plunge

I will fight the end

And I do and I always will appreciate it, Ronin assures him, and though he can't even come close to a smile in this form, the sentiment still warmly radiates out towards Remi. A counterweight continent. It sounds so ominous. Does that mean there are counterweight versions of us on that side? Where you are Safrin's light, and I am Ludo's angel? He struggles even to imagine it, which he supposes is precisely the point.

Already having surged up by a considerable distance, Ronin is reminded of slow and patient as he had been when he'd first discovered this shift. He stops his movements, letting himself cut through the water in a glide instead, and thrums approval towards Remi. I doubt any ships are even around at this hour... he says, a touch sadly.

But if we break the surface, maybe I can try out a partial shift. A shame that I can't annoy you with tentacles in the same way you do me.

'til the end is here

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REMI

then it went dark

Instantly Remi wants to reply with a shake of his head, but he holds back this initial reaction as they continue to glide through the depths. I do not see why not. He muses instead. I wonder if they are women. Not that women were the opposite of men, but it seemed to fit the sort of whimsical narrative. And maybe they are enemies. He adds, chuckling now at the thought of youthful feminine versions of themselves bickering.

I am game if you are. Though.... Trailing off, Remi has absolutely no idea just how Ronin might partially shift. Wickedly long as he is, all the alchemist is able to come up with is an image of the Huntsman with his regular head on the body of some angry-looking worm. Ahh yes, how very sad for you. Remi trills, stretching out a tentacle to glide it against his husband's craggy spine.

& it rained
and rained and rained

I will fight the end

Two angry ladies who fight each other? I mean, it definitely fits given the narrative we're spinning together, Ronin remarks with a soft chuckle, weaving up and up and up towards the ocean's surface. Gods, if it worked like that then would that make Mateo our entirely boring and well behaved daughter? he wonders, unable not to stretch the idea further and further. Sunjata the nun, Gideon the soft spoken whore, Melita the gigantic, grumpy dockhand.

How is entirely the point in Ronin's opinion - he figures if Remi can make his tentacles little, surely he should be able to do the same with his serpentine tail end? Either way, he's already starting to shift back as he nears the surface, and by the time he breaks through the water to inhale a deep lungful of air, it makes a pathetic little splish-splash compared to his sea monster.

"I feel warm all over," he pants. "I didn't expect that."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Mmmm, well if we were enemies, how did we end up with a daughter? Remi wonders, and suddenly the idea of having their opposites somehow maintaining the same amount of life they'd created here, was too confusing to keep unravelling.

Watching Ronin shrink and shrivel, Remi opts to become entirely human as he too breaches the water. "Well, it is about thirty degrees warmer up here compared to where we just were." He points out. Trying to peer at the Huntsman's lower half through the waves, Remi frowns. "Any idea what you are?" He asks, reaching out a tentative hand toward his husband's shifted lower half, wondering if Ronin's scales were going to burn or slice his skin upon contact.

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I will fight the end

"Is that what it is?" Ronin says, just about catching his breath, his cheeks flushed with the sudden change in temperature. Beneath the waves he'd make a particularly vicious looking merman, the fronds and ridges that make up his lower half glittering maliciously just under the surface. Still, he doesn't draw away as Remi reaches out to touch him - the scales are very much like a snake or a dragon's, but the ridges will certainly open a cut if he runs his palm across them directly.

Splashing at his husband - revealing the spade-like tailfin (also sharp as a knife) he didn't know he had - Ronin shifts and reaches out for Remi drawing him close enough for a soaking wet kiss. It doesn't matter what he is right now; with the adrenaline crackling in his veins he feels giddy and overwhelmed, wanting nothing more than the taste of the Lullaby on his lips. "Sea monster," he says, hazarding a guess. "I'll have to look at the Archive in Stormbreak. I'm sure they'll have me categorised alphabetically."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

Feeling his way along the new juts and rises of his husband's body, Remi's fingers move with a dexterous intensity before his attention is stolen by the lips against his. Blood blossoms beneath the waves as Remi's wandering fingers affix themselves against sharp scales for purchase, and though his skin is sliced cleanly, it doesn't even register in the alchemist's brain. Nothing really can, when Ronin is kissing him.

