dream a little dream of me

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

Before his brief outing with Ronin into the Greatwood, the Lullaby hadn't left the Cordillera in over a year. But today? With nary a cloud in the sky and the morning he'd had so far? Gods, but Remi would almost go so far as to say he felt good. That he was pleased to be out, stretching his wings. Of course, he'd be happier if Ronin were with him, but certainly, that would ruin the surprise he had planned.

With the sun high in the sky, the manticore's massive shadow was made even larger on the green fields below as Remi began to descend. The Mourn was easy enough to point out—it being a brilliant spray of colour amidst the endless rolling green kills—but the Dreaming Well? Well (ha), that appeared to be harder to find. His predatory gaze wasn't much help when it came to a quarry that didn't move about, nor were many of his other senses.

Just as he was nearly low enough to land, he heard the panicked whinny of a unicorn. Later he'd realize that his shadow had likely spooked the creature and sent it running, only to be ensnared in some sort of trap. (Sorry Morgen). Jogging toward the sounds of distress, the Lullaby held his hands up in a placating gesture as if the struggling creature might understand. It didn't of course, and human-facade or not, it was apparently quite aware of the sort of monster he could choose to be. "Shhh, shh. You will be alright, but this will not be easy if you keep struggling." He called in a low voice as he walked toward it, trying to keep his movements calm and his eye line low.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

Isla knows not to hunt the unicorns around King's End, even if the predator that now burns in her veins would very much like to. And so it's a deer she's stalking when the tell-tale whinny of distress pricks up her feline ears, the molten tiger halting in her prowl to subtly change direction, padding towards the sound on four massive paws. Still, as she nears the creature (and she can smell its fear, as well as something both cold and botanical, both familiar and not).

By the time she parts through the shrubbery, it's on two feet rather than four, Isla in a soft yellow sundress that only emphasises the healthy tan to her skin, the freckles that scatter along the bridge of her nose. With her fair hair down and wild - and crowned by gleaming topaz horns, which is a new addition, not the man before her will know or care - she seems more like a lost maiden than an experienced medic. And for the first time, Remi really won't know any different.

"Please don't hurt it--" she's already blurting out, presuming him to be the one who had set the trap - a poacher or a hunter, perhaps. But then she sees it, in the slope of his shoulders and the way he holds his hands, in the twist of his curls and in the slow, careful movements of a man too used to being the strongest one in the room.

"Oh," Isla says, because what the fuck else do you say at a time like this? "Oh, gods-- sorry." Like he'll remember enough to care, Isla. Don't be silly.

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

"Shhh, shhhh." The Lullaby is still humming, and though it has little effect on the unicorn, he's found that consistency with frightened animals proves beneficial in the end, so he continues. Given who and what he is, the soft sounds of someone approaching don't earn much respect from the Lullaby's fight or flight responses, such that Remi only glances up briefly before reaching out for the unicorn's captured leg. Of course what he sees in that brief glance is, devastatingly, unremarkable. A woman, one he doesn't recognize, who apparently thinks he means to hurt the creature he's tending to.

"I am trying not to." The Lullaby replies, the music of his voice cut off slightly by its terseness. With strength enough to overpower the unicorn easily, it still struggles beneath his hands as he tries to remain gentle. "If I hold it still, can you come and release the trap?" Remi asks, glancing up at Isla again with a green stare that wondered whether or not she'd be too shaken or squeamish around the sight of blood, than who she was.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

It's an exquisite sort of pain, to get nothing but terse politeness - if you could even call it that - from the Lullaby, Isla inhaling through what she swears is the kiss of a scalpel blade along her chest. You are now the sole bearer of everything that ever was between us. She recites words she remembers from a letter written long ago in her head, breathing again through what feels like broken glass, before nodding.

Because of course there is still a creature in need of assistance between them, and if Remi did have his memories she'd have likely accused him of setting all of this up for them to see one another. "Yes, I can," she manages after a second or two, though trying to force her legs to move is a task all on its own. I miss you, she wants to say. I'm glad you're alive. I'm not Ascended now, so we can stop being silly about all of this.

Instead, it's in an arguably awkward silence that she steps forward, trying not to get too close but knowing it will be impossible not to, so instead keeping blue eyes focused down towards the unicorn's trapped limb. "Ready when you are."

