From being an Abandoned who had rarely left the Hollowed Grounds, to embracing the call of adventure, to dying and being reborn first as an Ascended and then as an Ancient, Maea has gone through quite the amount of changes in her life. One thing remains common, though, in her attempts to find out just where she belongs; she’s always had a craving for knowledge which has brought her to so many places and to meet so many people here in Caido. We can’t wait to see what else is in store for her!
Congratulations, Maea!
Credits
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!
Tracking the movement of her tongue caused a slight snort and abrupt movement of his hand; forgoing the nature of the subject entirely. Political maneuvers and machinations could wait a few days more, and the speculation of councils and ranks, advisors and such, were firmly placed out of his mind. It’d be an obstacle for another hour; back in Halo, amidst the tundra or the snow.
Smiling at her declaration, for he’d never thought of it as anything else, there were more distractions at hand, and he found himself suddenly consumed by her. Different entanglements, with confections consumed, and the sweet taste lingered on lips and forged onward with far more carnal thoughts. The infusion of her words only seemed to quantify them, and he couldn’t help but laugh again at the timing, at the flicker of flames hastened nearby, at the quiet and gentle twilight beginning to sink and simmer around them. “I can think of a few things,” he murmured against her mouth, eyelids closing, simply relishing in the feel of her. “I imagine you have as well.”
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
The syrup is still sweet on her lips and yet she craves the moment his eyes catch with hers. She would think it madness if it wasn't Deimos she longed for - she has already accepted she's mad for him anyway. Still pleasantly achy from sex she nevertheless finds herself shifting in her chair with the slow crawl of want in her stomach. Her fork ends up out of her hand but she couldn't say for certain whether it's on the table or the plate where it should be.
Inanely, she thinks that it's a good thing she has healing magic, it's a perfect substitute for constitution or stamina. "I've imagined you in every way I can dream up," she assures, impishness curling in the corner of her smile. Steamy books had certainly provided some interesting ideas she had never envisioned before too, so she's quite happy to say she hasn't pictured him in every way possible. Not yet. It's hardly a single step, sliding from her chair into his lap, but her hands find their way to his shoulders - and one into his slightly damp hair - with well-practiced aim as she presses another slow, lingering kiss to his lips.
He could’ve easily made a comment about her books drumming up these segments of imagination, but settled for an impish grin of his own, lured into other fixtures and fragments; both familiar and wanton just the same. “Really,” he drawled instead, hands embracing the way she slid across his lap, forgoing his own plate and utensils and whatever remained of their meal. Forgotten, not so easily done, in the wake of all their other temptations.
Though there were more sauntering within his mind, striving to plan and detail how best to orchestrate it, as the slow, lingering press of her mouth consumed. It would be alluring and enticing and everything simply to stay there, take and snag again within the confines of the chair or deck; a course for later, as he began to give and devise all in one maneuver. His palms slid over her hips as his tongue traced over her lips, fingers reaching, grabbing, and placing her on the ground, before another juvenile smile slid over his features, and he pulled away, back, back, into shadows and encroaching moonlight. “You will have to catch me first.” And then maybe they could have whatever they drummed or dreamed up.
To which he immediately laughed, turned, and ran for the lake; ivory towel barely managing to stay on.
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
Evie is accustomed to Deimos moving her around as he finds suitable, and is always quite charmed by it, so her feet find the deck trustingly as he rises from his own chair. Ready and willing to be led. She just isn't expecting to be led into a chase.
Dramatized offense rises from her throat in a formless shout, but it's diminished by the laugh that follows on its heels as she races after him, one hand clutching her own towel at her chest. "Grooms aren't supposed to be the runaway risks!" Harmless ivy and vines race to catch and wind around his feet to try and slow him as she vainly sprints after him, certain she won't be able to catch him without a little magical intervention. And if the wind suddenly blows his hair into his face too, well, Evie doesn't feel inclined to hold back after being forced to wait.
