dirty bones

hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

The tune Remi whistles is not the one that calls the wagon, though he's confident that the Woods won't let him stroll along on his own too long. Though it has been raining for hours now, by the time the water permeates through the thick canopy overhead it's nothing more than a light drizzle—and after the waterlogged days spent in Torchline, Remi doesn't mind this at all.

Though the rest of the world feels like a clusterfuck of inconvenience, here in the Greatwood at least, Remi feels as though he has his bearings. Vai is back, there are those who have pledged to help the alchemist with his tasks, and despite the murderous nature of the Woods, at least Remi knows what to expect from her. There is no Eye watching him (wrong), no stopwatch keeping track of his progress (wrong), and nothing but the predictable unpredictability of nature all around him (also wrong).

Ianto

Things change, in the woods. Unpredictable is one thing, but Remi is about to realise that unpredictable is about to manifest itself right upon his shoulders. The alchemist will hear a very hurried, very Ianto sounding voice shouting "Wait, careful---" from directly overhead, when there's a sudden ginger blur plummeting out of the nearest tree and onto Remi's back.

The blur has a voice, too, and she's cackling as she clings to the Lullaby's neck, Ianto dropping out of the lower boughs of the trees in front of his friend to hold up his hands in a placating gesture. "Oh gods, I am so sorry. Please don't eat her," he begs, the fox looking a mixture of ruffled and thoroughly amused.

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hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

Well, we can't be right all the time. Or even most of the time, in Remi's case.

The alchemist stiffens instinctively and were it not for a familiar voice that reaches him just before the small body does, Remi might have reacted more with just a well-meaning grunt and a few feathers in his hair.

There is laughter and a child-like weight on his back, and as Remi turns to look over his shoulder, he can see only a coppery-blur of freckles. "What am I not eating?" The alchemist wonders, a brow raised in the fox's direction. It certainly feels like a child, but unless the fox has picked up additional babysitting duties from the fae, it's likely some strange new companion that the merchant has acquired.

Ianto

"Uh..." Ianto flashes a golden and rather unsure smile at his friend. "My daughter." The fox looks the same, at the least - still dressed eclectically, very much healthy and vibrant and happy in the Greatwood, but if Remi looks closely there are signs everywhere that he lives with a child. The daisy chain around his wrist, for example, and the smear of blueberries on the cuff of his coat. And, y'know... the child.

The girl possesses a mane of copper curls that marks her as Ianto's, though her eyes are bright jade, and she beams at Remi over the alchemist's shoulder. "Dada, this is better'n an elly-beetle," she announces, patting the Lullaby's curls. "Aye, mush, beastie! We're goin' home!"

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hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

He's absolutely heard that wrong.

Never mind the identical colouring or the flash of musicality that carries her words that make her capable of being no one else's aside from Ianto, Remi absolutely must have heard that wrong. The smile that was forming on the alchemist's cheeks at seeing the merchant has frozen in place, leaving the bottom half of Remi's expression looking softly amused while his eyes and eyebrows look comically horrified and confused.

The girl on his back wriggles and encourages him on, and it's only then that Remi is aware of a faint ringing in his ears. Or perhaps that's just the lingering effects of the girl's bright cackles.

"Sorry, I think I must have just had a stroke. Who is this?"

Ianto

Ianto can't help but look thoroughly amused as Remi takes it all in, because honestly, the alchemist is reacting almost identically to the fox when he first received the news. "My daughter," he repeats, more softly this time. "Her name is Fiadh. I found out about her just after LongNight. Back... well... back last year, I guess, when I visited during monsoon season. There was... I mean, honestly I don't remember most of it. But it was the Halenani, and her mother is gone, and..." He shrugs.

"An' now I live in the woods." Fiadh is trying to climb over Remi's shoulder since he's not doing nearly enough mushing, and if he doesn't do anything to catch her, she'll land with a whump on the forest floor. Honestly, either suits her just fine.

"How are you, Remi?" Ianto ruffles his hand through his hair, still grinning, offering for him to walk with them.

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hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

This, is perhaps one of the least eloquent things the alchemist has ever blurted out in his life, but it's all he can think to say in the moment. "But you're gay." Of all the people Remi knew to wind up with a surprise child, the merchant was at the very bottom of whatever list he might come up with.

Having developed parental instincts, Remi's arms easily catch the girl who suddenly stares up at him. She certainly looks like a child, but the alchemist can't shake the feeling that this was all just some strange trick. "Uh." Remi's eloquence continues. Shifting Fiadh in his arms that she might be slightly more upright (not that she seems to mind being held like a piece of plywood), he shuffles along after Ianto on autopilot.

"I'm...well. I'm holding your daughter." It is nothing like what Ronin feels regarding Safrin and Sunjata, but the alchemist isn't without insight of what it means to be unfairly jealous. There will always be a part of him that keeps lit a small flame for the fox, and it's that heat that turns his stomach now. 'Con..gratulations?'

Ianto

"I know." Ianto barks out a laugh, equally as perturbed by it as they begin to stroll through the woods together. His hands sit in his pockets quite comfortably - clearly Ianto has had a chance to get over this in a way that Remi is still learning to process. "It was in the basement of the Halenani if that helps at all. I think I was there to pay my respects to James, or something. Someone pressed that weird button that made the place all..." He gestures vaguely, meaning sexy. "And a lot of people and booze and other stuff later..."

He nods at Fiadh, who clearly doesn't give the smallest fuck about what they are discussing. Upright in Remi's arms, the girl is busy braiding some of the alchemist's curls. She's braiding both of their hair together, actually, and Remi will find himself neatly plaited to the fox's daughter within moment. "I made you fire hair, like me," she says.

