From Attuned to Ascended to Ancient, Kiada Njovu-Reyes has been reborn several times throughout her short life, but her fighting spirit has never once been diminished. With beauty, grace and a quick wit, Kiada is the whole package wrapped in an infectious smile. Recent endeavours have found her in the heart of the Hollowed Grounds, aiding the region and bettering it for her new Ancient kin, and whatever she does next, we know it's sure to pack a punch.
Congratulations, Kiada!
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!
05-06-2024, 06:38 PM (This post was last modified: 05-06-2024, 07:21 PM by Amhran.)
the harder the rain, honey, the sweeter the sun
What started as a seedling - small, innocuous, sweet, innocent - has, over the course of the past season, grown enough to almost overtake Evie's personal greenhouse. The roots burst through the pot it arrived in within weeks, burrowing deep into the earth and caring not for Halo's harsh conditions to receive its nutrients. Leaves unfurled, new and delicate, in rapid succession, and vines crept and crawled and clung to any support within reach.
Only towards the end of Leafchange did the flowers begin to bloom, though; strange shades of indigo and marigold and fuscia, seeming to change out of the corner of one's eye only to settle again once gazed upon properly. And with the flowers, a shape within the vines - vague, at first, but becoming increasingly human as the days progressed.
Indeed, by the time Evie and Deimos left for the tournament, said shape could be definitely said to be a man; tall, pale, wiry, but very much asleep.
By the time they return, though?
Not so much.
The vines are withered things now, the flowers and leaves brown and curled and spent. And within the greenhouse, the man has risen to his feet, wiggled his freshly grown toes, and opened muddy green eyes.
Deimos does not often enter her greenhouse without her, so Evie has been the steadfast overseer of Rae's extraordinary plant for the entirety of the season that it remains in her care. Long before it began to take on a rather suspicious shape, she spoke to it nearly daily. Commentary on weather and stubborn sprouts, the progress of her pregnancy, the frustrations and joys of her simple but meaningful life. It had made her feel closer to Rae, whose magic she could see and feel in every sprout and tendril.
She'd been understandably busy during the turn of the season with Erebos' arrival and the sudden enforced tournament-vacation, but as she enters her greenhouse upon their return she isn't expecting much change. Certainly not the withered plant remains that snag her attention first and drop her heart into her feet - nor the very naked, unknown man, the sight of whom sends it right back up into her throat with a pitiful squeak.
"Oh," she utters faintly, completely at a loss and instantly forming a pro/con list in her head.
Pros: context clues (former suspiciously shaped mass, dying tendrils, dirty skin) imply this man is not a burglar of exotic hobby plant hybrids.
Cons: in light of that revelation, it seems she might have been growing more than one human body this past season?
"Um. Are you alright?" It's trained instinct to jump to concern instead of aggression. How long has he been awake? Has he been stuck in here because of the cold beyond the greenhouse boundaries?
Having been touring the rest of the greenhouse in the time it takes for Evie to step inside, by the time she speaks, the man is crouched near a species of what he knows instinctively is an orchid, despite never having been told. He migrates towards the sound of the Evergreen's voice immediately, in the same gentle way that flowers turn to face the sun, and a smile curls up the corners of his lips.
"Hello, Mother," he says in a voice as rich as the soil he's sprung from, easy as you like. Straightening up, he steps across to meet her, all bare feet and dirty cheeks. "I think so, yes. It is quite strange, being apart from the vines." It doesn't seem to have done him any harm, at least, and he tilts his head at her in sudden curiosity. "You have completed your pregnancy," he observes. "I hope all went as you intended it."
Oh. Hello there, sudden tidal wave of maternal instinct.
Evie hadn't expected to hear that title for another year or more, and it pops her heart like a balloon, taking her spine with it. Gods, how is she going to tell Deimos they have a second child? Because Evie already loves her plants more than she should, and now this one is looking at her with eyes like grass and calling her mother.
Her giggle is a little hysterical as she reaches up to thumb soil from his cheek, brain trying to hurdle eighteen logical fallacies to find common ground with a heart that has suddenly grown roots of certainty. "Humanity is a lot louder, huh?" Noisy, busy, uncomfortable. It's why Evie has tried to crawl into the soil herself half her life.
The confirmation that he remembers everything she had shared while he grew makes her beam, free hand habitually going to a pregnancy bump that is no longer there. "It did. A son - his name is Erebos." She'd laughed in this humid, sunlit space over the fact that they couldn't find any other boy names they liked, and she wonders now if he has named himself in light of that. Or perhaps Rae had? "And yours?" She has to look up a full foot to meet his eyes, not unlike how she has to with Deimos, and the comparison strengthens her resolve. Deimos will understand. Their hearts are as big as their home, and Evie has plenty of planter boxes if her new, giant son would prefer that over a bedroom of his own.
His cheeks flinch into a dimpled smile at her touch, and he leans into it instinctively, already more familiar with it than his own. "Oh, yes," he agrees, chin tilting up to gaze at the roof of the greenhouse overhead. "I did not realise that the snow made noise." He refers, of course, to the soft pat pat of snowfall overhead, and undoubtedly he will be even more shocked to learn that the temperature outside is not at all the same as where they currently stand. (Especially given his state of undress).
