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!
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
So far, there hasn’t been any consequences of what she’s done. There hasn’t been any mention of it as of late. And she’s thankful. But she feels different, changed, and with it, she realizes she may have put off a few of those that she needed to see before disappearing to destroy a sacred tree to the Fae, a place she had spent many a night at during the blight’s reign. And that first stop is the Manor, to Loren to thank him for what he’s done, and perhaps to see what her new upgrade did.
Luckily for her, the Manor isn’t too far from her own new residence. And she makes it quickly through the snow, under the cover of a deepening dusk, to reach the doors. For a moment, she contemplates the idea of surprising him by just herself like she had jested to him in what felt like ages ago. But she doesn’t. No, she sticks to the original plan. Besides, he might not even be home and my, how that would be awkward.
But she also only knocks once before entering – standing in the main hall as she removes her hood and looks up and around the room. Once, she had been here before entirely different, forever changed. But new beginnings, new horizons, new friends to keep up with. “Loren? It’s Rex!” She calls out, hoping she might receive an answer, stalling in the hall in wait.
Rexanna’s knock and voice echoed within the Manor. However, for a long moment, nothing and no one would answer her: despite all the people living there, there was a strange hush over the place. It felt almost as if it was the den of some great beast rather than the home of many people.
Well, maybe that’s because it was, in a way.
She’d understand soon enough, because before too long Loren stalked from deep within the house. It had been a long time since the wedding, or at least it felt like that. And the blue-eyed woman might be surprised by the changes in the summoner. He’d lost all the weight he’d put on, but instead of looking gaunt, he looked lean, and hard, all sharp edges and ripcord muscle. To accentuate that, he was dressed in tight black clothing and form-fitting boots, which clung to him like a second skin. His hair had been cropped almost painfully short, and his beard was nonexistent, the closest of shaves letting his cheekbones stand out more than usual. On top of that, frown lines had appeared where smile lines had once been. But none of that was the starkest contrast from the shy and kind librarian he’d been not so long ago.
No, the biggest change was his eyes. Their blue, which had once been warm and inviting, was now an icy pool that didn’t let any light out and seemed to pierce everything they touched upon. There was a wildness to him as well, and while his steps thudded soundlessly on the carpeted floor, there was a predatory edge to them.
He stopped a decent distance away from her and crossed his arms, leaning against a nearby wall. ”Rexanna. What brings you here?” His voice was as cold as his eyes. However, given that she’d just gotten married, and was probably lost in newlywed bliss, she’d be spared the worst of his ire. For now. Because, despite her no doubt valid excuse, she could’ve found some time to speak to him—sent him a note even—which meant she wasn’t entirely blameless in the isolation that had finally closed in and made him snap. So his patience wouldn’t last long. Presumably she was here for a reason, and hopefully for both their sakes it wouldn’t be something that would send him back over the edge that he was teetering over.
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
She is greeted with silence, for a moment, and as she removes her hood and focuses on the finer details of the manor – ones that she recalled from days past, months ago, when she had been only abandoned, with the basic uses of her magics versus what she’s become, she can’t help but to shiver a small amount at the time. It happened not that long ago, but it felt like ages. And when Loren appears, and her sapphire eyes snap to him.
Maybe it had been.
How long did the Voice stop time when she did? And did it continue on here? It wasn’t Longnight yet… No. She had too many questions. First of all, he looks to her like he’s ready for a fight, and she can’t entirely understand why. It hadn’t been that long since the wedding – it hadn’t been that long since any of it. She had moved into Bastien’s home, had found a small young Ascended to take under her wing, and found the Mathair and planted roses, protected them, been there…
Only she really hadn’t been there for Loren, had she?
She shrugs out of her cloak, dressed in a similar dark hue with swirls of golds and reds that adorn her form and her figure, and she turns to him with a bright smile. If Loren wanted to be ice, she’d certainly become fire. “I came to thank you for what you did for the wedding. But I wanted to do it in person, and it’s been… A long few weeks.” She reaches up to brush her dark hair back from her eyes, opening them again to land on the summoner.
“And also to see how you’ve been.” Because that's what friends do.
