a line at the edge

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    Painting had once been something she did so often, such a long time ago. She’d had a whole room just for her art - her pianoforte, her painting, her poems. Kalt would sit and play his guitar quietly while she created. Ashe had stopped all of it when she lost her father. She had played the piano once since - at Jasper’s funeral. And she had painted only once since - her father’s portrait over a year ago.    Then after Kalt and her mother had tended to her, she'd asked him for paint, for brushes, for canvas... and she couldn’t stop. She didn't sleep, only paused when her lover bade her to for necessities. She painted and painted and painted, the brush gliding across the canvas and sweeping color and life where she knew there was none. Kalt had played his guitar, soothing frayed nerves as she worked. She stopped only to ask him to alter it so it would be dry paint instead of wet, so she could continue until it was finished. She ended up abandoning her mixing pallet in favor of using an entire table surface, sitting cross legged on the ground with the canvas propped on the wall. She couldn't stop. Every time she stopped, there was that hollow and dark chasm yawning open in her chest, threatening to swallow her whole. Live. His voice never left her, and his face didn’t either.    Two days later, she finally emerged from the obsessive trance she had been drawn into. She’d been bathed, her clothing changed before she even began her project, but she hardly looked any better. Aside from the evidence of healed cuts and burns, her right arm possessing the worst of it well past the elbow, there were heavy and dark circles under her eyes. Lips were pale, her hair a disheveled mess. Paint covered her hands, her fingers, smeared on her face and stained her shirt from Kalt, her leggings. She hadn't changed when she finished, simply stating she needed to go. Now she walked in the early evening with a flat, square item over half her size held awkwardly in her arms.    Her steps slowed when she got to the Guildhall, the sight of it jarring. Painful. Her face crumpled in anguish, and she had to look away at first. Standing before it, she took a few moments to collect herself before she approached. Once she might have strode right in. Now she adjusted her cumbersome package and knocked on the door three times. ”Remi?” she called without entering, some part of her afraid to cross the threshold. Knowing what she wouldn’t find within. and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun The days had all but bled together. Only Aoife kept any sort of routine, and it was with the rising and setting of the small child that the alchemist maintained his day. He was nothing now, nothing save her caregiving and caretaker. That was all he was capable of right now, though some might disagree that he was even fit for this. Sam for example, had come and gone and he had...memories. He'd taken all of our memories. But if he'd only just— —no. Remi schooled himself with an exhausted sigh. No, there was simply no point. The alchemist had no fight left in him anyways. And was there any point in trying to tell someone that you were worth loving? That you were worth the effort? If you had to make that argument, wasn't it all already over? Hearing the knock on the door Remi had to quell the painful spark of hope he felt that it might be the bookmaker. It wouldn't be Vai—she'd just let herself in—but the point was that it wouldn't be Sam. Trying not to sigh and lean heavily into the deep wellspring of despair that lovingly threatened to drown him in depression, Remi rose and went to the door. He could hear a voice calling his name, one he recognized instantly but it sounded so much smaller than he was used to hearing it. That wasn't a surprise though. He wasn't the only one broken and bleeding in the wake of what had happened. With a smile on his lips that hurt his heart, he gazed down at the blue-eyed wolf of a woman before him. They were like siblings in this weird family which had been assembled, which made seeing her all the easier. At least he wouldn't have to pretend. "Hey." Remi said softly, warmly, despite the emptiness he felt. "Aoife is just in the other room. Come in—" When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    Ashe let out a breath at Remi's smile, and she managed to return it to him. He didn't look much better than she did - fractured sea-glass eyes and exhaustion weighing on him. She nodded and adjusted her grip as she followed the alchemist silently into the Guildhall, trying not think about how she had never been there without Ronin before. Instead she shut the door behind her before leaning the covered canvas against her leg.    Ashe glanced around the guildhall, and she half expected to see the ex-captain stroll down those stairs with his easy smile. Her eyes remained there for a second before they moved to the table, and as if sensing the rising distress, a spindley-legged and fuzzy black spider poked up from the inside of her blue hood, releasing a soft squeak-hiccup. As if he remembered the place he had first met the one now missing from their world. Her hand reached up to stroke over one of Soot's legs, and the wine spider settled further back into her hood once more.    