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!
Blinking slowly, Remi's lashes fluttered as he took in his surroundings.
The air was musty, but perhaps that wasn't so surprising. Almost everywhere he had been indoors had this smell, as if nothing had seen fresh air in a very long time. Inhaling, the alchemist tried to sit up and found his body surprisingly free of pain. Looking down, he noticed he was shirtless and there was a bandage wrapped snuggly around his ribs. Glancing over his shoulder, he thought he saw Isla busying herself down one of the hallways but couldn't be sure as the lighting was still quite dim.
Forcing himself to a seated position in the cot he currently occupied, Remi ran a hand through his curls and then rubbed at his eyes, trying to bring the last few hours back into focus.
He'd been with Vervain ... they'd been hunting and –
–no, they hadn't been hunting. They'd started to hunt when the hawk had fallen into a snare. Placing a hand on his ribs he felt the tightness he expected, but none of the fiery-bristles of pain that should have come with the open wound he had sustained. The wound. Vai had healed him of that, somehow. And while he was more than grateful, he was obviously still a bit surprised.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Vai had not gone far after making sure Remi got to the infirmary alright, leaving him in the doctor’s more than capable hands while she tried to both replicate and make sense of the new skill she had apparently picked up. And it was no fluke - she managed to heal a few other small injuries while she waited for Isla to look Remi over, but anything more extensive than that seemed beyond her. It was a skill, though, that she was certain she could improve on if she continued to use it. She was, of course, sitting nearby when the hawk finally came around - she’d dedicated her morning to hunting anyway, and more importantly to spending time with Remi, and that latter part hadn’t changed even if the former hadn’t really panned out.
“Hey, how are you feeling?” She smiled as he sat up, rising to her feet to draw closer to the cot, glancing over him carefully. ”They said you’re pretty banged up and bruised, but you should be alright as long as you take it easy for a bit.” She didn’t try to hide her relief at knowing that.
Glancing over with a sheepish smile, Remi shrugged his shoulders. "I do not think anyone else has rescued me more than you have." He offered with an awkward grin. Remi didn't just mean physically though. Via had been there for him in a way that no one else in his life ever had. Some had come close, but the huntress was the only one to truly accept him with open arms, always making room when he needed her. She seemed an endless well of love, and though he often felt guilty for drawing on it as often as he had, he didn't think she minded much.
"I did not even think to look for any traps." He continued slightly bewildered with a gentle shake of his head. "I..." Widening his eyes and exhaling, the alchemist slumped his shoulders. "I cannot thank you enough for bringing me here. And healing me when you did. That is...new? isn't it?"
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Remi, you absolutely don't need to thank me," Vai said with a warm smile, sinking down onto the edge of the bed and hiding a yawn behind her hand; it turned out that although her skill with healing was only meagre right now, it definitely took it out of her magically. "Besides, you've done your share of rescuing me, in your own way." Laughing warmly, she reached out to touch a hand to his cheek, making sure he was definitely in a better state than when they'd arrived.
Neither of them had thought about traps, something which Vai was going to change from now on, and she shook her head as if to tell him that he didn't need to berate himself for it. Her healing, though... yes, that was new. "I've never done it before today," she told him, smiling sheepishly. "Since I got here too, my magic with the wind current seems much weaker... maybe this is the trade off, huh?" She certainly wasn't going to complain.
Tilting his head slightly, Remi's brows creased together. Of course the suggestion that he'd in any way helped the huntress was a welcome one, he just wasn't sure it was true. Always one to doubt his abilities and usefulness, whatever meagre ways in which he had been of service to Vai paled in comparison to how she'd effected his life. Still, warmth spread through him at the thought, and he beamed at her and leaned into the feeling of her palm against his cheek.
A trade off?
Perhaps...
Nibbling his lip, Remi leaned forwards and frowned slightly. "Or..." Remi said almost nervously. "I met a...a religion." The word wasn't right of course, but Remi knew nothing of gods or religion as Celosia and others apparently did. The presence of Frey was almost as baffling as the complete lack of vocabulary he had with which to describe him. or her. or...it?
"It was in the temple, and it had power unlike anything I have ever seen before. Perhaps religion has something to do with the changes?"
