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!
Thoughts of home and chilled mountaintops with pillars and wolf packs of protection seep from her mind as she regards Deimos, quietly, calculating. It reminds her of the days in the tent, planning and scheming, information lain and given, a plan of attack before she heads out to retrieve and give, to fight for the juice of her homeland. And once upon a time, she did. Here? She has yet to do much, compared to the Fallen Star and the Shield of Safrin.
But she’s still here, different and new yet still the same. And she’s ready to help in any way she can.
Her gaze flits along his face as she listens, milling it over. “So there might be portals to other hidden places we don't know about yet?” She asks with a tilt to her head, a contemplation as she tries to figure out what else might be out there. Here, a barren wasteland trapped within a bubble, to the north a vast woodland. Were there deserts? Oceans? Mountains? Volcanos? The options were limitless, and she finds she can do nothing else at the present time than to show him what the Ascended are made of.
She doesn’t know if anyone else has shown, been asked. It suddenly feels a very us versus them and she hadn't even considered the difference.
She nods to the Reaper as he replies, as her hand begins to heal and shift, as her body changes ever so slightly to make up the difference. She doesn’t know what it is that makes it work so fast, but it’s welcoming. “There is no pain, either.” She offers easily before a thought strikes her and she downs the rest of the drink. Her gaze sliding up to him with an old determined look that she knows he’ll recall. “If there’s a way I can help, I’m not far away.” She says with a small fanged smile.
“Even if you just need to experiment. I will do what I can.” She says, a fire within her cold heart. A child now or two worlds, of fire and magic and light, met by ice, strength, and darkness.
They weren’t familiar pawns in this world – more endeavored to others, to past lives knelt in schemes and ruses, snares and invasions, plotting and wreaking havoc. Here was a learning curve, a machination in the works, trying to fit themselves into nuances and sentiments where they didn’t belong, where they were uncertain, where they had to mire and muck their way through. And all the while, while they wished for mountains and duplicity; they drove instinctually to old tactics, foundations, and maybe one day they would mean something to someone.
Like now; perhaps they could be more than just peons and nothing.
“Perhaps. Like mountains,” then he snickered, he smirked, he smiled, believing in the possibilities of a skyline wider and taller and broader than the one they had now; auroras pressing into the horizon, peaks falling into valleys with hot springs and basins and caverns; not the same, but not wholly altered either. He thought of oceans too – currents bashing against cliffs or stretching across shores, curling across dunes, visions of the past coming into the present.
He’d never underestimated her – knew what she was capable of, what she could do, what she could implement, had always implored and clamored for more while he raged, while he festered, while he chased down each and every infidel who dared cross them.
Was it any different now?
She confirmed his earlier calculations – no pain, no agony, no anguish, capable of maneuvering headfirst, heedlessly, into whatever they desired – but did that mean they didn’t know when to stop? When to cease? When to desist? It appeared to be a conundrum and quandary of their own making. “Still be careful,” he insinuated, a slight arch to his brow; because she was a friend, because she was an ally, because he cared – even if she’d been altered, the Thief was the Thief, and those from the mountains didn’t erode lightly.
He sighed lightly, pondering how many he’d have to tell in the upcoming days – how many times he’d have to hang his head and wonder if he wouldn’t return from the stone halls, from the broken, ruined pillars, from the venom spiraling around and around. But, if their elements and invocations couldn't infiltrate and decay, destroy and inveigle the barbaric, venomous entrails, then they had a backup plan. “If we are not successful, I will recommend you to come along next time.”
He mentions mountains, and her eyes slide over to him curiously with a raised brow. No longer does she feel the chill in the air, no longer does any of it bother her. Perhaps the mountains would make a beautiful home, to relive the days before ridiculous men and terrible promises were made had destroyed everything she knew and held dear. She inclines her head, raising her glass to his to clink against his in a silent cheer of I pray there is.
But then she notices something akin to concern and her smile grows wider, bolder, edging toward a smirk as she raises a brow at him. It’s a friendly warning, but there’s something within her that screams toward the strangeness of it. Once, the man before her had been of quite a few less words than he is now, with less expressed emotions. And he offers her the consideration of being careful, to not let the painless life she leads to get her into places she can’t get out. And she nods as the smile begins to falter, a joke brimming on the tip of her tongue.