Well, the first words out of Rexanna’s mouth would’ve been fine enough on their own. Kind of annoying, and unnecessary, but not enough to prompt anything more than a cursory response from Loren. Indeed, he even gave her that. ”You’re welcome.” His words came out short, and clipped, and without a hint of courtesy. However, despite the fact that she seemed to want to do it in person, it could have certainly been accomplished with a note.
He had little time for unnecessary pleasantries these days; given how dark his mood had become and how much work he still had left, he wasn’t really willing to be polite. And that was before she started complaining about how long the past few weeks had been—an understatement if he’d ever heard one—and he felt the ice uncoil within his breast. It felt good and right there, in a way the simpering and cautious manner he’d had before never had. ”Long. And hard.” He let the heavy words fall between them, and what might’ve sounded like an innuendo under other, happier circumstances just sounded ominous.
And when she asked how he’d been the last few weeks, he even cracked a smile. However, it was as rigid and mirthless as his eyes were, which it definitely failed to reach. Tapping a finger on his chin, he feigned thinking about the question for a brief moment. ”How have I been? Hmmm. Well, let’s see. Pretty fucking terrible. Thanks for asking though!” He pushed off from the wall and took a confident step towards her, drawing himself up to his full height. ”How’ve you been, though? How’s the husbandddd? Did you enjoy the honeymoon? Still basking in that marital bliss?” This time, the Launceleyn’s voice came out in a tuneless sing-song, and he started pacing back and forth, hands now clasped behind his back.
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
A flat you’re welcome is what she’s greeted with. But it doesn’t bother her, no. And as she mentions that it’s been a long few weeks, all she can do is bob her head in agreement with Loren. It had been. Long, hard, trying. But she makes no comment on the innuendo that could be made. There’s too much tension in the air, too much of words spoken and unsaid, for her to find it within her to say it.
But she asks how he is, and her eyes follow the slight smile that forms on the summoner’s face. Cold. Cold. Cold. And she can’t help but wonder if she has made a mistake, crossed some sort of unnamed line with him, by not checking in. It had only been a few weeks, after all. Certainly that had to count for something, right? After a moment he finally tells her that he’s been terrible. And the change that overcomes him causes her smile to falter ever so slightly. Well. At least she had asked.
Lips part to question what happened, to talk about what happened should he wish to, he pushes off the wall and approaches her. For a moment, she wonders if he’s trying to intimidate her. Because, yes, she’s small, short in her stature, and he almost towers over her, but at the same time the Penumbra holds her ground. Standing up a small amount straighter, her head and eyes follow him up as he draws himself to his full height.
That singsong voice is something that makes her pause and her eyes focus on him a bit more as her head tilts, watching him pace back and forth. She’s seen this before, she knows something isn’t right. All she can do is give him a small smile and a shrug. “Haven’t really had one yet. Been busy working on planting flowers for the blight, among other things.” She gives him a slight look, as if to ask if he’s been doing the same. “But I didn’t have much of a chance to send a note to you.” An explanation is in the back of her mind, an admission that perhaps she has been an awful friend too, but there had been reasoning for it.
Nearly dying, was as good of an excuse as any.
“What’s happened in the last couple of weeks?” She asks him, head lifted as she focuses on him. He knows her well enough, despite their short friendship, that she will not pressure him if he doesn’t want to answer. But the last she could do is ask.
10-03-2019, 03:10 AM (This post was last modified: 10-03-2019, 03:15 AM by Loren.)
LOREN
Honestly, Loren wasn’t trying to be intimidating or chilling. He was just done holding himself back, making himself smaller than he actually was, less than. Done with groveling and putting others before himself. After all, all that had been stopping him from letting go of his tight grip on the last remnants of goodness and light within was the faint hope that maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be left alone again. But he had. And that had extinguished the bright spark of his soul, leaving nothing but cold, dark, hunger behind.
Maybe he was being unfair to Rexanna, but he’d been gentle, and patient, and kind, and it had gotten him nowhere. It was past time for a change, to stop pretending he was something he wasn’t. He was a weapon, and now that he had no one to wield him he would cut anyone who came close, whether former friend or current foe.
