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!
Soleil, accustomed to aging quickly herself and rather fond of children, had not been bothered at all when she'd been paired up with Marcus to help reinforce the Citadel walls. She is intent on taking on most of the physical labor herself to ease the way for the young boy, and as such had spent most of the previous day getting tools and quick-setting cement ready for their efforts so as not to waste any time.
Armed with the sealed bucket and two trowels, Soleil smiles brightly down at Marcus by her side as they march out the Citadel gates with Diana at their collective heels, keeping a keen watch over them. "So are you and your family moved back into Halo now? How was living in the Grounds? I just spent a season exploring it myself since I'm part of the Adventurer's Guild," she strikes up easily, not wanting to come off as intimidating or to make what is objectively boring work even more tedious.
The youngest Olson was not against being voluntold for this kind of work. Both his father and his mother encouraged him and his twin to lend their hands to Halo, reminding them that their age did not give them a pass from helping their community. That’s what Halo was built on, after all — everyone pitching in what they could to help each other survive. While it was different in his childhood than it was his parents, where they had to scour the tundra at a much younger age than him and hold much more responsibility, it was still important.
Looking up at the once-wolf, Marcus smiled brightly. ”I don’t know, really. I was still a baby when we lived there. My sister and I aged at the shrine here in the Citadel.” Marcus tilted his head slightly, auburn curls veiling his forehead. ”But my mom doesn’t make it seem so bad when she tells us about it. Did you like it?” He asked as they made it to the first stop that would require their attention.
Soleil is pleased that he isn't the surly or stand-offish sort; while she can readily respect it in a person, her resting state of being is extroverted, so she wouldn't know how to pass the time without gnawing her tongue off to avoid bothering him with chatter. It's as easy as breathing to work and talk at the same time, so Soleil takes a knee in the snow and drops the bucket between them, peeling off the lid keeping the compound workable and dipping her trowel in to begin filling the crack with smooth strokes.
"I did! I think people look down on it because they remember how it used to be, and don't appreciate it for what it currently is," she shares readily, certain that he's mature enough to understand such things. Sol had despised being talked down to at his age. "It's wild and overrun by nature, but I think that makes it beautiful! It's not that different from Halo in that way; you have to know how to live there to have a steady lifestyle, but it's worth it once you learn." And while she doesn't think she'll be moving to the Grounds despite all her praise, it definitely has a soft spot in her heart - especially after finding Diana there. "I've visited Stormbreak too, and Torchline. Next is the Greatwood and King's End!" She brandishes her freshly empty trowel in the air like a scepter, only partly dramatizing.
"My parents think there are very few ugly places in Caido." Marcus said with a half-cocked smile and the tilt of his head. "They've explored a lot. My dad says that even though the Draig is really dangerous, and he fought a war there, that it was still beautiful." It takes a hunter to notice that kind of thing among bloodshed and war and destruction. "My parents lived in King's End for a little while, when it was still wild. Deimos too. After the ascended attacked Halo." Marcus said, talking as he worked alongside the once-wolf.
Like many children, the young mage's thought pattern did not always align properly as he tried to relate and tell stories and ask questions, but he tried. "Do you plan to move away from Halo?" He asked, looking at her for a moment before gathering more cemented mu to scrape over cracks and holes. He slapped some on with the trowel, then scraped. "Is that why you're exploring all of those places?"
Soleil is not normally the type to disagree, but sometimes it's good to be contrarian around kids, if only to show that nobody is ever right when it comes to things as fickle as opinions. She sticks her tongue out in an exaggerated expression. "Regions as a whole maybe, but there's definitely ugly parts! Swamps and mudpits and empty deserts where all the cool stuff takes ages more walking to find." Surely some people would find them beautiful, but Soleil has had quite enough of mud after the torrential rain in the Grounds the season prior, and the waterlogged tundra outside the Citadel after Starfall.
She intends to expand a little more on that, but the questions he poses as they work alongside each other is both topical and a distraction from her previous train of thought. "Hmm, I'm not sure. I'm not in a rush to decide," she confesses honestly as her trowel dips back into the bucket. "My dad has lived in Halo pretty much since the moment he arrived, and it's almost the same as where we lived before the Voice brought us here." Not unlike Noah and Cordelia, even if they had not been born in Halo. Soleil had scarcely been old enough to count as anything but a Natural in Halo. "I explore because, well, I think - and I think personally, like your parents about the beauty of Caido -" she makes sure to emphasize, tapping the side of her nose with her free fingers with a conspiring smile, "that it's a little ridiculous to live in one place forever without seeing the rest of the world first. But I still think I'm too young to be deciding which land is best for 'forever' when forever seems so long." For now, her heart is happy to return to Halo between adventures, slowly categorizing which lands she likes better and why.
With one section done, Soleil stands and grabs the bucket, moving it a few yards further down the wall to the next section and settling back into the rhythm of work there. "I think just because we're born in a place it doesn't mean it's the best place for us. Just for our parents - and we don't have to be like them." She shrugs elegantly and turns a warm smile toward Marcus. "What do you think?" As a competitive chatter, she'd surely given him a lot to comment on, so she leaves the question vague in case he was drawn to one point or another.
Admittedly, but not surprisingly, Marcus’ work was not as good as Soleil’s. Especially as he was distracted by her talking. He was wholly focused on her words, captivated by her ideas and the way she articulated them. She spoke with someone way beyond her years, which made Marcus ask, ”How long did you stay a kid?’ She had strong opinions that, while not overbearing, seemed to be well worked out enough to make sense. He couldn’t see any holes in her arguement.