Reels of laughter and temptation tangled and toiled; bare feet pressing down into the grass as she yelled after him. Hilarious and enticing, silly and ridiculous hastenings to eventual carnal intrigues; just the how and the when and the where spurned and contorted in fragments of the unknown. Intending to turn his head, perhaps to give her some semblance of a chance, the wind caught at his hair and smacked him in the face, loosening another round of chuckles and deepening bellows. “I would hate to be predictable.”
The vines, however, only met portions of his ankles, and he dissipated them wholly within one measure. But two could play at that game, and he bestowed a singular bout of a gale in her direction – maybe she’d lose the robe and the towel – before long limbs began to outstretch towards the lake’s embankment.
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
Even when he teases and vexes her she can't help but laugh, emboldened instead of disheartened by what she knows is mischief and playfulness instead of torment. Not that she's any better with the way she cackles at the way his own hair slaps at his face when he turns over his shoulder. It's stolen from her a moment later as the wind buffets her breath back into her lungs, making her splutter and indeed lose her towel. Damp hair falls to her neck with a pleasant chill, and in a moment of boldness she yanks the tail of her robe belt to abandon it too. If Deimos is going to play tricks, she can use her own, even if they aren't magical in nature.
Evie runs every single day, and she certainly isn't about to lose any ground for the sake of propriety, so she's not far behind Deimos when his feet hit the water. A twist of power has it splashing up from stillness into a modest hose of a spray that will do little to slow him admittedly but is good for a little petty revenge.
Deimos ran every day too – made of stamina, fortitude, and endurance, as he and the rest of his troops patrolled. She could put on her bursts of speed all she liked; the juvenile curl of his smile indicated he’d do much of the same – feet falling over the embankment much as he’d done in days of childhood.
But there were no gulls screeching overhead; only the stars ever present, twinkling, and effervescent, the unfurled laughter, the beckoning outcries. Had he looked behind him, there would’ve been far more to savor, but he was busy skirting the sudden bombardment of water, splashing, dampening, soaking, and sousing. The towel loosened around his hips, and he persisted, rounding upon the western corner, trying to put space between them.
Thereafter, he sent his own slight bout of spray in her direction, interloping and teasing towards her calves and ankles.
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
Evie has scarcely ever bested him, but it doesn't mean she ever gives up trying. Stubborn as a bull, she pursues him even through the dreaded splashing of water on her skin - a far worse sensation than submerging, and a hatred fostered from childhood that had ensured she was left alone when wading with other Grounders in the Oasis - though it makes her groan an objection.
Her magic can't match his in any way he can't refute, but she bombards him nonetheless; sand deepening around each stride, water surging up the embankment to make each stride slower, wind pulling at his towel in hopes of disrobing him. It gets her heart rate going in an entirely different way, but she can't deny the easy laughter that impedes her normal running breath control. It's fun. Isn't that what their honeymoon is all about?
The Sword had counted on the Evergreen’s persistence, her boldness, and her own love and brand of mischief for the impish machinations to settle in. And he was content to revel in their bombardments, no spite, no malice, all fun and end results leading somewhere into sensual decrees; no loss in the course of their games. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t bent or altered in the same regards before – much like in the strip poker match.
The sand contorted at his limbs and he did manage to wrinkle his nose at the alteration in terrain. It took him a moment to counter the regard, changing the manifestations back into a preferred wake of movement, and then – the wind took the towel.
It’d been a calculated endeavor and one that made him laugh all over again. The ivory fall into the sand wasn’t despaired though, finding no issue in its demise, and making no motion to put it back into place. It would’ve been a waste of time, and he wasn’t here for modesty.
Instead, he swept more earthen incantations back towards her, forming a small earthen wall between them.
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
She can't see much - aside from Deimos' impressively sculpted ass - but she hoots and hollers like an insufferable schoolgirl all the same because it deserves all the praise. Her, too, for having managed to reveal it. She can't manage words with how hard she's running, but the egregious whooping communicates her compliments well enough.
