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"I was being honest in my opinion," Ronin says sweetly back to his husband. Trying to lock the door while being tugged down the street while thoroughly enjoying the press of Remi's fingers is quite a lot to ask of someone with as short an attention span as Ronin, and he goes stumbling after the other man once their new home is all locked up. "Never alone," he says, his voice a quiet rumble as he steps a touch closer to Remi to stroll with him properly.

And what does he plan to make their apartment cutesy with? "I was going to get pretty drapes, a lived-in couch, a rocking chair, a pile of rugs. Plants everywhere, and weird artwork for the walls." He lists them off as if he hasn't just made this all up, though of course Remi will know the truth.

"I didn't find them, unfortunately. Maybe Sunjata stole them," he grumbles, already able to see the Flood parading in front of his mirror as a second-rate Star, the bastard. Falling into a comfortable silence and letting his thumb stroke gently over Remi's knuckles, the Lullaby's question is as surprising as it is welcome.

"I don't know. I think I should be able to control it...? Right now it's just..." He holds out his free arm, concentrates, and lets the partial shift take hold. A veritable cape of flight feathers springs out from his arm, crimson and smouldering and sparking with light and fire. "The shift is also a lot... bigger... than I expected."

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"Garish drapes, a used couch, a wobbly chair, and your artwork." Remi summarizes, and though his mind is absolutely imagining an absolute visual mess of things, he's no less excited for it. Ronin has no illusion magic (yet?) and so the alchemist will just have to wait and see what it is his husband comes up with. On the sport or no, he has full confidence

The images of Sunjata trolling around in the sands for Ronin's antlers are entirely washed away by the feeling of the Star's fingers in his own and the closeness with which they were walking. To anyone looking at them, they were just two men casually strolling down the street. But to Remi it all felt overwhelming intimate. As if the two of them were locked in some sort of bubble for which the world was just a casual distraction. All there was for Remi was Ronin. The touch of his fingers. The way he could pick out the patterning of his fingertips if he really concentrated. Callouses, both new and old.

Gods how it made him want to memorize the Star all over again. A thousand times more and it wouldn't be enough.

Remi watches this demonstration, feeling the heat of the feathers instantly. "Yeah. We're going to need a way of putting you out while we're inside." The alchemist mutters under his breath, already imagining scorch marks in their kitchen from when Ronin's cooking doesn't go quite to plan. "You did not just say that it's bigger than you expected." Remi scolds, and he very nearly tugs Ronin's hand that the Star might stutter-step into him.

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Remi will indeed have to wait and see, though Ronin is quite excited as well, honestly, to be able to put his mark on some part of their new home. He has no intention of stepping on Remi's toes when it comes to the downstairs, but he can at least decorate the apartment to something much less... barracks in taste and vibe. He's still thinking on the colours of the walls and the sculptures he might double as coat racks when he becomes aware of the silence that has grown between them, comfortable and yet nonetheless noticeable.

He could walk these streets forever like this, he thinks; dappled by sunlight with the smell of pastries and bacon on the air, the babble of conversation all around and the day sprawling before them... Ronin can't remember he felt quite so at peace. Even with a flaming, feathered arm, there's something so natural about their stroll, and he wants to cement it in his mind forever. "A sprinkler system? Or a bucket of water for now." He grins, though the suggestion leads to thoughts of them both soaking wet, and... well, that's not a safe road to follow.

"What? What's wrong with that? It's a big... big bird." He laughs to Remi, shaking his head. "Anyway, oh mighty alchemist. What are we fetching?"

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"Dumping cold water on you should you get too hot is a task I am absolutely willing to do." Remi says with a heavy sigh, as if this new responsibility is one that promises to be taxing and not at all fun. Of course their minds go to precisely the same place, and the alchemist clears his throat not out of awkwardness any longer, but as an indication of well this isn't something we can talk about anymore.

"Mmmmm." Remi hums, feigning absolute support if only to appear all the more condescending for it. "A big bird. Sure." If he thinks at all that Safrin has some ulterior motives with giving Ronin a phoenix as a shift, he keeps them to himself for now. "Though I've just realized...you're going to be flying about with your arms." Of course Ronin would be the only man in the world to make the ...and boy are my arms tired! joke about having flown in from somewhere. Arm-wings, instead of...you know, wing-wings.

"Well you'll just have to see, won't you?" Instead of taking them deeper into the Plaza, Remi leads them away, toward where the civilian cottages are. On one of the front porches is...a pile of junk. Rusted tools, bent gears, a kerosine lamp, fence board slabs, and a brown paper bag that smells like there's something decomposing within.

