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!
03-19-2024, 05:45 AM (This post was last modified: 04-19-2024, 10:47 AM by Safrin.)
Hadama's steps back to the shrine on the Sea of Glass were slow and measured as the Tidebreaker lost himself in thought. His conversation with Deimos had raised several questions neither man could answer. Only Safrin could say what shape the paths she offered would take. What sacrifices she would require for the blessings she gave in exchange. They were questions he should have asked before, but he had been dazzled by the honor he had been offered. The Warden had allowed him to see past his own yearning with his counsel to consequences the Tidebreaker had not considered, and so it was that as Hadama slipped back into the water and regained his true shape he paused to think a little while longer.
In time, he lifted his hands from the sea and crafted the moonstruck droplets into a necklace of half a dozen frozen stars, delicate and intricate, each one unique, strung on a chain of ice with seamless links so fine they flowed like water. Perhaps he did not need a second offering, but it felt wrong to seek his goddess without one. And there was a calm pleasure in the crafting that helped to settle his thoughts as he momentarily lost himself in the contemplation of beauty and the one who inspired it.
"Safrin," he rumbled in the depths of a frozen Leafchange night, "I have spoken with Deimos. He gave wise advice. And I have questions about what it would mean to be your demigod that neither he nor Ronin could answer." Ronin's situation of returning from the dead being rather... unique.
Where and what Safrin did when she was not bending her ear to hear the wishes of those she attended to, was anyone's guess. Some had a better idea than others, but just now with so much at stake and in such a precarious position as she found herself in, one can assume the goddess was not simply lounging upon a cloud toying with specks of starlight.
Around the edges of the icy pool Hadama found himself in, clouds would appear that the chill would not be so terribly biting. "Hello Hadama." In a gown seemingly made of frost crystals and moonlight, the goddess knelt by the edge of the water to extend a hand toward the merking. "Did you enjoy your stroll across the tundra? I hear it can be quite beautiful if one knows where to look." So it was with most things.
Tilting her head to the side, Safrin considers for a moment before smiling softly. "You wonder about the merfolk, about where your allegiances will be forced to lay. Is that not so?" Where once such questions might have been met with a flippant shrug, in light of all that had happened recently, the goddess had nothing but patience for the Tidebreaker.
He did not think he could ever tire of gazing upon his goddess as she wove together timeless elegance with a beauty that outshone all the other stars in the sky. Even in her current state of recovery she glimmered with the promise of what she had been and would be again, if given time and a chance to heal. That her fashion sense was never less than celestial did not go unnoticed, either, though his own artistry had been reduced from a vocation to a hobby as he chose to focus on his kingship and caring for his people.
He swam forward to meet the lady of stars at her invitation, reaching a large hand towards her with uncommon hesitance at the honor granted him in order to meet her pale, perfectly-shaped fingertips with his own. "Indeed," he rumbled, inclining his head in gratitude for her gift of legs, and for the appreciation of a different perspective of Halo than the water-bound one he was used to.
Her soft smile would have melted even Halo's ice if her clouds hadn't already warmed the waters around them. Hadama tilted his head thoughtfully, taking a slow, deep breath. "My allegiances are to you. To the Mer. And to Torchline," he confirmed. There were no contradictions between the three that he knew of. Safrin had granted his kingship her blessing, and he held the Merfolk throne and co-rulership of Torchline at her pleasure. "But... as your demigod, will I still remain of the Mer?" As her other demigods had remained human in their outward form, at least. "And what would be the cost of that path?" In magic and in shifts, as other demigods had lost in their transformations from mortal to something more.
"Perhaps the best question for you to consider, Hadama, is what order you would place upon your allegiances." Such were the paths the goddess had originally offered to the Tidebreaker. That of champion of the Mer and ruler of Torchline, or champion of Safrin herself.
"You would not, just as the others before you have had to fundamentally change what they are." Safrin explains with a shrug. "But I could grant you an aquatic shift and the ability to communicate with them beneath the waters."
As for the cost?
Smiling, the goddess extended a hand to the merKing, brushing the backs of her fingertips softly against one cheek. "The cost would be your complete devotion as well as your abilities. My magic is not in the calling of storms nor the bodily transportation in water." She would give him wings to fly if he wished them, or the ability to hook himself to a shooting star to dash across the land. "The powers you possess will never give you what I can. They will never provide you aid in times of need, love when you are without hope, nor power beyond all reckoning."
Pulling her hand back, the goddess regarded the Tidebreaker. "But all of this you have seen with the others." With the Ronin's of the world yes, but the Remi's, Sunjata's, Hotaru's at this point.