”Well, I think that makes sense.” He started, trowel lowering some. ”Especially with sky boats, and so many people having different ways to travel.” Shifts, magic, etc. Marcus knew there was a great array of options. He didn’t notice the mud on the end of his tool beginning to slip and slide until it smacked against the hardened, snowy ground beneath them with a wet, thick sound.
As he looked at her his belly felt warm, and the tips of his fingers tingled slightly. What was this feeling? He had not experienced it before.
His work may not be as clean, but the compound would do most of the heavy lifting, and the visual differences were hardly meaningful to Halovians. The exterior of the wall was already battlescarred, telling stories far older than Soleil and Marcus. It was strangely awe inspiring to leave their own marks on it here and now.
"Oh, quite a few years. My dad didn't want my brother and I to age, so we didn't even when all of our friends did." A lonely existence at times, but Soleil had soldiered through it, envious of her brother's introversion and homebody nature. "It was hard at times, but I don't regret waiting." Even if she may sometimes look back on it and consider it unnecessary in retrospect given how quickly she'd taken to the waters of young adulthood, the time spent happy and carefree with her family is precious in her memories. "Are you thinking of aging?" He'd only just done so as far as she's aware, but Soleil certainly wouldn't judge if he was thinking of it; she'd longed for it endlessly as Paige had moved on without her, hating to be left behind.
Hearing the mixture hit the ground, Soleil turned and her face lit up with brightness as she laughed lightly, kindly. "Oops, well at least we have plenty extra. Just move it to the base of the wall so we don't trip up a Shield on patrol, huh?" She winks at him, grinning playfully. Unaware of his internal conflict, she neatly fills in another hole, lingering to give Marcus time to clean up the mess without making him feel pressured.
Enveloped in his blush and the heat of his cheeks and ears, Marcus shot his eyes to the ground when Soleil looked over at him. Ready for a reprimand from the older Halovian, the youngling was surprised when none came. Instead, she gave him a suggestion, and moved on. Taking a moment to compose himself, Marcus let out a breath before bending down and scraping the slop of already-drying mud towards the base of the wall.
”No, not really.” Marcus admitted, about aging. ”But my mom and my sister fight about it almost every day.” Maybe a little less now than Ravenna was with them, as Margot had a friend other than Marcus to wrap herself around that was the same age as they were. Other than that, there were children still too young, born after the war, and teenagers too old, born before the war.
”The only thing I think looks appealing to age is more magic.” He admitted again, finishing scraping the ice and snow clear of the mud he dropped. He still avoided looking at Soleil as he waited his turn to grab another trowel full of mud and slapping it on the wall, trying to smooth it as best as he could. ”Evie is going to be evaluating us soon, Margot and I, and probably Ravenna, to see what our first magics are.”
His flush is what clues her into something being amiss, but she assumes it's from having dropped the cement. She knows she's pretty and is quite a confident young woman, but there's also a reason Soleil has never properly dated someone and it's due to being rather unaware of the correlations between appearance and interest. Especially in someone younger, admittedly. She only hopes to be encouraging, at the very least. Certainly once the topic of familial fights comes up, prompting her to make a crooning sort of noise in sympathy.
"I'm sorry. That must be hard," she murmurs sincerely, envisioning the turmoil of being around such arguing without being directly involved. "Even if you don't age at the same time either, it'll be okay. We all get to the same place eventually." Most kids were happy to reach their late teens or early twenties and be patient from there in her experience. It was puberty and living in your parents' household bit that was often eager to be skipped.
Groaning with a little theatrical flare behind it, Soleil slaps another glob of cement onto the wall. "So jealous! I know everyone says Accepted are great, but my family was always magical, so it kinda sucked to not have it myself when Luka and I were brought here." Turning, she gives him a smile, directing the attention off of herself moments after calling it into being. "I'll hope for the best for you, 'kay?" The best being whichever magic he dreamed of having, because anything would be cool to Soleil.
Marcus didn’t mind at all. He lived most days carefree, learning and growing, reading and listening to the stories of his neighbors. Working alongside his mother and his father, stretching skills domestic and otherwise. Learning to take up his own responsibilities in their home and carry the weight of those responsibilities.
But having more magic was a great draw. He wasn’t sure what he held — but he knew it wasn’t fire. He had concentrated on the hearth too many times and nothing changed for that to be his first ability. Hopefully, though, with Evie’s prompting it would be found. She was a professional, after all.
Margot, on the other hand, fought to age. Now that she had tasted the slightest hint of the possibilities age brought she was hungry for more and she was gnashing at the bit. Cordelia was stubborn, strong, tough — surely Margot would submit eventually.
”Do you ever think of becoming attuned?” Marcus asked as he tossed on another trowel full of mud to patch up the wall and strengthen it. He tilted his head some as he glanced at her, only briefly, wondering. The stronger the attuned, closer to the gods, Marcus knew came with fantastical shifts with wondrous abilities.
Soleil has heard this question echoed behind her back countless times, but nobody has actually ever cared to ask her. It makes her soften even more fondly toward Marcus, and her expression - eternally guileless and honest - reflects how much she appreciates his consideration, especially at his age.
"I've only ever prayed to Dygra once, and she didn't respond. I haven't met enough of the heralds to feel like I know them well enough to want to give myself to them." With a neat flick of the wrist, she leaves one crack and carries her trowel - still laden with the remaining compound - over to the next. "My dad follows Safrin, but he didn't go to any of the gods for a long time. And I love all the gifts my dad gives me, so it's hard to imagine asking for even more from the heralds." Not that she won't, but her dad is as good as any god in her mind, and she already has Diana. "Where we came from, we had animal forms. So I do want it, badly, but I don't know any of the heralds well enough." Soleil wants for little in life in terms of material possessions, so as much as her heart longs to be a wolf again in what way she can achieve, the payoff doesn't seem balanced yet.
