i've seen this room, i've walked this floor

and my heart ran away with me

Remi had been here before. Both literally and metaphorically. This was not his first visit to find Frey, but it was one of the more intentional ones. Knowing more of what to expect only stilled the racing of his heart somewhat; goosebumps flash across his tanned skin as he stands in ankle-deep water in one of the various pools of brightly coloured liquid. The sun is fading fast, and not that the alchemist doesn't cut a fine-enough figure on his own, but a bit of golden-lighting never hurts.

Holding a breath deep within his lungs before sighing it out, Remi strips himself of all his clothes. Having brought a few peaches with him (the deity seems fond of things with flesh to be bitten that drip afterwards), Remi picks up one in his hands and idly tosses it back and forth. Scars silver across his skin in obvious and jarring patterns, amassing in a grotesque burst in the centre of his chest and throat; the lower scars are from an icicle that killed his daughter. The higher are from where his own talons tried to cut short his own life. Once lithe and comprised of lean muscle, now the alchemist is hard and jagged in ways that others find pleasing, but that he's still never really been comfortable with. So it is that despite his adonis-like appearance, awash in golden light and rainbow pools of water, Remi still manages to look boyish as he drops to his knees, peach in hand.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

Others may have expected her to run. Retreat through static portals to a land of ice and solitude, where eyes turn away instead of linger and investigate. They would be wrong. She remains, long after Deimos has returned to bow his vulnerable neck to Morgan's blade. There is still something she must do.

So it is that she is found here, one shadow too few. It is the shadow she was born with, and yet it feels empty and small. She clings to the sensation of her linen skirt around her thighs, the wooden basket that scratches lightly at her arms. Physical things that keep her rooted in the here and now. And so it is that when she comes upon Remi, pulling cloth from golden skin in slow strokes like dark water over sculpted clay, she lets her eyes linger in distant appreciation. It is the first time a shrine has not been empty and awaiting her but it does not dissuade her.

His back is broad and scarred in the golden light as she steps barefoot through the waters to his side, setting her basket down wordlessly. Long fingers pull at her gauzy top, letting it fall from her limp grasp to drape gossamer over the basket's rim. Her skirt follows next, underwear alongside it, until she is left bare in the sunlight.

They are like Adam and Eve, a study of contrasts as they come to the bosom of their herald. She lithe and unmarred in companionship to his strong and scarred physique. Long golden hair tumbles down her back and forward to conceal her breasts from view, and she kneels beside him before any words ever leave her lips. "I hope you don't mind me party crashing, it was quite the stunning invitation," she aims his way, the spark of her normal fire dulled even as her lips pull in wry greeting.

HOTARU

and my heart ran away with me

They are both down a shadow. Whereas Hotaru has gone from two to just one, Remi simply doesn’t cast one at all. It isn’t the sort of thing most notice about him—we don’t tend to look for shadows—but just now as the light stretches long everything around him, Remi kneels like some strangely improperly placed being.

He doesn’t notice she’s there until he hears the rustle of cloth parting skin. Adrenaline hums through his veins as he turns, expecting to see Frey standing near and looking disappointed in him once again. That it’s Hotaru doesn’t immediately make him think it isn’t Frey, but then, lovely as she is, hers is not the body Remi’s mind would fit Frey into. She doesn’t keep her clothing on long, but that it was there to begin with is perhaps the most clear cut sign that it’s truly her, and not the deity.

“Mmm, the sunset is rather nice.” He whispers under his breath, glancing at her just slightly over his shoulder as if they are two children in some hushed classroom sharing jokes. “Though I think if I was an invitation, having you here now will come across like a billboard.” Though Remi indeed takes a moment to allow his sea-glass stare to fall down the woman knelt at his side, it is done so with an artist’s appreciation rather than boyish lust. That her breasts are veiled from view is only a disappointment that he’s no idea what colour paint they might be comprised of, or what size brush would be needed.

“I have never prayed here before.” Remi admits, running his thumb along the peach hard enough to make the skin move away from the flesh beneath, but no so hard as to tear it.

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

As he does not notice her arrival, she does not notice the preternatural absence of his shadow. He is a vision far more distracting, unattainable as she knows him to be. Though her own admiration is far from artistic, it is no less sincere. When he turns to behold her, the matching green of their eyes meet and a smile quirks on her full lips as she settles more firmly on her shins beside him. "Among other things," she whispers back, giving a cheeky wink that fades beneath the preen that results from his own compliment. Everything is by halves, but it's hard to linger in dark thoughts beside a handsome man in the golden hour of sunset, kneeling before Frey's shrine.