Unknowingly, she sounds exactly like her daughter.
“Yes, dad.” She winks to him before a laugh escapes her and she shakes her head, dark tresses falling about her shoulders. “I’ll be careful.” She offers as a true answer. But he ponders her offer, and she perks up when he considers whether or not to allow her to come – to see what is held within the inside of the Spire. Perhaps another time, after they’ve already exhausted all other options. She nods to his response, finding it a compromising outcome. “Alright. You know where you can find me.” She says lightly, giving him a small considerate smile once more. “But you be careful too, down there. I don’t want to lose you again.”
Another unsaid cheer, another vibrant toast – to mountains this time, to glaciers, to walls, to fortresses rising into cliffs and auroras blending into the skyline, drenching and dousing them in colors, in hues, that had once been everything. It was a goal, a long motivation, an aspiring ambition, something to come and chase when blights were no longer slinking, when crusades weren’t so often, when there was more to kingdoms than constant doom and damnation.
She apparently didn’t care for his cause of concern, and he wondered why he ever bothered voicing it at all, if they managed to simply rebuke and rebuff, slide it away, indifferent. Perhaps he should’ve kindled right back into the stoic, detached void, not let them see where his wounds were, where his scars chiseled and sculpted their way through, where the amount of losses still haunted, still grated, still strangled him like a noose. He rolled his eyes at her words, at the wink, the smile flickering away; a retreat, an evasion, a tactic so old, so primordial, so innate to his figure that it was inherent and routine, comfortable in its exposition and range. The heathen’s features were immediately nonchalant, eyes roaming back over to Zuriel as she meandered back to the fire’s blistering hearth, only riveting along Rexanna again when she promised to be careful.
What did that mean anymore? Were any of them ever careful? When they wandered into the Greatwood? When they rampaged after arrest warrants? When they gathered together and dared to rebel?
Maybe he was naïve and stupid, ineffectual and ignorant, to ever believe in the words.
But then she did the same to him, and he arched his brow, before his gaze flickered to his empty glass, to everything else worn and tired and exhausted. His thoughts and trepidations had never been for himself; reaching and scalding into adversaries and how to tear them apart, blistering and torching for others so they had liberation, freedom, and deliverance to instigate, agitate, and wreak havoc, protection and blackguard motivations for when the world seemed damning and doomed. He’d never really thought anyone else would’ve bothered with the notions either – ice king, glacial soldier, moving machine, breathing weapon, a sword connected to an entity and naught more.
Again drummed against his senses. Because he’d died. Because at some point he’d worn himself into a consignment to hell, and the devils had greeted him at the front door, then sent him back out into the world.
For a purpose? For a price?
“I will try,” he smirked and snickered, uncertain if it was a lie, a fabrication, a pretense for her benefit, or if he really would, for once, think about his own hide.
He makes no comment on her snark, and she doesn’t particularly expect him to. Not as she glances to him with a raised brow as he looks over to the unicorn by the hearth, as the flames in the fireplace flicker light around the room and warmth – a warmth she doesn’t feel anymore – but her eyes land back on her friend, a casual, small smile formed and nearly permanent on her lips. She’s here for him, and will be. She will not let her Ascension take her from him and her friends, those she cares for, those she wishes to help.
It just makes it easier for her to be that person. And it seems to her as though Deimos can see it, can feel it too as he smirks and snickers to her, a quiet quelling of her curiosity. He says he’ll try, and she nods in agreement. Sometimes that’s all you can do, and she bobs her head in a small nod to him. If it’s a lie, she doesn’t pick up on it. She trusts that there are enough of those around now that have shown him just how important he is to them that he’ll do everything he can to keep his heart beating in his chest.
She stands, looking to Deimos with those scheming, unconvinced sapphire gaze, though humor is laced beneath them. “I hope you manage to do all it is that you wish to do.” She says softly with a smile hanging on her lips. “If you don’t come see me when you’re back, I will come find you.” She says, an edge of a promise and a dare to her voice. She will see him one way or another.