"Tada!"

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The two men are in complete agreement, and so Ronin abandons thoughts of dewy wet skin, of goosebumps and the press of flesh against flesh to try and produce warmth. It isn't easy to do, but by gods does he do it. Granted, it's a slightly easier task to accomplish with Remi's remarks about arm-wings (and Ronin still doesn't know what his husband is getting at with the shade thrown towards his shift), the Star very haughtily sweeping the feathered arm across his chest, where it drapes like a fetching crimson cape. (That's also smouldering).

"Any other fun you want to make?" he asks, before suddenly they're headed away from all of the obvious places that Ronin would expect to find things for Remi's new shop, and to what's best described as a pile of actual junk. Ta da, his husband says, and Ronin raises his eyebrows. "That's funny," he says eventually. "...And where is the real stuff?"

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Remi is forced to recoil ever so slightly. Immortal though he might be and well able to withstand a few burns, not everyone is so lucky. Indeed, the pair are getting even more looks than they normally would by passersby, and while Remi appreciates the berth afforded to them, it probably isn't something he should encourage. "Alright, alright. You've made your point." He chuckles, not at all minding the warm shade of blue that Ronin's feathers turn his eyes.

'Plenty.' Remi replies, before giving Ronin a look of but I can't, for obvious reasons, that will become all too common for them until they find their feet again.

"This is the real stuff." Not deflated at all—it very much is as it appears to be—Remi begins putting it all into a box that he was told was just around the side of the house. "That doctor friend of yours, October? This is her father's house. He was over the moon when I said I was an outlander who was looking for tools. Apparently, these are some of the things he's collected over the years, but either doesn't know what to do with them, or doesn't know how to restore them." Shrugging, Remi begins to place the various tools and things into the boxes.

"I mean..it isn't like I don't know how most of this works. I thought it would be a good place to start. But don't worry, we do have one more stop that I'm sure you'll be much more approving of." He adds with a playful roll of his eyes, before nodding his head to indicate Ronin should stop judging and start helping.

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Ronin does, indeed, stop judging and start helping, dutifully shaking out his feathers until it's just his shirt again and starting to help move the tools into the box Remi goes to fetch. Still, much as the Star might try anything once, even he gives the bag that smells like it's rotting a wide berth, leaving it to his husband to figure out what to do with that delightful little addition.

Raising his eyebrows to hear whose house this is - since when does Remi go and talk to people - Ronin can't help but smile as he gazes up at the place. "Look at you, helping out an old man and getting yourself some bits and pieces to play with at the same time," he says, affection quite obviously colouring his words.

Continuing to heft gears and fence boards into the box, eventually Ronin straightens up and raises a brow at the other man, a smile threatening to creep across his face. "Oh do tell," he all but purrs; he can't wait to see what else Remi's got up his sleeve.

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"....Ronin." Remi leaves it as long as he can, assuming that the holes smouldering through his husband's shirt and the morning air now stealing across his chest will be enough to alert the Star that he's done something stupid. But, it's apparently so Ronin (that is, ralphagorn), that it goes unnoticed longer than the alchemist can bear to let it without breaking out into a crooked smile. Looking pointedly down where part of Ronin's tattoo as well as most of his nipple is now out for the world to see, Remi looks back up with a perplexed and amused shine in his eyes.

'I did no such thing.' Remi protests as if being conversational and helpful is something to be ashamed of. 'It was something Tobi mentioned when I went to pick up Mateo the other day.'

Unlike Ronin, Remi opens the bag of putrification and takes a deep breath. Beaming at whatever is inside—clearly Ronin has no interest in it yet, but he will—Remi flashes the Star a mischievous smile and shakes his head. "Oh no, you aren't getting it out of me that easily." Predictably, if Ronin disapproves he'll just find a reason to run off and not help.

"Come on. One more chore and then we'll stop for an early lunch." Stacking two of the boxes, sadly meaning he can no longer take Ronin's hand in his (you see why he should have been allowed to keep his octopus shift?) Remi sets off into a far bougier area of town.

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"Remi," Ronin replies on autopilot, assuming his husband is just deciding to say his name for fun, and it's only once he's finished loading up the box that he straightens up and realises that Remi is staring pointedly at his nipple. His nipple that shouldn't really be visible. "Oh," he says with a boyish sort of chuckle, tugging up a bit of his smouldered shirt so the hawk can peep out at Remi as well. "I guess I set myself on fire as well. Noted."