"You feel incredible." The alchemist says when they part, flushed as well but for a different reason entirely. Ronin's glee is intoxicating, all the moreso now that they're pressed together. Letting his eyes quickly drink in his husband's features on the off-chance they've changed, Remi wraps his arms around Ronin's shoulder that he might take for himself another kiss.

"Mmm, sea monster. I bet Lena would know too. Maybe she can even make you an enclosure in the celestine, and children can drop cows into your waters for you to devour."

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I will fight the end

"Not as good as you do," Ronin promises, the words whispered against the heat of Remi's lips. Inhaling deeply, as if able to scent the blood in the air, he lets his lower half shift back if only so he can draw the other man flush against him without causing injury. "Whole cows?" His smile is jagged and he can't even help it. "Or maybe whole ramphire. Oh, or a starwhale, or--" His restaurant menu is silenced by the press of lips and tongue, Ronin moaning softly into the Lullaby's mouth and melting into his grip.

It's with a distant nudge of willpower that his nimbus trundles down to meet them - evidently Ronin doesn't intend for them to swim back to shore, or fly back unless they're wrapped up in each other. "It's Longheat. We should sleep on the beach, like we used to," he suggests, remembering fondly their rickety wagon full of trinkets and oddities, wondering where it might be now.

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Mmm." Remi hums, too preoccupied to argue, especially with the threat of being sliced to ribbons now removed and the feel of Ronin all around him again. 'Whole anything you like." He agrees, and as his eyes slip shut and he tastes the salty sweetness of his husband's lips, Remi imagines feeding Ronin all of Halo and every else who ever tried to get into their way.

Blinking at the cloud before shooting Ronin a wry smile, Remi inhales deeply and nods. "Gods that sounds amazing. How nice it is that neither you nor I are banned from these shores." He adds, heaving himself onto Ronin's nimbus. "We have come a long way from stolen wagons and having to offer Raza favours for our drinks." Remi says thoughtfully, kicking out one of his feet where it dangles off of the cloud as they sail back toward shore.

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I will fight the end

"Whole you?" Ronin suggests with a wicked grin, though a moment later they're busy with the (very not graceful) task of hauling themselves out of the water, and he has to put that idea aside. "Yet," he scoffs as he settles himself behind Remi, slipping his arms around the alchemist's waist to let his head nuzzle against the crook of his neck. "Though I think if Maeve tried to ban the Order from Torchline there'd be a lot to say about it," he mumbles.

They glide smoothly over the waves, picking up speed as they head back for the Ahi Coast, and Ronin smiles against the side of Remi's throat. "It feels like a lifetime ago," he says. "We were different men, back then." Pausing for a beat, when Ronin presses a kiss against Remi's cheek, it's with a flush of warm, almost bashful emotion. "You make me so happy," he says. "I hope you know that. Everything we've been through, I'd do it all again just to know I'd get to kiss you that first time."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Well, you are more than welcome to try." Remi replies. "I might become very big and chewie, or so small that I just flutter about inside of your stomach." Of course there is always the other way of interpreting things. "Mmmmm. A lot of that say coming from Safrin I would expect." Starting to say something, Remi just looks into his lap for a moment and shakes his head. "We are not the sort of people who can be banned." He says, knowing that this is verging into the territory of I'm strong enough to do whatever I like that had gotten Remi into trouble in the past, but it was true.

"Different men, yes." Remi agrees, focusing on the vibration of his skin against Ronin's, while the place where the Huntsman's lips are pressed is suddenly hollowed and dimpled. "I was just about to say the same." He whispers, reaching for one of Ronin's hands that his fingertips might investigate the lines on Ronin's palm. "It will always be you for me, even if we lose this war, even if we're thrown into a new world again." Remi murmurs, before pulling Ronin's hand up so that he could punctuate what he was going to say next with kisses. "You, and you, and you."

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I will fight the end

"You already make me feel that way, I wouldn't want you to literally flutter around in there," Ronin says, though he nibbles Remi's jawline as if to have a taste for himself. Satisfied with this meagre snack (or is he?), the Huntsman returns to his regularly scheduled affections. "No, we're not," he agrees, giving the other man a gentle squeeze, as if having him in his arms is enough to change the world. "The way I see it, if I stay away unless it's strictly necessary, they can only respect that. Because let's face it - we could walk into Halo whenever we wanted and no one could do a thing."