"Perhaps you should have been a writer with words like that," she laughs, still soft and shared only between their converging spaces. Turning her gaze to the shrine, she moves her basket closer and flicks her top off the side to reveal two matching peaches inside, peering at Remi with an amused look from the corner of her eye as she plucks one out and bites into it, sticky sweet juice trailing down the corners of her lips. "How long since you prayed to them at all? I'm curious what brings you here after the conversation we had."

HOTARU

and my heart ran away with me

Remi chuckles a touch at that, his dimples hollowing out his cheeks as he shakes his head. "Not much time for writing where I came from." He admits. Though his smile remains, there is a sadness that deepens in his stare for a moment. It's all too long ago to feel anything more than a distant pang of sadness for the man he might have become had his circumstances been different. But then, Remi has gone through so many changes since coming to Caido alone that were he to mourn for the parts of him lost along the way, he'd never be able to move on.

Grinning more broadly now as he peers into her basket—the initial pang of boyish guilt gone once he saw what was inside, as if perhaps it was meant to be secret—his eyes fall to the corner of her mouth. Against the flesh of his own peach his fingers twitch, wanting to wipe the juice from her skin, but his mind stills the urge. "I think they will quite like to lick that off of you, if you leave it there." He notes; the corners of his eyes crease with wry amusement, wondering if this was precisely her intention.

Shifting back on his heels such that his knees pop as his shins are pressed further into the water, Remi ruffles a hand through his curls. "Not long ago. I spoke to them about returning the Mathair to the Greatwood." Was it a secret? Probably. Did Remi care to carry any more secrets than the one he'd already promise to keep forever? Absolutely not.

"But..that was the earth version. This one though...I have not seen in some years. Not since they took away my emotions away. Before that they revealed to everyone I was gay before I was entirely ready for that news to be known, so.." Crinkling his nose slightly in a way that made him look much younger than a man who had any right to bear the scars he did, Remi shrugs at Hotaru's side. "..I have admittedly been a bit reluctant."

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

His grief echoes in her breast, plucking frayed heartstrings that quiver in the presence of any loss that reminds her of Atlas. She is not close enough to him for comfort, and so she swipes her thumb through the valley of flesh her teeth have revealed in the peach, and reaches out to deposit the juice across his closest collarbone after a moment of considering his cheek before dismissing the possibility. Such scars usually denote a cringing shyness to touch, and Hotaru won't startle him. "Good thing you are here then, hm?" For better or worse, as she must tell herself too.

Licking the thumb that had just touched his skin with a slow enjoyment, she lowers her flaxen lashes and peers at him from beneath them, refusing to brush away the juice herself. "Perhaps they'll lick us both now." What a show that would be. Hotaru may not have the body to entice Remi, but she wouldn't say no to watching him with Frey - or Ronin, or some other soul if that's how Frey appeared to him.

After helping with preparations in the Greatwood, the name of the Mathair perks her interest even as her thumb plays idly with the hole in the peach, nail digging into the pale flesh to create a gouge. It's a curiosity overshadowed by what else he says. "I doubt they understand our desire for such secrecy," she agrees quietly, though she'd never particularly hidden her own inclinations. "Why hide away when to them it is so natural? In many ways, they can't understand such a small human scope." And as a result, they as humans are left dealing with the aftermath. "It's brave of you to return now after all of that. Or are you driven by a need only they can fulfill?"

HOTARU

and my heart ran away with me

"You should know—" He begins, but the warning leaves his lips too late. As Hotaru's fingers brush against his skin, her grief breaks against him so hard it feels as though he's caught in a riptide. Strong of a swimmer as he is in waters such as these, it steals his breath nonetheless. Even so, he doesn't shy away but instead reaches out his hand to try and softly clasp her wrist. Her emotions feel like a lightning storm comprised of starlight and fire; everything burns and howls and collapses in on itself only to rise again, toppling down endlessly. Knowing what an invasion of privacy it can be, Remi's fingers release from where they easily encircle her wrist. With parted lips and a breath held behind them, he shakes his head apologetically as his cheeks flush. "If..if you touch me, I can feel what you feel." He manages awkwardly, trying to release his breath as slowly as possible, and thus shivering the words from his lips.

