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!
Isla has never had the pleasure of being around Rae's Fingers too much, but from what she's heard from sailors at the clinic, they're in a sorry state after the Starfall. And she has no intention of exploring the flooded tunnels in any particular detail today, but as the sun starts to rise properly over the sea, there's no denying that there's something haunting about the entranceways she can see. Which suits the season, she supposes, if what the Torchers have to say about spirits is true.
The Remedy isn't here for any of that, though. There are plenty of herbs and sea grasses to collect along the fringe shorelines here, and with a clinic to run again, supplies have a habit of being used up all too quickly. And so it's with a satchel slung over one shoulder that she meanders along the rocky outcrops, eyes peeled for anything interesting.
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
Directed by the flora she saw, it was perhaps the guidance of her ears that would lead Isla in a new direction. Carried on a sea breeze was the unmistakable sound of a guitar, the origins of which just happened to be a slightly-high Everest Hart.
Perched on a rock with several of his shirt buttons in the wrong holes and the rest entirely forgotten about, Everest swayed to his own rhythm as he leaned against the frame of his guitar, one sandaled foot tapping in the grasses. Singing nonsense words that rhymed only because they had no meaning, most would say Ever had a decent voice. Not as good as his father perhaps, but then he'd always been more of a musician than a singer.
"I — can — hear — you—" He sang suddenly in a playful voice before glancing over his shoulder in Isla's direction.
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
It is, indeed, a melody on the breeze that has Isla's head turning, the Remedy still half straightened up from where she's plucked some seagrass from a rocky outcrop. Not one to instantly orient herself towards a stranger clearly in the middle of something, she nonetheless casually meanders towards the sound, if for no other reason than to see the person responsible for making such sweet music.
Granted, all of that changes when it turns out to be a person she knows. Standing, bemused and charmed by the sight of the aviator in such a state of disarray - and marvelling at his skill with the guitar while simultaneously wondering at the logic of his rhymes - Isla jumps a fraction as she realises she's been noticed.
"Sorry," she says through a soft laugh. "I didn't realise you could play. Please, don't stop on my account." In the back of her mind she instinctively wants to ask if Ever is feeling okay (she's known fevers to cause people to act out of character) but it's not like she knows him all that well.
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
"No need to apologize." Everest calls in that same sing-song tone, only it's more melodious than it is playful or mocking. "I am sure there is a lot about me you don't realise." He adds, shrugging against his guitar. Pivoting slightly on the rock in order to face Isla, all the while his fingers continue to stroke up and down the neck of the guitar never once missing a note.
The drugs in his system have loosened every part of his body and with Dahlia's kiss having done the same for his mind the change in him is the sort of thing that separates Clark Kent from Superman.
"So, Isla..." Her name on his tongue sounds like the start of a lyric as his fingers dance easily across the frets as if he might play her closer to him with the right notes. "What's something about you that I haven't realised?"
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
"I'm sure there is," Isla agrees, trying and failing to hide her smile as she shifts the satchel on her shoulder. It should ring more alarm bells than it does to see the usually timid aviator so confidently oozing charm, but then again that's the thing with charm, isn't it? It's charming. "How long have you been out here?" Her gaze flicks momentarily over his shoulder, as if automatically wanting to check how far from the cliff's edge he might be, but then he's reeling her in again with his words.
"How forward of you, Everest," she chimes, raising her eyebrows and stepping into a more companionable distance for them to hold a conversation (like a moth to a flame and all that). "I'm not sure you could handle all the things about me that you don't realise. I don't play any instruments though, and my voice is terrible, if that helps."
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
Pursing out his lower lip, Everest glances up at the sun, but all it seems to tell the aviator is that it's quite bright out and looking directly into it isn't a good idea. Blinking, he lowers his gaze and grins, momentarily lost in the haze of white lights that now surround Isla. "Dunno. Not long enough to burn." Though, maybe that wasn't strictly true, but he certainly didn't feel burnt quite yet.
'Is it?' Ever wonders, his smile lazily crooked. "Would you rather I ask how your day is? Or make some comment about the weather? I can that, if you'd like me too." Intentionally or not, his eyes seem to hold hers as he says this last, the words rolling off his tongue a touch slower.
