most unfortunate

Ianto

Time passed strangely in the Greatwood. Ianto and Remi had met on the banks of the Whispershore at what was, at least, mid-morning. But their trek into the forest, through the Sidhe Village and now back into the wilderness had eaten up more time than expected. Indeed, above them through the branches of the Wildwood, the sky had turned the deep pink of evening, and the twilight set Ianto's hair ablaze as they wandered deeper and deeper into the strange maze of trees.

He had given Remi the go ahead some time before that it was safe for him to shift back into his human shape, and now as they walked Ianto was sharing some of the rations he carried with him; some peppermint bark, a few berries plucked from bushes on the way and something he called cloud bread, which seemed almost ridiculously soft.

"We'll be there soon," he quipped as they strolled along, unable to deny how nice it had been to spend the time with Remi. "How you holding up?"

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun "There is a baker in town—" Remi muttered, chewing contentedly on a piece of the strange and fluffy bread. "Who will either be quite amazed at this, or furious that she did not invent it herself." The alchemist joked, raising the last bite as if cheersing the fox, before tossing it into his mouth. "How? Ahh well. I am walking in an enchanted wood that could at any time leave me hopelessly lost with someone who may or may not be leading my to my death and who I may or may not have once had fantastic sex with after having been nearly robbed...I am a parent to a baby with stars in her eyes and am taking care of a dragon going through a teething phase. And if that was not enough, we are now going to try and collect sap from a tree which from all accounts will not be cooperative." All this the alchemist said casually, flashing the fox and smile and winking at the mention of their more intimate encounter . "But you know, that bread was very good, so I would say I am doing fine." He concluded with a chuckle. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ianto

"Oh? This bread is not a closely guarded secret, at least. I'd be happy to share the recipe with your baker friend, providing they promise to give me free cake and buns whenever I'm in town." Ianto winked back at the other man, absently chewing on a piece of peppermint bark as they walked. Ianto still hadn't set foot in the Hollowed Grounds properly, in truth, as suspicious of it as Remi was of him, it seemed.

Still, he couldn't help but scoff at the lengthy (and fun) explanation offered to him by the alchemist. "Well," he said slowly. "If I'm leading you to your death, it's unintentional. The forest I can't do much about. Or rather, I can but I'm not willing to let you pay that sort of price, not even to me." His smile softened a bit. "The sex was fantastic. And the baby and the dragon are equal parts terrifying and exciting to me. I'm not telling you which is which."

Laughing, he nudged Remi and slowed his footsteps as the trees around them began to subtly change; they grew closer together in places and further apart in others, as though arranged in groups or families. "Okay," he said slowly, "follow me. I see a Wicker Woman."

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun "Ahh well, I will let you negotiate that yourself. Something tells me you are better at it than I would be." Remi replied with a grin, wondering what Amalia might say or do to him if she found out that he'd traded away half of her inventory to a ravenous fox all for the recipe of some bread she may or may not already know how to make. "Oh?" Remi asked with at tilt of his head, wondering if the price the forest required was something Remi couldn't pay, or something that Ianto simply wasn't letting him. Was that to keep Remi constantly in need of the fox? Or was it for his own well-being? "Mmm...just once, then?" The alchemist asked, tone vague, lips quivering into a bit of a smile as he raised a brow. Nudging Ianto back with a light chuckle, Remi narrowed his eyes ahead trying to discern which tree it was that they might be after. "I was told that the sap was hallucinogenic." He mused. "Will collecting it in a glass container be enough do you think?" When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ianto

"I would never expect you to do any negotiating on my behalf, unless I was in very deep shit." Ianto grinned to his friend, though his perhaps over-focused on the forest before them at the somewhat awkward silence that followed his comment about the pathways. He wanted to keep as many people as possible away from his godmother, but Remi more than most. He got the feeling that Arduinna would find him very, very useful indeed, and he didn't want to see the alchemist in a collar of his own.

All but cackling at Remi's next comment, Ianto shrugged his shoulders. "Aye, I'm afraid so. You seemed to get your confidence to go after Loren once we'd spent the night together. I suppose I can't have been that good," he quipped; unfortunately this lovely string of conversation would have to take a back seat, Ianto reaching out to tug Remi closer suddenly, just in case his clothes or any other part of him accidentally brushed the trees.

"It is," he agreed about the sap. "The container should be fine, just... try not to smell it too much, or put it in your mouth." He chuckled, nodding at a dense cluster of trees up ahead. "Only about two of those are Wicker Women," he explained. "You can see by the silver branches... see they're wound around the other trees? That's what happens. Don't let any of the vines, leaves or branches touch you."

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun "I will keep that in mind." Remi turned with a smirk. Frowning, the alchemist was about to say something about how terrible the past-him had sounded. Ianto was making it sound like it was a glorified one-night-stand, or worse, that Remi had merely used the fox. Neither of those situations sounded like something Remi would do, but then again he truly didn't know at this point. So perhaps that explained why the alchemist bristled and feathers appeared in his hair as the fox suddenly tugged him closer. Thoughts of sex (fantastic sex, his brain kept emphasizing) aflutter in his mind and the sudden quite literal pull of Ianto had his body jumping to all sorts of conclusions. "Not in my mouth." Remi repeated stupidly, nodding his head in distant agreement before snapping himself out of it and properly listening to. "Does it...the way it wraps around the other trees, does it effect them, too?" When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ianto

Ianto had to stop himself from reaching up to touch the feathers in Remi's hair. Much as he knew that they were the result of the alchemist feeling flustered or surprised or uncomfortable, he still thought it was a rather adorable way of showing it. "Not unless you want me to have to explain to your baby and your teething dragon just what is wrong with you," he quipped back, releasing the other man so he could take up a long stick from the forest floor, circling slowly around the cluster of trees.