”You should go.” He let that linger in the air for a moment, before giving her another chilling grin. ”On your honeymoon, of course! Don’t wanna spend it cooped up for LongNight, now, do you? Not much time left before that. Can you feel the sand trickling through the hourglass?” He cupped a hand around his ear, before returning it behind his back, pacing all the while. The smile had disappeared, leaving a blank expression in its wake. ”I can.” If anything, his eyes grew colder.
Ah yes, the blight. The all-consuming blight which had taken up everyone’s time and hurt their loved ones and apparently left no room for the Launceleyn. Well that was alright. He didn’t want to spend time with them, not anymore. ”Right, right, the blight. I planted my flowers. Sounds like you did as well, congratulations!" He let a careful beat pass before he spoke again. "But I know it’s been cured, and you haven’t gone on a honeymoon yet, so I guess I’m just a little curious what these other things are that didn’t even leave you with enough time to send a note.” The last word was said with a little bit of a bite to it.
He held up a hand and a blank piece of paper appeared in it. ”Look, there’s one! Guess you’re a bit behind on all those thank you cards though. Unless you're making ALL your wedding calls in person?” The crooning was back, only this time it was lower and darker.
When she finally asked what had no doubt been on her mind this whole time he halted, directly in the center of the hallway, then turned to face her. Crumpling up the paper, he tossed it aside then rubbed his hands together. ”Oh so much! How much time you got?” Licking his lips, he felt a smirk forming as he considered how best to respond.
”Well, I got tossed in the pit by the Fae, I found out Remi thought I’d been in a sex cave when I really had just had a mental breakdown, someone got their knickers in a twist and called down Ludo on me, Remi said he loved me and I said I loved him, but then I told him I didn’t want to jeopardize his marriage because Ronin used to be my best friend and then after all that Remi asked me to kiss him, everyone is going batshit crazy over LongNight, Ronin knows about everything with Remi but hasn’t said boo to me, Wessex thinks I’m an idiot and I think she’s a tyrant in the making, Remi and Phoebe talked about everything that went on between me and him and then she tried to offer me sympathy or something so I nipped that in the bud, oh, and Roana is on a murderous rampage against all Ascended and it’s my job to bring her in and then babysit her for LongNight.” He spread his hands as if he was a player on the stage and this was just his opening monologue. ”I might’ve missed a few details, but you get the gist.” Again, he gave her one of his special little smiles. ”So again, how’ve you beennnnn?”
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
“You should go.” A pause. Before a continuation, as if she’ll leave at the first heart beat after. No, Loren’s got her for the moment, focused on him, listening as he mentions hour glasses and cups a hand to his ear as he mentions he can. And all she can do is give him a bright smile of response. “Is that so?” A quiet question – because while he might have the ability of worrying over such things, Rexanna won’t age. She can be killed, and nearly almost had been. But growing old isn’t one of them, dying of old age isn’t one of them.
But he does pick up on her look that she gives him when she mentions the blight, and the flowers, and while she had been away in the Greatwood destroying a sacred tree, evidently so much had happened. And Loren had cracked, broken somehow. Instead, dark brows furrow slightly as he creates a piece of paper, and the smile grows a bit wider, a bit colder as she tilts his head to him. “Only to the important ones.” A small admission, but she’s prepared to follow it up. Even if he thought he wasn’t important to anyone, he didn’t get to dictate who she thinks is important.
She makes a show of checking a clock, to add into the dramatics that he’s obviously overdoing, before focusing on him again. “All the time in the world.” And she does, settling in and remaining as still as she can while he unleashes a deluge of information on her that she starts to pick apart. The Fae pit, a place she’s never been but heard of. A meeting with Remi that had gone incredibly south, wondering if her other friend had known how cruel that entire thing could be. And for a moment she’s angry for the both of them, for Remi to have caused such distress. For Loren, because of the admission of feelings despite being tied to another and supposedly whole heartedly loving that one.
But she smartly keeps her mouth shut as Loren mentions Ronin’s awareness of the incident, of Wessex thinking he’s an idiot to which Rexanna snorts. She’s seen the softer side of the Queen, but she does understand that thought. For a time she had thought Wessex thought she was an idiot too, before she was proven wrong. She only pauses when she hears the information that Roana is out to kill all the Ascended, when her hand clenches at her side and her jaw tightens.
