Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
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right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Hearing the stirring of hope in his husband's voice causes a flutter that's as painful as it is beautiful to ruffle its wings in Remi's chest. "It...it feels like everything always has to be perfect, to make up for how un-perfect our lives actually are. It feels like I can't ever be upset, or not-okay with you, or else it ruins what little time we have together." Exhaling in such a way as to cause his cheeks to puff out, Remi closes his eyes. "That's what I meant about it starting back at the blight. Ever since you were sick, we started to try and make up for the time we lost. And then there was Aoife..and Torchline, and being Governor, and then I was sick, and then we were apart, and...its felt like we just keep pretending this isn't actually our lives, but just a pause before we get back to being us." Falling silent, Ronin ever the more eloquent of the two, Remi just swallows and lets his head hang.
'I wanted to kill him.' Remi admits. 'I can't not. Not when it's so easy. When everything inside of me craves that sort of violence.' How can you possibly love me? The alchemist wonders silently, tears stinging his eyes anew. "No, and maybe it wasn't, but.." Pushing his fingers against his closed eyelids, Remi bites the inside of his cheek that he might temper the words he's going to say with some sort of reason. But he doesn't know how to say what he feels with any sort of grace or composure, and so for a long time, he just sits, glaring at the floor and clenching his teeth together
"I don't know if it all started when you dreamed with Sunjata when he was a boy, but your need to make him okay is..." Fuck, that wasn't how he meant to start things. "It can't keep coming at my expense." Truthfully Remi doesn't know if it's jealousy at this point, but even if it is, Ronin is right in that they can't keep hiding how they feel. "You made sure he was alright before you even went to Vai." Remi points out, as if that matters or is fair, since you know, both your characters. "While I just got a hug, and are you okay? no? oh well. Sunjata and I were able to talk things through in about 5 minutes without you there needing to vilify me and be his saviour." That comes out a far more curt than Remi would ever had intended, but gods if the memory of how Ronin had acted wasn't still a bright and blistering thing.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin can't disagree, because his husband has hit the nail on the head. Huffing out a sigh that's an unintentional echo of Remi's gesture, he nods, even if the other man can't see it. "That is where it started," he agrees, his voice a near whisper. "...Pretending. You're right, and I've been doing it too. Everything has to be perfect. I can't ever mention when I think something has gone too far. I can't not pretend to accept you, even when your behaviour is upsetting, because what would we have then?" With so little time together, if they spend it all picking each other to pieces, is that any better than pretending it's okay? Ronin doesn't know, honestly. But it led to just as tragic an outcome in the end.
It's a bitter thing, to hear that his husband had wanted to kill Sunjata. But then... if it wasn't Sunjata, can Ronin really say he can't condone it? His mind harks back to Cian in the White Hart, to his cold and dangerous assurance of death upon the Eye. He had wanted to kill him. It would have been easy, and it had been an itch worth scratching at the time. "Why?" he wonders out loud. "Why do you crave it so much?" It's not a judgement as much as it's curiosity; it's not something he's ever asked Remi before.
Then the real whipcrack comes, and Ronin presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, letting out a shuddering breath. "No, I know," he begins, his throat wanting to close around the words. "I just... With Sunjata, since that dream... It's like I can do for him what I couldn't do for Aoife. I can be there, I can save him, and I..." His hands drop away, Ronin drawing in a shuddering breath. "And it's not real. It's not my place. I'm sorry."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
What would they have. That was the question. Or perhaps more importantly, would they want it if it's what they had? Could they survive it?