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Vervain smiled back at Remi, brushing a hand through his curls affectionately before finally letting her touch drop away. She was about to ask how his chest was feeling when he leant forward suddenly, a mix of nerves and conspiracy. Vai tilted her head, listening intently, and her blue eyes widened similarly at his comment, though his phrasing was clumsy and utterly adorable.
"Religion? You mean to say... a deity of some sort?" She knew about it from a few of the stories she'd read. Fairytales and legends spoke of gods and goddesses, beings capable of so much more than any mortal, magical or otherwise. Was Remi saying he had... met one of these things?
"Perhaps it does... you said this was in the Temple? Perhaps I should go there and see what it has to say about this new magic..." She particularly wanted to know whether it would hobble her the same as it had done to healers in Northaven.
"Celosia said she was praying? And that it was a religion shrine." Come to think of it, when the alchemist had asked Frey if he..er, she? was religion, Frey hadn't answered. Perhaps deity was the right word.
"Oh, I–" Remi's eyes widened in alarm and a coral blush suddenly raced his up throat and onto his cheeks. The memory of what had happened last time still occasionally flickered behind his eyes when he tried to sleep. The feelings were uncomfortable if only because they'd been so overpowering and intoxicating. He felt dirty and spoiled at the thought, and immensely guilty for wanting to feel it again.
"–it was...the deity I mean. It looked..." Shaking his head slightly, Remi found himself floundering for a description. "Actually it is hard to say. His..I mean, her...its face seemed to constantly shift. And the magic..." Closing his eyes and clenching his jaw for a moment, Remi tried to force his way through the sudden flare of embarrassment. Yes he trusted Vai enough to tell her about Loren (most of it anyways), but...this felt like strange territory to wade into with someone he considered more like a mother than just a friend.
"It took our clothes. And it .. One of the women there was a virgin and ...the deity made us feel..." His cheeks flushed vibrantly and his gaze lowered. It wasn't just uncomfortable because he wasn't at all inclined towards woman and yet he had been, but because the lack of consent and forcefulness of it all made him feel as though he'd violated–or would have violated–something that he could never undo. "It wanted us to...and Cel almost did and then it just laughed and disappeared...
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Hearing the hawk out, Vervain nodded as he explained, though she hadn't been aware that others in Northaven knew or worshipped anything to any degree. "A shrine, huh. Shrines are places where people go to pay respects to a deity as part of their religion," she explained, since she wasn't certain how much Remi knew about it all. "Praying is one way to do that, but you can also petition for help by doing it... I bet Celosia didn't expect anything to actually appear, though."
And especially not anything like what Remi was describing. It sounded... well, it sounded exactly as awkward as Remi was making it out to be, and even Vai's cheeks flushed a little in embarrassment on his behalf. "It just disappeared, though? You didn't... phew. That poor girl - all of you must have been shaken up, in fact."
By the way Vai's hands were clenched tightly in her lap, they weren't the only ones. She told tales about things like this, and she even believed some of them. But this didn't sound... natural. That was the only word she had for it. "Perhaps I won't go to the Temple, then. Or at least not with anyone... are you okay?"
"I don't...at least, I didn't mean to help? I just saw her and wondered what she was doing, since the temple looked more or less abandoned. I had no idea that my presence would..or could help?" Exhaling softly, Remi puffed out his cheeks and sighed.
"Yes. Just as Cel was about to...er..." Swallowing hard, the alchemist shook his head blandly, stealing a glance up at Vai. "...The younger woman, Phoebe, I think had it the worst. But...the deity...it knew things Vai." This likely wouldn't be surprising to the huntress, but for someone like Remi who had almost no understanding of what gods could be like this divine knowledge seemed incredible. "About me. It said something about how I don't..." Clearing his throat slightly, Remi had to force the words out. Despite the fact that Vai knew this about him, and now that he'd actually acted on it, still saying it out loud felt like voicing a crime. "It said it knew I didn't like woman."
"I don't know that I like the thought of you going alone either..." Remi said with a wince.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Vai smiled kindly to Remi and shrugged her shoulders. "From the books I've read, deities can be for a specific emotion or purpose, and each one is so different, anything might have helped or hindered summoning it." She was trying to say that it wasn't Remi's fault, the huntress tousling his curls reassuringly. "Then again, that was in the tales I read. This place might be entirely different."