She focused on Remi and wrapped her arms around her chest, always a breath away from coming apart. "Aoife... how is she?" she asked quietly. She knew not to ask Remi how he was - they both had been broken to their core by this. and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun Remi too saw ghosts of Ronin everywhere, each room seemingly pregnant with the expectation of his arrival. And it hurt all the more so because Remi didn't always catch himself doing it right away. He'd be making food, and would inadvertently get out two mugs, nearly pouring two cups of tea before realizing. Remi suspected it was like that for Ashe now as well, moving through what felt more like a tomb now, and so didn't notice Soot's tiny arrival and then quick departure. At the mention of the star-eyed child, Remi glanced towards the greatroom where Aoife was happily contained in her bassinet. Vai's mobile spun above her while the rattle that Rexanna had brought was clutched in a chubby hand which shook it wildly. Sugar was at her side, snapping her teeth at the rattle as if it was some monster that the tiny dragonling was protecting the girl from. It both mended and broke Remi's heart to see the sight, and he had to swallow down a ball of emotion that grew in the back of his throat. "Well." Remi replied, clearing his throat and exhaling a steady stream of sad and stale air. "She does not seem to know what has happened. I think she senses something, but..." Helplessly, the alchemist shrugged. He couldn't decide at all if it was a blessing that Aoife did not know her father was gone..or of it was a curse. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    Ashe nodded and looked to the bassinet, and she too was nearly overwhelmed at the sight. She bit hard on the inside of her lip as her chest tightened painfully, but she didn't look away. There were moments of pain that she knew she would never be able to encompass in words, not in any life or language. Her brows pulled together as she watched the dragon snap at the rattle, finally pulling in a deep breath and turning to look back at Remi.    She didn't understand what had happened, of course she didn't, she was too young to truly know... Ashe swallowed past the lump her throat, and she looked up at Remi with a tight-lipped, somber sort of smile. "You must be looking after her well," she commented.    She held his gaze before she glanced down to the canvas still resting beneath her hand and leaning against her hip. Ashe cleared her throat and gestured to it as she looked back up at him. "I've been.. uh, working on something.. for the guildhall," she said, her heart stumbling. "It's um.. I hadn't painted in a very long time, it's not.." The assassin had to take a breath, worrying her lip between her teeth as her eyes started prickling.    She looked down to the covered painting and swallowed down the harsh pain that surged in her chest and threatened to overflow from her eyes. "You don't have to look now," she managed, and she moved the canvas towards Remi with a vulnerable look. "I just... don't want anyone to forget what he looks like." and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun The praise meant nothing, though of course Remi smiled just the same. That he was looking after her well was ... was nothing. It was nothing compared to the life without a mother or father. She would have Remi, who would love her and do what he could for her always, but that wasn't the same. Remi was no Ronin, and no matter how many echoes of her father the alchemist might reproduce, Aoife would always be at a deficit without the seabird and captain at the helm of her story. At the change of topic, Remi took a steadying breath and looked down, glad for his mind to shift away from Aoife's future. "I did not know you painted." He said with a small but genuine smile, wondering what would be on the hidden canvas. Tilting his head in a decidedly avian sort of way as she said he didn't have to look, Remi did inhale a shaky and wounded breath, his lips immediately trembling as his eyebrows furrowed. I just... don't want anyone to forget what he looks like. Remi's heart clenched and his eyes immediately went to Aoife, contentedly batting up at the mobile. There were those who might forget...but there were also those who would never know. Gods it hurt. It hurt. Biting the inside of his cheek hard, Remi reached down, wanting to take Ashe's hand. "Can we look together?" When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    Ashe didn't miss the tremble in the man's chin, his pain echoing hers. She bit down on the inside of her bottom lip, glancing down and reaching out to slip her slender hand into Remi's. She flickered a pained smile and squeezed, and she nodded as she looked back up at him. "Okay," she agreed. Together.    With a huff of air, Ashe released Remi's hand to take a hold of the painting. Over half her height, it was awkward to walk with, but she managed to lean it against the nearest table. Her hand paused over the cloth she had wrapped around it, suddenly frozen. She had been staring at this for two days now, obsessively mixing pigments until they were the perfect shade, making sweeping strokes and fine dabs of color.. His face was burned into her mind. So why was she hesitating now?    Her hand was shaking and her breath was too as it passed through her lips. She took ahold of the cloth and pulled it away with a billow of white fabric as she stepped back to stand beside Remi, quickly reaching out to take his hand again like he were some sort of tether.    