passed down like folksongs

he said "i bet you don't remember me"

Remi's smile remains, but the amusement dies from his eyes. Without it, his sea-glass green green stare has been churned up and clouded with mud and oil, as if contaminated from some spill upstream. The window as his back ruffles his feathers as his wings remain magnificently outstretched. He isn't sure what it would communicate to fold them against his back or make them disappear altogether, but he knows it would be the wrong message just the same. The right message involves mud beneath fingertips, cold water and gasping lips, and the warm crimson spray of blood.

Gazing at Finn calmly, Remi pulls in a deep breath through his nose that causes his nostrils to flare, before letting it out. It doesn't calm him one bit, though it isn't his heart that's racing. It's something else entirely. Something stowed away and kept carefully guarded. Taking a step forward, his movements predatory and well-controlled, Remi leans in ever so slightly towards Finn. "I expect it feels about as necessary as constantly lying to yourself, feels to you." He replies in a measured tone, before straightening. "You're reminded why you have to, every time you stop."

THE ALCHEMIST

and i said, "only every other memory".

FINN

Even without his glasses, Finn can see so much of Remi in the silence that stretches between them. He can see the line he’s stepped across, the sudden danger before him rather than in the water all around, the creeping unease that slithers its way up the length of his spine. He doesn’t move as the Alchemist steps forward, eyes as cold as the murky sea, feeling his breath catch at the other man’s comparatively calm words.

”I think I’ll be heading back to the shore now,” he says in a voice that does its best to remain steady. It’s not a disagreement, which may as well be an acknowledgement in the moment. ”For what it’s worth, I don’t think you were unkind until this moment. And I don’t think I was lying, either.” Times changed, like the wind and the pull of the tides.

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

he said "i bet you don't remember me"

It is very easy to fall into a place of anger when faced with the truth of things. Hearing this truth from a face that so mirrors his own made what he hears all the more apt. Or so somewhat else might have said of the words exchanged out on the waters. In the moment, Remi can only hear the sound of waves; can only see Finn's lips as they say the word unkind.

"I never said I was otherwise." The Alchemist says under his breath, the words dark and sad. The others..Amalia and Sam wanted him to be the man he was. It was...so strange to meet someone who'd never known that man, but still missed him, somehow. Still wished for him to be around. But there it was: the pain that Remi's kindness yielded him. The utter disregarded when that kindness went away.

Swallowing hard as Finn goes back towards the shoreline, Remi feels both a snarl on his lips as well as tears pricking the back of his eyes. Dizzy with dissonance, the Alchemist releases his Hel. Before he can drop into the water, he's already shifted into a much smaller creature whose belly skims the waves before shooting straight up into the clouds.

~FINn

THE ALCHEMIST

and i said, "only every other memory".