Watching as Hotaru's thumb widens the hole in the peach—the suggestive nature of it not lost on him for a moment—he nods. "No. And nor is this land at all like the one I came from. There, I would have been put to death." It felt almost absurd to say the words now, knowing all he knew of Caido, and yet in that moment when Frey had outed him, it had felt like the world was going to shatter.

"You are very kind to think it brave." He mutters, frowning playfully at her over his shoulder. "Or, a pretty liar." Remi adds, one of his eyes nearly closing in a slow wink. "I suppose it is the latter, though not in the way you might think. I have to leave them an offering that they might overlook...something else I intend to do."

---

Magic: Empathy | When in contact with one other person, Remi can feel their surface and hidden emotions. To sense deeper emotions he has to continue contact. He can also allow them to experience his emotions as well.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

His warning comes late, but she has no way of knowing what he feels. Instead she is caught by the calloused hand around her wrist, captivated by the rise of emotion and color in his eyes and face respectively. "Oh," she mutters a little dumbly, her own tactility having never incurred such consequences before. Inside, she is torn between her natural aversion to vulnerability, and the crushing relief that someone knows how she feels. Beyond that there is only a sense of regret, for having thrown him into the deep end of her grief, and it's apparent in the flicker of her eyes that drops to his hand that had touched her. "I'm sorry you had to feel that. Though I hope it does not stop people from touching you." Ever since her parting from Sunjata and Nate, she'd been starved for such physical connections, and wouldn't wish that fate on anyone else.

A hiss trails between her teeth at the notion of death for such a thing. "Then for all the trauma it may have caused, I'm glad you're here to have experienced it. That sounds like a revolting societal rule, to be damned for liking dick." Scoffing, her nail plucks the chunk free she'd been playing with, and she brings the peach to her mouth to grab it in her teeth and swallow it down. Pursed lips quirk after it is consumed, amused. "Can I not be both?" Provoked by his boyish teasing to respond in kind. "Oh, that is quite the challenge. Subtle, but sexual. Am I allowed to hear such plans, or...?" Hotaru mimes zipping her lips.

HOTARU

and my heart ran away with me

It's insurmountable, and yet Remi finds himself at the top of it. Tears scream at the back of his eyes, slicing their way through in a way that makes his breath catch as one trickles down his cheek. Her rage flashes like lightning behind his eyes, as the slow roll of her isolation and the loss of so, so much thunders deep and slow like waves battering a cliff far, far, below. "Do not be sorry, I should have mentioned sooner, I just did not think—"—that you would touch me. Because though he was naked to be sure, it wasn't just his magic that stopped those around him from coming close. It was the murders committed, the general assholery he was inclined towards, and the viciousness of seasons past. "I am so sorry." The words are nothing more than a drop in her ocean, and he knows it. Wings sprout from his back, the one closest to her stretching and hovering over her shoulders. His feathers softly dance against her skin as his head tilts, asking a soft question. There is no touch he can offer to rival that of Nate or Sunjata's, and likely no consolation that will wash away the colours painted across her soul. But he would offer what he could to her if the consequences were ones she'd accept: She would be even more bare than she already was.

Remi's laugh is hollow and easy as she boils it down to liking dick. This sort of brazen lyricism is what he'd liked about her during their first meeting, and he finds he likes it just as much now. "It is true. I have many more hateable qualities." He adds with a smirk that tugs one side of his lips up, dimpling the cheek on the other.

"Ah, silly of me to brand you so narrowly." The words are said apologetically, no matter how musically his accent carries them. Just to be on the safe side, Remi bows his head slightly. "Kind, pretty, a liar, and more things I have yet to see." Raising his head and narrowing his eyes as if weighing whether he could trust her—he probably couldn't, but the look was merely to play a part—the alchemist eventually pulls in a long and slow breath through his nose, before exhaling. "I do not believe for a moment those lips of yours will stay closed. It would be a shame if they did." Smiling, he shrugs. "My abilities are all...rather sly. Walking in dreams. Moving through them. Leaving my body and slipping souls from theirs.." Looking down at his hands, a peach that perfectly mirrors the one Hotaru had been playing with appears and then disappears just as quickly. "You could probably make good use of them. But I am not a clever man, and so...I plan on mimicking the abilities of my fellow demigods. This—" He nods his head toward the shrine while keeping his eyes firmly on Hotaru. "Is hopefully so that Frey does not get angry about it."

