so long and goodnight

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"Oh, hush," Vai says, sniffling out a soft laugh. "This is much more realistic and you know it." Tucking her handkerchief away, she leans up on her toes to kiss his forehead, even as tears drip from her chin. "I have taught you enough about magic, the woods and the way the world works for you to know that I'm never really gone," she whispers, soft fingers combing through his curls.

"I know, Remi. I have been so, so lucky in this world. And if Mort's realm is anything like they say, I will be lucky in the next, too." Stepping back a little, she looks him over once more before nodding towards the large, broad trunk of a tree nearby. "Do you have time to sit for one last story? I've been saving it for a special occasion."

and the sun
will rise

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

Lowering his head for his lips to reach, it's with a heavy sigh that the alchemist lowers still, pressing himself against her shoulder and holding her tight. Never again would he hold her like this, smell her like this, hear her like this, and gods if the magnitude of that didn't nearly bring him to his knees. For others there might be I will see you again, one day's to be said in moments like this. But for Remi—and for Ronin too—the immortal beings that they were, there would only be the Festival of Lights to look forward to, that they might see Vai again.

"I have all the time in the world." He laughs, though it sounds like a sob, and though he follows Vai to the tree trunk, he doesn't let go of her hand. Grief and love contort his boyish features as tears make his eyes an even lighter shade of green.

the lullaby

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)

Vervain

even the darkest night
will end

"I was hoping you would say that," Vai whispers, drawing him with her and giving his hand a warm squeeze as they move to sit together at the base of the tree. Shifting to slip her arm around the Lullaby, she kisses his curls and inhales a long, deep breath, letting it out again on a sigh that she wishes would steady her voice more than it does.

Still, when she speaks it's with the butter-soft quality of a fairytale, Vai weaving together one last adventure for the son she'd swept beneath her wing like a baby bird. And whilst it's grand and filled with fantasy and fable, this, make no doubt, is the story of Remi. A young man of humble origin overcoming the impossible to defend the people he cared for, with a voice like music and the ability to soar through the sky on pale feathers.

And while there's no happily ever after - the story fades on a sunset at a cliff's edge - it undoubtedly speaks of the end of a chapter, and the beginning of something bright and clean and new.

and the sun
will rise

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

Though Remi is the far larger of the pair, as he nestles down next to her in the grass, he's able to coil himself against her as if he were nothing more than the lean-limbed teenager Vai had once known him as. The longer she speaks the more Remi's fingers coil into the fabric of her skirts, soaking them with his tears. He can hear in her tone as well as the words she uses that the story is coming to a close, and as it does, Remi finds his heartache renewed. Ahead in the glade is the warm and grand sunset of which she had been speaking, and though this world was his to control, the Lullaby is helpless to stop the golden light from sinking below the horizon.

"I love you." Remi whispers, and as he does, the dream around them swells. The trees crowd in, reaching for the witch who so gently tended to them for so many years. The grasses rise to brush against her as her fingers had brushed against them so often. Flowers bloom and stretch, filling the air with a riot of scents all meant to drown out the looming whisper of death, that edges closer, and closer, and closer.

"Goodbye.." The word breaks on Remi's tongue as the last semblance of life is squeezed and stretched before shattering; the dream becomes an untenable place without the spark of Vai's life left to ground it. Time has run out.

"...mom."


~fin

the lullaby

Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)