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!
04-17-2019, 09:41 PM (This post was last modified: 04-17-2019, 09:42 PM by Odd.)
REMI
& now I'm all alone in the dark of night
Remi shouldn't have felt nervous, but strangely he did. After all, if Ianto was just a trick, Safrin would know it instantly. There should have been no hesitation or worry on his part for bringing his friend along, and yet Remi felt a lingering something. Truthfully what it likely was was simply the fear that his suspicious would be right. That Safrin—or the item she would create out of the strange materials Remi would provide—would show Ianto to be a fake and...
...and then another friend would be gone. Even a fake friend would still be missed.
With the tank within his grasp, the lichen in his pocket, and the sap safely in another pouch, Remi glanced sideways at his friend. "I...have not been completely honest about why I needed all of this." Remi said with a crooked apologetic smile.
"I was not lying when I said Ludo has tried to kill me several times now. And...I..." Pausing, Remi tried to find Ianto's gaze, the somehow implore this man he couldn't remember but was growing fast friends with, to understand. "I do want to know you again, even if I can never remember what happened before. So I asked Safrin for help. For a way to know what was real and what was not...that is what these things are for. "
So saying, he placed the three items down at the base of the shrine that the fox had lead him to. "So..if you are not who you say you are, I suppose now is a good time to.." leave? tell him? stay?
The moon is shining but I can't see the light
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The shrine in the Wildwood was one that Ianto had come to know well. In those first turbulent weeks he found himself coming and sitting in the hope of finding someone he knew, of finding answers, or at least some peace in the chaos his life had become. To show this place, then, to someone else. To someone from Northaven - to Remi, especially - well... it was like having a prayer answered at last, he supposed.
"Yes you have," he countered with a crooked smile, moving to linger near one of the large trees and leaning back against it casually. "You told me you needed them for an experiment. If the experiment is to check whether or not I'm real, then that's still true." He snorted softly, shrugging his shoulders and seeming strangely laid back here among the offerings and tokens.
Remi laid the items out and Ianto buried his hands in his pockets, knowing better than to encroach any further. "I'll stay," he decided. "It's good to know, though... that you still want to know me."
"Well you're quite quick aren't you?" Safrin asked, appearing in a tree bough and looking down at the two men. Her galactic gaze rested solemnly on Remi for a moment, an amused smile tugging at her perfectly painted lips before she glanced towards Ianto. "And making friends from outside the barrier, I see." She noted with a raised brow, though whether this was any sort of judgement on her part was unclear.
Glancing down, Safrin inhaled sharply and shook her head. "That is so much sap!" She replied almost as an admonishment, glancing from Remi to Ianto as if demanding one of them to explain.
As the fox disagreed, Remi tilted his head in silent confusion, his lips twisting into a befuddled and boyish grin as Ianto explained. "Ah-huh." He chuckled with a shrug. "Well. You know what I meant." Remi added, tone laced with a still lingering lilt of apology.
A tentative and strangely intimate feeling smile spread across Remi's features as he nodded in genuine agreement. "I do." He said warmly, the remainder of that sentiment abruptly dissolved in the wake of Safrin's appearance.
Looking up into the tree Remi hastily stood, offering the goddess a low and deep bow as he blinked away his confusion at the suddenness of her arrival. Rising with a boyish grin, the alchemist nodded. "Yes...Well with Aoife's safety on the line, I had reason to hurry." He replied with a crooked smile, glancing over his shoulder as the fox was referenced.
Bristling at Safrin's tone, Remi's brows rose in concern as his eyes darted towards the sap. "So it...?" He stammered stupidly, looking from the sap up to Safrin and then back again. "I did not ask you how much I should bring...and I did not want to show up without enough for you to work with.." He explained quickly, biting the inside of his lip.
The moon is shining but I can't see the light
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"A drop would have sufficed! " Safrin continued, arms folded as the jar rose into the air. It would seem that not even a goddess would touch the container. The last thing that Safrin needed was her mind garbled while she was among the mortals. There was no telling what might happen.
With a slight shake of her head, the whisperfish seemed to swim up into the air, its body gliding through starlight. The cork in the vial unplugged itself and tilted, a single drop of the hallucinogenic sap falling onto the fish. In an instant the fish writhed and transformed, growing quite large and colourful, and then shrinking down into something only a few inches across and circular. The red lichen rose then and crumbled, the fine powder fusing to become a lens that sat snugly inside of the ring, forming a sort of over-sized monocle.
"There. This will let you see through illusions. Weak illusions and you shall see what is actually beneath. Stronger ones, like those that Ludo casts will not be revealed, but the object upon which the spell is cast will shimmer. That will be how you know."
Glancing towards Ianto with a raised brow, and then back to Remi, the goddess plucked the thoughts easily from the alchemist's mind. "This one is real. Is he what he seems? I will leave that up to you to decide, but he is not one of Ludo's projections." She added with a silvery sort of laugh.
Remi cowed beneath the weight of Safrin's gaze, his pale eyes apologetic and wide with the fear of misunderstanding roaring loudly in his ears. Looking up only as the goddess began to create, Remi's lips parted as he watched the components of her creation begin to fold together. With a glance towards Ianto, the alchemist's mind was studiously focused on what it was the goddess was doing. Not that he thought he could ever recreate her actions, but his ignorance when it came to the creation of magical things was vast, and though it was a gulf he could never hope to fill, perhaps he could bridge the distance even a little.
"Amazing.." He heard himself murmur, then quickly almost shied away realizing that he'd voiced his amazement out loud. "Thank you.." He whispered, before the goddess attention was turned towards Ianto.
Hearing her words, the alchemist felt something slip in his belly, as if he'd just fallen from quite a height at the mention that indeed his friend was real. With a wry grin towards the fox, Remi turned his attention back to Safrin.
"Thank you. I suppose Ronin must be real as well.." Remi said with a gentle tilt of his head. Something told him that Safrin would likely not allow an impostor of Ludo's to be parading about.
The moon is shining but I can't see the light
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ianto had seen things in his time in the Greatwood - he had seen the tricks of the fae, of the forest, of the skies and the earth below. But he had never experienced anything quite like Safrin in her starlight, the fox leaning against the tree with lips parted in silent awe as she weaved her magic with the whisperfish. At its culmination - and in the way she addressed him - he straightened up, swallowing hard and offering her a roguish bow.
"Thank you, m'lady. I'm glad to know that I'm no puppet of Ludo's, too," he murmured, his smile growing warmer as he glanced to Remi, as if to ask if he wanted to look at him through the lens anyway. Just to make super sure.
"For all the work it took to bring him back, he'd better be real sugar." Safrin replied with a modest laugh.
Glancing towards Ianto her lips twitched slightly. Now that she was free of the barrier she had heard the whispers of the fox...but more specifically she'd heard of Arduinna...but now was not the moment for such conversations.
And so with a gracious nod, Safrin disappeared back into the depths of the evening.
