frozen hellscape

when the sky turns gray and everything is screaming

The wind, biting cold and quick, ripped at white fur only to be left disappointed at the lack of a shiver running down the creature's spine. Noah moved across the tundra, toward Whitebrim, with a stride that showed the confidence of the skin he was wearing. Finally the Warden settled several hundred yards from the remaining rubble, and scented the air. Nothing but ice and snow. Huffing, Noah shook out his body. Whitebrim had been a much more foreboding place before the ascended in dragon skin had decimated most of it. He wasn't sure if anyone lived among the wrecked buildings anymore, but the lack of human scent on the wind had to be some sort of evidence. The bear waited, and watched, having sent word to Remi about the recent changes in Halo. He was ready to talk with the other demigod about what it meant for the world to be known by the ascended, and how to proceed with it, especially with him now in place as Warden of Halo.

i will reach inside just to find my heart is beating

REMI

the lullaby

kidnap me from my reality
& crushed pieces of my soul

Not nearly as well defended against the cold by his tawny coat, nevertheless, Remi remained clad in leonine fur as he flew across the barren expanses of the tundra that threatened to leave him snow blind. It was with eyes narrowed to slits and a reliance on his nasal senses that the alchemist manages to find the Sentinel in a world of white.

Descending and doing his best not to upset too much snow upon landing, Remi tucks his wings tightly against his flanks and curls his tail high over his back where the chances of it inadvertently stabbing anyone are hopefully low enough to avoid trouble. Noah. Congratulations. Remi's aversion for politics colours his mental voice somewhat, as does the recent attack on Stormbreak. Still, he is pleased that for the first time in a long while, one of his neighbouring lands hasn't openly banned his husband from its borders.

colour me outside the lines
until my shattered heart is whole

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

when the sky turns gray and everything is screaming

It was hard to miss such a large creature descending from the sky. Noah lifted his large head as he watched Remi approach, pinging his welcome out over the bond. Thank you. Noah dipped his head in appreciation towards Remi's words, but with the surrounding feelings between the two demigods felt over their attuned structures, the man's face hidden in the shadow of the bear's furrowed its brows. Though it took Morgan's death to make it happen as quickly as it did, I am glad it meant the absence of violence for the people. Last time Morgan's reign was challenged, she brought in the ascended to swing her hammer of fear over them. Noah shook his head, disgust filling the mental space behind his words.

I am glad you came all this way to talk. Halo is not in a place yet for me to easily travel. Although Deimos had taken his place as General over their soldiers once more, Noah was still needed to guide and protect. He still was not confident that the ascended -- or, more specifically, Wessex and Neron -- wouldn't come to seek revenge on behalf of Morgan's death. She was found out here, in Whitebrim. The bear motioned with his coal nose towards the rubble surrounding them. No one knows what she was doing out here...or what really happened to her.

i will reach inside just to find my heart is beating

REMI

the lullaby

kidnap me from my reality
& crushed pieces of my soul

Mmmmm. Remi agrees, rolling his shoulders in what might have been a shrug. Though Halo was just a mountain range away, given the Launceleyn's influence over it, it had never been a place the alchemist had found himself all that often, and almost strictly only visited out of necessity. He wasn't sure he understood the appeal of the place, but then, so what if he didn't?

It is no problem. I know Ronin was going to speak with you about that. That, being the ease of travel to and from Halo, but Remi would let the Huntsman have that conversation on his own. Glancing in the direction of Noah's nose, the manticore's nostrils flared slightly as if there might be some lingering scent for him to detect, before turning his pale gaze back towards the bear. No one knows? He repeats, his accent thickening for his confusion. Then it was...an accident? Or an attack?

colour me outside the lines
until my shattered heart is whole

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

will heaven step in?

As Remi turned his head to look in the direction Noah had looked, the bear took a few steps towards where the massacre had happened. "That's the other thing we don't know for sure. The only evidence was a slew of bloody claw marks through ice and snow, and, this--" Noah took the time then to shift, his human body wrapped carefully and protectively in traditional Halovian clothing, save for his jacket. Made from Frey to keep him warm against all odds, he never walked without it. Taking a mitten off of his left hand, Noah reached into one of the deep pockets of the jacket and pulled the large feather from it. Though it was slightly disheveled from having lived in the Warden's pocket for over a week, as he held it up for the Lullaby to inspect, the markings on the feather held between two fingers, and the feathers adorning Remi's massive wings, were clearly one and the same.

