[SE] going under

ISLA

The affection is returned and then some, Isla happily drifting along in Remi's wake until she recovers enough to propel herself up to the surface as well. The last thing we need is for you to hurt youself as a kraken, she agrees, unsure how his instincts will play with that as well. So up they go, towards the surface and towards the shallows, and as she notices Remi's presence shrink away, Isla shifts back as well. She doesn't gasp at the chill of the water, and she doesn't need to breathe either, so it's with an eerie sort of silence that she breaks the surface.

"I'm here," she assures him with a soft smile, treading water and resisting the urge to swamp him in an embrace, because it would sink them both and he kind of needs to breathe. "We're a fair way out, huh," she remarks. "Do you want to swim back?"

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Really? That's the last thing we need? Remi wonders with a flicker of amusement that's quickly swallowed by his upset.

Shivering—it's for the best they left their clothes on the beach for all the good they'd do them now—wings sprout from the alchemist's shoulderblades to better help him tread water. She might be worried about swamping him, but Remi has no such hesitations. Reaching out and tugging her against him (is this what being an ascended feels like? he wonders distantly, his skin already growing numb such that the feel of her against him was almost entirely blocked), he breathes an unsteady apology into the curve of her neck. "I have...well. I do know what came over me. But I had no idea." He knew she knew that, but still it didn't make it better.

"I never want to hurt you." Narrowing his eyes back toward shore and seeing nothing of the flicker of Torchline's light, Remi hums to himself. "One of us could shift and carry the other." He suggests. He's strong—they both are—but it would be quite a swim. "I do not think I could get airborne, wet as my feathers are."

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ISLA

"Careful, Remi, it's cold--" And Isla isn't going to be able to offer him any body heat, but that doesn't stop the alchemist. She reaches up to wrap her arms around him, leaning into his embrace and pressing her cheek against his wet curls. "It's okay, you didn't know what would happen. Neither of us knew." She knows her reassurance will fall on deaf ears, but she offers it nonetheless, leaning back enough to try and wipe the water from his cheeks and sweep his hair back from his face.

"I know," she says softly, smiling across at him. "And do you think it's wise for me to bite you out here? What shift would even work...?" It's at times like this that she wishes she had a little more to offer from an Ascended point of view. "The kraken would cover a lot of distance."

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

His wings paddle at their sides, keeping them afloat as much as they're able as Remi's legs cycle easily below. "No, but.." Shaking his head, a hollow warble of emotions bounces and pops in his stomach making him cringe unhappily against Isla. "Maybe I will stick to shifting on my own for the first time." He mutters sadly, trying not to make more of things than he ought to. Their date had gone so well, until it hadn't. Their time in the sex room had been perfect until it hadn't. And now, this play-date as giant sea monsters had similarly been ruined.

"I can hold my breath?" Remi suggests, wondering if Ronin would laugh first or cry, if the news of his husband drowning in this set of circumstances reached him. "I suppose it would be easier if I just carried you." Pausing, he swallows, wishing his hands could feel more of Isla's body than just the icy-shape of her thanks to how numb his fingers were. "If you trust me. But I am fine letting you bite me as well."

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ISLA

"Hey, don't get all sad about it," Isla says gently, giving his curls a playful tug. "If it weren't for the fact that we were treading water in the middle of nowhere, I'd be more than happy to shift with you. But I'm not risking you drowning no matter how much you can hold your breath." Leaning in, she kisses his cheek, being purposely obnoxious about it even though he's likely too numb to feel it right now.

"Of course I trust you, Remi. Get us back to shore, and we'll go and get something to warm your belly while we decide what to do for our next adventure. Doctor's orders." With another kiss to the cheek, she disentangles from him to tread water enough that she can keep an eye on him, though it barely matters if her nose and mouth are submerged.

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"You'd be happier if I took wanting to kill you in stride?" Remi wonders playfully. Because for all that they are (and aren't) to one another, whatever danger there seems to be, however close Remi pushes them toward the brink, he's quite certain he'll always be able to pull them back again. 'Alright, alright.' He grumbles, warmed by her lips on his cheek despite how little of it he can feel.

"I love you. I promise not to try and kill you again, at least for tonight." So saying, he makes a face at Isla before sinking below the depths. Flapping his wings like some oceanic angel, Remi waits until he's down as far as he can go before his lungs remind him that he isn't an ascended nor a fish, before shifting. In an instant he's at the surface again, his body taking up more space than he'd managed to swim.

He can't speak with Isla for the moment, but he's fairly confident that the slithery arm that rises out of the water next to her will be invitation enough. Wrapping his arm around her and holding her there with his suckers rather than by coiling himself tighter, Remi speeds toward shore. Does he let Isla rise and fall out of the water like some child's toy? Is he making sound effects in his brain as they dash across the distance?

Absolutely he is.

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ISLA

"Oh, it wasn't you really. It was the kraken," Isla says, waving him off as if his attempts to squeeze her to death are hardly anything to get worked up over. "I love you too, Remi. I'll hold you to that promise, at least for tonight." Smiling as they part, she lets herself drift and bob, half submerged in the water as he sinks... and then expands. The scale was lost on Isla when they both became krakens, and now it's enough to steal the breath she doesn't have.

She can barely see where Remi ends, such is his mass, and the waves grow choppy despite any attempts he makes to stay gentle and steady. Still, the waving tentacle isn't one she can resist, and it's with a sharp grin that she paddles over to it until it can sucker about her. "Alright, let's go," she says to no one in particular.

And then they're off - and the first girlish cry of surprise is lost to the water. The rest, though, they ring out across the sea - joyous screams as Isla flies and dives and is able to practically run on the water. More than once she finds herself calling Remi's name, as if he might hear her or be able to enjoy this with her as well.

