i've turned my fair share of pages

the lullaby

You are colors in the sky after forty rains

"Worse than that. It is not rotted inside. You can eat and drink until your belly feels as though it will burst, though you will still die of starvation." His lips tug at the corners slightly as melancholy and a strange breed of regret coil low in his gut. "There was a time I did not want to. A time when I almost didn't." Remi explains, albeit vaguely.

Though Hotaru looked as though she was sporting a beachball beneath her clothing, she was still light as air as she tugs herself closer to him. Remi feels strangely like some sort of pillar she's dancing around, awkward but perhaps useful as well, and he finds he doesn't mind. 'I quite like raisins. Sweet, and good for you as well." He counters. "Not that I can picture any part of you wrinkling, save for maybe your feet or hands." Older than him by a handful of years or so, despite all that life had thrown her way, Hotaru's skin at least hadn't taken on the burden of her journey to get here. Remi was sure that should he slip from his own body and nestle against her bones as a spirit he would see the telltale traces of war and strife, though.

"I assumed that was why Safrin wanted it in the first place." Remi agrees, of Halo being a pawn and an ideal location for the ascended. "Not to mention all the mage glass." Right to think her words would make him uneasy, for a moment the water in the whirlpool flashes cold, before Remi pulls in a sharp breath (from the cold itself or the realization of what he'd done, or both). "Sorry." He mumbles quickly, as the water returns to the state it had been in.

"I know you and I are...friends, and not more than that. I know it is not for me to tell you what to do.." Terrible with words at the best of times, Remi uses the arm not wrapped around Hotaru's shoulders to rub anxiously at the back of his neck. "But I do care about you." Soldiering on, perhaps poorly if the blush on his cheeks is anything to go by, Remi turns an imploring gaze Hotaru's way. "And whoever is in here." He adds as his eyes drop to her belly.

Storm or drought, Surrounded by fire or flood
With You I'm never without

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Hotaru

“I’m glad you did,” is all she can impart, sincerity and appreciation a more effective tool than empty platitudes and regrets. For all the knotted strings of their ties to each other, Hotaru would miss him if he were gone. More than she initially would have expected.

“I’d ask Frey for a special lotion before I ever turned wrinkly. Raisins may be delightful, but I’d prefer not to look like the space between a man’s thighs when I go to Mort.” Mischief twinkles in her eyes, crassness unapologetic. Though it’s summarily startled out of her by the shock of cold against her feet. Remi’s muttered apology is swift on the heels of it, but whatever had caused his reaction isn’t something she can accurately parse. It vexes her.

His sentiments are sweet enough to ease even that, too. Doubly vexing. His cuteness is contagious. “I care about you as well. And - ” she intends to say more, but any words die as their surroundings - or perhaps just what she can see? - jolt like a bad connection. Hotaru reaches for Remi’s arm, grip firm and expression narrowing, intent. “Something’s wrong -”

And then she wakes up to screams.

-FIN

will you stay with me tonight?
you could be my cure