She arched an eyebrow as he continued, before a worried expression flickered across her face. Vai shifted to sit closer, letting an arm move around him so she could hug him for a moment. "It sounds like whatever this thing was could tune itself into your psyche pretty well..." It sounded horrifying even to mention out loud.
"It's okay, though. You didn't know about it, and now you do. And it sounded fickle enough that it shouldn't bother you again unless you provoke it..." Which she doubted he would do - and she was in agreement about going to that Temple alone or otherwise. "Maybe I ought to try the traditional means first. Talking to people and finding books or other histories about this place.
Nodding and sighing into her touch, the weight of the experience lifted slightly but not entirely. As her arm wrapped around him, the alchemist sagged into the embrace with all the fondness and ease of the years that felt like stretched between the two, rather than only a few months.
"I suppose so. It was...." Groaning softly, Remi shrugged his shoulders against the huntress. "But haven't something like that just... told." It had taken a lifetime and no small amount of forcing for the alchemist to finally accept who he was and act on it. To have a deity, powerful or not just shatter the tentative acceptance Remi was creating was perhaps even more damaging than the purely physical aspects of what had happened.
"Traditional definitely sounds better." Remi breathed with a relieved sigh, glancing over at Vai with an adoring smile. "I don't know what I would do if something like that happened to you." Then with a chuckle he added, "Or what Devrum would do to me."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I can't even imagine," Vai murmured, a frown furrowing her brow. She didn't think she had much in the way of secrets, dark or otherwise, but the idea of anything so personal being blurted out by a stranger, let alone a strange deity was fairly horrifying. "At least it disappeared again before anything terrible happened. You're okay - or you will be, in time." She smiled back at him, holding him for a minute longer before sitting back again. A musical laugh left her lips at the mere prospect of Devrum learning about any such encounter, and she shrugged to Remi.
"I daresay he'd be more jealous not to have been there. That should give you a moment to run, at least." Her tone was lighthearted, because of course she would never let Dev enact any violence on the hawk, verbal or otherwise. Curiosity shot through the huntress's eyes, then, and she nudged Remi gently. "Say," she murmured, "you never did introduce me properly to that blueblood of yours." She'd already met Loren, of course, but that didn't mean she'd miss the opportunity to meet him as Remi's love interest.
At first Remi though that Vervain meant that Devrum would have enjoyed whatever weird sexual energy the alchemist had been forced to experience. On the one hand he had enjoyed it, but that had been the worst part. Given what little Remi knew of the bear the man probably had no such predilections. Then as Vai clarified, Remi ran a hand through his curls and chuckled. ”Or fly.” He agreed, running a hand along the bandage that the doctor had expertly wound around him. Remi made a mental note to thank Isla profusely for her expertise.
At the mention of Loren, a bittersweet smile spread out across Remi’s face. His eyes glittered adoringly but his lips fell slightly even as he tried to hold the smile in place. ”Loren Launceleyn.” He said under his breath, whispering the name almost reverently. He had no idea that Vai had met the librarian before, and though Remi hadn’t known who the Launceleyn was when they’d first met, it was entirely possible that Vai would. ”I actually have not seen him since that first day, when we will arrived.” It had felt like heaven to hold Loren in his arms again, but this prolonged distance felt barren and cold.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Or fly," Vervain agreed with a smirk, her blue gaze following his hand as it brushed across his bandages, as if to make sure he wasn't in any pain. When he spoke Loren's name it drew her attention back, the huntress smiling despite herself - the look on his face was contagious in its joy, but she couldn't help but notice the hint of sadness about it as well. "Ah, the one who works in the library." She nodded in understanding. "We met when I first arrived in Northaven - in fact, I borrowed that book of fairytales the same day."
She did recognise the Launceleyn name, but mentally shrugged at it. Vai was a commoner and she'd spent much of her life in the woods rather than the cities. It wasn't all that surpising that she found little interest in Northwind's nobles. When Remi explained that they hadn't seen each other, she reached out to take his hand if he would allow, giving it a gentle squeeze.
"Don't fret," she murmured softly. "I saw you two together - you'll be fine. There is a lot to do and people are still missing. He might be busy trying to find his family, or something. But if you're worried I can always go and find him and knock some sense into him?"
