giving me a million reasons

make peace with your broken pieces

Nate, the Shield is confident, will be protected by his lover, and as for the other? "Sam will be safe. I made sure." This is the promise she extracted, an oath not to hurt those who repent. Though now thinking of the butchered man and his strew body Amalia has to wonder who he was. If he was innocent, in the end.

It's a tempting thing to share the burden of knowledge. Remi is right: giving him a name will relieve her of some of that weight, spread the load between them. It will no longer be on Amalia alone to manage the monsters, and yet...

Spreading her palms out before her, Amalia stares down at her lap. "My hands haven't been clean for a long time, Remi." It hurts to say aloud, to admit that she has sinned and failed and sinned again, but still it is the truth. Smiling sadly, she shakes her head. "I'll... talk to them. You have enough to carry, and Ludo to worry about."

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

Whatever the Alchemist thinks, he says none of it. He's in no place to criticize Amalia for her decisions and recklessness with the lives of others. Vaguely, her confidence makes her wonder if the killer is someone like Deimos. Someone the Sheild can know with absolute certainty won't hurt those under her protection.

"Maybe not. But you used to make an effort to wash them." He notes without judgement, just a light shrug. Like Remi once, Amalia used to strive towards doing the right thing, even knowing she'd certainly fall short. Now, like him, she seemed content where she was.

Though perhaps he just didn't know her very well anymore.

"I've already told Wessex I'd keep her apprised of what I found out. What would you have me tell her?"

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

make peace with your broken pieces

Ire rises in her suddenly, a defensive spike of anger piercing against her tongue. Perhaps his tone is lacking judgment, but the words sting nonetheless. "I still do," she fires back, sharper than she means to. She can feel her heartbeat speeding up, knows she has to quell it. Deep breath in, two three four, let it out, two three four.

Gods, and then there's the Wessex of it all. Closing her eyes, the Shield sighs. "I'm doing the best I can." Her hands fall down onto her shins, rubbing absently over them as she stares into the sea. "What am I supposed to do, Remi? Defy Ludo? If I tell you and you tell Wessex then whoever it is, is at risk, and that's my fault. If I do nothing she - they - kill another Ascended, then that's a life on my hands, too."

Releasing her legs Amalia leans back, her palms splayed on the ground, claws digging into the earth. The eyes that turn up to the sky are slitted and fringed in feathers. "If I tell them to stop and one of the Ascended she might have stopped kills a Fae, or spreads another blight, is that on my hands?" There's leopard fur coating her neck and back now, horns beginning to buzz on her skull. Biting hard upon her lip she wraps her tail around herself, wishing she might just disappear, fade into the sky. She neither wants nor expects answers. She is tired, that's all.

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

Remi's silence speaks as loudly as the raising of his brow might. Those who'd clean their hands don't normally keep quite so many secrets. But, Amalia is entitled to as much slack as she requests.

Remi snorts sadly to hear this: the best she can. And what is that? Were it everything and then some, if it wasn't enough? So what of her intentions. "Where is Ludo in all of this, for you?" He asks, glancing at her through eyes that see past the storms in hers. Or at least, can somehow ignore them. "You'd perhaps be faulted for trusting my judgement. But as governor and demigod...I think perhaps that's a relatively easy burden to unload yourself of." But that justifications could come easily didn't necessarily mean they should.

Watching her partially shift and understanding well the emotions that lead to it, Remi turns his eyes towards the coast. "I'm here to blame, if ever you need it. To scapegoat or...well." His shoulders shrug. "I can keep a secret."

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

make peace with your broken pieces

"Ludo told her to do it. Just like Roana." Amalia would have though that to be obvious: there is no world in which the Shield would condone murder, except when sanctioned by the gods. And even then the girl is beginning to very much doubt her decisions, the words she said to Nephele bouncing cruelly through her brain. "That's why I thought it might be you. Because it seems Ludo hasn't stopped asking this of its followers." Except for you, her dark eyes say, thoughtful and confused.

Can he keep a secret? A wry smile curls Amalia's lips, though her eyes remain tired and drawn. "If I can't handle it I'll come to you. I promise." Reaching out the Shield places her hand over his, squeezing gently, appreciative even if she is still frustrated and lost. "In the meantime... keep an eye on your people. I'll look over mine." It is another thing to carry back from what was supposed to be a restful honeymoon, but she supposes it can't be helped. There's no rest for the wicked, and their hands are far from clean.