She asked him to consider and he did so, breathing slowly of the crisp midnight air. "I hold Torchline only with your blessing," he said slowly at last. "If you call me away from it, I will follow." And in truth it was an easier choice to make these days. He may have worried about Flora's youth before, but his co-ruler had shown herself to be a true Queen time and again. If he had to leave Torchline in her hands, he could do so without regrets. But... "It is... harder to leave the Mer," he admitted, bowing his head. There was turmoil in his heart at the thought of losing such an integral part of himself. "For power... no." No matter how high his ambitions reached, simple strength was not reason enough to abandon his people.
But he took a slow deep breath and looked up at his goddess with searching eyes. "For love, though... yes. I would become something other than what I have been." For his own love of Safrin and the stars that lit the sea, and all that she had done for him and Torchline already. That was the only reason he would give up his heart.
He closed his eyes, a small tilt of his head relaxing into the brush of fingertips against his warm skin as she reiterated the costs, though one was no hardship at all. "You already have my devotion," he rumbled quietly, calm and firm in that pillar of his belief. And there was relief and gratitude, too, that she would let him remain connected to the sea with a shift and telepathy. "And my thanks." But as she pulled away he looked up at her again, straightening as the moment of peace upon his brow fled. "The Flood... said that he kept his abilities when Frey accepted him," he said slowly. He did not think Sunjata had lied to him, but perhaps the Tidebreaker had misunderstood how that... transaction... had worked.
"And... Safrin, I am... afraid." The confession did not come easily to the proud King, but he held nothing back in his prayers to her whether she was present or not. His voice lowered, going quiet nonetheless with the difficulty of saying what came next. "Ronin's powers could not harm the Void. And I will not float back in a tidepool while others put themselves at risk against the storm." If he became her demigod would he lose his ability to defend against or harm the Void-touched and their master, the mysterious Dahlia?
Approval sparkles in Safrin's dark eyes as lines of laughter crease around them like the trails left by shooting stars. That Hadama's love and devotion were still hers left the goddess feeling somewhat more steadfast in what was about to come. In light of all that had transpired—with Ronin, with Seren—this moment was perhaps more important than the ascension of others had been in recent memory. Perhaps that's why Safrin seemed so caught off guard by the mention of Sunjata and what abilities he had retained.
"Sunjata's loyalty was bought by Frey." Drawing herself up and away, Safrin wrapped her arms around herself and stared bitterly at the sky. "He was purchased with the promise of protection, and where did that get him?" Where was Kamaria? Where was Nate? Where was the Voice? Where, even, was Frey? Looking back toward Hadama, somewhat accusingly perhaps, the goddess shook her head.
"I will not buy you Hadama." She said in a cold, even voice. "You will come to me out of love, or you shall not come at all." Whether the Tidebreaker would understand her anger as still being directed toward Sunjata after all this time, was not Safrin's concern just then.
Softening, if only just, she turned her gaze fully back to him. "Ronin has never even encountered them. Remi did, using borrowed abilities." She corrects. "Though it is true that astral magic seems not to harm them, but then...do you really think yourself more capable than what I could make you into, as you are now?"
Her approval washed over him like a Tumsea's wake, uplifting and life-affirming, leaving him feeling renewed. The anger that followed was a storm that twisted the currents of their conversation into a dangerous whirlpool, but Hadama knew the risks of the Flood's name and he was braced for the tempest. He held himself still within the water, shoulders up and eyes upon his goddess, solemn but unflinching in the face of her bitterness.
Perhaps it was not the same story that Sunjata had told him, but that did not mean there was not truth in it.
In the end it was her pride and her unwillingness to break her principles that tilted the balance. He was pragmatic enough that he would bargain for all that she was willing to grant him for the fight ahead. He was her servant, but he had his own pride, and his own determination to survive the battles awaiting them. Given what had already transpired on Starfall, he desired every blade that he could grasp.
But true loyalty could not be bought. That truth resonated in his chest and he bowed respectfully before her, the bond filling with a quiet gladness that she felt the same.
As he rose again he accepted her correction with a thoughtful nod, for she was right. But Dahlia's imperviousness to astral magic was still a matter of great concern, and the question what was posed in return held a hook beneath the silken words. She offered great power... but in the current tides it was not without great risk. Still, he tilted his head up at her, a rising swell of curiosity in his breast at what she foresaw as his place beneath her stars. "Mmh. I am no equal to Noah or Ronin," he agreed without shame. His decision was very nearly made, but there would be no going back once he spoke the words and so there was one last thing he needed to know. "What would you make me into, as your demigod?"