"I don't know you very well, Remi, but I do trust you, and I hope you trust me. I have to ask all of the possibilities that have gone through my head. Did Ludo send you to bring Morgan down, did you choose to do it, or is there a possibility that someone held your shift?" The hunter had been thinking over all of these things since he had written to Remi and asked him to come meet with him. His gut churned with trepidation at what the answer could be, but as he looked to the manticore, he hoped he could see in his eyes and feel over the bond that Noah was sincere in asking these things out of interest for Halo, not out of accusation or anger towards Remi -- he needed the answer for his people.

will it save us from our sin?

REMI

all the things we said when we were younger

Watching as Noah shifted and wondering what the Warden might have which would require him to bear the cold without his thick fur to protect him, it took only a second or so once the feather had been produced for Remi to understand. Despite being accused of murder, through the bond and in the green of Remi's eyes, Noah would feel and see only understanding and perhaps a slight puzzling as the alchemist tried to work out for himself what might have happened.

Shifting that his expression might be easier to read, Remi reaches out his fingers for the feather before twirling it between his fingers. "As far as I am aware, I am the only manticore here. I have never seen one in the wild." Raising his eyes towards Noah, well aware that this removed the possibility of it being a random animal attack, Remi shrugs. "But I did not do this. Not of my own accord nor because of Ludo's instructions. Besides...that is not the way I kill." He adds in a low voice, before offering the feather back to Noah.

"I traded Neron a bite in exchange for his fluid when completing a quest for the Greatwood. I also allowed both Cal and Isla to bite me, though I think Isla has since bitten someone else." He explains.

did it bend or did I break?

Coding base by Sky!

will heaven step in?

"Sah was the one who identified the feather as yours--I hadn't seen your manticore shift before today, nor have I ever seen one in the wild." Noah didn't believe that they would make it as the top predators in Halo, anyway. Not with the mix of dragons about. Remi's explanation, and what was given over the bond, made Noah sigh some. While Noah believed that Remi did not do this on his own, the fact that it was his shift did not sit easy with the Sentinel.

"Mmm." Noah's jaw tightened at the mention of Neron. The others he did not know well, or at all, really. He only knew Isla as the governmental leader of the Grounds, and Cal was a foreign name to him. But they would stick in his brain forever. The more he knew, the better off he was. "Neron hasn't been seen since Morgan's body was found. I suspect that as soon as word came out he fled for the Grounds." Noah's stomach flipped and his blood ran cold within his northern veins, his mind brought up the quiet, ink-dark question: had Neron done this?

Noah did not believe the man to be above such an action. He had offered his firstborn child to the Eirachi, after all. As he reached for Remi's feather, Noah shifted uncomfortably and returned the feather to his pocket. Noah let out the breath he hadn't noticed he was holding, and spoke. "Do you...often..give your shifts to ascended?" The words were spaced to easily show with what discomfort and yet intentionality that Noah chose his question.

will it save us from our sin?

the lullaby

"Mmm." Remi hums noncommittally at the mention of Neron's whereabouts (or lack thereof). Though Noah's next question was not a surprising one, Remi did wince to hear it. Closing his eyes against both the cold and the ramifications of what he was about to say, the Lullaby takes a deep breath of frosty air before answering. "I suppose that depends on your definition of often." He begins, raising one of his hands and running it up the side of his cheek with a sigh.

"Isla is my bestfriendw. We have...a very long and complicated history to put it mildly, and though with the politics as they are it makes things difficult between us, I do love her still." Opening his eyes Remi extends his fingers towards Noah. "I gave Isla a shift to keep her safe, and gave one to Cal as well that he might protect her." He explains, before gesturing with his hand that the Sentinel should take it. If he did, Noah would feel a complicated swirl of emotions surge from the alchemist's fingers; the unwavering but dangerous love he had for Isla, his jealous hate for Cal, his unfettered dislike for Neron and the other Launceleyns, and even his annoyance at Morgan for her demands of neutrality. But there was no murder held in the colourful slurry of colours that demarcated his feelings, nor any deception.

"As for Neron...I needed fluid from an ascended-hybrid and he is the only one. I did consider killing him to get it, but Ronin convinced me to try diplomacy, hence the trade of a shift."

i collect scars because I want proof
I've paid for the sins I've committed

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

will heaven step in?

Although Noah didn't, or maybe couldn't, understand the depths of Remi and Isla's relationship, he had to ask himself--if Weaver or Korbin had ever been turned by the Voice, would his love have stopped for them? No. It made his next words even harder. His glacier eyes shifted as he spoke, from serious to near apologetic. "When Vi chose me as his demigod, he told me 'I would have your light eliminate the shadows where the Ascended crawl'. I have people that I cared -- care about -- that turned to the Voice to save their own lives...but the Voice cannot be trusted. I want you to know that I don't want to murder all ascended in cold blood, but I will do what Vi has asked of me." Even if that meant to hurt people that others in his life cared about to bring the Voice to her end.