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

Is this how her pain would appear on someone who has not glazed over it with a thick wall of ice the way she has? It feels wrong to wonder at the tear that trails down his cheek, illuminating eyes that shine like polished sea glass. The awe is more properly placed when his wings emerge, the consideration of space appreciated only a moment before she's shuffling to lean into the warmth of his feathers. It's a consuming blanket of touch, and the tightness in her skin relaxes like a snapped rope. "It's you I worry more for. Is it not overwhelming?" Hotaru is a selfish woman all the same, intending to curl in the splendor of his wing as long as he is willing to bear the elemental storm of her emotions.

His laughter rings on the wrong side of joy, but it's a better sound than the shade of her own grief in his apology. "Like your fashion choices," she agrees with a wise nod of her head. "Clearly not a perk you received as a gay man." Her bare shoulder brushes his in a companionable nudge, teasing smile aimed his way. At the shallows of the storm there is a companionship to be felt should he surface from the maelstrom, a burgeoning fondness for their banter.

Ru had not expected such transparency admittedly - but she hangs on every word and magical display, eyes bright like a magpie's as it eyes a shiny trinket. "Cleverness and strength are siblings, not foes," she muses, and wonders anew at their contrasts. "There are many creatures in Rae's realm who mimic to survive. Perhaps they'll let it slide this once, cuteness considered." The cheeky cut of her smile dwindles after a moment, turning to look at the shrine as its shadow grows longer before them. "And the war, of course. My lips may rarely close, but for you I think I can make an exception - extenuating circumstances and all that." And perhaps because she may be growing rather fond of him.

HOTARU

and my heart ran away with me

Remi's wing wraps instantly around her, his feathers curling around her shoulders to tug her near. "It is." He agrees smoothly with a matter-of-fact nod. It felt a bit pompous to say that he could handle it, but after all the trials and tribulations of his life, he could, and so he does: "But not more than I can handle." Tilting his head that he might smile softly at her, he raises a brow slightly. "Not more than you can handle, either." He points out in a voice just above a whisper. Hotaru is warm and small pressed against him, and though he might not dwarf her in size quite like Sunjata, still he hopes his strength is something she can draw from.

"Mmm, precisely like that." He agrees. "Before Ronin all of my clothes were stained with ink or charcoal. If I ever look presentable at all, he is the reason behind it." No, many of the so-called hallmark traits of being characteristically gay, the alchemist failed to have. "Though I suppose being hated for my poor appearance is about as silly as my taste in sexual partners." Remi adds after a moment, shrugging boyishly against Ru's shoulder.

'Spoken like someone who possesses both.' Remi counters with a chuckle. Holding out one of his hands—the one closest to her—Remi looks down at his palm, flexing his fingers slightly. "I have never met anyone stronger than I have become here, and yet..." Snorting under his breath, he shakes his head slightly as his cheeks dimple. "...I do not think I have ever been so stupid as I have these past few years."

Glancing over his shoulder at her, Remi gives her a wry look for her pretty words and subtle flattery. "I think if they let it slide, it will be because you are here to distract them." The peach juice may have dried from the corner of her lips, but Remi is quite sure that dressed in rags Hotaru would steal the show no matter the audience. Gods and men alike.

"Why is it you are here?"

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

For a man who lives in shadow, he is blessedly warm, sun-kissed and solid as he wraps around her. Her long hair slides over her skin to rest against his side as she leans into him, his words a distant rumble drowned out by the intoxicating platonic touch of his body. “Thank you,” is all she can think to say, little more than movement of her lips against the point of his shoulder. It doesn’t remove her grief, but it is enough to provide a boulder to cling to in the tumultuous waters.

“An artist then?” She reaches for his nearest hand to turn his palm towards her as if she will find charcoal somehow embedded in his lifelines. A signifier of his soul more than wings or lack of shadow ever will be. This if more interest to her than ruminating on human small-mindedness. Discovering more about him and these supposedly hateable qualities.

When his hand flexes she places her own which had already been lightly maneuvering his to lay overtop, examining the difference in sizes. “Stupidity is a necessary evil for growth. You would not shame a child for losing their boots in mud they’d never played in. We simply make far more grievous mistakes as adults with power to aid our downfalls.” Tapping her fingertips playfully against his own she gives a wry grin out of the corner of her mouth. “Now the difference between stupidity and morally questionably choices...a far worse quandary.” Like dream-killing a man, or burning down a building.