The alchemist stills slightly, his gaze wandering over his shoulder to where the outline of his husband's leg folds into the darkness of the bed. "It would be easier if you were a predator." He murmurs, almost apologetically, looking at one of his hands. "I could make you feel it, though it isn't like I feel it now." Letting his hand drop back to his lap, Remi sits up as if better posture might help his communication. "It's like...the same sort of thing that makes your stomach rumble and your mouth water if you smell something sweet. And it's all the stronger when it's right in front of you. Doesn't matter if it's someone else's, or if you're on a diet, or if you're really not that hungry. Only it's...more frenzied than that, I suppose." Frustrated with his own lack of verbal skills, Remi ruffles a hand through his curls and heaves out a sigh. "The types of predators I am...they don't outrun their prey. They don't lay in wait. They attack. Smelling his fear...seeing the pulse of his veins and feeling the power and the desire bubble up, it's..." The breath Remi breathes in next is one laced with guilt. "..it's intoxicating and arousing and satisfying. And it's always hard to resist."
Remi's throat goes dry, and though he knows this is what they need to work through, what they need to be saying to one another, the urge to turn around and press his lips against Ronin's if only to stop all of this in its tracks is suddenly strong enough that the alchemist has to bite his tongue to keep himself in place.
"Aoife...that changed us." Remi agrees. "But I don't like this saviour complex in you. Not your need to help," He quickly clarifies, "-but you and I are far too broken to act like we know what's best for anyone else."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
That's the thing, though, with all of this. They need to figure it out, because they've done the alternative, the pretending it's perfect, and that doesn't work either. The not knowing, the potential for it all to go wrong... it's important. It's a constant work in progress. It's a line they'll be living on for the rest of their lives, if they choose to walk the path together.
Ronin is quiet to give Remi all the space to explain that he's able, the quiet fracturing of starlight out of his body casting ghoulish shadows across the walls. He manages to sit himself up as well, to draw in a full breath and to wipe at wet cheeks. Slowly, he nods. "That makes sense," he says softly. "For the first time since we became all of this, it makes sense. I didn't - I couldn't get it. And it would be easier if I were a predator."
A sad laugh almost hiccups from his lips. "I don't suppose phoenixes are predators, though," he mutters, pressing a finger into the palm of the opposite hand, stifling down the urge for feathers to spring out of his fingers. "Safrin returned my power. She gave me a new shift. I didn't have to sleep with her." An odd combination of phrases to be sure, but hopefully it conveys what Ronin means.
Silently, he grabs at one of the extra blankets on the bed, offering it down so Remi doesn't have to sit naked on the cold floor. "I don't like it either," he confesses. "Especially when it's so often hypocritical. I'm not a saviour. But you're not a villain, either. It feels like you give up too easily, these days, on people. On wanting to be part of things. Like the Lullaby is an excuse not to bother."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi turns around properly at that, Ronin's starlight making his eyes look impossibly pale green as he frowns up at the Star. "Pheonixes?" He repeats with a curious tilt to his head. They've been down this demigod path long enough now that Remi can all but guess what has happened, but a phoenix?
But then Ronin explains and Remi's expression darkens considerably as he turns away. "She did, did she. Out of the kindness of her heart, I expect?" Because if Ronin knew about Vi and his intervention, he'd likely have already said something about it.
That bitch.
Mumbling a thank you—or at least a guttural sort of noise that sounds appreciative—Remi wraps it around himself, loving and hating the way it smells of Ronin. Chewing the inside of his cheek thoughtfully, Remi lets the words sink in for a moment before softly exhaling. "After Aoife...After Isla...I think I thought if I could be content with you and only you, especially with what we are now, I'd never have to feel that sort of loss again." Remi looks down, his eyes blurring away the details of the blanket because of the tears dropping onto the material. "She was so perfect." He whispers. "And everyone else is so broken, that it's..it's hard to want to love anyone else, after her. It's hard to care about them."
Not Ronin of course, but their friends? Birthdays and weddings, dinner parties and crushes...gods it was all so meaningless when held up against Aoife's smile.
"I also don't know how." Remi adds, leaning back against the bed slightly. "I don't know how to be the thing that might end up at your door and end all of your tomorrows, but also to talk about baking, or the weather." Remi's laugh is dry, but a touch warmer than it might have otherwise been, if not for the blanket now wrapped around him.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Phoenixes." Ronin raises his hand as Remi turns properly to look at him, his arm fanning out with crimson feathers that pulse a crackling golden, threatening to ignite at any moment before he lets them fold away again. The moment of levity is short-lived before Remi makes it all too clear, in tone and the way he turns away, about his feeling son the subject of Safrin doing anything kind. And Ronin, in his blissful ignorance, can't help but voice it this time.