He was grateful, for each and every one of them, the ones who accepted, who tolerated, who knew what he was and still seemed to, somehow, cherish him for it. He knew and understood what he was: feral, barbaric, twisted, coiled, a seditious pledge in a room full of vows, a blade waiting to strike, sometimes silent, sometimes forlorn, always guarded. But in the same interval, he would also do anything for them, an art to self-sacrifice, putting their burdens on his shoulders because his were durable, his were strong, his were mighty, laden and laden and laden more, shifting, turning, striking at things that haunted and threatened. It was a pattern, a ritual, a scheme for the masses, striving to ensure those he devoted himself too were safe, were protected; and it wasn’t easy in this world, where demons thrived and the unknown gaped, loomed, haunted over them. He’d fight for them until the breath faded from his lungs, until his heart ceased to beat, until the last munition and machination slid from his mind; perilous and treacherous, but not to them.
He’d done it before. Hadn’t he been brought back to serve the same purpose?
Had Rexanna been brought back to serve as another thief, duplicitous and ensnaring, capable of driving onslaught after onslaught with words and nuances, with glances and advances?
Were they meant for more?
Her words caused him to raise his head, a sly glance over the aches and uncertainty in his figure. The warrior hid behind it, because he wasn’t sure if they would, but trying was so much better than merely existing, rummaging behind his brooding contortions, his brewing death knells, the corridors that haunted and the bleak ministrations behind their goals. If they didn’t succeed – what then? Would Ronin die (again)? Would the blight continue to spread? He sighed, staring back at his friend from the past, at his friend in the present, and wondering if everything would be for naught all over again – if they were damned right from the start.
If he would defy it all.
“Likewise,” he murmured. Then, because he was curious, because he was inquisitive, because he’d rather not waste the evening, he pried a little. “What are your plans now?” With her Ascension, with everything else flickering down around them, with the nuances and sentiments unraveling, an evasion made; or was it up in the air, laden as she went along?
At her last request, a conviction, a promise, he snorted again. If I make it out didn’t rumble from his mouth, didn’t fester on his lips, but it still pressed along the back of his mind. “Of course,” bound its way out of the tension, wrapped in the tiniest of smirks.
They had been unlikely companions in the onslaught of the northern winds, carried and brought together by mountains and gilded thieves in the night. She had arrived on the doorstep, much like how she arrived here – but that separate version of her had felt as though she had something to prove, to relax from having the feeling of always looking over her shoulder. Here, it never truly left. Maybe for a time, like when she met a handsome man with an accented voice and a fierceness for the theatrics. And for a time, she had stopped looking – wrapped up and focused on the here and now, that like before she had forgotten to look further.
The other people within the world she found herself in, dipping their fingers into all the bowls and creating something specific from it that she couldn’t quite see just yet – until it collapses above. She sees it now, and while things are still good, fine, better than ever… There’s still that part of her that begs and yearns for preparation. A preparation for the inevitable unknown. And Bastien had given her the tools to do just that. If she didn’t love him more for it now, she didn’t know if she ever would.
But her sapphire gaze slips toward Deimos, the pillar of strength she had become a friend of – that night, scheming and planning among tents and festivities to plan, a slip of a paint brush on his cheek (a surprise for a man who’d rather not be touched) she can’t help but to relish in the new version of him. Still the same old brooding monarch – with no crown – but with more life to him. Perhaps the same amount of fears, though he hides them better. Rather than shutting everyone out, he’s there in the thick of it.
The Penumbra finds she’s proud of him.
And when he pins the question to her, in regards to her Ascension and new life, she gives him a fanged smirk. “To do what I’ve always wanted to do, I suppose.” She says, rolling her shoulders and stretching a small amount before her eyes land on him again, a piercing fierceness in their sapphire depths. “Fight for what’s right. I have all the tools I could ever imagine to do so with. It's just a matter of picking my battles.” She says, a bit softly, but there’s resilience in her voice that she’s certain he picks up on. She has become a double edged sword.