“Then I will happily take a debt of choice if so,” she teases, though part of her wonders if Frey will arrive at all. It would not be so bad to spend the dwindling golden hours naked and vulnerable with Ludo’s demigod.

“Foolishness and power. Atlas was killed as a result of his attachment to me,” the words choke as they cross her tongue, grief washing between them anew. “I doubt they can bring him back in any form, though I am not too proud to try. But I have little to lose, and only treasonous plans to my name. If they would have me, I was hoping they would choose to Attune me - or to try.” Deimos’ Attunement had been incomplete, and she suspects she will be the same. Forever tainted by her magic. Treason is a word she places in his trust the same as he’d placed his - aware it is relatively baseless but doing so regardless.

HOTARU

and my heart ran away with me

"When my daughter was killed...I think I went mad for nearly a whole year." Remi doesn't pry into the source of Hotaru's wellspring of pain. In a sense it doesn't matter what caused it. He knows very little of what happened with she and Sunjata and Nate, but it feels to him as if her grief is deeper than that. There's a bottomless pit that speaks of death. 'Gods it felt so good at the time.' He admits after a moment, a humourless chuckle leaving his lips as his head turns slightly that his cheek might rest atop her head for a moment.

"An alchemist." Remi corrects. "My job was to make weapons for a war effort, but in my spare time.." Pausing that he might imprint in his memory the size of her hand compared to his, the colour and texture too, he sighs softly. "...I built what I could. Stars that glowed in the dark. Machines to see into the heavens. Other silly things that never amounted to anything." He dwarfs her in every way, yet there's something powerful in her touch as her palm overlays his own.

The alchemist's own fingertips rise to meet hers as they dance across his skin like piano keys. "Ah. Like killing someone in a dream." He says, echoing her own thoughts. Raising a brow, Remi looks down at their hands, so clean and free of the things they've done. It feels like a lie as much as it feels like a relief. "Do..you think you can apologize for having done something, if you knew that you would do it again, in a similar situation?" Remi asks suddenly, glancing down that he might find her mismatched gaze and therein, the answer.

'You can have any debt from me just the same.' Remi says, and then with a flush, hisses in a breath as their minds follow the same track once again. "Though..as much help as it might do me to have Frey see you here, I...have you been in their presence before?" He wonders, unsure if the feeling needed to be described. What fresh hell would rain down on them if, under Frey's influence, he and Hotaru wiled away the hours on the sand. Would that be enough to have Nate make good on his threat?

"Your..." It hits him harder than he might have expected, if only because of the recent turmoil with Isla, and the fact that she too had died as a unicorn and his companion. He doesn't think at all of the fire as he gazes into her eyes and peach-smudged lips, offering her as heartfelt a silence as he can. "If I can help, I will."

remi

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

How do I keep myself from fallin' apart when I ain't never felt part of a whole?

He could not have spoken words that resonate more fully. She tilts her cheek onto his shoulder and closes her eyes, inhales the subtle scent of his skin as the oldest yawning pit of grief inside her aches in resonance. “It is the only pain that never heals. Madness is better than feeling that.” Learning she’d arrived mere seasons after her son’s second death had nearly killed her anew. It was the only time she’d hated Kiada, her own niece - for being even a passive instrument in his death.

“Does creation need an end goal? Or is it not the act that is meaningful?” What did it matter that they amounted to anything if they brought him joy? Her nails scrape playfully at his fingertips as they move against hers, a dark laugh escaping her throat. “I would not have apologized at all. But yes - I think you can be regretful for the pain it caused, while still aware you would cause it again if needed.”

If he is nervous, it is not wildly apparent, but she interlaces their fingers idly all the same to give a reassuring squeeze. “I’ve met them in this form twice now. Will it bother you, if I am here?” His boundaries are the ones that matter to her - her own scarcely exist in the first place.

His eyes are an anchor as she drowns in grief anew, and her sticky-stained lips tremble with a gratitude he can feel. He may not be able to do much; Hotaru doesn’t know if Atlas could ever return, not like Isla did, and certainly she wouldn’t deserve it as the orchestrator of his downfall. But Remi’s support means so much to her in this moment that she doesn’t care about the odds. “Thank you,” she whispers, and leans to press her juice stained mouth to his cheek, a creature of touch to the end.

HOTARU