Noah's eyebrows furrowed together as Remi made his gesture, but remembering that before the Lullaby warned him about touching him, Noah knew it was important. Flashes and faces and colors and feelings all moved about as Noah's mittenless hand grasped firmly on Remi's. The hunter closed his eyes for a moment as it all flooded over. His own emotions -- the hatred he felt for Neron and the desperate love he felt for protecting Halo and his people, the anxiety of what it meant for him or what it looked like to follow Vi so closely -- it would all easily be taken in by the other demigod. Noah broke the connection on his own, opening his eyes and pulling his hand back from Remi. Blue eyes met green, unbroken even as he placed his mitten back over his hand and stuffed both hands within his pockets.

"I didn't think I'd ever live in such a complicated world. Let alone play an actual role in it." He admitted, voice quieter than before.

will it save us from our sin?

the lullaby

It is a sad truth that exists for all of the demigods—on both sides of the line, if they're being honest about it all—that their lives are no longer their own. Sighing, his breath causing a small cloud of white to appear before his lips, Remi nods. "I am similarly bound to Ludo." He agrees, sounding weary. "Though I hope it does not come to that....the price for disobedience is my son's life." One needn't know much about the alchemist to know he'd lay down his life without hesitation for his family.

Running his tongue between his teeth that the sharp pain might help him focus, Remi does what he can to steel himself in the wake of Noah's emotions. It's certainly an interesting way to get to know someone. Emotions are not always a true indicator of a person given how ungoverned they are, and yet just now it said more than enough. Pulling his hand back and slipping it into his pocket for warmth as much as protection, Remi raises his gaze to meet Noah's stoic blue stare.

"Nor me. In the world I came from...I was at the very bottom of society. I had hardly enough to afford food every week, and sold my bed to pay for supplies." Chuckling rather fondly at the memory, Remi shakes his head. "Once I tore down a letter in our city square and Neron nearly had me thrown in jail for it." Such was the Launcelyn's power, even then.

i collect scars because I want proof
I've paid for the sins I've committed

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

will heaven step in?

"Then I hope it never comes to that." The Sentinel said with all sincerity. There was no part of him that ever wanted to see a child come to pain. "I don't know much about Ludo, and I am still learning about Vi. Have you met him?" He asked, lifting a brow in Remi's direction. He didn't want to keep the man out in the cold for longer than he had to, but his curiousity about the god he served couldn't be satisfied even with his answer about Neron and Morgan given.

"It seems that Caido has a plan to change us all. It's no surprise that you're different than the man I heard of, then. Delphine Mountrose told me about the Remi she once knew." Noah didn't mean this to be a jab at Remi in any way -- he didn't know who Remi was in his old life, and he wasn't grasping for the gentle man to return. Noah knew too much about life to waste time on wishful thinking.

Growing up around ice seemed to harden a person.

will it save us from our sin?

the lullaby

"I have, yes. A few times, strangely." Remi says, of Vi. Was it more than he'd spoken to Mort? Just now the alchemist didn't think so, but then, his memory had never been terribly reliable. "Vi found me when I was having difficulties dealing with the extent of my powers..and when Ronin and I were at our worst." He explains with a small shrug. "Vi put things into words that had always been on the tip of my tongue, and in just one conversation he seemed to change everything for me." But that was probably to be expected from the god of life.

Mention of Delphine softens the Lullaby's expression considerably, and it's with an almost boyish smile that he nods. "Delphine and I were once quite close." Not like that, though that likely went without saying. "The man I was...the woman she was...I think they both stayed in the place we came from."

i collect scars because I want proof
I've paid for the sins I've committed

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

will heaven step in?

"I imagine that all my conversations with him will be such as that." Noah chuckled, rubbing mittened hands together. Despite the jacket surrounding him with Frey's warmth, the fact that the frozen world was it was, Noah knew this conversation could not last forever -- not here, anyway. "There are times I wish I would have known her then." Noah sighed, a sadness returning to his face that he thought he had long let go. Perhaps his heart wasn't as cold as he thought it to be. "But the man you are now...well, it must be what this world needs." Noah would have lifted his hand again to shake the other demigod's, but having just experienced what he did Noah would remember the words Remi spoke to him seasons ago about not wanting to touch him. It was true. "Thank you for coming, Remi. The truth is powerful." With that, Noah nodded a firm nod to the man, and used his compass to return to the Citadel.

FIN

will it save us from our sin?