"I know you despise her, but it makes things extremely uncomfortable, to have you pull down the shutters whenever I mention her," he murmurs. "Like it or not, she's the reason I'm even here to have this conversation with you. It doesn't matter where we go, what happens... I'll always have a tie to her. I'll always have to see her. And sometimes I'll have to do things that make us both unhappy, to avoid consequences like the ones I had last time."
He has nothing to offer, though, in the wake of Remi's grief, and Ronin has to clench his fists to avoid reaching for the other man. He isn't sure if the gesture would be appreciated, and at the same time, it won't fix anything. "We could see her again," he blurts suddenly. "The magic we both have, but... I'm scared that we'll never come back." Scared, rather, that Remi would never come back. He's already dreamed up a world where Aoife is there, and it was hard enough to leave back then.
She was perfect, though. Remi is right in that much. Ronin can't help but snort, though, about what the Lullaby says next. "That's good, because last I checked, you hated talking about baking and the weather anyway. Inventions and science are more your bag."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
'I'm sensing a theme among your shifts, Ronin." The alchemist says, and the playfulness in his voice is short-lived if only because of how much it hurts. Quickly he clears his throat, the joy burning on the way down.
'I don't despise her.' Remi corrects, his voice dark and his expression suddenly cold. "I hate her with everything I am. And if you knew what I did, you would hate her too. You'd not be able to even look at her." Quickly Remi has to clamp down on his emotions lest they seep out into the attuned bond he's also trying to keep shuttered. Licking his tongue over his teeth which are now shark-like and ragged, the alchemist shakes his head. "I can't explain it without breaking my vow to Ludo and risking our son's life, but...believe me when I say that I am not overreacting. I will never be okay with her." Picking at a bit of fluff on the blanket, Remi pulls in a breath and releases it as calmly as he can. "But it was Vi who made her give you your powers back." He adds.
The conversational waves have Remi fighting for breath, and as he looks over his shoulder at Ronin, all he can do is offer his husband a tight-lipped smile. "I know." He whispers, clenching his teeth hard enough that the tension in his jaw changes the shape of his face. "I know it doesn't seem like it right now, but I wouldn't trade away what we have now. But...Aoife...it isn't even just her. She represents a time when we were at our best." Ronin back from the dead, their love new and in full bloom. A guildhall full of potential and their daughter's bright eyes and singing voice.
Ronin's laugh hurts him to hear, leaving the alchemist pulling the blanket up over his shoulders as if to protect himself from the sweetness of it. "I don't mean to be so distant from everyone, I just...I don't care about the things they do."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin wants to cling onto the uplift in mood, even though he knows that, right now at least, it's just another coping mechanism to avoid talking about the difficult things. His lips part as if to object as Remi begins his tirade about Safrin - he doesn't believe him, that he doesn't despise her - but then the alchemist continues, and Ronin shifts on the bed as if he's uncomfortable. "I didn't know. Why didn't you explain at least that much?" he asks. "You said, when we got Mateo, that there was something you couldn't talk about. I didn't know it was about Safrin."
And already his stomach is churning to find out what it could be, and only knowing what it would mean for Mateo stops him from asking further questions. So, with heat in his cheeks and eyes that still prickle, Ronin huffs out a long sigh and rolls his shoulders. Don't, he wants to say as Remi twists the knife with the news about Vi. Don't make the only comfort I've had lately be a lie.
But it is a lie, and it's a sad reality where Ronin believes Remi so easily over his goddess.
The Lullaby's smile doesn't seem to fit their conversation, tight-lipped as it might be, and Ronin finds himself on his feet all of a sudden, restless of the turmoil they're in. "You keep saying it as if our best will never happen again. As if we're over the peak already, and it's just downhill forever from here. It... it can be exhausting," he confesses.
