the little prince

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

Remi doesn't flinch at all as his toe is reset. He's likely suffered nerve damage for having left it broken for so long, but he hardly even notices. While it's true that Remi has showered much more recently than has previously been his custom, he is not clean by medical standards. As such Isla's cleaning will likely result in having to remove Greatwood grime from his body before she can actually do anything about his various wounds.

"I think I'm good. The last thing I want is to think of you as Jigano, while you're touching me." Remi replies, scrunching his nose and shivering to underscore the repulsiveness of it.

"That's a good idea. Soon there will be nowhere in all of Caido I won't have bad memories of." Letting his head loll to the side to watch as she works, the alchemist shrugs softly. "You're planning on staying here for the foreseeable future, then?"

Isla

It's true that there's a lot of grime to get rid of, and Isla abandons the more specialised disinfectant for a moment to get a bowl of good old warm water, carefully wiping the alchemist clean so she might be able to actually do something for him. Scoffing at him, she gives his forearm a gentle pinch as if to assure him that she definitely isn't Jigano, especially while she is touching him.

There's something desperately sad in what Remi says, regardless of the warm and jovial tone he tries to inject, and Isla pauses for a second to gaze up at her friend. "I don't think a place exists where you can only have good memories," she says, reaching out to wipe at his face with a grin. "Yeah, I think I will be. I'd have come to the Greatwood but I feel like I won't be so welcome there."

Now that he's clean, Isla starts to work on the deeper cuts and lacerations first. "This is the only part of Caido I've ever known, anyway."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

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

"owwwwww." Remi grumbles, rubbing at his arm. "I thought doctors were supposed to do no harm." Still, it's better than thinking of Isla's slightly-cold fingers as belonging to the bard.

Even with dream magic and the ability to create entire worlds, the realm of the unreal wasn't even an entirely happy place. Sure it was where his son had been conceived and how he and Ronin had stayed connected to one another, but it was also a place of wicked nightmares that clawed at the back of his eyelids but left not a single mark. Exhaling in such a way as to puff out his cheeks before releasing the air, Remi playfully snaps his teeth at Isla's hand as she swats at his face.

"Well, I'm planning a trek into a lovely part of the world called the Feverlands, where almost everything is deadly if you'd like to come along and broaden your horizons." Remi suggests with a bright smile. "Remember the Mathair? The one Wessex and co. destroyed to open a portal? Turns out there really was a goddess in there."

Was this the sort of thing he should be telling an ascended? No.
Did Remi even remotely consider the possibility of editing the things he said to Isla?
Also no.

Isla

"I didn't do you any harm," Isla protests, her voice a bit muffled where she's holding a strip of dressing between her teeth. She of course doesn't intend to use it on Remi - it's spare from the cleaning - but she doesn't have any spare hands. Once she has patched up his chest and torso, she finally sits back and smiles to him, booping him on the nose for good measure.

The Feverlands? Her eyebrows arch to hear the name of somewhere so different from the tiny box she's found herself in, the medic already looking as though she's mentally packing her belongings to leave with him... but she hesitates.

"I can't. Not just yet, at least. The Ascended are trying to get rid of the LongNight monsters, and there's so much to do here..." She sighs. "It feels like I just arrived all over again, you know?"

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

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

"I think I should be the judge of that. And I feel very harmed." Remi argues, resisting the urge to reach out and pull at the bandage between her teeth to force her head to shake. Instead he remains still while she attends to his many wounds, flaring his nostrils for good measure as she concludes her work with a boop to his nose.

Perhaps it's because she's so similar to him in this that he recognizes the spark of excitement before it's doused out. Sitting up slightly (this causing some ointment to ooze from where the skin on his stomach wrinkles together), the alchemist lets his eyes roam over Isla for a moment as he considers arguing. "LongNight is weeks away yet." He tries. "This will only take a few days. A week at most." He had no idea how far the Feverlands were, but both he and Juniper could fly, and it would be easy enough to carry Isla along.

"Mmm." Remi agrees with a sullen nod. "I still don't see why the LongNight monster issue isn't dealt with by simply not being here."

Isla

"I don't believe it," Isla says ever so sweetly as she takes the bandage from her teeth. The urge to reach out to pinch his cheek is almost irresistible, and it's only the fact that he's sitting up and smooshing about her good work that stops her - she bats at him instead. "It is weeks away..." There's that smile again, the medic flicking her eyes up to meet Remi's. "And the Ascended don't need the infirmary all that much..."

There was never any doubt, truly. An adventure? It has been far too long since she's had one of those. "Listen, the Hollowed Grounds isn't your problem any more. You leave the monsters to us, okay?" Isla scoffs and sits back, satisfied with her work. "Besides, someone will have to keep an eye on you to stop you breaking any more toes."

There is one snag though, Isla gazing sheepishly down at herself. "I'm not really a fighter, though. I don't want to end up as some silly damsel in distress."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

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

"Ow." Remi complains, holding onto the w sound far longer than is necessary. His accent makes it more charming than petulant, but the pucker of his lower lip makes up for it.

"No they really don't." Remi agrees, sitting up properly now. Reaching for his shirt, he raises his eyebrows at the medic, silently asking whether or not she's finished with him. Frowning a touch at that—leaving the monsters to the ascended creating a rather bad taste in his mouth—the alchemist brightens considerably at the mention of more broken toes. "Or fingers. Even larger bones, even. Who knows what sorts of things I'll get into. And if I go and get myself killed, all this hard work of yours will be for nothing." He gestures to himself as evidence.

"Hey—" Reaching out, his finger aiming to lift her chin, he gives his head a soft shake. "Just because you aren't a fighter doesn't mean you'll ever be some silly damsel. Even if you were in danger, you'd never be that."