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Isla rises and falls in his grasp, utterly weightless—or so she feels to Remi. A few times he tosses her into the sky like a parent might with their child, only instead of just a few feet into the air, the ascended is launched up, up, up, only to be expertly caught in a cradle of tentacles. It's horrifying to be sure, and the alchemist hopes Isla loves it as much as he does.

Remi's senses are stranged and blurred in this form, though. He can't quite hear her cries of bliss above the waves; hearing is apparently not a kraken's forte. Shifted as he is he can't feel Isla's emotions either, and though he's intimately aware of her body against his suckers, she feels more like a doll to him than anything else. Still, it's an experience he won't soon forget, and quickly the miles between where they'd started and the glittery Torchline shores have dwindled away to nothing. Slowing only when the water ceases to be more than about 30ft deep, Remi's suckers release from around Isla. They slorp back into the water, disappearing into the body of the kraken which is shrinking and shriveling at a rapid pace.

Rising with a gasp about 20ft away, Remi blinks the water from his eyes before trying to orient himself in the world again now that he's significantly smaller. "Much better." He concludes of their journey, grinning crookedly. "Zero desire to murder you, that time around."

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ISLA

Isla didn’t think it could get better, and then Remi throws her. Her peal of laughter is very much a scream, and if anyone is out along the Torchline shores as they draw closer, they’re likely to believe a siren is out there, wailing in the dark. Isla probably won’t correct them. Alas, it ends all too soon, and as suckers release her (ever so gently, she might add) she lets herself drift upon the surface of the water, grinning wide enough that her cheeks would hurt, if she felt pain.

Remi’s gasp has Isla splashing herself upright, and she’ll nearly drown him with the force of her hug, her hair wild, her giggles ringing over the waves. ”That was incredible,” she gushes, squishing his cheeks. ”We’ll need to do this again so you can try it.” There is nothing about her that suggests she minds how they go about this, so long as it happens.

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Slipping an arm instinctively around her and grinning against her skin which has remained remarkably room-temperature despite the briskness of the water, Remi snaps his teeth playfully as her fingers grab at his cheeks. 'Just name the time and place." He agrees with a smile that deeply dimples the skin beneath her fingers. "Though, I would obviously suggest the place be here, but...well. You can make your own choices." They could kraken-out in the middle of the Grounds, he supposed. Just as long as they could hold their breath, anyway.

'You are so warm." He notes, trying to tug her against him as wings sprout from his back again so propel them back toward shore that he might keep his arms around her. "Much warmer than me, anyway." Remi adds with a shrug, finding it strangely appealing that she might feel so much more real just now.

"Will you go back to the Grounds right away, do you think?"

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ISLA

”Here sounds good. I don’t know what time yet but you can bet I’ll send you a letter when I next get some free evenings.” She beams at him, wisely removing her hands as he snaps his teeth - even playfully, she knows Remi better than to put her fingers in his mouth. But then wings are sprouting and he is pulling her closer, Isla raising her eyebrows to hear that she’s warm.

”I think you might just be very cold,” she objects, and were it not for the fact that she knows the Lullaby won’t get hypothermia (not with his endurance), she might be a little bit worried. At least they’re well on their way to the shore. Will she go back to the Grounds right away though? ”I probably ought to get back before dawn. The infirmary won’t run itself.”

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Such a busy life she leads." Remi chuckles, and though it's absolutely true, he rolls his eyes just the same. "Tomato tomato." Thickening his accent so that the words sound very different indeed, he's quite content to soak up the heat she gives off regardless of why he's able to notice it so keenly. "Perhaps I will have to be cold more often. I rather like this, even if my fingertips are numb."

Soon he can feel the sand beneath his feet, and no sooner is he able to start walking beneath the water than his wings disappear. "It won't, no." Remi agrees. "Do you find what you do is different, now that most of the Grounds are ascended?" Before, Isla's training had been in healing live wounds and things of that nature. But now with the majority of her patients incapable of having their blood clot but also unable to feel pain, he assumes her work is both easier in precisely the same ways it's harder.

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ISLA

"Such a busy life we both lead," Isla counters, though she does tilt her head to hear him pronounce the same word very differently indeed. Having never heard anything like it, the medic simply trusts that Remi knows what he's talking about (probably). Their feet hit the sand and though his wings disappear, Isla keeps her arms linked around him. "Is that so? Maybe we can find a better way of doing this. Maybe I'll go and lie in some heat pads before I come to see you. Then you don't have to worry about numb fingers."

She adores him for his questions, her eyes lighting up with the sort of shameless curiosity reserved for doctors and alchemists, Isla smiling as they begin to emerge from the water. "Very different, when it comes to Ascended," she says. "I've been having to adjust my methods somewhat, so I can help both Ascended and anyone else who needs it. But I've also been able to do some very interesting research. I cut Nate open and looked at his insides," she tells him cheerfully.

apres moi le deluge
after me comes the flood

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Though Remi's grin is bright and instantaneous, he shakes his head. "I expect your body would just work all the harder to keep you at your normal temperature." He points out. "That, and I am sure you would never let me live it down if I started being that high maintenance around you." The idea of Isla laying in heating pads just to see him both warms something in his belly as much as it makes him mentally squirm, and gods but he does love her for her ability to do just that to him.

Raising a brow—and then the other—at the mention of Nate, Remi splashes his way out of the shallows, shriveled and shivering and not minding in the least. "I cannot help but want to say something rude about that." The alchemist admits with a shrug. The last time he'd seen Nate he's threatened Mateo's life (or at least Remi thought he had), and the ascended had done his best to seem all tough and righteous. "But I take it your skill was more than enough to keep him alive the entire time, mm?"

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