"Erebos," he repeats, directing his gaze back towards her once more and nodding. "I remember. I hope he is doing as well as you are." As for his own moniker, he's reaching distractedly for one of the withered vines drooping down towards them, brow furrowed as if simultaneously celebrating and grieving his previous state of being.
"Amhran Siol is my name," he murmurs. "But I think I prefer just to be called Amhran. Is that alright?"
Her palm forms neatly over his cheek as it presses into her hand as if it was shaped perfectly to fit it. Is her easy acceptance of him the reason she'd been chosen? Or is this the culmination of all the favor she never received, the loud silences and cold shoulders - finally made equal with the grandness of this gift?
"Ice is even louder. You'll see," she assures as a future of learning she's only envisioned for Erebos unfolds before her on his behalf. "Erebos is healthy, though significantly smaller. Do you think that makes you the big brother?" Her dimples deepen with the width of her grin, a little thrill straightening her spine as the reality of how her family has grown trickles in past the shock.
The openness of his expression makes her heart ache, hand dropping so she can shrug off her outer jacket to offer it to him. "Of course that's alright. Amhran," she tests, letting her tongue learn the curves and shapes so it might begin to memorize it. "How about we get you into the main house? You're going to give Deimos a heart attack either way, best to do it with clothes on." Her laugh is a birdlike titter from the faint refrain of nerves. Gods what she wouldn't do to be able to brace him through the Attuned bond.
Perhaps the answer is both - or perhaps it's neither. Amhran doesn't know the grand schemes that make the world turn and cause deities to respond to their petitioners. What he does know is the sound of Evie's voice, one that has nurtured and laughed and scoffed and teased with frustration at every step of his growth, however quick and unconventional it might have been.
"Ice," he repeats, thinking before cementing the word in his understanding. "Yes, when the water freezes, it becomes ice. Sometimes it made it difficult for you to water us." Us being the rest of the plants in Evie's greenhouse, of course, and they feel as much his siblings as Erebos does. Speaking of which, to hear her speak it aloud - brother - has another dimpled smile gracing his lips.
"I would like that," he says. "I have never been a brother." Says the plant-turned-man who has only gained sentience in arguably the past few days.
Reaching for her jacket and drawing it around his shoulders, it arguably looks laughable on his lanky form, but it is likely better than nothing. "Ah, yes. Deimos is your husband." He nods - and clearly the distinction between Mother and your husband, i.e. not Father is a solid one, for now at least. (He has never met the man, after all).
More than happy to be led to the main house either way, Amhran's steps with all the confidence of a baby deer, in that he wobbles a touch, and absolutely doesn't know to look where he's going.
Evie is greatly out of her depth in every facet of this ongoing revelation, but there's something endearing about witnessing a mind capable of reflection and communication putting words to rudimentary knowledge.
"Exactly," she praises readily. This might have been the time to explain what cold means, but he'll be experiencing it firsthand within moments. Her coat is not nearly long enough on him, but his willowy frame ensures it wraps around fully. She buttons it for him anyway, silent in her fretting. "It's easy to be a brother when they're that young. He mostly sleeps and eats." A familiar state of tangential existence to him if he is resorting to plural pronouns about non-sentient plants.
"Yes, he is. He came in here a few times while you grew, but he didn't speak much." Had he at all? It makes introducing them a little more daunting, but there was no time like the present. As they emerge into the snow Evie reaches for Amhran's hand to both guide and stabilize him. She hates to hurry him, but his bare feet worry her enough to pull him in her wake as quickly as his deerlike limbs can safely manage.
Inside through the back door, the fire-warmed interior of the house wraps around them and blessedly does not produce her husband instantaneously. "This way love, there's a guest room on the first floor with clothes." Her smile is encouraging, leaving her hand in his to guide him through the kitchen and into the adjacent guest room. Deimos' clothes will drown him, but at least they'll be long enough. Nothing of Evie's has any hope of going the literal distance. She's glad they have spares in the dressers down here, because Evie doesn't like their odds of trying to ascend the stairs to the master bedroom. Introducing Deimos to Amhran through the loud chorus of a naked starfish falling down a flight of stairs sounds disastrous.
Concepts of sleeping and eating are ones that Amhran will soon need to come to more personal grips with himself, but for now it's enough to hear Evie's explanations, and he nods his understanding with a ready smile, preparing to head out and to the main house - another first. He's about to comment on Deimos and whether he had or hadn't heard the Sword's voice whilst he'd been a seedling, but at that moment they hurry out into the snow, and Amhran becomes cognizant of two things.
First is bright light, of the sun bouncing against the white landscape, and the second, of course, is cold.
He has neither the language nor the experience to say what most might at this moment in time - namely, a well-placed FUCK - and so it's a breathy "Oh!" that escapes his lips as he plods, squinting, towards the back door.
As ice and snow become fresh warmth beneath his feet, Amhran is left with chattering teeth and a furrowed brow - tall and man-shaped he might be, but the look he throws towards the closed door is one of boyish disdain nonetheless, a silent I did not like that in the face of what has just happened.