The wall rises before her too quickly for her to use more advanced methods to clear it, and she plants one hand to the top - using her own earthen talents to stop it from capturing it - and vaults it in one stride. She lands a little wobbly given sand is notoriously difficult to move in, but it's a blip of inconvenience that slows her down for a mere moment before she resumes her chase. Her magical stamina is a wellspring from using so little of it over the course of ceremonies and travel plans, so she continues to batter at his feet with thick, sucking, wet sand, and to assault his face with whipping, chaotic tendrils of air. There's no doubt that Evie will lose this little chase, but she's going to annoy and slow him with all her might until the moment something gives.
Her hoots and hollers hardly scorned him, if anything he laughed out into the moonlit earth, allowing her to embrace the spectacle as he continued to dig back into the sand. It didn’t deter him in the slightest, but it was good to know his assets were appreciated.
He did chance a glance over his shoulder to see how she managed the wall – scaling it with nothing on earned her his own wolfish grin and a vague, resounding decree of his own – before altering his route. The Sword could have persisted in rampaging forever, but opted to turn the tide once more by doubling back, shifting his limbs and stride back in her direction, but veering sharply to the left, off the sand, and into the long grass again.
As he passed by, he gave her a solid wink, before seditiously pushing his features into the wind and racing back the way they’d came.
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
Evie laughs as freely as he had when his own appreciation is voiced wordlessly, confident in her body and the knowledge that her husband is as attracted to her as she is to him. Even considering the graceless nature of running nude. A startled noise escapes her when he doubles back, suddenly charging straight at her, and her gait falters in confusion and because even trusting him with her life, her soul, her heart - well, he's massive, and it still makes a thrill of prey-like alarm rise in her to see him coming her way so fast. Plus, again - deeply attractive husband in full frontal?
Her heart thunders harder because of it, and when he swerves she has to try and regain the hard-won momentum she'd lost in her surprise, and her cursing is free and loud as she pursues him back the way they'd come. "You're gonna pay for this!" It's a breathless threat, and the grin on her face nullifies it immediately. All she can do is rinse and repeat, using the wall of sand and soil he'd left behind as she passes by it to hurl it at his bare back in loose clod-snowballs.
It would be a lie to say the thrill of the chase didn’t heighten his senses, didn’t contort into his restlessness, didn’t come alive in pursuit and prey. Perhaps that was why he’d intentionally made her the predator, the one who hunted and stalked, rather than himself; because he’d be shameless and wanton and incredulous. Even more than now, with his smug grin and delighted ease – muscles undulating through the volley of movement, long limbs like pistons across the terrain of grass.
The confusion on her face had him laughing all over again, and he couldn’t despair the clods of sand arching over his head or snagging at his calves. “I have no doubt!” he harkened back in devilish decree; promises of potential across carnal exploits and devotions – utilizing the lake nearby to toss her another brief wave, raining over a shower of cascading droplets.
And then, simply to add to the antics, he elongated the grass around him, towering, towering, towering, given enough time he would’ve forged his own labyrinth for sheer amusement - until he seemed hidden and tucked away into the denizens – inviting her to stray closer.
the ressurected sword
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
His voice is like a lure, a siren song she can never ignore, always goading her onward. His voice has always been like that for her even when he's not physically present; an encouraging murmur from over her shoulder when she's close to her limit, a comforting muffled tone pressed against her crown when she is small, a burst of there-and-gone laughter approving of her cleverness. The inner voice that had once sounded like her father's has been usurped in totality, all doubts and self-recrimination replaced with the overpowering sum of Deimos' love and support.
And even when he teases, taunts, lays traps, she still finds herself sparing moments and seconds to muse on how grateful she is for that. Not that it means she'll take it easy on him, especially when the splash of water distracts her enough to wipe it from her cheek and slow her pace when she looks up to find walls of greenery instead of her husband. And, just to be a brat, Evie grins and - with a bit of help from her magic pushing up against his - charges straight through the grass walls in a bull-like rush to try and find him without navigating the channels and halls he's built.
