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!
It was the ensconced unknown though, slinking through her fingertips and gnashing at her ichor, calling her back, back, back to the darkness; because the possibilities were there, that it was all in her head, that it was all in her mind, only stirred, only brewed, only concocted and refined into this blighted mess. An excuse for the torment to be restless and invited, uninhibited, released, straight into the darkness and threshold she’d skirted and skimmed along since her birth. She shook her head again, quieted, but it felt fleeting and hopeless; Rexanna’s presence was a god-send, but eventually, it would all be for naught, a twist, a turn, a stitch in time and she’d be right back where she started. Those were sickening thoughts too, and she tried so hard to lean into the Penumbra’s words, to let them scald and soothe and smooth instead of drown her in the abyss of eventual defeat. “I didn’t want to be like this,” she whispered, into shirts and arms, shuddering again, trembling as the cold touched over her once more, pondering the lengths of monster hood and how she’d told Amalia she’d wanted to be a demonic queen, enriched with fangs and power and potential; but in her own void, in control, in venom and vitriol of her own making. That was why she worried that it had all come to this.
Maybe this was her. Maybe this was everything she was going to become.
It made her feel sick, reviled, horrified; her stomach tied up in knots. She gasped again, leaning more and more into Rexanna, into those days where her mother would’ve tended and assuaged, a sweet song for her girls when they tripped (usually Melita), when they stumbled (usually Melita), when they erred (usually Melita). “Thank you,” she murmured. “I’m still so sorry.”
It’s an added benefit that the Penumbra needs never to sleep, because she would and physically could stand here all night, holding the trembling, terrified child within her arms. And she’d be happy to drown the girl in her love and warmth (figuratively of course). But she would do it, if it helped. If until Melita’s blight acts back up and she needs to prick her again with another thorn. She would do it, for the semblance of normalcy. For keeping her sane enough to try and fight back, to give Vi’s roses a chance to work.
Gods does she hope they work.
She strokes Melita’s hair gently, murmuring and nodding. “I know, sweetheart. I know.” She says sadly. Nobody wanted to be that way, even if it were a choice. And a part of her feels absolutely terrible to have somehow managed to help it pass along, even if inadvertently. She wants to keep everyone safe – that was why she did it. But was she causing more harm than good?
Rexanna gladly holds Melita tighter and tighter, closer and closer – letting the girl squeeze as hard as she needs because of not needing to breathe, not feeling pain. “You’re forgiven.” She tells Melita eventually, gentle and calm, soft as the shadow that crosses the sun during an eclipse. Barely noticeable, until it’s devoured it entirely. A quiet acceptance, endurance. “I am here for you.”
You’re forgiven was like a mirage, a hallucination, because the one moment Melita slipped back into that blighted mess, all hell would break loose again, the sorries and apologies and regrets gone, turned ravenous and rapacious. But she took them for what they were now – that one person had already absolved and pardoned her, and maybe would once more when she returned and yielded to that despondent discord. She was held and surrounded and cherished for a second, and that felt better than a thousand other knives and daggers poised into her ribs and pressing on her lungs; she could’ve stayed there for an eternity, but with ominous convictions and demonstrative demons, it was only a matter of time before she sunk straight back into the mire. “Thank you,” she whispered again, for any number of things – for comfort, for cherishing, for holding when she shouldn’t have been, when she was a monster, when she was an ogre. “If I lose control,” she ceased for a second, whispering into garments and hands and pieces of a past she wished she could have back. “Could you stop me again? Please?” Before she annihilated someone else? Before she brutalized and couldn’t return to her roots? Before she was a ridiculous beast, incapable of doing anything else except condemning, except maiming, except ripping, and tearing, taking apart things she had always been devoted to?
There is nothing that Melita could do in her blighted state that Rexanna would never forgive. Even if the girl managed to somehow destroy the ascended hybrid, Rexanna would understand that it isn’t her. And all she can hope is that the girl understands the prolonged meaning behind the words of ‘you’re forgiven’ and ‘it wasn’t you’ to show her that. There are no grudges with the Penumbra, not for this. Never for this.
And she doesn’t let go, as she holds the girl tight to her chest, the thank you lifted in the quiet night air around them, while Rexanna hums a soft agreement and acknowledgement to the fiery haired warrior. Until Melita ceases slightly, and pulls back, and Rexanna’s eyes find the honey-girl’s own. The question, poised and hanging in the air, the only thing that the Penumbra finds to be entirely Mel despite the blight and black edges to the girl.
Instead of replying right away, she tugs Melita into her again. “Always, sweetheart.” She says softly. A vow, that if Melita loses control again (and she likely will) that if Rexanna can be there, she will be. She’ll pull her out from the mud and debris of the darkness of the blight, to bring her back into the sunlight, even if only for a few fleeting moments.
There was more safety in Rexanna’s reassurance, in the preambles and preludes to further disaster. Perhaps she’d fully recover, and nothing would happen. Perhaps she wouldn’t, and there’d be one more broken wave of shambles and fissures to correct – try as she might, and gods, she always tried, the potential for ruin was always there, brimming and brewing in the back of her mind. It’d been heightened, rooted, and scorched all the more by the tempestuous, enticing, inveigling quandaries of the Stygian abyss, and even now, she wondered how long it would take to swallow, devour, and consume her whole again. “Thank you again,” the girl said once more, as if she couldn’t say it enough, as if she could recite it a thousand times over and it still wouldn’t hit the edge of her sorrows and drowning need for forgiveness, for extending her regrets. “I should go,” was another murmur, melancholy and despondent, because she didn’t want to, because Rexanna was comfort and she craved its absolution and freedom – but she couldn’t hurt her. Not anymore. Not in the future. So she slipped away, brushing aside the tears from her eyes, the threats looming and blooming in the back of her mind, and on a feral, subtle little wave, she extinguished her pathways, wandering back into the night – desperately afraid of what might happen thereafter.
