[se] we come in waves

the lullaby

You'd not be wrong in assuming that after having watched back the entirety of his history with Isla, Remi would have left the Greatwood lusting after the medic with an erection like a dowsing rod, leading the way right to her. Or perhaps you might have thought that though he was filled with renewed desire, he'd thoughtfully go home and fuck his husband before seeking out the Remedy. This is all perfectly understandable of course, given the tumultuous and magnetic history between Remi and Isla, but it couldn't be farther from what in fact took place. Instead of being brazenly overcome with need or worse yet, a love to rival that which he felt with Ronin, Remi only felt guilt. It was the sort of guilt that had him falling to his knees and vomiting amongst the trees of the Greatwood, the sort that had a cold sweat breaking out across his skin sending his body into the convulsive sorts of shivers that no amount of heat could ever still. The sort that insidiously found its way into the soft marrow of his bones and bloomed there, spreading as rapidly as the Blight once had.  

That Isla was nearly impossible to find hadn't helped matters.

After searching King's End only for rumours of the pretty blonde wot could heal anythin' having fucked off Remi had been utterly at a loss as to where to look for the Remedy. Having not been for her friend for nearly two years had put the Lullaby at a distinct disadvantage, and had Isla not been the sort of woman that men couldn't fail to notice (women too, though they weren't as loud about it), he'd likely not have found at her at all. Thanks to a tip from Flora of all people, and gods but he didn't have the mental focus to think too hard about that just now, he headed toward the cannibalistic island where he was told Isla had gone to hunt.

Though stiff ocean breezes were currently doing their best to cool down the majority of Torchline, Metacarpal Island was still rather humid and warm thanks to the thick intertwining canopy of leaves overhead. In a simple white shirt and tan pants, Remi had unconsciously opted for a look more reminiscent of who he had once been so very long ago.

You trace my lines, stirring my soul
shoot sparks at the heart of the world
& I watch it explode

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

Remi may be trying to look like who he had been, once upon a time, but unfortunately Isla can't do that herself - not emotionally or physically. She's no longer the ethereal, willowy Ascended, pale as the moon and still as deep water; with fresh blood pumping through a heart that beats even though it's broken, she's all curves and muscle, skin freckled and tanned, fair hair further streaked with sunlight.

One might expect her to be clad in a tiger's stripes for this particular expedition, but there's something right about feeling the world beneath her bare feet and bleached bone against her fingertips. Hunting something and nothing in particular, the afternoon light falls in dusky shafts through the canopy overhead, lending further (if unintentional) camouflage to the Remedy.

With her skirts hitched up around her knees and her hair half braided out of her face, she inches out along the bough of a tree, leg stretched for balance. At the end of one of the more spindly branches, a colourful songbird is taking a rest. It might be permanent, if Isla has anything to do with it.

Isla

the lullaby

That he would likely find Isla far more easily as a manticore gives the Lullaby pause. Large as that shift was, the Remedy would no doubt be able to hear him coming, if not see or smell him depending on what skin she wore. Given their last encounter, Remi made no assumptions that, if given the chance, Isla wouldn't simply slip away so as not to have to endure any more of the Lullaby's pig-headed commentary about how she'd been going about things. Debating between becoming a wraith, a shift which would allow him to pass soundlessly through the jungle, Remi opted for another of his rarely used shifts instead, hoping to appeal to Isla's new instincts as an Ancient.

Careful to keep away from anything which looked dry, Remi flared and crackled his way through the underbrush. Conveniently the humidity that coated almost everything with a layer of moisture kept Remi's flames from spreading, though he did his best to hug the tongues of fire against his body.

Every shade of hurt you know
From the deep blue to the marigold
It's gonna make sense someday lookin' back

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

The bird notices the flare of heat and the smell of smoke in the air before Isla does, and it flaps its way free of the branch and off into the canopy without ever realising how close to death it had brushed. Hissing out a soft curse between her teeth, it's with a lashing of her tail that the Remedy settles on the bough of the tree, a bare leg left swinging towards the undergrowth.

A few more seconds pass before she realises the warmth in the breeze is more than just the heat of Leafchange, her face turning towards it instinctively. Through the mosaic of leaves and trunks she swears she can spot the lick of flames, but they move like something organic; either that, or someone is wheeling a campfire through the island, and call her crazy, but that sounds ludicrous.

Dropping down from the tree, it's on soft feet that she pads forward to get a closer look, parting the branches to trail after the journeying fire.

Isla

the lullaby

Unable to partially shift lest he lose control of the fire around him, Remi is forced to rely on the things he's learned from the predators within himself. Slowing his breathing, the Lullaby lets his pale stare grow slack to capture any movement around him. He tries to identify the tastes and smells around him, though short of Isla having dumped a bottle of perfume on earlier that morning, his nose wasn't going to help him.