Lifetimes ago all he’d ever wanted to do was fight, rebel, raise his hackles, and shove raptorial predilection into the forefront of the earth. He resisted, he pummeled, he devastated, and he destroyed, and for some seasons, it was fine, it was expected: to torment, to tear and rip apart the world with his bare hands, to be the soldier, to be the warrior, to be the blistering, barbaric adversary, the guardian in front of the gates. It’d been harpooning measures and death marches, enigmatic knells crawling across grounds, choking, drowning, mutilating; and it’d been glorious. It was all he’d been, pieces of armor, suffocating on his own smoke and ash, on his own vitriol and vehemence, lost when everything fell apart, when he had to pick up shards and fragments after loss, after loss, after loss. When he sat upon a throne he was just as shattered, just as broken, just as barbaric and untethered, the savage with his scepter, an embodiment of winter and the chill coursing through their veins. He represented might and strength, but not much else; and she’d been capable, she’d been enduring, she’d been strong and far more than he could ever be.
They’d needed one another, and for a time, the plotting, the musing, the mulling, the forethoughts, the forays into peace had worked.
Now they were altered, chiseled, reformed, sculpted and molded with the same figures, the same forms – cultivated within different embodiments, from the suffering, from the glories, they’d encountered again and again. Still mighty. Still stalwart. Still capable of finding one another. Still hidden. Still rooted. Still striving to find their places.
But he allowed them to see portions of him – ones once so precariously out of view, out of range, unattainable, unreachable, the blistering beacon at the top of the peak, glowering down at everyone and everything and just wanting to be left alone. These days, he stood at sides, instead of behind, or in front, joined them in their determinations, in their ambitions, in their aspirations.
She wanted to fight for what was right - but what was that anymore? To cease the spread of the blight? To ensure Zariah didn’t reclaim her power? Or something else, something more, that they were all unaware of? “Which one do you intend to pick?” He tilted his head, a smirk to match her fangs, admiring her resilience, her tenacity, her will; sometimes the only reason they managed to exist.
“Which one do you intend to pick?” The question that comes from the Reaper is one that takes her a moment to respond to. She could say a great many things, of battles and wars to be waged and fought – of people to protect, to show the way, to prove it doesn’t end when things seem hopeless. That you can still move on, become something greater, something better.
They’re a perfect example, themselves, actually. And she looks to her oldest friend with a gentle smile, seeing the history of everything they’d been through. Built and made from the crevices and crags of mountains, of the wolves that howled and thundered through the night. A place of safety, of strength, of power, and will. She tilts her head to him with that same gentle, nostalgic smile, edged with something akin to a blade before she huffs a quiet bit of laughter.
“Don’t know yet. I suppose we’ll find out when we get there?” She says with a roll of her shoulders, shrugging. Mostly because she doesn’t know what to say. There currently isn’t a battle, isn’t a war to be waged, isn’t something to be won. Zariah is gone, and new kings and queens have taken her place. But she knows like everything else that the peace will not last long – it rarely ever did.
Sapphire gaze slip back to Deimos and she gives him a quiet grin. “Just like the old days.” She adds on after a moments contemplation. Because it was, in another life and different version. All they’d ever done was fight for what was right – perhaps with a few blunders here and there, but you lived and learned, there was much to be done yet.
Oh, there was always something to fight, to resist, even if neither of them could see it, could feel it. That’d what he’d been built, constructed, and crafted from – rebellion, sedition, the spread of insurrection in his fingers, in his skin, in his flesh, in his bones, torn from the pieces of peace he’d long since left behind. If it wasn’t Zariah, it was the blight, and if it wasn’t the blight, then it was some forthcoming omen on the horizon, drifting in along the shadows, on the curtails of ending seasons, of the pressing schism and catalyst of Long Night. It had been like Helovia, pockets of repose scattered amidst their own consecrated invasions and hatred; the abhorrence strewn about different characters and acts now, but the notions still the same. Because they were mountains, because they were wolves, because they were glaciers and rime and ice, smoke and fire and plumes, they’d dig their heels in and conquer or come completely undone; but fight just the same. It had been like Isilme, contempt and wrath seething beneath pinnacles of grace and formidable foes, glory-seeking ether choking the life out of its inhabitants, crawling shadows immersed and desperate to tear something apart with their bare hands. Because they were rapacious and deadly, because they were strong, because they were enduring, they’d remain, they’d persist, they’d persevere, walking through ashes, dust, and stone.
