the events of the past few days, even Ronin didn't know whether or not it was truly wise to go and ask Safrin for help. But ultimately, the path was before him and he wouldn't leave the matter be without walking it first. "Safrin," he clarified with a warm smile, though it wasn't really necessary; he couldn't get an answer from Vanya, no matter how much he'd like to. Reaching out, he let his fingers twine lovingly through his husband's hair, letting out a sigh that seemed to release tension.

"If she says no, at least I bothered to ask," he said, though his sadness at the thought was audible in his tone. Either way, he had to try. "I think she would have liked it here in Torchline, you know." That, at least, was about Vanya. And probably Aoife, too.

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Like an animal, (not that Remi wasn't, perhaps more so these days), he leaned appreciatively into Ronin's fingers. It was in moments such as these he caught a glimpse of the man he might be, should he live to see the day that Ronin was no more. His curls might be the first to go, for no fingers could ever soothe through them the way his husband's could. Nor would Remi ever allow them to try.

The muscles of the alchemist's jaw feathered slightly at that, his mind already resolved to risk Ludo's wrath and punishment, should Safrin fail to deliver.

'Should would have.' Remi agreed, not needing to specify of whom he spoke. It did apply to both. 'I wonder if that's why you've never seen her...Vanya that is, during the Festival of Lights. If Ludo never had her soul...it couldn't bring it down for you to see." Chewing the inside of his lip, Remi pondered this for a moment. "I wonder how Safrin managed it, in all honesty. To keep her soul from Ludo."

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RONIN

Ronin, for once, was too preoccupied with his own stormy thoughts to recognise the telltale pensiveness in Remi, and his fingers continued to play through soft curls even as he gazed back up at the sky. At the stars. At Vanya. "It's almost certainly why," he said, his agreement sad but understanding. "She's locked in her own paradise up there, but... what is paradise when you're alone, really?" A shard of guilt buried itself deeply within him at the thought of her watching them, unable to interact.

As for how Safrin had done it? Ronin shook his head. "However she did it, I imagine it wasn't with permission or knowledge from Ludo. It seems the sort of thing you'd keep secret, right?"

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Remi hmmphed slightly at this, marvelling at how he could be so slow in putting the pieces together. To be fair, Ronin would have devoted far more thought to Vanya's state and lack of presence in Caido than the alchemist ever had. Perhaps it was a cruel thing to ask, or more likely just a stupid thing, but as Remi turned his gaze towards Ronin, he found he truly didn't know the answer. "You were the love of her life, and Aoife...Well, it isn't as though she had the time to get to know her. Do you think the choice would be so easy? To give up you, for a child she never knew?"

Considering this, Remi looked up towards the starry night sky. "I can't imagine much gets by Ludo. That much gets by any of them, really. " More and more it seemed to Remi that the doings of the gods were all in service of some much larger game that he and those like him simply couldn't understand. "Then again the sky is vast. How would one know?" Indeed, Remi hadn't noticed the extra star shining above him.

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RONIN

For Ronin it was a simple answer, but then perhaps he was biased because he had gotten the chance to know Aoife, to enjoy her. Maybe it wouldn't be the same for Vanya - but they had watched together, as Remi and their daughter had tried to adjust to life without them, and Ronin thought she probably would want to meet her. "She will never be able to do anything but watch me," he said slowly, sadly. "At least she could learn about Aoife, if they were together."

Frowning at the idea that all of the various deities were in the know, to one extent or another, Ronin couldn't help but agree with his husband. "The sky might be vast, but I think the missing soul would catch its attention," he said of Ludo, before shaking it off. "Either way. We came up here to enjoy the night together, did we not?"

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"I wonder if that's true." Remi said softly. Though he couldn't quite place where, somewhere within him was a fracture of doubt. If Vanya were brought back, in the here and now, would Ronin stay? It would be an impossible and unfair choice to make, and yet were he pressed, what might he do? Just as the hunter thought perhaps Vanya might like the chance to know what life was like with Aoife, perhaps he too might want to know what it was like with her, having already had a life with Remi. "Had you gone to Mort instead of being a star in Safrin's sky, perhaps you'd not have been able to come back. Maybe it's the same for Vanya." What would the seabird want? A life with a daughter she didn't know? Or a life with her love lost too soon?

Remi smiled at that, pleased to let the conversation drift off. "We did." He agreed, laying down on the blanket and shuffling his shoulders that he might try and find any amount of comfort in the hard ground below. Reaching for one of Ronin's hands, he twined his fingers through, looking up at the night sky and wondering just how many twinkling lights above were Safrin's hostages.


~FIN

who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t  again

Coding base by Sky!