Isla

"Baby," Isla informs him affectionately, giving him a nod that he can go ahead and put his shirt back on. It's a good thing, too, that the medic is well accustomed to seeing bodies as just that; because as gay and unavailable as Remi might be, he still possesses the sort of physique that sculptors want to carve out of marble. "I thought you just informed me that you couldn't get yourself killed any more," she protests as she scoots back to let him sit up properly.

(She doesn't protest too hard though, of course, because then he might change his mind about her coming along). About to say something else, Isla is cut off by his touch, and she manages a huff and a begrudging sigh of agreement, nodding to Remi. "Thank you. I appreciate that," she murmurs. "So will it just be the two of us?"

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

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

"Oh shush. I could have been lyings about that to get out of this exam for all you know." And honestly, he could have been.

Slipping his shirt over his head and tugging it down, Remi ruffles a hand through his curls as if that will in anyway wrangle them back into order. "You know you're always welcome to my abilities." He adds in a slightly lower tone, his gaze shifting away from hers with obvious bashfulness. Isla had drank from him only one time, but it had been memorable for all sorts of reasons. Even now, years and two-of-her-deaths-later, the thought of it still makes him blush.

"The ambassador for the Fae wants to come along. Juniper." Remi hasn't realized until now the implications of that, and he promptly clicks his teeth together. 'She's very reasonable.' He adds hastily.

Isla

"Well if you were, you're a terrible liar, and I still got to do the exam. So there," Isla says, giving him one last cursory check over before she's officially done with him. By which time, of course, he's bringing up the elephant in the room, and she clears her throat and glances away from him with a gentle shrug. Now neither of them are looking at each other, and Isla scoffs out a laugh as she realises how terribly awkward this is.

"I don't know why we're being like this," she says with a shake of her head. "It's just a transaction, right? Besides, I won't lie and say I'm not interested in what else you can do these days. I thought being a lion was fun enough." She grins.

Cringing a bit to hear that a Fae is coming with them, Isla raises her eyebrows at Remi as if asking if he's really thought this through. "I only just came back to life," she reminds him. "Please don't let this Juniper person kill me again."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

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

"Alright well...maybe it's just all part of a much larger plan?" Remi tries, his voice going quite high at the end as he crinkles his nose skeptically, clearly selling himself as an utter mastermind.

Of course Isla calls things as she sees them, and Remi can't help but laugh at the nervous energy he feels. But it's more than that, at least on his end. She's the only woman he'd ever been with and enjoyed it. Chemically-manufactured though it might have been (and really, what emotion isn't chemical, at some level), its left an impression. Looking suddenly quite boyish and flustered, Remi chuckles and shrugs. "I can't be a lion anymore, but a manticore is just as fun." He offers. "Or...I can create items from memories? Or perhaps you'd like to be able to leave your body and ghost about, for a bit?" He says all this like he's a waiter suggesting what appetizer Isla might like.

"I think you might like her, actually. She dared to try and put Wessex and the rest of the ascended who killed the fae on trial for it." Remi explains with a bit of a smug smile.

Isla

"Oh, is it? Well, clearly I am just too closed-minded to see your genius then, Remi Taliesin. Forgive this foolish medic her stupidity." The words say all the right things, but Isla's tone is far too shit-eating for it to be in any way convincing, and she's warming up again to the conversation (clearly, by the sass). That's probably why she chooses to focus on Remi the maitre'd rather than Remi-her-handsome-friend as he offers such an array of interesting abilities.

Still, there's only been one she's wanted to try since he very first mentioned it, and she all but cuts him off by squishing her hands against his cheeks to pucker his lips like a fish. "Manticore," she tells him, all but laughing out the word. Letting him go, more out of shock than anything, she rises to her feet to begin putting everything away, smiling over her shoulder. "Real justice, in a place like Caido? Say it isn't so. As long as there's no Bellamy parading in here with his version of a judicial system, I am all for it."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything

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

"Honestly, you're playing right into my hands." Remi agrees, nodding sagely and a touch condescendingly.

His fish-lips pucker at her as he's cut off, and it's only the brightness of his smile that releases him from her grasp, given how round his cheeks have become at the thought. 'Good choice.' Remi says with hearty and sunny approval. "I can teach you to fly." This is said with an excitement that surprises even the alchemist. Of all those he's ever taught, none will come close to what it might be like with Isla.

'Mmm, even in a place like Caido." Taking advantage of Isla's turned back to slyly adjust his pants—the medic might have described things as transactional, but there were few transactions Remi was in the habit of experiencing that would make him want to fuck his back-from-the-dead best friend—before bursting out in a surprised laugh. "Gods, that's a name I haven't heard of in a while." Shaking his head and ruffling a hand through his hair, the alchemist lets his smile fade slightly. "I don't think anything ever came of it. Wessex declined I think, as one might have expected and...well. Juniper had nothing to really back things up with." There might have been more to it, but the alchemist had bigger things on his plate than holding Wessex accountable for crimes committed in years past.

Isla

"I should have known that was what you'd want," Isla says, feigning outrage and firmly not thinking about what those hands might feel like. Because they are friends, and she is a doctor - his doctor, at this present moment - and yes, the last time she and Remi were actually alone together as people was years ago in this very infirmary and--

"To fly?" Maybe there's a bit too much enthusiasm there but hey, it's fine, Isla turning to smile brightly to him. "Would you be able to teach me as a person, too? I mean - with the--" She gestures vaguely over her shoulders, obviously meaning when Remi is able to manifest his wings without shifting completely.

She's more than happy to leave thoughts of Bellamy and trials behind, honestly, Isla shaking her head as if to say it figures. "I can't believe things have gotten to this point," she confesses regarding the Ascended. "Do you think there is a way back? I have seen enough war."

sooner or later, we all have to wake
and try forgetting everything