I'll never forget

Wakes from the dream sequence here: In a house upon the sea


With a gasp and a bolt of adrenaline that was both cold and briskly illuminating, Remi awoke with a start. Not a storm. Aoife. Nearby she was wailing and in an effort to wake up, Sugar had begun to freeze his lower extremities. Blinking stupidly into the dark, after a few seconds the alchemist registered what it was that had happened, and breathlessly he rose and trotted the few steps to Aoife's cradle. Plucking the girl from beneath her mobile, the alchemist cooed reassuring sounds against her, his hands running softly over her back and head. "Shhh sweet girl. It was only a dream. It...was..."

His heart hammered and then dropped to the pit of his stomach. Ice, though not caused by Sugar began to flood his veins as snippets of his dream filtered in. The quaint little room, Sam sleepily at his side in a world where he hadn't gone. Or at least, if he had, he'd come back. He hadn't chosen to forget.

Sitting down next to the still softly burning fire, Remi engulfed Aoife in his arms, resting his forehead gently against her and smelling the sweet scent of her. As he nuzzled her head, Remi found that her hair was damp. Surprised, he pulled back slightly only to find the moisture had been caused by his own tears. So fragile and sparse was his emotional well he hadn't even noticed it emptying further, but now that he had, the sinking weight of his own grief slowly pressed down upon him. Cradling the baby as if shielding her was somehow a defense against his own heartache, Remi squeezed his eyes closed against the dull midnight black light of the guildhall.

"Why, mm?" Remi whispered to Aoife who was now content and quiet in his arms. His voice barely wrapped around the words, his sadness only gesturing at the shape of the sounds. It wasn't much, but that didn't matter. There was no one to hear it anyways, certainly not the one person who could properly answer. "I suppose it does not matter now, though." He continued, lip trembling and eyes slowly filling with silent tears. He wanted to say a thousand things, that it wasn't fair, that Sam should have just waited, that he'd been just as stupid and impulsive and reckless as Jigano had always said he was, but dammit Ronin had just died and Sam wasn't helping, but...all Remi had wanted was time. He couldn't even properly remember the words he'd said, but now he wished he could take them all back. He wished...He just...
He wanted to know why. Why was loving him so impossible that apparently Loren would not do it, and Sam who had, decided it wasn't worth holding on to?

"Thank you for waking me." Remi whispered with a glance towards Sugar. The dragonling looked concerned, but nodded agreeably enough before slipping back into her den. "Never choose to forget anyone." He mumbled against the baby, who was already beginning to fall back asleep. "Promise me that you will never ever choose that." His voice shook. His heart hurt. Rising, he looked at the pile of blankets on the ground. A pile he had once shared with Ronin, and not unlike the haven he'd once apparently made for himself and Sam during LongNight. But now he was alone, quite literally forgotten about.

He'd not take Sam up on his offer of tea and stories. Perhaps he could befriend him, kindle the romance anew, but the Sam who knew what such a romance was like had decided that he would rather it be forgotten. Without knowing why—what it was about the alchemist that was so unloveable, so worthy of forgetting, what had made their memories so undeserving of being cherished—he'd just make the same mistakes all over again, he was sure. So he would be forgotten, just as Sam intended.

He would be for Aoife, just as he'd promised Ronin.

And so, placing the girl onto the ground rather than her cradle, Remi curled about her clad in golden fur, and teeth and claws. He was a predator in this form, incapable of love save for his pack which would from now on be an exclusive group.

I fell for your eyes