your touch is atomic

remi

A lot's been changin' lately and I can't tell
If it's me or if it's everybody else

Raccoons were animals you'd find in King's End. Sure they were. It isn't strange at all to see a round scruff of grey just wombling through the knee-high flowers in search of things to eat.

Initially, Remi had planned on being in and out, given what he'd promised Isla. He was here for some Wishing Well Water for Ronin and that was all. Oh, but then he'd been distracted by all the smells and the colourful flowers just waving endlessly before him and he thought there probably wasn't any harm in stopping to pick a few for the huntsman. Then, of course, given his raccoon shift, Remi had become utterly distracted by each bright smear of movement and the honeyed aroma of nectar on the breeze.

Shuffling through such that his whiskers were coated with pollen and his cheeks were full of small seeds he'd plucked off the ground, Remi's belly felt satisfied enough to give control back to his mind.

Now where had he left that bouquet of flowers..

we're only human but w?'ve got hands & hearts & noses
So stop and sm?ll the fuckin' roses

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

ISLA If we are being kind, we might imagine that what happens next is purely a result of mindless bloodlust and nothing more. Alas, a fuzzy, whiskered slip of a thing like a raccoon is never going to draw the attention of a hungry tigress. And so hunger and bloodlust is satisfied - mostly - before Isla even prowls into the field of wildflowers, and if Remi turns his furry cheeks upwind, he might smell the tang of iron staining the air. The deer carcass is mostly gone now, nothing but a bleached cradle of rib bones bared to the sky and a torn pelt, and it's with a muzzle and claws stained crimson that Isla presses herself low to the ground, a monster among the petals. She can see the masked little thing going about its business, and it shouldn't annoy her, but it does. Blame a feline's instincts; either way, as Remi looks about for his bouquet, Isla strikes in a smooth pounce, talons outstretched to pin the raccoon down.

remi

A lot's been changin' lately and I can't tell
If it's me or if it's everybody else

With his nose looking like he'd just done several lines of cocaine, Remi is able to smell nothing but flowers. His little hands stretch out, touching everything as he ambles along, button nose sniffing and detecting absolutely nothing of note. Certainly not Isla, and certainly not his bouquet either.

Unworried and unhurried, it's by pure chance that he finds the bouquet, which is actually just a bunch of flowers unceremoniously dumped in a pile. He'd been distracted, okay? Reaching to gather them against his belly, the sun suddenly blots itself out and Remi has only a moment in which he thinks that things have gotten a bit warmer before Isla is upon him.

Squeaking, Remi bares his little teeth as he goes ass over teakettle before coming to a rest between Isla's massive paws. Instinctively the raccoon rakes out with his little hands, though his claws are hardly large enough to do more than tweeze Isla's nose hairs given her current form.

we're only human but w?'ve got hands & hearts & noses
So stop and sm?ll the fuckin' roses

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

ISLA It would be such an easy thing, to simply take the tiny creature's skull between her massive jaws and give it a shake, or to clamp down upon it with force enough to crack bones. And were it even five minutes before, when she'd been lost to the hunt and the thrill of a meal she'd killed with her own teeth and claws, she might not have given it a second thought. (And how interesting that would be, to force someone like Remi into reacting). But now? With sense returning - and all manner of unwelcome thoughts and feelings with it - the tigress is left with whiskers flinching in response to the swatting, tiny hands of the raccoon. Call it petulance (Isla realises she doesn't want to kill anything any more, and she's irritated with herself for it), but she settles on parting her jaws and roaring at the raccoon instead, as if to make it cease its wriggling about.

REMI

if you're not going to swim deep with me

A much smarter man might have realized that, rather than this molten tiger simply being very far from home, given a well-known ancient lives in these lands and that molten tigers are often their shifts, that this is probably Isla. Not only is REmi not that smart of a man, but in his present shift, he was more intrigued by reaching out toward the texture of Isla's tongue than doing Sherlock Holmes-level deductions.

Still.