Though he'd normally ignore it, as the skin on the back of his neck begins to prickle, the Lullaby turns. Tilting his head ever so slightly, he peers almost directly at Isla; the shadowplay of light and darkness obscures her features enough that through the haze of fire around him he can't make quite make her out, and yet...?

Turning with as much precision as any ambush predator, Remi begins to walk in the direction he'd just come from, his eyes fixed on a particular blemish in the undergrowth.

Every shade of hurt you know
From the deep blue to the marigold
It's gonna make sense someday lookin' back

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

Her curiosity is thoroughly doused as the fiery creature - a man, Isla notes as she watches him swan through the undergrowth - turns around to walk back towards her, and she recognises in him the features of the friend she's tried and failed to forget about. Hissing in a breath and retreating back into the leaves and vines, she's torn for a moment between storming into view and demanding to know why he always has to be where she is, and disappearing altogether.

The outrage burns on her tongue, though it's born from hurt rather than anger, and eventually the Ancient turns to lose herself back in the thicket of hidden trails and deadly flora of the island. She wants to blame him for being here, but for all she knows it's a complete coincidence, and after their last meeting, she has no intention of repeating the experience. The smell of salt on the breeze carries the smoke away soon enough, and she heads towards the shoreline so she can get the hell off this rock. Er, bone. Bone rock.

Isla

the lullaby

Though Remi immediately begins to prowl after Isla, she could have a deer or whatever other creatures lived on this strange island for all he knew. The shiver of movement was enough to draw and keep the Lullaby's attention such that even as Isla stalked off toward the shoreline, she did so with a hulk Remi-shaped mess of fire trailing in her wake.

Hastening his pace if only because if this was just some animal he'd rather know about it sooner rather than later, Remi breaks into an ambling jog. Pale eyes constantly tracking from the ground, noting broken stalks and steams as well as footprints should Isla's bare feet leave any, back ahead to the trail, the Lullaby makes no attempts to keep quiet. Unless it's Ronin (or Deimos, perhaps) ahead of him, there's no other being he knows of who could outpace him, such that as Isla breaks out of the jungle and onto the shoreline, it will be with Remi doing so only seconds later.

Every shade of hurt you know
From the deep blue to the marigold
It's gonna make sense someday lookin' back

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

What could have been a heartwarming reunion or even a fiery argument turns abruptly comical. Because of course Isla realises she's being followed, and the heat and glimmer of flames at her back tells her it's Remi-fucking-Taliesin doing the following. And no matter which way she turns or loops to try and stay out of his way, he's there all the same like a rash, until suddenly she's spilling out onto the shoreline - and catching her bare foot on a snarl of coral that might have also been skeletal in nature.

Tumbling and hitting the sand about as inelegantly as one might expect, it's with a foot that's freely bleeding and an expression of flustered anger on her face that she turns to glare up at the Lullaby. "What the fuck do you want?" she snaps, because the only way he could have been able to stick to her so closely has to be intentional, she thinks. "Staying out of my way is the opposite of chasing me, you know."

Isla

the lullaby

Blinking into the sunlight as the world turns bright and a good deal cooler, Remi comes to an abrupt stop. In all the ways he'd allowed himself to imagine this moment might go, certainly, none of them had been quite like this. Sure, there had been fire, maybe a little blood, definitely some yelling, and if he's perfectly candid a few did have Isla positioned somewhat on her knees, but never had these factors assembled themselves in quite this way.

As if he'd been doused with water, the fire instantly fades from the Lullaby and though he was never the sort of man to be described as small these days, certainly the lack of flames made him seem less than he had just moments before. Opening his mouth, Remi only gapes at Isla for a moment as if having expected the right words to come tumbling out of his lips now that he'd done his part and found the Remedy. Only..when nothing came, Remi was struck once again by just how wildly arrogant he was being.

Sinking down onto his knees before her, his hands placatingly held out, the Lullaby finds himself utterly tongue-tied. His fingers tremble as if trying to trace the beginning of an apology for his eyes to simply read, but he is too undone by the sheer vivacity of the woman before him. Though her eyes were the same sharp blue, the colour in her cheeks made them seem to glow given the contrast, and though at any other time he might have second-guessed the thought that Isla suddenly had more freckles banding across her nose, after having just literally watched her transform before her eyes only days before, he could quite confidently say her skin had never been like this.

"I know," Remi forces himself to say, inelegantly; swallowing hard he can practically feel time slipping away, and with it every scenario he'd imagined wherein he had time to properly explain.

"Isla," he tries again. In a far less realistic setting, Remi would be able to say her name such that she would hear the familiarity in it and know something had happened. But flush-cheeked and flustered as he was, Remi had no idea how it actually sounded at all. "Isla, gods I am so sorry."