Glancing over his shoulder to Remi, he furrows his brow sadly. "What do you care about, Remi?"
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
"Why did it take you until now to wonder why I disliked her so much?" The alchemist counters. It doesn't make Remi's lack of communication justified though, and he realizes it instantly. "It's all linked together. Ludo said if I ever said a word about it, it would take Mateo away." Remi fidgets, obviously wanting to say more especially given the honest tone of their conversation, but being unable to. "I know you are only here because of her...and I never want you to feel like you can't talk to me about her, even though it must feel exactly that way but I...I don't know what to do, and I can't even ask anyone for help."
Ronin doesn't ask more about Vi, about how Remi knows and what was said, and for now the alchemist lets it go. What Vi had said about balance and how they might stand together while keeping things as they should be, feels a little too sweet and hopeful on the heels of everything they've both just confessed.
'It feels that way. With who we are now. What we're expected to do. Stormbreak this, war that...and now we can't even die to escape it." Remi barks a hollow laugh to punctuate the sentiment, though it's entirely possible that you've got to be the demigod of death to find humour in something so dark.
Ronin's question has the alchemist frowning into his hands again. Feeling lost and small and worthless, the Lullaby just shakes his head. "I don't know anymore. Somedays it feels like nothing at all. Or that there isn't time for what I do and don't care about."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I just figured that it was because of Seren," Ronin murmurs, passing both hands through his dark hair and pressing his eyes shut. "Or because of anything else she's done, over the time since I came back from the stars and now." Because there's a lot of it, and even Ronin can admit that. His hands move now to rub at the back of his neck, and slowly he turns to gaze at his husband. Ronin is only in a pair of sweatpants, but at least one of them is sort of dressed.
"Ludo made the deal with you," he says, hesitant and unsure because... well, he has no idea what Remi is hiding, and whilst he wants to help, he can't risk their son. "Perhaps you could ask it to adjust the terms...? And I think I ought to say more about her, honestly. It feels like walking on eggshells, waiting for the right time to drop her name into conversation." And that's no way for either of them to live.
Slouching to lean against the wall nearest the bed, it almost breaks Ronin's heart to hear Remi speak; partially because he's correct and partially because wanting to fix it is precisely the sort of bullshit that has patched over reality for so long now. "No time," he agrees, letting out a shaky sigh. "Yeah... there's just... no time to breathe anymore, is there. To figure out what to do, or who we are..."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
The alchemist shakes his head. "It...at the time it was strange to think of you having sex with a goddess, but now especially with the things we've agreed on...It's more understandable if anything." Another misunderstanding between them. "I think you should too. She's a big part of your life and hiding that away, even if you think you're doing me a favour, is still hiding you." Gods, the things they've put each other through in thinking that they were being protective.
"I remember when Zariah had me doing things for her, and I was so angry that she used me as a tool. And now I feel like it's all I'll let anyone use me for now. Just what I can do for them, but not who I am." Because who I am doesn't matter. Remi had thought that back when he was a commoner, but at least there had been a him, in those days. Now the Lullaby felt more like an empty husk than ever he had before.
"Do you love anyone else?" Remi asks quietly, looking at the floor. Because...well, if they're going to do this, then they need to do all of it.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin doesn't know why that's the thing that breaks him, but to hear that it's okay to talk about Safrin, that it's not taboo or wrong, that it won't cause harm; it has silent tears tracking his cheeks. He nods, unable to speak at first, and exhales a trembling breath to try and pull himself. "Thank you," he mumbles. "For that, and for telling me everything. About Safrin, about Vi..." He frowns, then, as if the penny has suddenly dropped. "How did you know it was Vi?"
His eyes blur again, quietly forlorn to hear Remi speak so, and he shifts to sit on the floor against the wall. "I joined the Order," he mumbles, figuring it best to just get it all out now. "I was going to suggest just... starting something. Just for you, like your old guild, or your shop. It would just be yours, because I... yeah. I'm part of it now."
