Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
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Remi's quiet response this time, the way he seemed to speak softer...it felt different from the cold and harsh conversations on this topic they'd previously had; Sam wondered if he'd found a way to see beneath the wall the Alchemist had begun to build. It hurt to hear Remi so clearly pained as he spoke, but there was something relieving in it as well; knowing that there was still, somewhere, a more sensitive man within the Governor.
"...I know, Remi, that you've dealt with..." Letting out a breath, Sam shook his head. "So much. I won't pretend I can understand what it's like to lose what you've lost." As much as Sam certainly had his share of troubles and traumas, he'd never had a child ripped away from him; he knew he was hugely unqualified to give advice, but it felt like someone had to or Remi might lose himself entirely to one tragedy. "Don't you think, though, that it might be better to let those emotions out in more places than just with Ronin...? Perhaps it's just with me, but when you talk nowadays, it scares me. It's...so...flat. Like you feel nothing." He sighed, hoping he wasn't insulting Remi by simply telling the truth.
Pulling in a breath that strove towards being calm and steady but failed in that effort, Remi just smiled sadly at the walls, and then down at his hands. "It isn't though there is some...well of emotion inside that only Ronin had to endure. That I come home and unleash a whirlwind." Turning towards Sam with eyelashes falling softly over too-pale eyes, the Alchemist smiled that same unsteady and sad smile again.
"I don't...feel anymore. Except with Ronin." The Star could always rouse feeling from the Alchemist, both good and bad. Love and desire, laughter sometimes too. But the rest of the world?
"I suppose it is a bit grey, like you said. Almost like when I was blind and could see, but differently. I just..don't feel things anymore, Sam. Not strongly, anyways." No sexual urges towards those he ought not, no joy or pride in others, no aspirations towards friendship or connections other than with the man who shared his bed.
"I know that isn't what you want to hear." He added quietly.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
While Sam was certainly glad to hear that Remi wasn't flying into a rage whenever he got home, he did wonder if Remi was really the best one to judge that. That said, he was not close enough to Ronin to ask and he knew it was not his business to enquire too far into their marriage: While Sam was absolutely nosy, he'd begun to grow at least some sense of boundaries.
"It's not..." He sighed, tilted his head from side to side as he tried to think of what he wanted to say; Sam wished he could be eloquent, someone like Rexanna had been, always able to say what was on his mind succinctly and easily. "It's not that I want you to perform anything for me. I'm just worried, that's all. But...you know, I've said what I wanted to say now. I hope you'll stay for a while."
There was a chair next to him, around the side of the counter: he motioned to it, offering Remi a seat if he wanted to take it. "...I am sorry, for starting that so out of the blue, it just shocked me, I suppose, the news you had. I'll...have to worry about that later." He knew he'd worry about it quite a bit now, but he would try his best to swallow the anxiety in his throat for the moment. Leaning back, he lifted the paper weight in his hands and held it out towards Remi. "Do you recognise this?"
Stay? In that moment Remi felt very unwelcome indeed. Something dissected and shown to be lacking. Shown to be infected still. Perhaps it was love that kept them both in this awkward whirlpool, bound to endlessly circle but never get too close again; Remi really had no idea. But he did find himself nodding and taking a seat next to the aspiring cartographer.
"I'm meeting with the other leaders. We'll get to the bottom of it. And if you ever feel unsafe...well. You know where to find me." It wasn't the first time Remi had offered Sam a spare room and his protection, and though he knew it irked Ronin somewhat, the Alchemist would continue to do it as long as it was necessary.
Glancing at the glass oval-like thing and the flower within, Remi reached for it. Holding it easily in his hands, he turned it over and over again, marveling at its construciton. Or, lack thereof.
Magically-made, then. Given only he and Deimos possessed such an ability, that meant....
"I made this?' He asked, glancing up and looking both softly confused and intrigued.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Sam actually felt better about things now that some of it was out in the open; it felt like he'd managed to see some of the Remi behind the rather fake seeming wall and when his friend sat down he smiled, happy that he apparently had not scared him away.