Ronin smiled at them.    He was turned to look just barely over his shoulder, like they had just called out to him and he knew exactly who did. He smiled that charming smile of his, rich blue eyes staring at Ashe and Remi with a devilish gleam beneath his firm brows. His hair was painted in strokes of dark color that remained disheveled and swept from his face like his hand had just moved it away. Bright golden light illuminated him from just behind, his backdrop made from dark blues and shining light, flares of white shining like stars where the canvas was darkest. His sharp jaw was shadowed, and the hint of a starburst scar peeked above a white collar.. everything had been lovingly paid attention to, but it was his smile, his eyes that Ashe had taken such deep care with.    The tears were immediate. They welled and spilled and her brows pulled together with her trembling lips. She didn't have any words, couldn't muster her voice just yet. She missed him. They missed him, and there would never again be a chance for them not to miss him.    "I tried," she choked out in a whisper. and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun The alchemist didn't try to help as Ashe maneuvered the painting. Not only did he know that the once-assassin was more than capable of managing on her own, but there seemed something almost cathartic in her movements. Or at least, had he helped, somehow Remi thought that would make things worse. And so he stood sentinel behind her, breath lodged unhelpfully in a lump behind his adam's apple as he waited. The cloth fell. Ashe's fingers slipped between his. It was so perfectly Ronin that it almost shocked the alchemist into a bought of hysterics as the reality of the situation flooded his senses. For a moment Remi's fingers loosened as the floor whispered words of welcome to his knees and his legs began to weaken. It was only at the last instant that he caught himself, his fingers tightening around Ashe's slender hand in his as he choked back a sob. The breath he'd been holding crocheted painfully in his chest, bursting out of trembling lips coated in agony. His free hand reached forward, fingers lightly tracing the curve of Ronin's jaw in midair. Tears blurred his vision, but instead of wiping them away, Remi merely touched the end of his nose gently with his fingers as his face below crumpled and wavered with heartache and chasm-deep longing that seemed to stretch on forever. "He would probably have said something stupid about how you painted him with too many clothes..." Remi said finally, a small laugh hitching in his throat that quickly turned into a sob. Silently he shook his head, having absolutely no words. Instead he let his eyes trace the lines beside Ronin's lips, the blue of his eyes and his overly expressive brows, simultaneously wanting to tear it down and never be reminded of what they had lost, but also to never look away from it. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    Breath rattled through her shaking lips as she squeezed Remi's hand tighter, and she let the tears fall. She let the pain happen, no matter how tempting the unfeeling darkness of her mind beckoned. To feel nothing at all.. it would be easier than this. It would be so easy to just slip into the nothingness that waited in the trauma-survival centers of her brain, to go far away and flee from this monsterous pain in her chest as she looked at Ronin.    But she wouldn't. The man who had become her brother,  he deserved better than for the people who loved him not to feel this. Live. He had told her to live, and fuck if this wasn't a part of that. Living.. without him.    A laugh that sounded more like a sob cracked open from her chest, and she raked her free hand into her hair as she went over the details of the painting, every brush stroke so lovingly paid attention to. "He'd probably complain I didn't paint him charming enough too," she said through the tears.    Ashe glanced up at Remi before her eyes turned back to Ronin, and quietly she stepped closer to the other hybrid. She didn't know if he would step away, push her away, but this wolf was a creature of touch and love beneath the harsh brutality, and she had deprived herself of it for a very long time. She tucked herself under Remi's arm, seeking to lean her head against him, to feel some kind of contact with the only brother she had left. That's what they had become, hadn't they? Siblings of a sort.    She sniffed and moved her eyes over Ronin's smile, the ache turning sharp and demanding in her chest, demanding that he move, that he be there to smile at them. She'd had to paint him smiling, she couldn't bring herself to paint some traditional portrait of a stoic warrior to greet monster hunters that entered here. Ronin was warm, and he was bright, and his smile needed to be here.    "I want him back," she whispered uselessly. and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun "I have ... never been prone to violence." Remi admitted softly into the silence. Though to someone as well-trained as Ashe was, surely that would not have been a surprise. Even so—and perhaps especially with his lion form—he was quite capable of horrible things. "..but I heard someone speaking of what happened, and they did not even know Ronin's name.." His lips twitched upwards into the shape of a smile, but his expression was instead one of sadness. "I cannot remember a time lately when I have been so immediately angry, even though I understood...so many here never knew him, how could they possibly know his name. And yet.." With a hollow sort of half-laugh, the alchemist frowned and shook his head uselessly. As Ashe slipped against him, Remi raised an arm to easily welcome her against him. Once upon a time Remi had been free and easy with physical contact—with women anyways. Now with so much confused and complicated in his mind—his memories of Loren gone and those with Ronin obscured, Sam coming into his life and then choosing to forget him, Ianto gone entirely—the alchemist was quite starved for affection. Only now he was guarded in a way that he had never been before. His heart had always been on his sleeve, bleeding for all to see. But now he hid it, for he wasn't sure what else it could possibly take. But like the wolf, lions were pack animals. And strange siblings though they might have been, love and heartbreak had now bound them together. "When Aoife is old enough to know what she is looking at..who.." It would what? Be good enough? Would let her know what her father had looked like? And what good would that be, with Remi as a poor replacement in this strange world where her parents looked down on her as stars? Gently his arm tightened around Ashe, though his eyes remained on the portrait. "I love you, Ashe.  I...I only told Ronin at the end. Just before he...well. Before Safrin did what she did." Looking down at his much more petite counterpart, Remi tried on a smile despite how weighty it suddenly seemed. "I'd not have the same happen with you. Or worse, not at all." When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    She didn’t look away from Ronin’s smiling face, but she listened to Remi in silence. His voice hummed into her where her head leaned against him, and she perfectly understood what he meant. Ashe was prone to violence, of course - bloodthirsty on even the best of days at that. But she understood the rage that came as the counterpart to helpless pain. ”Everyone knew him in Northaven,” she added quietly. ”Soon enough, everyone would have known his name here just as well.” She frowned and sniffed back the gathering tears again, eyes guttering. ”It makes me angry too.” Pointlessly, uselessly angry at no one and everyone and nothing and everything. Angry that there was no one she could point her blade at and snarl ’You did this.’ Ronin was just…    Ashe glanced over the top of the painting where the infant lay in her bassinet, the dragonling keeping such careful watch over her. She swallowed as her chest caved in, bringing her to curl a bit closer against Remi. ”We’ll tell her everything,” she answered, but the words rang hollow. She had been only told about her mother for fifteen years of her life with little to no memories of her. She had her mother now, a miracle in itself, but… Her lips pressed together and she took a careful breath, pressing closely against Remi and looping her arm around his waist with his squeeze.    ’I love you, Ashe.’    Round blue eyes darted upwards to Remi, lips parting in surprise as he went on. Two years now she had been learning how to be loved, how to connect with people beyond a single person. Two years of struggling to accept it when anyone told her they loved her, and loving them fiercely herself, often knowing without it needing to be spoken that people for some reason cared about her. Two years, and still it shook her down to her bones to hear Remi say it. With his smile, she offered him a wobbling one in return, her eyes filling and blurring. Everything left unsaid with Ronin…    "I love you, Remi,” she replied with a voice that sounded far stronger than she felt. Fire-blue eyes held sea-glass green, and it was a struggle not to crumple then and there. ”You’re my brother, you know that right?”    Her smile wavered and fell, and she looked back to Ronin’s portrait with her chest tightening. ”Ronin too.” She leaned her head against Remi’s chest and his solidity, as if reminding herself she hadn’t lost him too. ”But he probably didn’t know it,” she went on, her voice breaking. ”I never here, Remi, I missed so much, I was so fucking stupid --” She had to cut off, emotion constricting her throat as her eyes finally overflowed again. She pulled in a shuddering breath, her free arm wrapping tightly around her center. Those brilliant blue eyes stared back at her, captured in pigments and brushstrokes, and it wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.    The weight of grief was crushing, but the regret… Gods, the regret. ”I should have been here.” Idiot, idiot girl. ”He pushed me to be better, to do better for as long as I’ve known him. I would have joined the Guard under him, I should have fucking joined the guild when he asked it of me, I…” She had been gone. Ashe was notoriously defiant and chafed against authority, but she would have followed Ronin to the ends of the earth if he asked it of her.    ”I let him down.”    