these shallow waters never met what I needed

REMI

Remi can still feel Sunjata's blood on his arms and shoulders, even though it isn't there.

Even though it never was.

Remi leaves the Flood's home after placing a pillow beneath Ronin and Sunjata's heads, where they lay collapsed together on the floor. When they'll wake up the alchemist has no idea. With Ronin's magic gone, the pair will likely slumber until their bodies decide it's time to wake. And that suits Remi just fine for now.

With shaky wings and an unsteady mind the Lullaby arrives at Vai's home. He doesn't bother to knock, and should the door be locked, Remi will happily break it. It's the least of the things he's done so far. Letting his eyes shift that he might see better in the candlelight, Remi blinks at the unfamiliar layout (Vai having lived with he and Ronin, before setting up here), before softly calling out—"...vai?"—in a voice so small and fractured compared to the one which had whispered death to Jata only moments before.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

A famously light sleeper, Vai is halfway down the stairs of the little house by the time Remi's voice hits the air, the witch moving gingerly but still silently for the most part. Her healing skill is masterful, of that there is no doubt, but there's only so much she can do for herself in such a state. Until her energy returns, the worst of the cuts and bruises will remain, though the particularly deep lacerations on her body are nothing more, now, than stark pink lines. Most lay beneath the oversized shirt she's wearing, but one in particular stripes across the right side of her cheek as a permanent reminder of what has come to pass.

"Remi--" she whispers back, barely waiting until she has reached the bottom of the stairs before holding her arms open for him, intent - obviously - on enveloping him in a hug. "You heard?" she guesses. "I'm alright now, I promise." Not that the reassurance will do much, she imagines. Remi has always felt things deeply, and that was before he was equipped with so much power.

and the sun
will rise

REMI

'What are you doing up?' The alchemist wonders, though his voice is free of the boyish admonishment she might be expecting. Instead, he sounds quite serious, though perhaps that's just a hangover from what has recently come to pass. Grumbling an affirmation into her neck, Remi's arms wrap around the witch with a delicateness that his mood shouldn't have been able to afford. Instantly he feels her pain and confusion, her exhaustion and unedited love for all of them. For Zeph for trying to help, for Sunjata despite whatever he has or hasn't done.

Remi doesn't reply to her reassurance that she's alright. She isn't, but it isn't worth arguing about.

Pulling his arms back, his hands cup the sides of her face that he might see more clearly what is left of her assault. His eyes, dark in the low light, scour her not like a son looking upon his mother, but a hunter investigating tracks. There is a story here, regardless of what has been healed.

"It wasn't Sunjata." He offers at last, green eyes refocusing to see the woman before him as more than just an amalgamation of injuries.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

Vai can only raise her eyebrows at Remi as if to ask what he thinks she'd possibly be doing asleep. "I was attacked by someone I didn't see, and then I heard someone sneaking around downstairs in my house," she points out, her voice still a hushed whisper. "I'm just glad it was you, otherwise I might have reacted poorly." Without prejudice, she means. Luckily it is Remi, and the witch folds into his embrace with a shaky sigh.

When he draws back she lets him make her inspections; a hunter and a tracker at heart, Vai knows the concentration writ upon his features all too well. And so she is still and quiet to let Remi look at the fading cuts, vibrant pink scars and rainbow of bruises on her body. She lets him do what she still can't do; look at herself properly.

It wasn't Sunjata. There's no reason for Vai to merely take the Lullaby's words as gospel - and yet, she absolutely does. She trusts the man before her implicitly, and Remi has ways of investigation that no other can rival. And so Vai's shoulders sag, and she leans into his hug a second time, her relief more obvious to him than to anyone else in the world in that moment.

"I had hoped I was wrong," she whispers. "But then... who? It sounded so much like him, Remi. And I ended up outside his house."

and the sun
will rise

REMI

Remi frowns, his upset carving deep lines beside his lips. "Why isn't Zeph here?" He wonders, sternly glancing about as if the guildmaster might just suddenly appear. Not that Zephyr was the best line of defence, but still. He'd looked Remi in the eyes and promised to take care of Vai.

And now here they were.

"Do you remember when you found me in the woods, so waterlogged and confused I couldn't fly or shift back and walk myself home?" Softly said, Remi might have smiled at the memory were it not for the decadence of damage sprawled across Vai's skin.