Though that was probably just to suit the music.
'Oh, you don't? I am very good at learning things.' He protests as his fingers slip up and down the strings. "I think your voice sounds lovely. I quite like hearing it, actually." Both the drugs in his system presently as well as the lavender haze perpetually in his thoughts, had made Everest able to tell the truth in a way that sounded so breezy and perfectly candid. So it was now as he smiled encouragingly up at Isla.
"Say more things. Even if I can't handle them all, at least I can hear your voice."
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
Opting to respond with a gentle raise of her eyebrows rather than verbally - Everest is certainly on the pinker side of tanned, but it might just be the height of the sun that makes him seem so - in the end the medic lets the matter drop. Instead, caught off guard by the easy conversation (the self-awareness in itself is charming), she lets out a laugh and shakes her head. "We can just pretend that you did," she assures him, as if small-talk is a box he's managed to tick just by making a reference to it.
"I have no doubt that you are," she continues; good at learning things, she means, and she sidles up to take a seat on a smaller rock beside him, with enough space between them not to jostle his guitar. "And I meant my singing voice, though I appreciate the compliment all the same." Setting down her satchel of herbs, Isla leans back on one hand to tilt her head up at him.
"Alright, well. Let's see - I enjoy good wine and long walks on the beach, and I also quite enjoy the snow, even though it doesn't treat me well these days." She rattles the statements off as if they're speed-dating, and her mischievous smile tells that she knows that's the case.
"Oh, here's one for you though - I have only ever been to Stormbreak once, officially. But as an Ascended, I did sneak around there a bit, before the city floated up into the sky."
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
"Usually I'm not very good at pretending, but..." Everest's smile grows crooked as the words slide from his lips in time with the plucking of the strings, and when he shrugs, the guitar seems to sigh with the movement. Tracking Isla's movements in a way that's more cat-like than canine, the aviator can only chuckle as she sits.
"I know that's what you meant." He admits softly as if imparting a secret. Glancing at her through his curls before dropping his gaze back to the guitar, Everest taps one bare foot against the sand as he listens to Isla list off the sorts of things anyone might find on her dating profile.
Tutting under his breath, the aviator offers the medic a playfully disapproving look that has one dimple darkening his unshaven, and, fine, slightly sun-pinked cheek. "You really think I wouldn't have realized a woman like you enjoyed good wine or long walks on the beach?" Raising his eyebrows, the aviator purses his lips slightly as if offended.
'That must have been quite...' Pausing, the strings twang and slide beneath his fingers as he searches for the right word. "-exhilarating." He says, of Isla's sneaking, and it's with a too-blue stare that he seeks out Isla's gaze again to see if he was right.
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
"That's nothing to be worried about. People prefer honesty in my experience." Though that isn't to say that pretending doesn't have its merits under certain circumstances (here's looking at you, R&R), and whilst Isla has no idea of the shenanigans taking place across the world, her mind isn't not thinking of similar scenarios.
Shooting Everest a playfully reproachful look at his 'admission', Isla nonetheless witholds her opinion to enjoy the music coaxed to life by his fingers. Even sober, and without having been soaking up the sun for as long as he has, there's something otherworldly about the melody that catches the Remedy's attention, and she finds herself smiling even as their conversation continues.
"Oh? A woman like me?" She tilts her head, mild challenge lighting up her expression. "Please do elaborate."
As for Stormbreak and its exhilarations, she shrugs her shoulders a little. "More terrifying, honestly," she admits. "Though there have been experiments that suggest that fear and excitement provide the same base emotional response."
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
"Not in mine." The aviator's disagreement is sung and accompanied with a half smile that causes only one dimple to form. No, for a young Everest Hart, honesty was rarely the best policy. In fact, hardly anyone wanted to actually hear it. From rhetorical questions to those almost demanding white lies ("How do I look?"), the boy's brand of honesty had made him an outcast almost instantly.