“Sounds long. And hard.” She agrees, tilting her head to the side as the sing song voice returns, as a special smile is sent her way that’s decidedly Launceleyn, she thinks. And she wonders if she knows what’s going on deep within. That he really had broken. That multiple weights pressed upon the summoners back until eventually it broke. “I suppose, to start, the Fae aren’t exactly the friendliest bunch. But they probably hate me more than you, so take some solace in that.” She gives him a bright smile despite not really feeling it deep within. If Loren wants to dance, Rexanna will dance too.
“As for Remi’s huge mistake, it should have never happened.” Her voice grows softer, contemplative for a moment. “But it did. So you can dwell on it, or deal with it.” Her head cocks, a dark brow raising as she folds her arms across her chest. From Rexanna’s point of view, it seems as though he’s certainly dwelling, and not particularly dealing well. “Wessex is her own kind of person. I wouldn’t worry about her thoughts on you.” She’s far past caring what people think of her nowadays, anyway. “For Roana, you can ask for help.” Because she has her own little Ascended family to worry about now, and the protector within her would fight back against it.
But he singsongs back to her, asking how she’s been, and that sickly sweet smile returns again. “As for me, I planted some flowers, got attacked by one of the blighted, found out my daughter has it, went to the Voice, happened upon an ascended new arrival…” Here she hums, a finger pressed to her lips as she looks around the room too, until it’s like a light bulb goes off.
“Oh, and I almost died.” So yes, little time for honeymoons and ticking hour glasses, little time for sending notes to friends. Too busy opening portals and burning a sacred tree to the ground.
10-03-2019, 04:29 AM (This post was last modified: 10-03-2019, 04:30 AM by Loren.)
LOREN
Rexanna might be smiling, and so was Loren, but it felt more like two predators baring their teeth at one another than anything else. Well, that was fine by him: she was strong and fast and practically immortal, but he could heal from just about anything and even cold as he was he had fire within him. But he’d keep it all chained up, since she’d been so nice as to make a housecall. Besides, he was done cleaning up messes.
”That is so. Haven’t you heard? There are monsters waiting out there, and they say not to let them in.” Too bad for everyone they hadn’t been looking for the monsters in their midst, or at least not closely enough. And while the blue-eyed woman might not feel time slipping away, the summoner had wasted too much of his on people who didn’t care. So he just gave her an inscrutable look. However, it morphed into something ugly and dark when she mentioned visiting other people before coming to see him. "I see. So. You did have time to see people, so long as they were importantttttt. I'm dying to know, who were the lucky lads and lasses you deigned to grace with your presence, your majesty?" Rexanna had made a mistake, admitting she could've come here sooner; even if she'd included him in her list of 'important' people it was far too little far too late.
At the end of his tirade—yeah, sure she’d reacted here and there during his pretty little speech, but not enough to stop the flow of words—she made a quip. A quip. A fucking sex joke, of all things. Well, at least that was one area of his life that hadn’t fallen apart. ”Oh! Right! That reminds me. Some good news! I met Freyyyyy and they cured me of that silly little touch thing I had, so bite away, Rex. Plus they gave me a quest for orgasms.” He waggled his eyebrows, but his actual eyes remained unchanged. ”Too bad I don’t have anyone to share my life with. No friends, no family, no loversssss.” She should know a little bit about not being able to experience physical pleasure, what with the whole being Ascended thing and all.
Then it was her turn to respond and he almost burst out laughing. Wow. Her comment about the Fae was an inane statement if he’d ever heard one. ”Yeah, no, I got that. Again, though, I find myself curious. I know what I did to piss them off. What did you do that was so very very bad, Rexy?” As she talked about Remi and Wessex and Roana, and offers such nice little solutions to problems that couldn’t be solved, not anymore, maybe not ever all the playfulness fell away. ”I am dealing with it. What, did you think that was me whining? Oh no. Sorry to give you that impression, but you asked me what happened. Hap-pened. You know, like in the past?” She seemed a bit slow on the uptake, but hey, few people seemed able to put up or keep up with the Launceleyn.