As the witch sags against him, Remi wishes that Ronin were here if only to fully remove the lingering hurt that Vai was still too weak to heal himself. But he wasn't. He was asleep with Sunjata, powerless, and picking sides, leaving Remi feeling alone and petty in his anger. Softly the alchemist's fingers stretch around Vai, her body feeling infinitely small and delicate beneath the oversized shirt covering the worst of her injuries. 'I don't know.' Her relief is a luxury Remi doesn't share. That it wasn't Sunjata just left more questions, namely the one the witch speaks next.

"I don't know, but I intend to find out." He says through a snarl, Vai's curls catching the worst of Remi's hatred as he breathes in her soft sea breeze scent.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"Zeph is here," Vai says simply, nodding up the stairs. "We were both trying to get some sleep, but... living in the forest teaches you to always keep one eye open, right?" An easy enough way of saying I left him snoring, though for how long that will remain the case is anyone's guess. Drawing back enough to smile up at him, she reaches out to cup his cheek, barely able to compare the man before her now to that boy in the woods. But he's still there - Vai can always find him. "How could I forget?" she murmurs.

He snarls out what they both know he's going to say, and as she hugs the alchemist back, it's with a strength that shows the line of steel that runs through Vai's character. "Well, when you do find out, you let me have the first swing, okay?" she mutters, a frown knotting her brows together. "I've got a lot of questions for whoever it was."

and the sun
will rise

REMI

Remi's gaze is sterner still as Vai implies that Zeph is still upstairs asleep. "He should be awake at the foot of your bed. It should have been him to meet me, not you." On this, the alchemist won't budge. It isn't that the witch can't hold her own, so much as it seemed that Zephyr couldn't.

Looking down at her, her hands soft against his cheeks, Remi can't even find the will to smile back at her despite the fond memories that now stretch across years and years between them. There is no amount of rain that can slow him down now, and no amount of maternal kindness that will sway him from what he's already (foolishly) committed himself to do.

'I'm not sure I can promise that.' Remi says, honestly and gravely. His fury is held back by a feather-light trigger at this point, and it'll likely be Remi's own bristling feathers that set him off. The world feels so wrong all of a sudden—with Isla fighting an entirely unnecessary battle, Ronin comforting Sunjata rather than Vai (or, sulkily, him), Mateo with a complete stranger, Amalia taking direction from the blow-job priest, Vai putting on a brave face for all of them— and the only thing Remi knows how to do anymore is kill and carve a way forward.

And it had felt so good cutting Sunjata's throat.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"That isn't for you to decide," Vai tells Remi simply, with as much affection and firmness as she can without saying it outight; it's not your relationship and it's not your business. But then again, the same can be said for what happens next, for the uncertainty regarding whether Vai would have a chance to get a piece of whoever decided to attack her. And so the witch softens again - she doesn't expect smiles, she doesn't expect anything any more. She merely takes the alchemist as he is - whatever he's become.

"Can you promise me you'll come back to me after, at least?" she asks, leaning in to press a kiss to his stubbled cheek. "If that person dies, whoever it was and however it happens... just come back and tell me, okay? Consider it a favour to me." Partially it's a tether for Remi to hold onto. And partially it's so Vai can feel a little safer in the world, knowing her assailant isn't in it.

and the sun
will rise

REMI

Though Remi says nothing, his opinion of Zeph is almost as immovable as he currently is, adonis-like and stubbornly stood at the bottom of Vai's stairs.

Her request isn't immediately answered. Once, he'd have promised her anything. Now though, worlds away from the man he once was, the alchemist bites the inside of his cheek, his mind coloured by the bruises still on her face and neck. "I'll find out who it is." He vows at last, his shoulders relaxing a fraction. 'And if I can, I will bring them here. You deserve to look them in the eye for what they did to you. And if I can, I will give you that."

But could he? Gods, he doesn't know.