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

The woman's pause - which Remi interprets as squeamishness on her part - is broken finally as she comes to his side. Already having knelt down, the Lullaby moves over slightly that she might have more room, but as Isla had already noticed, it isn't though their task can be completed at a distance from one another. Still humming soothing sounds under his breath, Remi splays his hands down the unicorn's leg followed by the sound of gentle unfurling (#lucifer). Stretching out one of his large tawny wings, he covers the unicorn's eyes so that the sheen of sun on the metal or any of their movements, might not seem so scary.

"Better to go slow and steady than try and pull the lever and miss." Remi advises in between gentle hums. "It is that there - " He nods towards part of the rusty trap. "-that releases it, but it will not spring back open. It will take some effort."

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

"Yes," Isla says, a little more abruptly than she means to, "I've seen these sorts of injuries before." And while she is no longer spared the pain of having to manually open the trap, she is confident in her ability to do so. She's cracked open sternums and set breaks - though it's been a while since her last surgery, granted. "I'm a doctor," she adds quietly, as if belatedly remembering that all of their unspoken history is gone - and it probably won't be the first time.

The shadow of tawny wings makes her back itch and brings a lump to her throat, but luckily her expression is mostly hidden by the curtain of her fair hair as she takes hold of the lever, drawing it carefully from the rusty mechanism. A soft curse under her breath and some brute force gets the vice-like teeth of the trap to open from around the unicorn's leg, Isla frowning. "Can you tell if it's broken?" she wants to know, not at the best vantage point for that sort of examination.

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

The mention of her being a doctor eases the Lullaby a little, and though a smarter man might have wondered then, what was the cause of her earlier pause if not an aversion to blood, Remi's thoughts have already moved on to more important things. Like unicorns.

Spreading his fingers wide as they'll go over the unicorn's shoulder to keep it steady, he hears the click hisssssssssssss of the device without needing to watch Isla, and the fact that it wasn't followed by a brutish cluNK suggests that she does have it well in hand. The unicorn struggles slightly at the sound, but otherwise remains more or less still beneath Remi's fingers even as small roses of blood begin to bloom from the spaces left by the trap's teeth.

"I thought you said you were the doctor." The Lullaby replies, sounding both amused and exasperated in equal measure as he hazards a glance over his shoulder at Isla. "It does not look like it to me, but.." Well. He wasn't the fucking doctor, was he.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

"A doctor is not a vet," Isla points out dryly, waiting for the unicorn to move its leg out of the trap before releasing it to allow it to snick shut again. "And nor am I able to see through flesh and bone." Not any more, anyway. Now that the creature was free - and she half assumes it's going to bolt, so even if she wanted to help more it would likely be impossible - the medic gets herself to her feet and steps back.

Call her crazy, but she doesn't feel like it's wise to be too close to Remi right now. "No, it does not look broken," she agrees once she's far enough away to observe the equine's leg, smoothing down her sundress and seeming oblivious to the dirt and spots of blood that now stain the hem and her knees. "If it can get back to its herd it may be alright."

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

"I would think a doctor could pick out a break better than the common man." The Lullaby quips back, and though he certainly wasn't the paradigm of the common man, he thought the point still stood.

Not having to worry about being kicked by the unicorn as it flailed to stand (or rather, not having to worry about being hurt in the process), the Lullaby sacrifices the bruises he's sure to receive in order to help the creature stand. Though the effort has blood trickling down its leg in small tributaries, it seems able to bear its own weight, and just as Isla assumed it would, it's off in a flash. Clearly one of the unicorns with superspeed rather than healing, it bolts away from the pair disappearing in just seconds.

Dusting off his hands with absolutely no concern for the blood on his palms or shirt, Remi pulls his wings back into his body and turns partially toward Isla. The presence of her horns led him to believe she might once have been an ascended, and even though they didn't know each other, she probably knew of him in enough of a capacity to explain the chill in her tone.

"Well...thanks for the help." He offers lamely in an attempt to bring this weird interaction to a close. Reaching down for the snare, the Lullaby is able to snap it into two with hardly any effort, thus ensuring it would never trap any other creature again.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

"Because everything about you screams of being a common man," Isla says, the over-familiarity so simple and easy that it feels like a gut punch, and she finds herself biting at the inside of her cheek to stop from tearing up over it. Pull yourself the fuck together. "Yeah... Any time," she replies, watching as he breaks the snare. And the action is so much more than he thinks it is, the Remedy finding herself smiling to herself to see that Remi remains unchanged in some ways.

"My name is Isla Lockwood," she says suddenly, because she doubts he needs or wants to introduce himself - and honestly, hearing that we've-never-met-before greeting from him is going to hurt, so if she can spare it she will. "I know you already, of course." Of course because he's the Lullaby, but of course because he's Remi Taliesin and she loves him dearly.