They’d sink into those brief moments of solitude, but never expect it to last.
“Yes,” he agreed, rising from his chair only to refill his drink, proffering to do the same to hers (even if it no longer had a taste, even if it no longer held any power or condition). A small smile bent its way along his mouth again, memories of times when she could form alliances beneath other castles’ noses and he could declare war on their houses with a bellowing cry, and they could march into voids and abysses with naught on their back but vitriol and belligerence. “Just like the old days,” he echoed, returning, settling with his spine to the flames, with the whispers of the past becoming a muted roar. “But, hopefully, some of the history does not repeat.” He grimaced, nearly wrinkled his nose, very boyish and young in the movement, recalling several failures along the way – losing the Edge as a soldier, careening along the Steppe as a refugee, taking, taking, taking what he could, what they could, to survive. Failure had always been inevitable, in some capacity, in some form, and they’d had their share – mistakes, mistakes, mistakes.
He rises from his seat to refill his drink, and she snags her own glass as well when he offers. Even if she couldn’t get the rise out of the feeling of drinking, nor the taste, it feels nice to do it with an old friend, unsure if she’s ever just sat down to have a drink with him without prying eyes or questionable statements. It’s comforting, a celebratory occasion for the both of them even if they hadn’t realized it. It cements their friendship even further, to her, and she soon realizes that perhaps they could take on the world together – just as they had before.
She snorts in response to him echoing her sentiments, giving him a slight knowing glance before he continues and the snort turns into a full out laugh. “Gods willing.” She announces, raising her glass once more to clink against his own before taking a sip and leaning against the wall slightly as she thinks about it all. Of the strife and attempts made to bring more to their borders. Yet with Tembovu being nearly everywhere at once, (she snorts as well at the memory of him likely meeting every woman that came to the Edge) and the warmth of the Dragon’s Throat, it had been hard to get others to be convinced that the winters edge might be a place of home.
Her sapphire gaze flickers toward him with a slightly raised brow. “Did I ever tell you that when I went to the Edge to tell Tembovu that I was pregnant, that someone met me outside the borders and threatened me?” She snorts, taking another deeper sip of the drink. “And after, I met another woman from his homeland. She was kinder, and she actually gave me Kiada and Kianzo’s names.” She recalls the thought, head tilting as she remembers. “But gods do I wish I stayed in the Basin with you and Hotaru and Thranduil, even.” She pauses, eyes skating over to him to glance at his rough hewn face.
The few companions and allies he managed to make were ones he’d defend to the bitter, rancorous end. It was how he’d always committed himself to others, in time, in biding moments and fluid instances, ensuring they weren’t caustic and damaging, demanding or treacherous to his own hide – never trusting until they’d proven themselves (because otherwise, he could be snared, he could be trapped, he could be blindsided). Those who even bothered to etch and sketch their way into his periphery, into his thoughts, into his munitions, into his heart and soul, would find a ready and willing soldier at their back, at their side, protective blackguard, capable and effectual, dastardly dagger, carving cutlass. Whether or not it was worth having him as a comrade likely depended on anyone’s definition of a friend, but Rexanna was amongst those he confided within, aligned with to a fault, after all the nuances, after all the plots and stratagems they’d encountered and conquered together, after picking up pieces and placing them together in winter caverns and dilapidated ruins. Glass clinked and his snicker remained there, a listening ear tilted in her direction while his eyes seared with the flames nearby; gods willing, except sometimes deities had nothing to do with it and it was all their actions, their runes, their diabolical masterminds.
“I am not surprised,” he shrugged, the glimpse of a smirk behind the tumbler as he took another drink; the standards set of sovereignties, rulers, and monarchs, the hostile, acrimonious lingering at fringes. “I did the same with any intruder.” His gaze was a piercing, molten thing; sets of dangerous emblems that spoke of how much he’d enjoyed intimidating strangers on their borders, beneath the monoliths, a Colossus amongst statues, marble amidst marble, death between his veins, a promise in his warnings – the smirk resting in the darkness. The rest of her tale was intriguing; that there were others from Tembovu’s land, suggesting names and titles for their king’s brethren, heirs to a cliff throne that no longer existed.