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

It wasn't obvious, not to Remi anyways. "Couldn't be me, merciful murderer that I am." The Alchemist says with a scowl, thoughtfully rubbing at his chin. "Maybe one day though. I've already told Wessex I'll give her fair warning if it comes to that." Mercy killing demands a certain amount of surprise. Initiating wars and genocide..well. He's strong enough that he can show his cards ahead of time.

Remi looks down at her hands, so small against his. He imagines seeing them red with blood she can't wash away, no matter how many moonlit ocean-swims she takes. "The last time I tried to keep an eye on my people," This being Ronin, during LongNight. "You removed him from my care and ended up nearly throwing me to the ground if I remember correctly." He'd been a hawk so it had been laughably easy to do. Still, Remi's gaze is steel-wrapped-green, even as he covers Amalia's hand softly with his other.

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

make peace with your broken pieces

Ah, and there it is.

Amalia does not move as he broaches the topic she has thus far steered so carefully around, knowing her promise to be patient would fail as soon as it came up. And indeed the girl can feel herself stiffening, ice and fire flowing through her veins as memories flash behind her eyes.

"Your care?" the Shield repeats carefully, not extracting her hand. "Are you talking about when I saved your life? After you showed up in the middle of LongNight and almost drove Ronin insane?" There's a clipped almost-anger in her voice, too stunned for the moment to truly give in to her infamous temper. For now.

Turning slowly back to the Alchemist she meets his steely gaze with her flint. "Did you expect me to leave him there? Covered in a child's blood, at the foot of the Spire? Was your plan of care- what? To camp out until the sun rose, singing kumbaya?" She'd expected Remi to feel some degree of chagrin for his actions, had been prepared to forgive remorse. But this?

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

"Yes, that is what I'm talking about." Remi replies, his voice cool despite the growing heat growing in the black of her eyes.

"He is my husband, Amalia. For as close as you are, Safrin's Shield, Hand of the Queen and whatever else, you have no jurisdiction over him. Not when it comes to he and I." How far he is from the remorseful man she might have imagined she'd find. "You very likely did save my life that night. Perhaps even his. But that isn't the point. You do not get to strip me of my care over him and then wave your hands and say the ends justified the means."

It was incredibly likely she'd disagree. Aligned with life and such that she was, Amalia would probably be unable to hear any argument that suggested pig-headed boyish stupidity should override being saved. Yet here was such a pig-headed boy, making precisely such an argument.

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

make peace with your broken pieces

The spark of anger blooms high and hot, disbelief rising as she listens to his words. "No jurisdiction?" Amalia repeats, incredulous and indignant, her brows tightened into a sharp frown. "Can you hear yourself? You're talking about him like he's a possession, Remi. Like he's a thing that you control and allow others to play with, instead of a person with a life."

Now she does draw her hand away, as quickly as if it was burnt. She had known his view of the world to be fractured, but this borders on absurdity, insane. "I didn't do what I did because I was the Hand or the Shield or for whatever power trip you seem to suspect me of. I took care of Ronin because it was the right thing to do Because he's my friend. Because I love him. Because I promised you I would protect him." Her voice is rising, pain and frustration building steadily in her narrow breast.

"Of all the things in the world- I didn't think I'd have to protect him from you."

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

Amalia snaps her hand back and the Alchemist has to fight not to roll his eyes at her theatrics.

"The right thing to do." Remi scoffs, turning a sea-shattered stare in her direction. "Because you have always known so well what that is, haven't you." He challenges, his teeth grinding together such that his jaw feathers and waves with tension.

"Amalia, you do not get to decide." He declares finally, nostrils flaring. "You are on a power trip if you think your notions of what's right and wrong and best for the world supersedes things. Ronin is not my thing, but we've made certain promises together. Promises you know nothing about." Wherever he saw, Ronin would feel Remi's heart start to thunder unsteadily as his own anger coiled darkly in his gut. "But it's all about you, Amalia. What you think is right. Who is your friend. You didn't stop to ask why. Not then, not now."