But she's not even sure he'll have commited her name to fresh memory or assigned it a meaning, even one he can't read into any longer.

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

Frowning hard at that - no, of course he wasn't a common man, and yes people he didn't know knew of him, and all of that was precisely the reason he preferred to stay on his mountain these days - the alchemist exhales a burst of air that has his nostrils flaring slightly. Though he wants to roll his eyes in annoyance, instead he simply feathers his jaw in order to release the tension building up in his shoulders and drawing them towards his ears.

At first, the name means nothing. Everything about Isla from the sketches he'd made to the meticulous details of their history together, was bound in a notebook that the Lullaby hadn't thought of in months. Though it sat amidst some of his most treasured items, there was a layer of dust that coated the clasp holding the pages firmly together.

Of course?

Straightening fully, one half of the snare still in his hand, the Lullaby gives this stranger his full attention. Though his sea glass stare drinks her in the way it perhaps once did, now it's without any recognition despite the scrutiny. Apt as his drawings of the Remedy might once have been, no longer being an ascended had changed her appearance over and above the sun-kissed glow of her skin. Able to eat and drink again had altered her face in ways his drawings hadn't captured, not that he remembered them with any real accuracy just now. Her name though...

In that moment he feels the strangest sense of obligation to give the woman before him a hug, to smile and apologize, though he feels none of the things which might motivate him to actually act. You're Isla Lockwood, and I was so in love with you I had to forget you despite knowing how devastating that would be.

"Oh."

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

Of all the things Isla expects, of all the things she's imagined, dreamed and dreaded, in none of the scenarios does Remi simply look at her. And she finds it impossible to meet his gaze, even as it flickers over her face and body - do I not look good enough any more? whispers treacherously through her mind, because no. Of course she doesn't. How can she look like anything when he has no idea who she is?

"Please don't," she whispers, fretting at the bloody hem of her dress and trying to turn in on herself without moving. "Don't look straight through me." Because once where his eyes held a weight she almost believes she could feel on her skin, now there's absolutely nothing at all, and gods, she hates it more than she ever expected she would.

Oh, though, has her huffing out a humourless laugh. "Oh," she repeats, shrugging her shoulders and wiping at her eyes. "Yeah, that tracks. You were always shitty with words."

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard

the lullaby

Love isn't all that it seems
I did you wrong

Thinking that for once, at least, he hadn't been doing anything wrong, the Lullaby's eyebrows flit together before Isla clarifies and he finds himself sighing and looking down. "I was not trying to...I didn't mean.." He tries, before Isla points out what's obvious to both of them regardless of what Remi does or doesn't remember. Scrubbing a hand through his curls, he bites at the inside of his cheek and closes his eyes, head shaking softly. "Yeah." He agrees, sounding thoroughly defeated. "That has not changed."

Obtuse though Remi was, he could of course clearly see that his presence was upsetting Isla even with his gaze pulled away from her. But hadn't he done what was best for them? For her, as much as for himself? Would she have preferred to carry around his death with her, instead of this one-sided sadness?

"I think.." Remi begins carefully, his gaze flitting up cautiously somewhere around her shoulder. "..that whatever words I owe you because of what I did...I am no longer the man who can speak them." Once there had been a man who'd imagined this meeting. Who had torn apart sections of the Greatwood with his grief, and whose despair over the heartache he knew would come to his best friend was entirely his fault. That man had been broken and bruised to the very core of who he was, submitting to the death of an important part of himself to keep both he and Isla safe.

I'll stay here with you
Until this dream is gone

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

Isla

"No, it has not," Isla murmurs, blinking quickly and considering staring up at the sun to try and stop the flow of her tears, because she knows if she lets them start beyond the emotion that has already escaped, she won't be able to stop. As Remi continues, that becomes a great deal more difficult as one can probably imagine, and Isla forces a deep breath in and out before she continues.

"I shouldn't have brought it up," she says, almost apologetically. "I just didn't expect you to kill me twice. Once as a companion, once from your whole life." Isla has been in Caido for less than a decade and has died three times in as much time. "You didn't even let me say goodbye back."

But he's right - he isn't the same man as the one she'd lost, and if she thought it would achieve anything she might have hit him for it. But there's no point. Her Remi is gone, and there's no getting him back. "I live in King's End now. In case you want somewhere to avoid."

I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it
When you hit me, hit me hard