Meeting Isla's pebble blue eyes, the aviator tilted his head slowly, his movements somewhat softened by the strings he continued to stroke. "Yes, a woman like you." He confirmed with a smile. "Of course you like fine wines, but then, you've lived the type of life where you no longer have to pretend to like what you don't." He explains. "You would be as happy with a cheap glass of something you like as much as a glass of something fancy regardless of who is in your company." Letting one of his fingers vibrate on the string to encourage the vibrato, Ever looks at Isla studiously for a moment before a secretive sort of smile tugs at his lower lip.
"And I don't believe it's long walks on the beach so much as it's good company or a stroll next to the ocean or beneath the stars." He guesses with a shrug, before releasing the string and allowing his fingers to flow fluidly once more.
"You know, I've heard that too. Apparently, on a first date, you're meant to do something terrifying as it invokes the same feel as falling in love, though...That seems a bit manipulative."
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
In another time and place, it might have been the sort of admission that Isla would have found inexplicably sad. But with Everest singing out the words and looking, for all the world, as if he had not one burden upon his shoulders, she wisely keeps her thoughts about his remark to himself.
Instead, letting her gaze flick from his blue eyes down to the strings of the guitar he so expertly plays, Isla feels a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. Shifting to fold her legs beneath her on the stone, when she next glances at Ever's face, it's with a playful twist to her expression. "Everest Hart, if I didn't know better, I would think you were flirting with me," she says.
Especially as he mentions first dates, and whilst the Remedy doesn't think they're even in the vicinity of that, it's still an entertaining conversation. "Manipulative yes, but I think the way a person reacts under stress is very telling. It might let me decide if I wanted to go on a second date."
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
"Do you know better?" Ever wonders, before his look of concentration is broken by a small chuckle. "I'll admit, Mateo has only just begun to explain the intricacies of flirting with me, but given what I know, were I to flirt with anyone, it would most certainly be you." It's the sort of easy admission that Ever hears flowing from his lips all too commonly these days. Boyishly said and with the sort of naive infatuation of a schoolboy confessing his love for his teacher, so too does Ever smile softly at Isla. Somewhere there's a caged voice ringing all sorts of alarm bells, but it's buried down so far beneath the veil of violet that the aviator is entirely unbothered by the chains of his anxiety.
"Even if you knew part of your decision was influenced by what you saw and felt in virtue of their manipulations?" Posed as a casual question rather than the sort which would once have seen Everest pulling out his notebook, now the aviator just shrugs as he continues to sway softly with the music rolling from his fingertips.
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
"You know, I thought I did," Isla says. Know better, she means. "Now I'm not so sure." Even less so as the candid admission spills from the aviator's lips, leaving her with pink cheeks and the inexplicable urge to laugh. "Well, all things considered, if you were flirting with me, you're doing quite a good job. Though I do have to ask - what has changed?"
Pausing, because she understands what she's asking and doesn't want to insult Everest by accident, the medic tries again. "All I mean to say is that you seem much more carefree than usual. I hope it's for a good reason, is all." The sort of reason born of good days and good choices, rather than lowered inhibitions leading to regret the morning after.
As for their imagined scenario, Isla nods to him, despite rapidly losing interest in it. "Even then. People react quite reliably, I find. I wouldn't want to go on a second date with someone I found incompatible based on their reactions."
I'll take a bruise, I know you're worth it When you hit me, hit me hard
04-22-2024, 01:27 PM (This post was last modified: 04-24-2024, 10:30 AM by Everest.)
EVEREST
"Well, it's always wise to constantly reevaluate the things you think you know. Saves you from becoming dogmatic." Ever says offhandedly, before pausing for just a moment to glance at Isla through his curls.
"Changed?" The aviator repeats, but the musicality of his tone suggests he's merely getting a feel for the word rather than communicating a lack of understanding. 'Everything, perhaps. Or maybe nothing. I think I've just...managed to get out of my own head. At least, it's quieter in here now, though that might be the drugs." Ever adds with a casual shrug before resting the fingers of one hand across the strings to silence their music.
"What brings you out this way? A bit of nefarious business in the fingers?"
the boards will still creak the leaves will still die
