Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
Skinning and hosting by the epically talented Kaons, and functionality fanciness by the coding magic of Neowulf. If you ever see either of them around, make sure to show them some love!
"Try not to move too much, alright? I've got you."
Ronin's voice hasn't gone beyond a quiet, tense murmur since Remi - and his kraken form - has managed to tow The Northaven back into Torchline's shallows, allowing him to bring his husband aboard. Letters have been penned and sent, a bottle of liquor sits open on their little table with another on standby, and the Nova kneels before where he's seated the other man on a chair, allowing him to patch his wounds.
Even three supernovas and every healing item in his possession hasn't been enough to touch the Lullaby's injuries, and so Ronin is forced to resort to old fashioned field medicine. As a former soldier he's not bad at it, either, though even a cursory glance at some of the lacerations from Dahlia's claws tells him they may need stitches sooner rather than later.
"I might need to call for Isla soon. Do you mind?" he asks softly, peering up at Remi.
i don't want the world to see me, because I don't think they'd understand
"I feel like we just did this." Remi complains, and though he'd been sliced and torn up with shocking ease, there's enough gallows humour left in him to suggest that he was probably alright. Looking slightly slack-jawed down at Ronin for all of the peppermint and willow bark he'd been chewing to ease the pain, the Lullaby reaches out with a slightly unsteady hand to muss his husband's hair. "Now all we need is for you to propose." He muses distractedly, before letting his head loll comfortably back against the chair.
"Mmm. Not if you don't." He replies with a vague shake of his head. Already his right hand has started to inch its way toward the bandages where his ghostly fingers stealthily tried to untie them. "Or I could dream her here, or dream myself to her, depending on.." Cracking open his eyes and having no idea what time it was, Remi just shrugs.
when everything's meant to be broken, i just want you to know who I am
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh? Is that a hint?" Ronin smiles softly up at his husband, busy trying to clean some of the blood from his chest from the injuries he's successfully managed to dress. "Third time's the charm and all that." Leaning into the gentle touch to his hair, the Nova reaches out to gently snag at the more mischievous of Remi's hands, pressing kisses against his knuckles to prevent the sneaky untying of his bandages.
"You will be doing no such thing," he continues, of Remi dreaming here, there, or anywhere, and he only releases his hand so he can reach for the liquor. Taking a hefty swig for himself and then offering it out to the other man, he lets out a long, long sigh. "I don't mind, no. Just... give me a second." His smile is a fragile thing, the Nova leaning in for a moment to rest his forehead against Remi's knee.
He hates that the Lullaby will be able to feel so clearly as panic tries to seize him and Ronin tries to fight it back, but gods, he doesn't want to let the other man go for even a moment.
i don't want the world to see me, because I don't think they'd understand
"As if we need any more charm." The Lullaby says with a lazy laugh, watching absently as his fingers protest the Nova's embrace for a moment, before relaxing against his lips. Sighing a touch at the bigness of his husband's emotions, Remi happily reaches for the bottle as if it might water down the feelings that bandages can't stop the bleeding of.
"There is no rush." Remi murmurs, trying to sit up. Reaching for Ronin to gather him closer, the Lullaby hunches forward and splays a hand across his husband's back, not shying away at all from the glass-thin shards of panic and concern. "The stitches can wait." Besides, given all the pair had been through neither of them would even notice a few new scars. "The last thing I want to do right now is waste my breath reassuring Isla that I am alright." Not to mention hearing the lecture the Remedy was sure to give.
"It really is not that bad, though. And I did not lose any limbs or fingers." He adds with a crooked smile.
when everything's meant to be broken, i just want you to know who I am
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"You never know when there might be a shortage of charm. We should keep as much as we can." Ronin says with a soft shrug, trying for another smile that dissolves completely as Remi shifts forward. Leaning up to meet him, the Nova's arms are gentle and careful as he returns his husband's embrace. There is a rush, he wants to protest, because a fucking meteor has fallen and the world is in pieces about it and there are things out there that can kill Ronin dead and that he can't even lay a finger on.
"She'll only complain if you don't call her," he points out about Isla, though the words are muffled against the side of Remi's neck, his eyes shutting tight. "And it doesn't matter how bad it was or wasn't, or how you came out from it," he protests, the words thick with an apology as he shakes his head. "I couldn't help. Even if it wouldn't have killed me, nothing I do would have touched that woman." And gods, it has been a hot minute since Ronin felt so helpless.
i don't want the world to see me, because I don't think they'd understand
"With you around there will never be a shortage." And, given Ronin had just promised never to leave his side let alone his sight, Remi wasn't terribly concerned.
"Well, having two of us being useless would hardly have been better." The Lullaby counters, leaning his head heavily against the top of Ronin's if only to better anchor himself in the moment. With one hand already slipped down the top of the Nova's shirt in order to press the skin of his palm against his husband's back, Remi reached out with the other to softly cradle around Ronin's neck. "It has been a while since I have felt so ... so..." Weak wasn't the right word because he wasn't. He'd been fast, too, and that she was faster wasn't necessarily the problem either.