Does he love anyone else, though? Ronin lifts his eyes, the blue made paler by the light that splinters out of him. "Not like I love you," he mumbles. "I love Safrin. I love my daughters, and our son. I love Vanya for what she gave me, and our friends. I want them to be safe, and happy. But... no. I don't love anyone in the same way that I love you." He tilts his head. "Do you?"
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi presses his fingertips against his eyes and presses, furious at them both that they'd harboured so much against one another that could be undone so quickly. They'd assumed and smoothed things over so often that splinters grew into knots that tripped them up constantly.
Their marriage had? was? did? nearly end over what suddenly felt like nothing.
Biting the inside of his lip and glancing only slightly over his shoulder, Remi pauses as if there's something that makes him hesitate. "Because I was there." And then knowing that Ronin would no doubt ask him to explain, the alchemist slumps slightly. "I flew. Up. And then up some more, to try and find Vi." Remi continues, his voice soft and ashamed. "I said I'd gone too far. That I'd grown too strong and without you, there was no one—mortal anyway—who could hold me accountable. Who could..make me do anything." This at least sounds a little like the old Remi. The man uncomfortable with how strong he'd become, who didn't understand quite what he was anymore. "I only said she'd take your powers away, and he summoned her to explain."
Watching Ronin move as if they were two caged animals negotiating a space too small for them to coexist peacefully, Remi raises his eyebrows. It isn't so surprising, and yet? "So you're going to stay in Stormbreak then? You...live there, here, now?" Remi bites the inside of his cheek to keep away the snarl and the sob that wants to twist his lips, and he forces his eyes down to the floorboards. "My old guild.." He says with a dry snort. "In a land with Sera's, who can make anything, and everything better than I ever could?" What would the point of it be?
"I suppose I meant are you in love with anyone else." Remi clarifies in a voice that's raw and dry now, unable to meet Ronin's gaze. However as the question is returned, Remi just shakes his head. "I don't think so, no. What I felt for Ianto is..quite faded, now." Real love doesn't go away entirely, Remi has learned. But it quiets. 'And I love Isla. More than a friend, but less than being in love." It was hard not to, after what and how they were together, both recently and in the past.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Too relieved and upset to be furious just yet, Ronin almost feels a laugh try to bubble up at the back of his throat. Because it's funny in a sick sort of way, that having these sorts of conversations, far from making things more difficult for the two of them, has the ability, just perhaps, to save them both.
"You were there?" he asks, but Remi is already explaining, and the Star slumps further against the wall as if he's trying to sink right into it. It makes something twist and squeeze in the pit of his stomach, to hear the other man speak so. He isn't sure if it's relief or fear or shame for what Remi has become, until eventually it settles on a warmth that he can only recognise as love.
"...And do you believe that?" he whispers. "That I can hold you accountable? Because I think I've been doing a terrible job of it so far. But I want to be that person for you, if you'll let me." Ronin almost wants to smile, but he isn't quite able to. But he can see it now in his mind's eye - Vi, the stoic deity they'd encountered at the Celestine; Safrin in her starlit beauty and Remi. Remi on wings of a hawk with the heavens as a backdrop, pleading to the highest of authorities on both of their behalfs.
Then it comes to Stormbreak, it comes to the Order, and Ronin nods gravely. "Yes," he murmurs. "At least for now, anyway. And I..." He inhales deeply. "I'd like you to live here too. I know you've got everything with the Greatwood - I don't want to get in the way of that. But I... I want to live with you again."
Scrunching his nose, Ronin waves a hand away at the prospect of the Seras of the world. "Why does it have to be about being the best? Why can't it just be for you?" he asks. "Some things can just be... enjoyed, you know?"
Rubbing at his forehead, the Star nods his understanding to Remi. "Ah... well, then. No, Remi. I'm not in love with anyone else. Just you," he mumbles. "And I would be surprised if you didn't love Isla, with all that you've been to each other..."
