you could have been all I wanted

and on to the glory at my right hand

"And?" Ronin grates out, as if Remi is trying to change the subject on purpose, to provoke him on purpose. And gods, maybe he is - at the moment, with the luxere in him wanting to gather up the alchemist and hole away in the houseboat until the end of time, and the something else wanting an outcome all the more bloody, he's not sure what to do with the other man's remarks.

There is zero logic in Ronin's thinking, which is precisely the problem when it comes to Remi trying to explain it to him. There's no reason for him to be angry other than because he doesn't want this. He doesn't want to share, and he doesn't want to deal with newborns squalling down the woods and clamouring for his husband's attention. "That sounds like a Hotaru problem," he growls, about Halo, about Torchline.

As unmoored as the other man in the current of the Stonesong, suddenly Ronin can't decide whether he wants to be around Remi or not. He shivers, as if suddenly recognising the coolness of the water, and in response a swathe of pitch dark scales fleck along the side of his neck and beneath his shirt. "So they're just... going to stay here, then. Like one, big, happy fucking family."

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

And nothing Remi supposes, despite wanting to shove Ronin back into the water to see what else might prickle out from his husband's body. If there is a predator within now, something in Remi needs to know about it. But gods if this isn't the time.

"Yes. But until they are older, the twins go where she does." The twins. It sounds so strange to say it; utterly foreign on his lips such that Remi has to mentally pause to check and see if what he's just said is even English.

Remi's body reacts before his mind can as his lips peel back in a snarl in response to the scales on Ronin's neck. "Sorry—" He breathes, leaning back with unhappy green eyes, trying to get a measure of both himself and the Huntsman. Though there were creatures with scales who weren't predators, none came to Remi's mind. With his hands already in the water, Remi presses one of his own talons into his palm. The trickle of blood is made invisible almost instantly by the Stonesong, and yet Remi's senses are keenly aware of it.

"Better here where they are safe. Here where I am still close."

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

"Then maybe she ought to find someone else's skirts to hide behind, and take them with her," Ronin supposes, in a tone as dark and velvety as an assassin dripping poison into a victim's ear. It isn't the time, and yet here they both are, and the longer the conversation goes on, the less of a grasp the Huntsman has over his own self-control.

And unlike his husband, who has always been a predator in some ways, even back in Northaven, Ronin is unprepared for what comes next. The snarl that rips through the air is enough to rile him right over the edge, and whilst Remi has the sense to draw back, to apologise, Ronin does not.

The sound that tears out of the Huntsman's throat in response isn't a snarl as much as a roar of something primal and furious, and the alchemist's words are so small, so laughable, that Ronin almost really does laugh in his face at them. "They are not safe here," he snarls, just about - his body is already warping and changing, shifting into a form that's both unfamiliar and not.

A long, serpentine tail whips out and across the Stonesong, the bulk of the dragon enough to easily span the width of the river. Wings snap out to stretch and shadow the houseboat, black as pitch and flecked with starlight. Ronin seems to absorb the light of the sun around them, and eyes as fiercely blue as they are reptilian focus on the man below him. Nothing is safe, here.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

It's a fine balance, this knife's edge that they stand on. Holding each other that neither should fall off, the swing of words causes each to pitch forward and back. There is leeway when it comes to what Ronin can say about Hotaru. That anger, at least, Remi understands. But against his children? Strange as it is to even think that they exist apart from Ronin, it's a fact now that they do. And insofar as they do, they fall fully within Remi's sphere of protective hostility.

Significantly smaller than the celestial reptile before him, as Remi shifts in response, his paws give not an inch. His kraken-shift would have dwarfed Ronin as a dragon it's true, but the bastardized flesh of the manticore feels more like home than the monolithic ocean-dweller ever will. They are. Comes Remi's voice, as even as the current that flows around them. Whatever and whoever might find its way into Ronin's path, monstrous as he now properly was, the twins would be exempt.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

and on to the glory at my right hand

So this is how it is. Something harsh and white glows in the reptile's throat, threatening to bubble up and burn its way out through his jaws if he doesn't keep it in check. I won't fight you. I'll kill you. Once there would have been nothing but sad truth in the words, but monstrous as Ronin has become, right now he sounds spitefully proud of the fact. Don't worry, then. I'll see myself out.

His wings fan out wide, the dragon rearing up onto his hind claws, rows of jagged teeth snapping at the air. Ronin knows how to fly from the phoenix - those instincts are there, at least - and he beats down hard with his wings at the same time as his bulk leaps into the air. Enjoy your twins, all safe and sound in the Greatwood. Perhaps there's a shard of pain there, of the feeling that feeds the dragon. But lost in something as unknown as this, there's no pit for Ronin to be thrown into.

There's only the open sky, and anything that dares to get in his way.

ronin

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

Are you really prepared to ask me to choose? To threaten it, yes. To dance around it, sure. But to ask it of him? To see if Remi had really meant it when he said he'd put Ronin before all else, a category that necessarily included his own flesh and blood?

Having been this sort of monster long enough, Remi is able to keep his paws firmly rooted in the riverbed despite his husband's taunts. Even so, his ears pin back into his golden tangle of mane and his lips pull up in a snarl. Ronin's belly looks as though its been torn straight out of the night's sky, and mercilessly Remi wonders if Safrin has included Vanya's star. Where else could such a shift have come, if not Safrin?

And what timing the goddess had.

I love you. Remi thinks, though whether or not Ronin has gone too far to hear it, he has no idea. Pulling in a breath, never before have their respective titles been so darkly telling: The Greatwood Guardian and the Dragon of the Greatwood.

And yet only one was capable of killing the other.

~FIN

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!