"..ineffectual. Against her, against the dragon, against all of it." Breathing in a shallow breath if only to try and exhale everything from his lungs, Remi gave his head a helpless little shake against Ronin's as he closed his eyes. "I would have just...flailed at her until she eventually just wore me down. That is the worst part. It was not even like it was one massive attack after another, but I was bleeding and on the back foot before I even realized it."
when everything's meant to be broken, i just want you to know who I am
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"At least we would have been useless together. I could have thrown a shoe, or flexed as a distraction," Ronin mumbles, thoroughly unsure whether or not he's even joking about it. And as Remi continues down the line of thought he really doesn't want to entertain, there's little the Nova can do but press himself against his husband, feeling altogether very small against the threat that has just hurled itself into their world.
"Well," he whispers eventually, and before he can help himself he's leaned up to press his lips against Remi's, "maybe this is a numbers game rather than a power game." The words are mumbled softly into the kiss, Ronin skipping in a shaky breath and letting his affections migrate down the side of Remi's neck, as if to make sure he's real. "If we all confront her at once, she can't be on all of us at the same time, right?"
i don't want the world to see me, because I don't think they'd understand
"You know, for the amount it felt like she was flirting with me, I actually think that might have helped. Maybe your charm is worth looking into after all." Remi says through a smile that's pressed into the mess of Ronin's hair.
Feeling the strain of the bandages against his chest as well as the groan of his lower back, Remi nevertheless folds himself forward as much as he can so that his lips on Ronin's wouldn't be hurried. "We all?" Remi wonders, distracted. Sampling the Nova's lips again, the Lullaby breathes out a sigh. "I take it you do not just mean the both of us and our duplicates. You mean everyone? Like on the mountain?" Having not moved back, the question is asked in such a way that it would move Ronin's lips as Remi asks it.
On the mountain.
During the war.
when everything's meant to be broken, i just want you to know who I am
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"She was flirting with you?" Ronin furrows his brow, and it's not yet Leafchange but he can still be irritable about it, especially given that the nature of this woman's version of flirting has left deep lacerations all over his husband's body. He hums an apology against Remi's neck only for his lips to be caught again, Ronin shifting and bracing his hands against the arms of the Lullaby's seat so the other man might not have to hunch over so much.
"That's exactly what I mean," he whispers, almost feverish with it. "Hit them hard, hit them all together, and hit them now. We waited for one war, and I don't know that I feel I can wait for another." Anyone looking at Ronin might well be able to say that the Nova isn't thinking clearly or acting as rationally as he normally might, but under the circumstances, he refuses to take the blame for that.
i don't want the world to see me, because I don't think they'd understand
"I might be rusty, but is that not what it means if they call you handsome? She also called me sweet boy and having her hands inside of me felt fairly intimate." Remi says with a chuckle as if the fact that a woman had possibly flirted with him that day was the strangest part of it.
"I know you are right, but thinking of the likes of Noah or Pheobe is the last thing I want to do right now." Remi whispers, tugging at Ronin's bicep both to pull the Nova up toward him as much as to steady Remi that he might stand as well. "Armageddon can wait. Isla can wait. Saving the world can wait. Come to bed with me and let me dream us somewhere that only we know each other's names."
Perhaps men like Remi and Ronin shouldn't be afforded an allowance of selfishness given who and what they were to the people of Caido and its heralds. Maybe they were meant to always do the right thing and to use their irresponsibly strong constitutions for the good of all. Even if that was true, Remi didn't think he'd feel bad about looking every single one of them in the eye and saying he'd taken his husband to bed if only to feel the warmth and strength of someone he loved before having to go out and risk it all for the lives of people who sneered at him behind his back.
when everything's meant to be broken, i just want you to know who I am
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
There are protests locked and loaded behind Ronin's teeth. He wants to say that he doesn't know if armageddon will wait just because they want it to; that Remi needs to be seen by a doctor who knows where to stitch and how; that they ought to be forming tactics and strategies and replaying that gods-awful fight on the mountain, because how else can they be ready for something like this? How else can they stand a chance?
And yet, as he steadies his husband into remaining standing, he feels suddenly so wearied by it all that even panic and anxiety can't continue to batter against his subconscious. "Alright," he says, softly and sweetly, the Nova stepping in to slip his arms around Remi that he might guide him over to bed.
"I love you," he says, as he's said a thousand, thousand times now, and it's never any less true. "However bad things were, you did get back here. These things won't get the jump on us next time." Carefully climbing into bed with Remi, Ronin adjusts the covers and pillows and keeps the Lullaby close enough to feel right without accidentally agitating his injuries. "I'll see you in dreamland, okay?"
i don't want the world to see me, because I don't think they'd understand
"Not if I see you there first." Remi whispers softly.
Indeed, things might not wait. They could awake with their boat torn to shreds, to a void-kraken shaking them both awake, and with the screams of their children curdling in their ears, but Remi didn't think so. Naive though it might be, it's with a decadent press of his lips to the Nova's that he sends Ronin down into the Dreaming. Laying at his husband's side, the Lullaby regards the roof of their houseboat for a moment before closing his eyes as well.
Slivers of light slice across the demigods as they slumber, and though a few hundred meters away an island of death and unknowable power churned in a violet haze, for a few hours at least, Remi and Ronin had a world without pain or obligation to lavish each other in.
~FIN
when everything's meant to be broken, i just want you to know who I am
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
