In the dark I hear a call

Isla

"I know," Isla says softly. And she nearly says I forgive you, biting her tongue at the last second because she no longer knows if it's something she wants Remi to feel sorry about.

Following after him and swallowing hard, she's barely gotten a chance to fall in step when he blurts out the situation with Ronin, and the alchemist will receive just as shocked a look in return. Isla does want to take his hand, but again, she resists that urge and instead clears her throat and steps up beside him.

"I can't say I am surprised," she admits, knowing the two men the way she does, and the lives they have led up to now. "Do you...? It isn't right or wrong not to. I just... I suppose knowing that war is on the way, it would be a dangerous decision to make, wouldn't it?"

we're gonna separate ourselves tonight
we're always running scared but holding knives

& doesn't the white page seem unfinished
without the dark stain of alphabets?

Exhaling sharply as he looks up to the sky, Remi expels a sigh that turns into shaky but hollow laughter. "I don't even know why I mentioned it. I should not have.." He mumbles, rubbing at his cheek with a raised shoulder as if he might smear away the renewed blush of colour there.

"It was the first non-war thing I thought to say, but..." He grins, weakly. "...probably not the best." After everything that had ever passed between them, Isla was perhaps one of the only people he could have this conversation with. But then, for exactly the same reasons (not least of which was the lingering tightness in his pants), she was also the worst.

"...Sorry."

the lullaby

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

Isla

"Oh," Isla says, awkwardly and unhelpfully. "Oh, I mean - it's alright. We don't have to talk about it any more. And you don't need to apologise." Or does he? She doesn't think she has had so many false starts and backtracks in conversation with Remi since before she died (the first time). Regardless, clearing her throat and tucking her hands into her pockets, Isla falls into step beside the alchemist. To any looking from afar it might seem like a companionable distance between them, but for Isla they may as well be chasms apart.

And when it's time for her to leave, though she does embrace Remi goodbye, it's a quick and polite thing compared to their greeting. She wishes him the best, and she means it. She also warns that there will probably be trouble brewing politically between Stormbreak and the Hollowed Grounds (and thus between Ronin and herself), and she means that, too.

~FIN

we're gonna separate ourselves tonight
we're always running scared but holding knives