"...Thank you. I think I'll be alright, though." He said quietly, hoping he was right: he did believe that Zeph would help if it really came to it, and Sam did know that of the Ascended, he was hardly the loudest or most dangerous; perhaps that would save him. "Do you have...any idea where to start? Who it might be, or who you'd look into first?"
At least the paperweight was a pleasant distraction; he watched Remi turn it over, thinking that he wouldn't be able to guess anything about it. When he did, Sam was clearly surprised and nodded, a smile on his lips. "Yes. I've had it for a while, but...when I left the Voice, my memories returned and I remembered that you made this for me."
"I don't think it's anyone here...A box of body parts and a cryptic note? That isn't the Torchline way. So not a local likely. As for one of us?" Outlanders, he meant. "It's all a bit cloak and dagger." Which was just to say, it wasn't anyone Remi thought he knew. He could be wrong of course. "I think it's someone not...close to the issue. Not from the Hollowed Grounds. There have been too many opportunities to voice descension. Halo or the Greatwood, maybe." Tapping his finger on the side of the chair, the Alchemist was inclined to believe it was the latter, if he had to place money on it. They were the only ones with true cause to dislike the ascended. But why now, after so much time?
As Sam spoke, Remi's hands stilled. Glancing over at him, his green eyes scanning Sam's face for something familiar once known and now lost, he nodded slowly. "All your memories?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
It was comforting to hear that Remi had more thoughts on the issue: it made Sam believe he cared more than he had perhaps let on, and the idea that the perpetrator might be somewhere as distant as the Greatwood or Halo was comforting (even if it was only a portal hop away, it at least felt like a long way). "A..Fae, then? I have not heard anything about the Fae in some time, nor seen one." He knew they had been incensed about Ascended some time ago, but had begun to forget about that specific grudge. Did it still remain?
He watched Remi's hands idly as he nodded. "Yes, all of them. ...Well, unless there's something I've forgotten I've forgotten, I suppose." Sam let out a quiet, stressed laugh, the very idea rather unsettling. "I suppose if there was anything you wanted to ask about that time, I could now fill it in for you."
"Their leader has died. Perhaps...change is to follow." No one save Delphia and Delah's spirit knew how the war-chief had met her end. It hadn't occurred to Remi that perhaps they might blame the ascended for her death...if that was the case, then perhaps the truth would come to light when he met with the other leaders. He'd take responsibility to prevent war, but somehow he doubted such was their reasoning.
"Mmm." Remi hummed, not finding much amusement in it. As someone who had had his memories toyed with many times, the idea of not knowing just how much was taken from him was not something he found even vaguely funny. Glancing up at Sam through his curls, brow furrowed and sea-shattered stare heavy and dark, the Alchemist considered. There were many things he might have asked—were we happy? what really went wrong? was I good to you?—but it all seemed so..irrelevant now. No matter the answers Sam had still chosen to forget, had still left.
Scratching at his curls as if his discomfort was something physical he might soothe away, he exhaled a long breath before shaking his head. "No..I...I don't think I have anything to ask."
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh. How?" Sam asked, immediately worried this was some scheme of the Voice or Wessex's, that he was about to be involved in yet another situation he had little involvement in just for his association with the Ascended. "Do you...think there will ever be peace between the Fae and Ascended? That it's possible?"
It was clear Remi was laughing and Sam's face fell, letting the awkward silence settle in until Remi chose to speak. Now that his memories had returned, Sam had found himself more attached to Remi than he had been. Prior to leaving the Voice, he'd begun to grow quite sick of the Alchemist, his changing and volatile moods and his hardness, but now that he could remember the soft, gentle man he used to be and the times they had once had, it was hard to see his face without feeling the edges of his heart grow wistful.
"...Right." He nodded, tapped his hands against his thighs. It was painful, small talk with someone you used to love. Unsure what else there was to be said, Sam sighed and looked out of the window towards the sea.
"Killed in the woods, in the middle of the night." Remi replied with a shrug. By me, going unsaid. "I..am not sure. The past year hasn't helped, nor your incursion into the woods." He added with a bit of a frown. Much had been done against the Fae, and nothing Remi knew of to try and make things right again. "Not everything is fixable, Sam." He likely meant the tension between the ascended and the fae, but the words had broader implications as they well knew.