"Ronin is here too. He may come by." Now there is little warmth in the alchemist's tone, only a bristly sort of distance. Remi is most certainly letting this emotion fester, recent though the wound might be. But things are going to get worse certainly before they get better, and so for now, the alchemist simply lets his husband do as he sees fit, while Remi does the same.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

Strange though it might sound, but Vai has never considered Remi so much like her son than in this moment. When he's needed her she's been there, and their relationship has been built on that foundation of love and acceptance. But here, stubborn and stoic and near murderous with his determination - it ought to be wrong, that she draws similarities between them. But she does, the witch smiling softly and nodding to him. "Thank you," she says, her voice warm and earnest. "But if you can't...? That's okay too, Remi."

Then he mentions Ronin, and where he usually thaws at the mention of the Star, now Remi only seems colder, frostier than ever. "...What has happened between the two of you?" she asks, unable not to sound a little wary about it. She doesn't ask if he wants to sit, if he wants tea - there are times when that's appropriate, and with Remi taut like a bowstring, this is not one of them.

and the sun
will rise

REMI

It should be strange, but it isn't. Once, there was a time Vai might still have disowned him. Days he might have ruined things and thus been cast out of her ragtag family. But now there were years and worlds that separated the pair from those moments. Vai was his mother for better or worse. Disappointment and disapproval couldn't change that now.

But as she speaks the words that align with the sentiments he'd needed to hear from Ronin, something within the Lullaby does unexpectedly soften. Leaning forward that he might draw her against him once again, Remi closes his eyes against tears that just won't come. He's still too riled and furious to break quite that way despite how the moment might call for it. "I'm so sorry this happened to you." That I wasn't here, he wants to say, but even he isn't so egotistical to think he can prevent every harm that befalls his family.

"He's with Sunjata." Remi replies. It's both an answer to her question as well as a simple statement of fact.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"Mm... I'm sorry too. I haven't taken a beating like that in a long while. I was much younger too, last time it happened. And I at least managed to get a few punches in back then - can't say as much for now." Vai smiles nonetheless, and as Remi draws her in again, she lets her arms slip around him in a hug that feels more for him this time than the other way around. "Still, I'll heal. There will be scars, but there are always scars. I won't let this get the better of me."

That Ronin is with Sunjata isn't actually that much of a surprise to Vai, the witch peering up at Remi and reaching up to muss at his curls. There's guilt on her face now, and she exhales a long, deep sigh. "I bet Sunny is... I can't believe I thought it was him," she mutters. "How did you figure out it wasn't?" A dangerous question, not that Vai is aware of that.

and the sun
will rise

REMI

The words are too lightly said, and each one makes the alchemist grind his teeth just that much harder. That there had ever been a before makes him want to be sick; that Vai is growing older, perhaps weaker, is a knowledge that no son, however strong, can easily bear. 'Scars aren't so bad. Not the skin-deep ones, anyway.' Not that Remi needs to tell Vai that.

Remi abides the motherly fingers in his curls, but he doesn't lean into the witch's affections quite the way he normally does. Running his tongue against the top row of his teeth, now sharp in his mouth, the alchemist just shakes his head. "There's no one else with that accent." He adds unhelpfully. It wasn't an accent native to this world. How could it be anyone but him?

Remi doesn't stiffen exactly, so much as he withdraws without even moving. The light in his eyes fades, his expression dims, and his breathing slows. Had he come here covered in blood it all might have been so much clearer. His remarks about Ronin might have made more sense. But none of that is the case, and because it isn't, and because the alchemist has no words to reconcile what he did, with Ronin's reaction, the Remi simply shakes his head again. "I have my ways." The words are vague and grave and entirely invite speculation, not that Remi seems as though he's planning on saying anything more on the subject.

back when i was living for the hope of it all

Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"Mm. Skin-deep or otherwise, all scars fade though," she says, as a reminder to him as well as to herself. She'll come back from this, the sun will rise again, and things will feel less low. Less heavy. At least that's what she has to tell herself as she gazes up at Remi, as he offers a perfectly logical reason behind her assumption that it was Sunjata, and it still does very little to help. Things only get worse at the way he simply... switches off.

If she didn't know better Vai would assume the alchemist had become Ascended, for all the light that flees his eyes. Instinctively she reaches out, fingers smoothing across his shirt as if to feel the beat of his heart, to check he's still warm. I have my ways. "Okay," she says slowly. "Okay, well... leave your ways at the door when you visit me, please." She tries on a smile for him, though it's as fragile as everything else around them.

and the sun
will rise