Her fingers dug painfully into her side as she let those words hang in the air. There was such a gleaming darkness in her, and endless rift cleaved straight through her core. It was a chasm that stretched wider and wider in every moment of existing in a world without Ronin, in knowing how unworthy she had been of his faith in her. ”I’d like to join the guild,” she said softly. Too little and too late, idiot girl. ”Kalt will too.” and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun If Remi could have simply enveloped Ashe he would have. He wasn't so naive to think that he was the comfort that she needed or that she in turn could be his panacea, but something about their anguish felt as though it ought to be combined. Like something this momentous should not be spread out between two bodies, but should instead be bound together. As she looked up at him, his fingers tightened ever so slightly around her. As it had been the last time he'd held her this long, that fateful day they'd first met, there was no wandering of his limbs, no subtle glances of her out of the corner of his eye. He was tired and weary yes, but kindness had always come naturally to him, and should Ashe crumple, he would be there to hold her up. "I do." He said simply, leaning his cheek against the top of her head as she sighed against his chest. "Though I have never had siblings before. You will have to tell me when I am doing something wrong." Nosing towards Ronin, Remi's stomach muscles tightened as he fought off the urge to both laugh and sob, deciding to aim for that nowhere emotion in-between. "He certainly would have." As she began to unravel, though tears darkened his own eyes Remi pulled her closer. The alchemist was not so masculine that he felt an obligation to console, merely that her sentiments echoed loudly in his own chest. "I only told him I loved him at the end. He never knew in life how much he meant to me." The alchemist said softly into the waves of raven hair. Shaking his head, Remi hummed a note of disagreement in the back of his throat. "No." He murmured softly. "I asked him if he would start up another army, and he said he did not want to. You living your own life did not stop anything." He added trying to be reassuring, though in the wake of Ronin's death surely there was no chance he could stop the second guessing. "We all failed together, though I do not know what else we could have done." He said uselessly, hands tightening against her for a moment before releasing as she continued to speak. "Alright." Remi said with a small laugh, glancing around. "Welcome to the guild. Sorry the place is such a mess." When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ashe the woods are lovely, dark, and deep but i have promises to keep    Ashe nodded at first, but then shook her head. ”I never had any siblings either,” she admit. She managed a small smile for him with that. ”We’ll just make up our own rules.”    She listened to him, she heard what he was saying, but still the weight was heavy in her chest. No.. perhaps he wouldn’t have started an army. There wasn’t that sort of need for her to be there, but.. ”I should have been here,” she pressed. ”Seeing him, talking to him, anything. Being his friend.” Her lip wobbled with Remi’s breath warm at the top of her head when he spoke. They both shared the same pain in this - not a comfort, but a validation. ”I’m a really shitty fucking friend.”    With that she looked about the Guildhall, smiling tightly and huffing a broken sort of laugh. ”You’ve had an infant to look after Remi. Messes are a bit further down on the list of priorities with children.” She was suddenly quite thankful for Kalt in that respect: where Ashe was all clutter and messes, he was the neat freak. With a three year old running amok, it would be too easy for their house to get out of control if he wasn’t so diligent on keeping it put together (and scolding the both of them in picking up their shit.)    She looked over towards the bassinet again, smiling softly. ”Could I see her?” she asked softly. and miles to go before i sleep.

REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun Swallowing down the strange ball of grief that was suddenly tinged with amusement, Remi laughed. "Alright. First rule: no one dies." He said naively, yet there was a strange confidence in his voice as if this was truly something they could vow. "I think those were the kind of friends he liked best." Remi hummed with a thoughtful sort of sadness. After all, looking at the roster, it seemed true. There was Loren, who had left them both. Remi, who always needed Ronin more than Ronin ever needed him, and Ashe who always seemed to exist somewhere on the cusp of who everyone thought she was, and who she actually was. With a snort, the alchemist shrugged. "Be that as it may, I have never been particularly neat or tidy." Biting the inside of his lip to keep it from trembling too much, Remi nodded immediately. "Of course. She is your family too." He said gently, gesturing for Ashe to follow him over. Leaning down, he whispered a sing-song greeting over the bassinet that had the wind-chimes Vai had made dancing overtop. In Aoife's lap she had two stars to represent Vanya and Ronin, and a dragon as well. Speaking of, now that they were in the greatroom, two pale and frosty eyes suddenly appeared from the depths of a 'cave'. Well cave was an overstatement. It was really just a conglomeration of all the things Sugar had created to make herself a den: broken chairs, blankets, pots and pans. Content with Ashe's presence, Sugar gave a snort of greeting and then snuggled back into the dark. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you