Though Safrin's patience was in abundance given all that had transpired, it was not endless, not was the goddess without her own needs and desires. Though she listened to his question, it was with a soft shake of her head that she declined to answer.
"That is the question of a careful mind, Hadama." One she was more than aware he possessed, though it was not his mind that this conversation was concerned with. "A heart fully dedicated to me and my cause would not need to know such things before agreeing." Such was faith, after all. "You have spoken to those who follow my path, to those who walk alongside it, and to those who have gone their own way."
Though it was of no surprise that the merking struggled with precisely this leap of faith, it was precisely what was required of all who followed her closely enough to be raised above the rest.
"Yes or no, Hadama. There will be no repercussions based in anger, either way." If he needed to maintain autonomy over his own life, so be it. Safrin's ask of her demigods was nothing less than absolute but with it came the gift of immortality and blessings beyond measure.
Faith came easily to the mermanta. Leaping, however, was a much more difficult prospect. This was a decision he could never go back from, and his conversation with Deimos had laid out the risks and costs of his choice in stark simplicity. He drew in a deep breath, bowing his head as he turned his gaze within to weigh all that he had learned from the others, and all that had passed between them this night.
He would lose much, and he thought he knew the total of what he would leave behind. But only time would tell what he would gain as a demigod.
Time, and the examples of Ronin and Noah, both men that he admired greatly.
He only hoped that he would prove to be strong enough and quick enough to learn what he needed to in order to survive the gathering shadows of the Void.
When he raised his head it was to meet Safrin's starry gaze with clear emerald eyes. The slow twist of his tail through the icy waters stilled as he came to his decision, and he floated in a frozen moment of time beneath the diamond-strewn sky. Then yes, he said with the truth of his heart through the telepathic bond, where he could not lie. His decision, though slow in the making, was made without doubt. I am yours.
"Then it so it shall be." Though Safrin's words were even, starlight seemed to imbue the moment in time, freezing and fracturing it for all the world to see. For Hadama, time would seem to start and stop, twisting and turning as the cosmos was reshaped around his being before diving inward where their cosmic ministrations might change this fundamental essence of who he was. The Tidebreaker would appear as a reflection of all he had grown into on his own, made resplendent by starlight and modelled in Safrin's image.
You are mine, Hadama. And I am yours. She sang into the very marrow of what and who he now was. You now serve me and the light of Vi. There is no more glorious or greater calling than this.
He had made his choice with long deliberation and full knowledge of the consequences. His gaze remained on his goddess but as he was drawn into her own starry eyes he saw, for a timeless moment, himself there. Not just as he had been, but a perfect reflection of what he could be with Safrin's grace.
What he would be, given the time to grow into the gifts she granted him.
He felt her voice within himself, echoing from his very core, and his soul sang like a struck chime: a single note of pure joy that went on and on as her starlight suffused him and remade him from the inside out.
Yes, he agreed with whole-hearted simplicity to her statement. To serve life, and the light. To serve Safrin, and Vi. What greater purpose could there be? What would you have me do?
"Serve." Safrin chuckles warmly. "I will not ask you to leave Torchline or even alter your duties as King." Not right now; the unspoken qualification hung starbright between them. Nothing was hidden now.
"Keep doing what you can to learn more about the Family. I know you have asked Rae for help...perhaps when that task is complete we might do something to shield Torchline from the view of Starfall. No need to let them constantly look upon our shores, mm?" But there would be time for that later.
"I love you, Hadama, and together we will do great things."
Hadama inclined his head gratefully, knowing from his conversations with Noah that his goddess might very well require his presence elsewhere eventually. For now, however, he would not have to be parted from his home and the glad duties he had chosen in leading it alongside the Doubletake, and he was relieved.
The Family... another piece of the puzzle that was the Void, and the Tidebreaker nodded a second time, this time solemnly. There was much to be done on that front, and though his new abilities would take time to get used to he could still seek information and learn what he could while he worked to unlock the potential of the gifts he had just been given.
"Indeed," he agreed, grave and fervent to her suggestion of how next to protect Torchline, piece by piece, against the invaders in their waters.
But at the words of affirmation he tilted his head up to her, letting the grim future fade away for a few more moments while he basked in her light. "We will." A truth, a fact, and a certainty without doubt, that they would change the world together. And though the words were not easily or often spoken by the stoic mermanta, he gave voice to them now. "And I love you."