Remi's black button eyes widen with alarm as the roar comically flattens his whiskers and fur back against his skull. Though the raccoon's mind is focused on the seeds still in its mouth and the scent of flowers all around, deep within, the tiger's roar as not only awakened its counterpart in the Lullaby, but tugged it to the surface. In anamorphic-style, the raccoon's teeth elongate drastically as black and grey fur melds to gold and brown. Their sizes are reversed as the manticore's body gulfs that of the tiger, and though he's still beneath Isla, as Remi roars in response his mouth opens almost wide enough to fit her entire head within it.

get out of my waters

Coding base by Sky!

ISLA There is no much smarter woman scenario for Isla, because of course she has no idea that Remi even has a raccoon shift these days, and even if she did, she'd not assume every single one in King's End could be the Lullaby. Of course, all that changes when the insignificant ball of fluff between her paws begins to grow exponentially, and now it's the tigress's turn for ears and whiskers to flatten back. The difference, of course, is that Isla knows exactly what she's looking at, and gods if it's not the cherry on the fucking top of a bad day. Jaws snapping shut, she instantly slinks back, already shifting into something with less fur and a voice with which she might express herself. "I thought you said you weren't coming here any more," she says into the ringing silence left in the wake of their respective dick-swinging.

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

Fuck.

It's the first coherent thought that Remi has following the raccoon's terror and the manticore's desire to tear out the tigress' throat. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Shifting back as well into a body clothed with tan pants and a faded chambray shirt, the Lullaby lets out a long sigh before sitting up amidst the flowers. Looking all the more boyish for his heat-heavy curls and the riot of colours around him, he frowns up at the Remedy for a moment before splaying his hands apologetically over his lap.

"You are right, I did say that." He admits, before glancing at his shoulder where a small line of blood has appeared through a tear in the cloth, thanks to one of Isla's claws. One side of his mouth tugs up in a slight wince before he hazards a look back toward the Remedy. "But this is one of my favourite shirts, so perhaps that can be my punishment."

THE LULLABY

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

ISLA "And yet here you are," Isla mutters, gathering herself to her feet and sweeping herself off; almost as if in a perfect mirror to the Lullaby, she wears a soft blue summer dress and tan sandals, her fair hair left loose around her face given the chaos of what she's been up to. Oh, and of course, she's covered in blood. She's not expecting an easy, lighthearted quip from the alchemist, and it catches her so off guard that she responds without thinking. "Your entire wardrobe is faded chambray - I think you will survive." Only as she's trying to get a bit of dried blood out from under her fingernails does she realise the over-familiarity with which she's spoken to Remi, and fuck it's not something she can handle today. "Listen, I don't know why you keep coming back here. I know it isn't because of me, but either way, you don't have to worry about it happening again. Sorry I... you know." With the raccoon, and the pouncing, and the attempted cat play-thing murder.

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

Parting his lips and finding absolutely no reply within reach, Remi is forced to exhale as he concedes. "And yet here I am." Guilt is not an expression the Lullaby wears well, and though there's nothing in his history with Isla on his end that makes him feel as bad as he should, Remi isn't the type to go against his word. "I am sorry." He offers, doubting if it will mean anything to Isla.

Distracted by the smell of blood on Isla, Remi is forced to tug his eyes away from her the way he once had to for far more boyish (but just as mouth-watering) reasons. "But this one is soft." He protests before even really realizing it, smoothing down the front of his shirt before swallowing.

Glancing toward the bundle of flowers and on the verge of explaining why it was he'd come back, Isla's tone keeps him from it, which likely saves the Remedy even more hurt today. Oh, I broke my word to get my husband some flowers, was likely not what she needed to hear.

"I deserved it, even if it you did not know it was me." He says with a shrug that smears the blood on his shirt. "I..don't know what that means." Remi adds, sea-glass stare hazarding a look up into Isla's blood-covered face. His expression was tentative and braced for the Remedy's fury, if only because either way, you don't have to worry about it happening again, sounded like the sort of thing that harkened back to something he should remember, but didn't.