You trace my lines, stirring my soul
shoot sparks at the heart of the world
& I watch it explode

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

"And so you should be, chasing me all the way to the gods damned beach," Isla sasses, obviously completely missing the gravity in Remi's words and gestures; he's spent enough time looking befuddled and vaguely sad since she'd run into him post-war, it hardly seems strange for him to be suddenly placating. For his next trick, he'll probably glower and call her a bitch.

As she tears a strip from her (already considerably frayed and ragged) skirts to carefully wrap her bleeding foot, the strange and serious tone of the Lullaby's voice finally seems to slip through, Isla raising her eyebrows as she glances across at the demigod on his knees. "Oh come now, it isn't all that bad," she murmurs, finding herself trying to reassure him even now. "It probably won't even leave a scar."

Too bad she's still talking past him in jagged lines.

Isla

the lullaby

Remi's nod of agreement is instant and desperate as he shakes his head yes, over and over in small jerks. Watching hesitantly as she begins to bandage her foot, the Lullaby's lips flinch with unspoken words as they long to jump right into the heart of things. Only the overwhelming evidence of just how impossibly selfish he'd been with Isla all throughout their relationship keeps him momentarily silent.

Meeting the Remedy's gaze is a weight that no amount of divine strength has prepared him for, and though he longs to gaze at her, he finds his eye line slipping down, and down until it reaches the sand. Squeezing his eyes shut against tears and his own endless stupidity, Remi holds out one of his hands toward her. Though it's his right hand, thankfully today the ghostly appendage seems to be onboard.

"I know I have no right to ask anything of you, but please, stay-" Swallowing hard, his throat gone quite dry, Remi bites at the inside of his cheek as if he might lubricate his tongue with his own blood. "-I have so much to apologize to you for. Gods, years worth." Raising his eyes slowly, the Lullaby licks at his lips looking altogether quite hopeless. "And you do not have to accept it, but after all I have put you through, I think you at least deserve to hear it."

Because the thing of it was, I remember was not in fact the most important part of all of this. I was wrong, was.

You trace my lines, stirring my soul
shoot sparks at the heart of the world
& I watch it explode

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

Clumsily bundled on the shore as she is, with a bandaged foot and sand in her hair, it's perhaps no surprise that as the Lullaby continues down this strange and sincere vein, suspicion is Isla's knee-jerk reaction. Indeed as he reaches for her, at first she instinctively shuffles back, brow furrowed as if trying to make sense of the impossible. "What are you talking about?" she whispers, despite knowing very well what he might mean.

But admitting he might remember anything - anything at all - about their friendship is not a torch the Remedy is willing to light. Her life is one without meaning; too tired to carry on but too stubborn to give up, hope is little more than the light from dying coals, and Isla expects no warmth from it.

And yet, such is the curse of the things she does remember, to see the Lullaby in visible pain isn't something Isla can tolerate, even angry, and she sighs out a shivering breath that makes the back of her throat prickle. "Remi," she mumbles, "you don't have to apologise for something you don't remember. I appreciate it, but it's done. You can't change it."

Isla

the lullaby

It hurts more than he ever might have expected to see her shying away from him, and though he more than understands her reaction, it's with his stomach recoiling as if preparing to vomit that Remi pulls his hand away. Nodding to himself and doing his best to ignore the way his blood is hammering in his ears, the Lullaby inspects his ghostly hand for a moment as it edges toward the sand where it tries to draw a heart.

"It is done," He agrees, allowing his index finger to draw only half of the symbol before he clenches it into a fist before forcing his hand to relax. "And while I do not remember, I..." Frowning down at the sand, Remi gives his head a hopeless little shake. "..I...know." Glancing up at Isla to see what, if any of it, was making sense, Remi sighs and closes his eyes.

"If you stay I can explain it to you, but...I am done making you do things just for my own benefit." Please stay, sings out of every fibre of his being, though against it the Lullaby merely feathers his jaw and stares resolutely at the sand even as tears well in his eyes. Behind his salty-heavy curls perhaps Isla won't see and he owes her more than tugging at her heartstrings by crying to get her to stay if it isn't what she wants.

You trace my lines, stirring my soul
shoot sparks at the heart of the world
& I watch it explode

Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!

we're always running scared but holding knives

Isla is still frowning, but she doesn't move any further across the sand. "Oh," she says, a little hopelessly. Knowing and remembering are vastly different in her mind, because merely knowing what has happened doesn't bring any feeling back with it, and Isla doesn't want Remi's pity. She doesn't think she can stand it; she'd prefer to clash with him every time they meet rather than have him look at her that way.

So it's probably a good thing that she doesn't see the glimmer of tears in his eyes, because at present the Remedy wouldn't know how to take them. Even so, it's with another shaky sigh that she tries for a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders. "I don't have anywhere else to be," she mutters. "Go ahead."

Because even a strange, slightly unbelievable conversation with Remi is still a conversation with him. And how sad is it, that Isla wants to hear his voice more?

Isla