"Be careful of the ground, too," he warned, reaching out to prod at the trees. No sooner had he encountered the Wicker Woman when a branch snared up and gently coiled around the stick, yanking it out of Ianto's hand with surprising strength. "Thankfully, no," he murmured. "The other trees should be alright to touch."

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun "Good luck with that." Remi chuckled a touch breathlessly as the feathers slowly melded back into thick curls. As Ianto extended the stick, Remi's mouth opened into a comical O of surprise. He'd sort of imagined the Wicker Woman being like a venus fly-trap; all but still and then slowly moving in a sort of expected path. This seemed...sentient. Alive in some more broad sense. "What if I touch it with my magic?" Remi asked. To punctuate his point, the alchemist magically reached for the ground, creating a small fox formed solely out of the earth. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ianto

"Uh... how so?" Ianto asked, glancing only to see the little fox made of earth. He couldn't help but smile, folding his arms across his chest and allowing the Wicker Woman to take the stick from him. "I mean, sure. It'll still try to coil around it, but if you can move the earth so it can never get a good grip on it, you should be able to lift the container up to collect the sap."

It was clumsy but honestly, Ianto would much prefer that to them getting close enough to get snagged by the thing. So saying, he dropped back again to stand with Remi. "Do you have anything you can pierce the bark with? To get to the sap?"

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun "Or distract it? Er..her?" Remi corrected, feeling more and more as though the tree was a good deal more alive than the rest of the silent boughs were. Glancing towards Ianto, Remi nibbled on the inside of his lip and nodded. It wasn't the first time that the use of his magic made him feel awkward, but revealing two of the most powerful magical abilities he possessed seemed...illbefitting. As if it might make Ianto think less of him for some strange reason, even though the fox had already seen his creation magic at work. Reaching into his pocket, Remi withdrew a knife as if it had always been there. It hadn't of course, but something about this minor deception eased Remi's conscious. "Here goes.." A tangle of vines appeared around one of the other trees, waving at the wicker woman as if trying to get the tree's attention. At the same time Remi let the earthen-fox bound around the base. "And I just...stab it? Or..?" The alchemist asked with a sidelong glance at the fox as he levitated the jar and knife closer to the tree. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ianto

Remi's mastery over magic was something truly impressive, something that spoke much more of the alchemy that he had seemed so enthusiastic about in Northaven. Ianto watched in quiet awe at the production of the knife (though that seemed innocuous enough), the waving vines, the bounding earthen fox and the levitation, able to do nothing more than nod dumbly with his ideas. Distraction, yes... that was certainly the result of the display, though Ianto was certainly more interested in the man performing the magic.

The Wicker Woman on her part seemed taken with the vines in particular, ensnaring them gently and softly as if to investigate, while another branch bent as if to pet the earthy fox. "Yeah, I mean... that's how you usually get sap, right?" Ianto nodded at the knife and the jar. "Hopefully it'll flow pretty quick. I don't like it much out here."

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun Remi smiled uncertainly beneath the weight of Ianto's gaze. He wanted to linger in it for a moment, to search and seek and see if there was anything at all that might give the fox away as being a spirit or a shade. But the groaning of the bark and boughs pulled his eyes back to the trees and the magical display meant to keep them both safe. "Well it wasn't as though there were many trees to try and get sap from back in Northaven." The alchemist grumbled good naturedly with a sideways grin. So saying, he edged a step closer, magical grip on the knife steady. At the same time as he went to slash the tree with a clean and forceful gliding movement of the blade, the vein suddenly bloomed with brilliantly white flowers that waved in the wicker woman's grasp. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you

Ianto

Ianto didn't want to get any closer, but as Remi stepped forward he certainly wasn't going to let him go alone, his gaze flickering back to the task at hand. He was tense, that much was clear, the reasoning behind it seeming a little more than mere wariness. Luckily enough the alchemist's power seemed to be doing a very fine job indeed of distracting the Wicker Woman, whose tendrils curled about to try and investigate the flowers, even as the tree jerked and flailed suddenly as it was injured.

Thick sap soon began to leak from the wound created by the knife, ready and available for Remi to catch within the jar. "So far so good," Ianto murmured, turning up the collar on his coat and glancing around. It had gotten darker since they had stopped, and he could see the will-o-wisps beginning to bob through the trees.

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REMI ABRUZZO When these weary days, when these days are done We'll be in the sun Remembering what Ianto had said about not breathing it in, but being unable to use his hands (he could, actually, but Remi had always sort of thought he needed to control his magic with his hands), he sort of turtled his head down into his own collar, trying not to breathe more than was necessary. Though once he'd started thinking about it, of course air seemed like something he needed more often than he should. Placing the jar beneath and letting the sap flow into it, Remi winced at the sound the tree made feeling suddenly quite guilty for stealing what at this moment looked like blood pouring from it. "I am sorry.." He whispered to the tree, blushing as he realized that he had said this bit outloud. "Can you see? Does that look like enough?" Remi asked, creating more blooms to occupy the tree. When these weary days, when these days are through I'll be working my way back to you