"Thank you," he breathes eventually, trundling after his mother to the guest bedroom and the waiting clothes. Assistance will be needed, naturally, because sleeves are complicated for a man who has only recently learned he has arms, but he'll dress himself eventually, with luck.
His exclamation sounds so much like the one she'd uttered upon first laying eyes on him that it's hard not to laugh, but Evie can only imagine how oppressive the cold must feel when utterly naked so her sympathy wins out by a thread. Though she does allow herself an understanding but amused grin at the baleful look he shoots the door once she's whisked him inside.
"It's not as horrible with proper clothing, but it's also the coldest season right now." It might be hard to sell a plant-man on the idea of staying and living in a tundra, but Evie has helped flora flourish in worse conditions right? She just has to do some heavy lifting and creative management, like she has to in the here and now with wrangling a man a foot taller than her into clothes.
It's a task she tackles with optimistic determination, waving his gratitude away with a warm smile. "Normally people bathe before dressing if they're covered in soil, but if you're anything like me it's a lost cause. Though I'm sure it feels like being watered, only with water as warm as the greenhouse felt." Hopefully an appealing sentiment after the unfortunate snap of ice he'd been subjected to. Boxers are an easier article to wrangle his legs into, but she isn't willing to risk the thermal legging underlayer that comes next. "Hold onto the bedframe so you don't fall," she advises while pointing to the item in question to aid the correlation. There's something sweet about this moment, and she's happy to take her time ensuring he's comfortable before his first day of overwhelmingly endless things to learn truly starts.
"Deepfrost," Amhran supplies, knowing that word as well from somewhere in the depths of things spoken, or perhaps from the ground itself where his roots had spread and surged through the earth. "It is Deepfrost, right?" Having popped his head through a sweater and wormed his arms through the sleeves at last, he's naturally oblivious to the being streaked with dirt part of his predicament, and as Evie speaks he's almost about to start undressing again until her reassurance hits the air.
"I think I would quite enjoy that," he says, of 'being watered' - and thus the Evergreen has planted a seed (ha) that will find her, in the coming weeks, having to peel Amhran out of hour long showers.
Having managed boxers - and now at least if Deimos does appear, it won't be to quite such a startling scene - it's with his tongue poking comically between his lips that Amhran steadies himself on the bedframe and tries to school his limbs into going where they are required. "And it is necessary to always wear these?" he asks dubiously. Were Amhran a toddler in earnest, and were they not in Halo, he'd certainly be that child; the one who strips off and runs naked at every opportunity.
"It is, newly so, so you'll have to bear the worst of it for a while yet. We'll have to make sure it doesn't negatively effect you." There's a moment of silent utter panic directly on the heels of that thought. How in Rae's surely-intersex-or-asexual-reproductive-organs is she supposed to raise a demigod born from a plant? There aren't books on this, and it's not like she can ask Rae, this is pretty much a closed adoption! No health history, sorry, guess you have to trial-by-fire whether your new giant son can die from a cold snap or if he eats sunlight! Oh gods she's going to kill him somehow and they're supposed to be safest when fully grown.
His voice pulls her out of it and as she looks up (and up, and up) to see his tongue peeking comically from between his lips, the panic seeps out of her limbs all at once. She smiles without consciously thinking to. "Human bodies require clothes for a variety of health and safety reasons that I can explain to you, but the unfortunately less logical answer is that socially it's expected. So, yes." She's not the best person to advise on this given she's seen everyone and their grandma naked in her time as a healer and doesn't mind it in the least. As she pulls the first leg up to his hip, she continues. "If you don't like it, there are a few ways to get around it such as swimming in a large body of water like a lake or the ocean, where you would wear only roughly this much fabric." She taps the boxers and neatly pulls the other leg up, then hikes the waistband over his butt and stands with a triumphant look.
"Sit on the bed, we'll have you try the socks yourself. They go on your feet." She sits and pats the space beside her, extending the pair of socks while she toes off her boots so he can reference her own socked feet while hopefully learning an important lesson in motor skills and spatial awareness. If need be, she's ready to dodge a pointy elbow.
"I do not think I will get frost damage," Amhran says with a small smile, as if this should be of some reassurance to Evie. Of course, he's only thinking of the sort of cold shock to stems and leaves and flowerbuds - he'll soon learn of the damage he might sustain as a being with fingers and a nose, no doubt.
Still, whilst the Evergreen has a minor existential crisis, Amhran busies himself with the monumental feat of learning to stand on one leg, and it's with an expression of pure victory that he shimmies into the thermals at last, straightening up and feeling pleased with himself. Less so at the social norms of it all, but thankfully he isn't actually a toddler, and so it's with a resigned, "I see," that he accepts Evie's reasoning.
"What is swimming?" he wonders, almost as an after thought, sinking down onto the bed beside her and accepting the socks. Glancing from her feet to his own (he wiggles his toes again, naturally), Amhran leans down rather than bringing his feet up, fighting to pull the sock on.
Once he manages it, straightening up, it's with an expression of something close to disgust that he regards the garment, promptly reaching down to pull the sock off again. "No thank you," he says with a gentle shake of his head.