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hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

There's something strangely relieving about the fact that the merchant hasn't switched teams, though for the life of him Remi wouldn't be able to put words to the reasons why. "I remember hearing about that." The alchemist mumbles. "Did they ever find out what happened to him?" Jame's death was right on the heels of Remi's resignation from Governor, from what he remembered.

Hardly noticing with Fiadh is doing—such is the way of parents—as she speaks and Remi finds himself bound to her wild mop of hair, he smoothly conjures a feather to tuck in her flaming locks. "Well, if I have fire hair then it is only right that you have feather hair as well." Winking in the girl's direction, he adds: "Don't worry. My feathers will not burn." They would, actually, though not from coppery curls.

"I guess the real question is how are you?" Remi asks, directing his pale gaze back toward the fox. "I feel as though I should be offering you babysitting given all the times you have watched Mateo for me."

Ianto

Gently, Ianto shakes his head - even now the reminder of his snake friend is bittersweet, never knowing wha had become of him. "He just... died." He shrugs his shoulders. "Obviously he didn't just die, but no one found out how." It's relieving for Ianto, too, not to have changed teams, though for him it's just the knowledge that Fiadh is the result of fates aligning and not carelessness that might be repeated at any moment.

The fox's lips part to apologise for what his daughter has decided to do with her quick hands, but to Ianto's surprise, Remi is wonderful with her in a way that he hadn't foreseen. It isn't that he doesn't know that the alchemist is good with children (or can be, anyway), but he always assumed it was because they belonged to Remi. Clearly delighted, Fiadh reaches up for the feather to pat it. "Fire and feather hair. You're a real beastie," she breathes.

As for how Ianto is? The fox grins, tilting his head back to look up at the canopy of trees. "Better, now," he confesses. "It was... yeah. It would be a lie to say I take to parenting naturally, but we manage, she and I. If you're offering, though, I would happily take you up on it."

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hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

'I am sorry to hear that.' Remi offers with an easy smile, finding that talk of death combined with Fiadh's antics makes Ianto much easier to bear.

"Sweet girl, you have no idea." The alchemist rumbles, flashing her a smile suddenly filled with interlocking sharp teeth. Lifting her onto his shoulders just as easy as anything, Remi holds onto her feet for balance preparing himself for the inevitable tug of small and sticky fingers in his curls.

'I had no idea....I am sorry I was not here, to.." Though what Remi might have done, he has no idea. Still, he offers the fox a guilty smile, assuming that on at least one occasion of stealthing into Ianto's dreams just to wake up in the wagon, there had been another little body he hadn't even noticed.

'What say you, Fiadh? Would you like to go across the world with me one day?' Bouncing on his feet to jar the child on his shoulders, Remi tilts his head as if he might spy her where she sits.

Ianto

Ianto can only shrug, because there's little he or anyone else can do at this point. James probably overdosed on something fun - the fox can only hope that he went out with a bang. (If only he knew). Glancing across to Fiadh somewhat warily, clearly the girl has inherited none of Ianto's cowardice, because she bares her teeth right back at Remi in a grin. Hiked up onto his shoulders (their hair is still braided together), the alchemist can indeed expect small fingers in his curls. They aren't sticky, though, just grass-stained and muddy.

"Are you a bit land shark?" she wonders, wiggling her bare toes as the walk and peering out through the Greatwood. "Dada says that they are BIG and that they hide underground and that they have loads of teeth."

Smiling to himself, Ianto shakes his head to Remi. "Whatever for? You couldn't have known. Besides, there are some things that just..." Sucking in a breath and letting it out again, he searches for the words to articulate it. "You have to figure them out yourself, you know?"

Fiadh, drawn by the bouncing of her feet, curls forward so she can indeed spy Remi (and blind him from seeing the path ahead). "Yes please, mister!"

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hope keeps us breathing, just to kill us in the end

"Something like that." Remi agrees, the tug of their braid pulling with every step. By no means is it the most the alchemist's hair has been pulled. "I do not hide, though. But I can be very big and have lots of teeth."

Both understanding the sentiment and wanting to argue against it just the same, all Remi can really do is exhale an easy puff of air and shrug in the fox's direction. "Well, I know now. So whatever I can do...I have already learned my lesson about convincing you to leave this forest once, but you are both welcome in Stormbreak anytime." Not least of all for food and babysitting services. "I have set up a shop, you might be interested in at least seeing..." Remi adds, trying to at least entice the fox for a visit.

Remi's vision is suddenly full of green eyes and freckles; it's lucky that they are on a path with the fox before them lest Remi crash Fiadh right into a tree. "Remi." He corrects, holding up a hand for the girl to shake (or chew on, slap, spit on, etc. All seem equally likely with Fiadh).

Ianto

"Ooooh. So you are an above-ground landshark?" Fiadh grins, seeming excited by that and reaching out to indeed shake the alchemist's hand. It's a firm handshake, for a child, one that suggests no end of confidence, and that is equal parts cute and worrying. "Fiadh." She puts emphasis on the fi, so it comes out like fear, which suits her just fine.

She pulls herself back up so that Remi might be able to continue to walk, humming tunelessly and reaching up to grab blossoms from overhead, tucking them into his curls. Ianto, meanwhile, can only raise his eyebrows to hear about a certain shop in Stormbreak, and he flashes Remi a grin. "It might take the two of us some time to get there, but I suppose I can take the wagon on a trip eventually," he says.

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