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

make peace with your broken pieces

It's a slap in the face as sure as any he might have given physically, stinging all the more cruelly for its targeting of insecurities he knows she holds. "Maybe not, but at least I care," Amalia shoots back, fire and fervor to his deep sea calm. "You used to know what that felt like."

His counter argument only fuels her anger, causing her ears to flatten against her skull, fangs to rise from beneath her lip. "Did you promise to die together during LongNight like idiots?" Scowling, the girl exhales a plume of lilac smoke. "Fine, Remi- why? Why did you come, except to almost die and then yell when someone tried to help you? Why should I have left you there to hug it out in the dark? From where I see it, if anyone was on a power trip and trying to be a hero, it was you."

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

"I did. Right up until I learned that caring isn't enough." Giving her a look, Remi's eyes narrow just a fraction. "Maybe that's the lesson you're learning now too."

The being Amalia has become in her range is almost laughably strange to behold, but neither of them are laughing. Instead, Remi's eyes are fixed upon black flecks of what might as well be stone. "There are certain things that are more important than just existing through life, Amalia." He snarls back.

"Shall we add judge and jury to the long list of things that apparently aren't going to your head?" The Alchemist wonders in a cold voice. "Who are you to decide what is and isn't worth us dying over, for the two of us? If I had a hero complex in that moment then let Ronin take it up for me. You might be Safrin's shield but you aren't his, nor mine."

He very nearly gets to his feet then, but the gesture would be just as antagonizing as her removed-hand had been, and so he stays where he is. "Why should you have left us? Because this world isn't yours to manage, Amalia. We are allowed to make our own mistakes, even if it leads to our deaths."

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

make peace with your broken pieces

Gods, can he even hear himself? Jaws clenched tight enough to hurt her teeth, fists balled up and drawing blood, Amalia stares at Remi and searches for something, anything that looks like her one-time friend. "What are you doing, if not just existing?" Surely whatever pit it is Remi has found his way to cannot be considered living.

It feels almost comical to be sitting on the ground and screaming at one another, but Amalia, too, does not stand. Standing feels like giving up, a finality to it, and besides. She's too damn stubborn to be the first one to back down, at least for now. "You think you're so above it all. You act like nothing matters but your own little bubble and the rest of us should just tiptoe around you."

It's a harder anger in her voice now, clipped with jagged glass. "Guess what, Remi? The world still exists. People still care about you. And they're still going to try to protect you. And they're still going to be hurt if you are."

Tearing away to look at the horizon, her face reflects the rolling storm. "And you can call me selfish or whatever you want. But I'd rather see you hate me than see you dead." If that makes her the monster he seems to think, so be it. Later she will cry about this; for now her fury outburns the impending, inevitable panic attack.

shield of safrin

REMI

the alchemist

I've said that hope I'll never find
To my myself I must confide

"That's all I'm doing these days." The Alchemist roars in response. Existing. He hasn't lived since Aoife ceased to.

"No, but I do think the rest of you ought to fuck off and mind your own business until you're asked to do otherwise. I didn't ask for a frienship like this." He snarls, raking his fingers through his curls as his cheeks grow hot. "You don't get to just impose all the things you want life to be on everyone else. I'm allowed to be mad, and dark, and furious at the world. I'm allowed not to be nice anymore. I don't have to be who I was. This, is tangential, and not really at all what she was saying. But gods if it didn't feel good to yell once he started.

"Well that's they're problem, isn't it? I can't control who you hitch your wagon to. And if it's me and I go down? It won't be you I worry about first."

As Amalia looks away, for a minute Remi's mind buzzes and splits. Part of him wants to ask if she and Deimos have done anything interesting on their holiday. If they've seen the moving islands. He can't of course, but already this anger feels more like a bother than anything else. But the fight isn't over because they're the same brand of stubborn, and so instead of breaking the tension, the Alchemist merely sets his jaw.

"Again, it's all about what you'd rather do. You getting to decide how things play out for Ronin and I, all because you've neatly packaged up your pathological need to help and called it friendship." Did he mean that? He think he did only...he meant it about 8 shades duller than the way it slipped from his lips.

That there's no choice outside your mind
when your heart is overthrown

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!