give me something to sing about

you are terrifying and strange and beautiful

"Noted," Ronin murmurs with a smirk, taking another sip of their (last) cup of wine before offering the remainder out for Remi. "Oho, I didn't consider that gravity wouldn't work the same way," he says of their underground Caido experiment. "Maybe there are different gods down there," he continues, "or even no gods at all." Wouldn't that be the life, eh?

As for the Voice and the Core, the Huntsman furrows his brow and rolls a shoulder in a shrug, pressing a kiss against Remi's curls as if to dismiss his own thoughts about the matter. "If I ever get more adventurous, I'll have a nose in the cities to see if there's any fresh Outlanders for you." He smirks. "I'll even bring you one as a souvenir if you want."

The huntsman

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Had Remi known it was the last of the wine, he might have savoured it. Instead, he knocked it back with a satisfied ahhhhh, before grinning. "Ooh, maybe. Why not? Dygra was here all along and no one ever thought to mention her. Next time we meet Caido, instead of shoving my hand into whatever glowing thing has presented itself, we can play a round of twenty questions." Though Remi laughs, he's only half kidding. They really should have...tried to get any amount of information from Caido whilst they were in Caido's presence.

"You do that. Then I can keep a tally." He kids, before frowning deeply enough that his furrowed eyebrows started to cut off his vision. "Absolutely not. You are the only Outlander for me." Leaning his shoulder against Ronin's, the Lullaby presses a kiss against the hickey he'd made a completely normal match of his husband's skin.

you are terrifying and strange and beautiful

"I'll do you one better than twenty questions - next time I'll bring a list of all the things we wanted to ask. Because there might be a glowy thing you can't resist, and I might forget the questions," Ronin says wisely, offering a flash of a smile to his husband. "I haven't heard much about Dygra since all of that happened, though," he admits, frowning thoughtfully across the rolling meadows. "Part of me expected her to barge right in and start a new war. Like the Voice part two, you know?"

But things have been peaceful, so much so that Ronin is a little bit suspicious of it. Regardless, the joy of their current predicament is that they don't have to care - and he doesn't plan for that to change, even if Dygra does become a problem with a capital P.

"You are too kind," he murmurs to the Lullaby of being the only Outlander for him, wincing a bit as if only just feeling the bruised skin on his neck. "Do we even really count as Outlanders any more, though? Northaven used to feel so close in my memories, but now it's like something that happened to someone else."

The huntsman

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

"Perfect." Were they ever to meet Caido again, the Lullaby is almost entirely positive that such a list would be forgotten or destroyed on the way there, but never mind. If he never had to come face to face with the God of Gods again it would be too soon. "I sort of imagined some great uprising as well. All the lost little ascended with a new female figure to pine after, another goddess to challenge the others.." He shrugs, entirely ambiguous about the entire thing now if only because there was no way in hell he'd let himself become involved a second time.

"I know what you mean. I remember not being able to go more than a few days without thinking of Northaven, or remembering the way things were and the people we knew. Now...their names do not come quite so quickly when called and other than a few key places...it is all a blur." Leaning his cheek against his husband's shoulder, Remi's smile is slow to form, but it's one that deeply deepens his dimples. "I think after all we have done here we deserve not to be thought of as Outlanders, but even if we always are, even if we are flung into some new world again, it will always be home if I am with you."

you are terrifying and strange and beautiful

Ronin doesn't need to say it, but he absolutely concurs. Despite living literally on Caido's, y'know, mountain, he doesn't want anything to do with the god of gods - or the majority of any other gods, honestly. "From what I've heard, there aren't really many Ascended left," he admits. "Almost all of them died in the war. I imagine those who were left weren't really the Wessexes and Nates of the world, so they're just trying to... move on now, I guess?" He shrugs, not knowing and not caring enough to find out.

"Either way, suffice to say I'm not sad that nothing has come of it so far," he concludes, lifting their empty wine bottle as if imagining that it might have somehow refilled itself, before sighing and setting it down again. "And I'm not sad that it's a blur, in some ways. It wasn't the kindest place to live." And given that he'd been a blueblood, he can realise that now without any of his former naivete.

Letting his head rest atop Remi's, Ronin slips an arm around his husband and lets his fingers whisper across his good arm and across his chest, letting out a sigh that's nothing less than utterly content. "You're so corny," he says affectionately, his smile audible in his voice. "But also right."

The huntsman

i've seen fire & i've seen rain.
i've seen sunny days that i thought would never end

Watching the sun glitter through the empty bottle has the alchemist frowning. For all of their divine gifts the ability to make wine out of thin air was still beyond either of them, and honestly that seemed a travesty in comparison with all they'd given to keep the world safe.

Saying nothing but humming in all the appropriate places, it's only as his husband curls around him that the Lullaby seems to stir. 'And don't you forget it.' He says, both of being corny and being right. Tilting his head to capture the Huntsman's lips against his own, without any wine to occupy his palette, Remi is nevertheless confident he'll be able to find something else to keep his senses entertained.

Specifically: Ronin.

~FIN.