RORY
i told the stars about you
There was something in the way that Remi watched him that had him ducking his head slightly, as if he was ashamed about the exhaustion written in the lines of his face, or perhaps daunted by the clarity in the alchemist's eyes. Instead he watched the baby's soft, plump face, the stars in her eyes, the way she clung to Remi's waving finger. So helpless, truly, human children... He was too used to kids and the occasional foal, and they were practically born standing."That just means you need to eat more," he said with a gentle laugh, straightening up again when Remi nuzzled the baby. He hadn't been subjected to a lot of them. When most of his friends settled and started families, they sort of drifted away from Rory's social circle, limited as it was to begin with. Babies were cute enough, but he had no idea what to do with one, and from what he'd understood it was an exhausting job to raise one. Still, it felt like he spied on a private moment, somehow, and he looked back to his goat. It was still hard to reconcile the two Remis.
"Ahh...it was..." A small smile tugged on Rory's lips. It was, indeed, and the fingers that had hung in stillness between his knees had begun to twist and turn, poking at the inside of his knee, running the pad of his thumb over skin. A restless energy that needed outlet, a strange kind of ending that needed to be mourned.
As he waited for more he thought of Remi's face, the first time they had met. His bright, open expression, so eager to make a new friend even as Elyna held him back. He thought of those eyes, and how difficult they were to meet, because each time he did, he wanted to never look away. How breathless he had often felt, and how, in the dark, he sometimes had thought of all the things he wished he dared to do in his presence.
Like touch his hand, or his face, or kiss him. But Remi had somehow been too precious, a thing he did not dare to injure, so he had not done those things.
He thought of all the questions he had wanted to ask (still wanted to, honestly), about why he was the way he was, what he wanted, what he dreamed of. That sort of could-have-been sat like a dull throb in his heart, an ache of a life unexplored—drowned in a flood of white hair and blue fox eyes.
Things had changed, but he still found that he needed to grieve for what could've been.
"Pleasant is good," he responded with a small laugh, a smile tugging on the corners of his mouth as his warm gaze briefly flitted up to Remi's face, before falling to the goat once more. "And see, that's the magic and secret of Fiat Lux: you plunge yourself into it, and lose yourself. You try something new, do something new, embrace life. Perhaps," he said wryly, "that is how we stay sane."