His partial glee is utterly snuffed out to see Remi breathe in the rot, and Ronin swallows down his nausea with a wrinkle of his nose instead, and he moves well out of the range of the bag when the box is finally lifted up into the Lullaby's arms. Two of them, in fact, and he'd offer to help, only he has a feeling that there's a reason he has his arms free.

"You would," he grumbles to the other man, both warmed and irritated by Remi's stubborn refusal to let him in on their little adventure. An early lunch, at least, definitely cheers him up, and so he sets off to wherever they might be roaming to next, already imagining what he might get to eat.

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Remi stares incredulously at his husband for a moment, wondering how it is that this man who has accidentally allowed his nipple to play peekaboo without even noticing, was now part of the most important organization in all of Caido, favoured by a goddess, impossibly charming, and love of his life. With an expression that's as confused as it is adoring, Remi can only chuckle to himself as he shakes his head, baffled by the strange polarity of the man he'd married.

Why is Remi carrying both boxes? Oh, simple. He absolutely doesn't trust Ronin not to set them on fire.

Their penultimate stop (lunch, remember), is perhaps more of what Ronin had in mind. There is a wagon that has already been loaded with boxes, and as Remi sets down the boxes they picked up from the Hart's, it's clear that what is within the wagon is a cut above.

Ah! A man, impeccably dressed with a well-oiled handlebar mustache flourishes out of the shop, hands clasped together. Mr. Taliesin! And zis must be— The man frowns, his eyes unapologetically dipping to Ronin's nipple and smouldering shirt. —your 'usband.

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Remi is confused and adoring and thinking about Ronin's nipples. Ronin has ordered himself eggs royale in his mind, and a bloody mary to wash it down with, and he and his nipple swan their way through Stormbreak with the ease of one who has everything he ever wanted in life. And he really does, so when the extravagant wagon comes into view, his eyebrows raise. Obviously, he'd expected more trash, and the grin he flashes towards his husband speaks as much of his pleasant surprise as anything else.

Then there's some guy, and Ronin pulls his head out of the wagon to examine what's inside to turn and greet him, only for his brow to furrow. "Actually," he says smoothly, a smile blooming right back onto his face, I am Mr. Taliesin. And this is my husband. It's quite alright - very easy to get confused, I understand." In any other circumstance, he would have slung his arm around Remi to demonstrate, but as it stands, he merely reaches out to snag the Lullaby's hand again.

"What do we owe you for all of this?"

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Cocking his head slightly to the side—wasn't Remi also Mr. Taliesin?—the Lullaby merely clears his throat, unsure what to do with the position he currently found himself in. Normally he was the one being unintentionally rude.

"I...see." The man with the mustache says, offering Ronin a condescending smile and dip of his head. It was as much of a fuck you, sir, as he could give in retail. "Ah, payment has already been arranged. Mr. Talies—that is, your 'usband 'as agreed to fight in ze pits, blinded folded, wis' one arm tied behind 'is back." Smiling bashfully and nibbling at the inside of his cheek, Remi obviously does not let on who or really what he is, allowing the merchant to think he was going to bring in quite a few favours when he was bet against.

'Next week, we said?' Remi offers helpfully, to which the merchant nods enthuisiastically.

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It is normally Remi being intentionally rude, and perhaps it's the promise of early lunch, or maybe it's just the vibrant joy at being able to walk these streets with his husband, but Ronin can't bring himself to be more serious. He does, at least, school his expression into a more polite version of his shit-eating grin, and raises his eyebrows to hear that payment has already been arranged.

In the fighting pits.

The surprise is genuine, but the concern is all manufactured as he glances to his husband. "Are you sure about this?" he asks, before giving a warmer nod to the merchant. "Not that I can do anything to stop him, of course. May he earn you many a favour." Tossing a lazy salute in his direction, Ronin approaches the wagon.

"Would you like me to become your beast of burden to pull this home?" he asks.

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"Well...I have wanted to try and get better.." Remi says with a nervous shrug, scratching at the back of his head as if suddenly doubting his decision. (He isn't, of course, and they both know it well). "Does it matter which hand?" He asks the merchant hopefully. 'Ahh, Remi, it will 'ave to be your dominant hand.' The man opens his hands as if to show that there's nothing he can do.

Smug little fuck.

"No, of course.' Remi agrees, his fingertips still laced into Ronin's as they turn toward the wagon. "You are almost always a beast of burden, but yes, I would like you to pull it home." Gods but he wants to just reach across and kiss the Star.

Standing rather stupidly, lost in the blue of Ronin's eyes despite the hustle and bustle around them, Remi manages to blink himself back into the moment (albeit quite reluctantly). "That is, unless you don't want the people of Torchline to see you without your mighty antlers, in which case I can do it."

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