Surrendering his hand to Remi even as the waters turn shallow and the line of the coast becomes more defined, Ronin closes his eyes as if to better feel the brush of the Lullaby's lips against his palm. "Good," he whispers, no longer afraid to be selfish or possessive of the things that he loves best. "Because I honestly don't know what I'd do without you." His heart belongs to Remi, broken and healed and scarred over as it might be, and he'd not have it any other way.

"Hey," he says suddenly, "do you remember our bed, from the old guildhall in the Hollowed Grounds?" There's mischief bubbling through his emotions to Remi now. "Like... do you remember enough that you could conjure it up on the beach and it would last the night?"

'til the end is here

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i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Hey, you were the one who suggested it." Remi replies, and if he knows himself and his husband half as well as he thinks he does, at some point Remi will end up inside of the Huntsman's belly. 'I love it when you talk like that.' Remi whispers, feeling the familiar rush of reckless disobedience that being a demigod has caused within him bubbling up the back of his throat like a yawn. It certainly isn't a feeling either of them should encourage, and yet there is something so wickedly tantalizing about the knowledge. Perhaps that says more about Remi's life of being obedient and a lesser citizen, but gods if he doesn't want to suddenly leave a manticore-sized opening in one of the Citadel's walls.

'We both have had enough glimpses of what life is like when we are apart.' Blights and other disasters, being sent to opposite ends of the continent, not to mention the times they've wounded each other nearly beyond recognition. Blinking, Remi's gaze wanders up as he frowns, mentally blowing the dust away from some old memories. "Well..." Remi's frown is mischievous now as he turns to meet Ronin's gaze. "Only one way to find out. Though I can create things from your memories as well, so I'm sure together can remember it well enough."

Caring not at all for what Torchline might think, it's with Ronin's hands in his that the Lullaby closes his eyes. Nostrils flared he remembers the dark warmth of the room, the quilts and furs, the claw marks on the headboard and knicks taken out of the wood from various times it had been bumped into. Shimmering into life, far enough back that the tide wouldn't quite be able to tug them towards sea, suddenly sits a bed that looks as though it has recently been slept in despite having been burned up years before.

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I will fight the end

"Who knew your dirty talk was all about breaking the rules?" Ronin is grinning as he speaks, but he understands completely the way his husband feels. "It's true, though," he continues, pressing kiss after kiss along the column of Remi's throat. "Shy of the Hollowed Grounds - and that only counts for me, and only because of an organisation I joined - I don't think there's anywhere we can't go." His eyes open to gaze mischievously at the other man. "And I know. I know. The Cordillera. I haven't forgotten."

Relaxing around Remi as the nimbus slows itself over the warm, midnight stretch of beach, his nose brushes against the Lullaby's, his thoughts going specifically to moments spent in that first bed they shared; their wedding night, their lazy mornings, even their bad moments racked with fear and sickness. And there it is suddenly, delight swelling like a hiccup in Ronin's chest.

"Come on," he whispers, hopping down off the nimbus and already stripping off his wet pants, willing himself to dry off as he approaches the bed. "This is where I fell in love with you officially, I think," he says. "I knew I loved you far before that, but... that night, where you saw me for the first time after Arduinna blinded you... I knew it was for real."

'til the end is here

Coding base by Sky!

i kept falling over, i kept looking backward

"Oh no, are you suddenly realizing I am more damaged than you thought?" Remi says with a gasp, and if he wasn't so completely enthralled with the feeling of Ronin's hands in his he might have covered his mouth. The mention of the Cordillera has Remi grumbling appreciatively as he tilts his head back and to the side that Ronin's lips might continue their slow march.

Trailing behind Ronin with sand sticking to his feet, Remi smiles slowly and a touch shyly. "Really?" He wonders, perhaps a touch humbled and certainly feeling very twitterpated. "I knew I loved you the night you died, but...it was in the Guildhall that I fell in love with you." Remi recalls, closing his eyes gently as memories of petals, and cocktails, and laughter fill the spaces behind his eyes. 'Arduinna.' Said through dry lips, the alchemist clears his throat and gives his head a small shake, before raking one of his hands through his curls.

"I remember kissing you on the floor in the kitchen. Remember touching you, and being so afraid that in the morning we would both laugh it off as a drunken fumble."

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