THE LULLABY

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

ISLA There's no forgiveness in Isla for Remi Taliesin at this moment in time, even for something as comparatively innocuous as this, and so she merely hums out a non-committal response. Already she's glancing back towards where she came from, but of course given how good at hunting tigers are, there's precious little evidence of the route she'd taken. Of all the things she expects to hear in response to her unintended line-crossing, it's not for Remi to continue as if they really are still friends, and so (probably wisely) Isla opts to ignore his comment. "The raccoon wouldn't have deserved it though, if it hadn't been you," she murmurs, resisting the urge to rake her fingers through her hair for fear of streaking blood through it. "I'm leaving King's End, that's all. So I just meant if you needed to come back here, you don't have to feel any sort of way about it."

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

'No?' Remi wonders up at her, looking bemused. "That is a strange thing for a predator to say." Desert was hardly a thing animals took into consideration, though from what he thought he'd learned of Isla, she hadn't been an ancient for very long. "If it had not been me, it would have been quick." He adds with a small shrug as if that might soothe whatever responsibility she felt.

'Ah.' Still seated among the flowers, Remi's right hand reaches to pluck a few stems where it subtly coerces its counterpart into braiding together a chain. "Is there...somewhere new I should not go, then?" He wonders, before breathing in a breath through his nose and holding it, fully prepared for the retort of: why, so you can ignore that promise too?

Some men never learn.

THE LULLABY

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

ISLA "It probably is," Isla agrees somewhat stiffly, "because I'm not a predator. I'm a doctor." Or at least, there's absolutely a difference between what she needs to do as an Ancient and what she chooses to do, and if feeling remorse makes her not a predator, especially in Remi's eyes, she's happy to forego the label. Inhaling deeply and letting it out again, she doesn't know why seeing the Lullaby sitting in the wildflowers making daisy chains makes her so strangely restless, but given the events of the past few hours alone, she's dangerously close to becoming untethered. "You can go wherever you want," she says, snapping without meaning to and instantly regretting it. "Sorry. I just meant... I won't be in one place in particular. So just... do whatever you want." She'd say she'd do her best to stay out of his way, but evidently that hasn't worked in the slightest.

maybe i'm a runaway train, maybe i'm a feather in a hurricane

"Oh I see. That's a patient's blood, is it?" He asks with a crooked grin, nodding to the crimson markings on her dress. It had been so many years since the Lullaby was first a predator that he'd forgotten what it was to wrestle with his new instincts. Certainly, at one point in his life his leonine inclinations had terribly upset his worldview, as being a predator now likely did to someone like Isla, but gods, it was so very long ago.

Having expected the verbal slap and then some, the Lullaby is already braced for Isla's words when they come, still, he looks down into his lap where his ghostly fingers have continued to weave together flowers of soft blue and green. 'So, just to be clear then..' Sucking in on his bottom lip, Remi peers up at Isla through his curls. '...if I did bump into you somewhere...I should just...act as if I have not seen you, or...?' Not sarcastically asked at all, but sounding rather like a man who is trying his best to negotiate a path through a pit of vipers, Remi can only offer Isla a small and apologetic smile for his ignorance on how to act around her.

THE LULLABY

maybe it's a long gray game, but maybe that's a good thing

ISLA "That isn't fair, and you aren't funny," Isla tells him with a scowl, wondering if he's always been such an asshole and she's not noticed, or if this is something that has developed in the time since he'd forgotten her. Either way, his crooked smiles and dark humour and boyish mannerisms are the equivalent of repeated punches to the gut, and Isla doesn't realise she's bitten the inside of her cheek until she tastes the fresh blood. Inhaling steadily and swallowing down the copper in her mouth, when she speaks she's at least proud that she can keep her voice steady. "Opposed to what?" she wants to know with a soft shake of her head. "I am nothing to you, Remi. You don't know me - I'm beginning to wonder if you ever did. So yes, treat me like the strangers we are, and nothing like this will happen again."