“We wished you had stayed too,” wasn’t sharp, wasn’t harsh, wasn’t guttural, but just an expression of all the things that had begun to flicker apart at the end. Before he died. Before he was lured out into the rain and fell at the embankment, when his heart gave out and his lungs coughed their last haggard breath and the world spun in glaciers behind his trapped eyelids.
He maneuvered away from it, head shifting away from embers and infernos, blue meeting blue, carnivore clash. “Did I tell you about the time I lived in the Edge?”
“I am not surprised.” He admits, and her eyes flicker toward him as she takes a sip of her drink. There’s a light roll of her shoulders and she snickers to him at the memory that came with it. “Oh, you scared me shitless when I first arrived.” She winks to him with another quiet huff of laughter. “But she didn’t even have a title? She was new there, too, from what I recall.” She says with a thoughtful look that cascades over her pale face.
And the memory of when she told Tembovu, and gods how he had raged at it. Ah, good memories.
She looks to him once more as she leans against the counter from which he got the bottle to refill their glasses, and her eyes soften on him as he offers his own form of information, and Rexanna nods her head in agreement. A different time, a different life. Perhaps if she were still there she would have abandoned everything just to return to the mountains. But she knows it wouldn’t have been the same – wouldn’t have the quiet, pillar-like monarch that she adored.
At least she has him here. And her brow raises slightly as he meets her gaze, their both sharp and cold, with a spark of warmth within them at the memory and combined companionship. But his next set of words cause her to grin to him with a laugh. “No?” She says in a bit of surprise. “How long were you there? What happened?” She pins him with a bunch of questions before settling with the glass close to her chest, as though she’s a child waiting for story time.
At her first recollection, the smile he reflected back was absolutely wild with mischief, bereft of all innocence, savage and nefarious, twisted along impish, abhorrent decrees – the kind a predator wore before a final blow. “That was the intention.” Because he had always done it to be intimidating, a faction of menace and malice brooding at their center, at their core, the king of ice and gloom, do not come near dominance and superiority, no one questioning his unattainable fathoms, no one daring to reach closer. “Perhaps Tembovu commanded even his newest recruits to guard.” He shrugged; he’d always committed the same juncture to his soldiers, instructing them to watch the borders, the lines adversaries and foes dared to cross (even after warnings, even after ultimatums, even after he’d ensured a number of them had felt his wrath). It wasn’t to discredit Rexanna and all her efforts – but intriguing, that the worlds had been so similar.
But the Edge countenance, the fact that he’d left that corner of the storylines out, somewhere, somehow, seemed to spark her curiosity – a grin, a bout of laughter, unexpected notations doomed and damned to be unleashed from his memories and mouth. The beast leaned back further into his chair, clutched the glass in his hands, stare roaming along the darkened ceilings, as if far away for a moment, lost in the clutches of shadows, sands, and time, lives twisting and turning back on themselves. “When I first arrived in Helovia, I had come straight from Isilme, and into the World’s Edge.” His malicious grin returned, bold, audacious, a reverberation of what he’d been, cold and callous and entirely too caustic. “Mauja was leading at the time – and I rampaged my way in, asking to join as a soldier.” He shrugged, as if this had been a perfectly normal thing to do – entirely in his pattern and line of work, never lingering along the open borders, never waiting for someone to come find him, show him the way, chasing after the swells of the ocean and the tempestuous current, because it’d been all he’d ever known. “It was only a few months before we were invaded by Mirage’s forces.” Their hatred and enmity had been tested, both clambering for thrones, the Edge to keep theirs, Mirage’s to hoist them away, and despite the bravery of their troops, their adversaries had been too strong, too many, and they’d been outnumbered, outplayed, and forced out. “When we lost, we were all exiled, and spent winter on the Steppe.” Refugees, blistering and scathing, coming back together in caverns and caves, a hostile void seeking retribution.