Tilting his head slightly to gaze at the cartographer out of the corner of his eye, Remi considered for a moment. The feeling was not unlike that he experienced when his memories had been taken and then filled in by others. He knew what he ought to feel, but didn't actually feel it. "You sound disappointed by that." He observed, the words slow and careful.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh. ...How horrible." Sam pressed his fingers to his lips, frowning; why did every detail of life have to be so gristly? It seemed lately everywhere he looked there was some conspiracy or murder being uncovered, some horrible crime just lurking in the next set of shadows. He nodded solemnly at Remi's appraisal of the situation, pretty sure himself that the Fae would never come to forgive (and really, did they have to?). "...Yes. I've been learning that."
He would have been content to let the matter of his lost memories go, but Remi pointed out his disappointment. Drawing his eyes back from the window, Sam took in a breath and nodded, shrugging as he looked around the room seemingly to avoid Remi's eyes. "I suppose I just...I'm older and far better at talking to people nowadays...even if I still seem poor at it. I have these memories, which come with, ah, feelings, and I don't know...sometimes I just wonder, if I hadn't been such a fool..." Closing his eyes and shaking his head, Sam tried to let the tension out of his body.
"...I wonder who we could be now, I suppose. I failed you....us. And now that I know just how wonderful it was, when we first began to spend time together..." Helplessly looking off and gesturing before him as if trying to say something he couldn't with words, Sam let out a quiet, sad laugh.
Remi watched Sam avoiding him, the profile of his face all too familiar to the Alchemist now. The spaces not filled in by words, but instead by pregnant pauses and held breaths (not that Sam needed to breathe of course), made Remi frown slightly, but not out of anger. Simply out of a lack of understanding.
"I'm sure I had a hand to play in our failing." Remi remarked, his voice low and his lips dry. Creating a feather and absent-mindedly spinning it between his fingers, he swallowed hard. Flinching ever so slightly as Sam laughed, the sound surprising enough to draw the Alchemist's gaze, he frowned again, eyes trained on the fabric of the chair. "...you thought this time spent together, would be just as wonderful?" Remi asked, trying to finish the cartographer's sentence with slow uncertainty.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Sam was honestly surprised to hear Remi take any blame on for their failed past relationship, having thought before that he was considered the villain in that story entirely. Truthfully, Sam didn't think either of them were entirely to blame, though he knew his choice to forget was the nail in the coffin: it had been impulsive and stupid, but looking back he couldn't help but feel a twinge of sympathy for the lost and confused person he had been then. Desperate to feel happy and ready to throw it away if it seemed it might fail.
He watched Remi play with the feather, not at all expecting him to say what he did. "Um...no, that...wasn't quite what I was going to say. I know we're both different people now. A lot has happened in the last two years, after all, and you're married and I'm..." Awkward quiet came over him as he tried to think of how to summarise his romantic status of 'eternally falling in love with guys after 2 weeks then they inevitably leave when they don't feel the same way'. "...Well, anyway. I'm not really saying much other than that it makes me sad and I'm sorry it turned out how it did, I suppose. Though it seems like you're happy with Ronin, so I'm glad you have that."
Remi was trying not to read into things. It wasn't a thing he liked to do anymore, not that he'd ever been particularly good at it. Still, he couldn't help but hear something between the words the cartographer was saying. The way a mind infers the depths of a mountain range from a few lines on a map.
"Would you still want me then, if things were different?" The feather continues its slow twirl between the Alchemist's fingers despite the heaviness of his question. What he'd heard from Sam were...a bunch of roundabout way of not saying much. Or at least, not saying the thing Remi thought they were talking about.
Turning to look at Sam now, feeling it cowardly to continue to stare at the feather based on what he'd just asked, the Alchemist lets his eyes softly scan a face that he's now come to know impossible well for the second time. Pale eyelashes over blue eyes, a smattering of freckles made worse better by Sam's increased sun resistance, lips seeming to constantly move with words never articulated.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