He went back to leaning on the wall, idly inspecting his nails, his voice growing bored. ”I’ve moved on, Rex. What, you thought the new me, the new look, was me dwelling on it? Please. You see, I didn’t have anyone to talk to, which made me realize that I didn’t actually need anyone to talk to. Funny how that works. Luckily, I’m not worried about Remi, or Wessex, or Roana anymore. Oh and thanks for the offer, but I’m good. You can’t help me any more than Phoebe can.” The summoner really wished people would learn to actually listen to what he said. He wasn't looking for help, wasn't asking for comfort, or affection, or support. All he wanted was space, and time, and they kept denying him both.
Now it was her turn to list her accomplishments and trials and tribulations over the past couple of weeks. Unfortunately for the blue-eyed woman, Loren found himself entirely unimpressed. ”Oh yeah, I got attacked too. And I invited plenty of newcomers into my home, oh and convinced Beatrix and Jace to come back as well. Everyone seems to be avoiding me though.” He looked up from his hand, tilting his head to one side and fixing her with an ice cold examination. ”You look pretty good for a near corpse. What’s your secret? Whatcha been up to that almost got you killed but didn’t even leave a mark?” Either she hadn’t come as close to death as she’d said, or something fishy was going on here: Ascended healed fast, but they didn’t heal THAT fast.
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
Oh, she can’t help but to audibly laugh at the comment about monsters. She knows what he means, she knows the double meaning, and for a moment she gives him an almost knowing look. But if he wants to dance and push people away, she will let him try. And it seems he’s getting the ideas all wrong as they leave her lips, brows quirking slightly despite the smile on her face, edged in silent question. “I am here, aren’t I?” Because she hasn’t made any house calls since, this has been her first stop. But whether he believes her or not, isn’t her problem.
It’s entirely a Loren problem.
She is a bit surprised, actually, to hear about the encounter with Frey, and her brows raise further as she focuses on him with that same smile crossing her face. She wants to ask how it’s going, but the tone he gives her after, gives her the answer she already knows. “I mean, you could.” She tilts her head, somewhat predatory in the movement though it’s unintentional. There’s nothing stopping him but this break, this shift in his personality.
Oh, but then he calls her Rexy, and that’s a new nickname for her she’s not heard before. And she steps toward him with that same bright smile, contemplative along her sapphire eyes. “Oh, you see, that’s a secret for friends that aren’t dicks about not hearing from someone for two weeks.” There’s a light shrug to her shoulders when she says it. She means it, though. She finds his explosion to be a bit overdone, a bit too much when time had been so short. He could have reached out.
If he was done waiting around for people, Rexanna certainly had already done enough of that. And she wasn’t going to lay down for him.
He leans against the wall, after explaining that he’s dealing with it. And she thinks that he’s absolutely doing a piss poor job at it. But she doesn’t comment on it, wondering for a moment if the summoner is drunk, on top of it. But he goes on and on, and for a moment she wonders how he has breath for everything, for all this thoughts, when she catches on helping him with Phoebe. What did Phoebe have to do with it? “Alright, suit yourself.” She trills to him, before managing to say the things she’s done herself.
And if she’s thinking about it, she’s not really hoping to make him impressed. She doesn’t care what he thinks about it. But, she has done something in all that time.
“I can’t imagine why.” She offers instead of her initial thought, when it came to the people living in the manor avoiding him. It seemed like a ghost town, anyway. Maybe he just happened across the more… Quiet people to invite that likely wanted little to do with anyone let alone it being a personal attack on Loren.
But she draws closer to him as he examines her, and the same brilliant smile crosses her face as she nears him, aiming to get into his space. “Oh! My wonderful goddess fixed me right up. Left little to no trace, and gave me a gift in the meantime. But it's no orgasm quest.” Here, she gives him a fanged grin, head tilting as her hair falls over her shoulder slightly. “I’m not entirely human, after all.”
”To say thank you and to see how I was doing, yes you mentioned. Well, mission accomplished.” Rexanna had given her thanks and seen and heard for herself that Loren was not doing well. So there wasn’t any real need for her to stick around. However, she was still here, and she was still talking. ”Who, Rex? Though I guess a better question would be how.” She’d almost certainly say her, which was a nice sentiment. However, she’d been Remi’s friend first and the summoner had no doubt which of the two men she’d choose in the end.
Hint: no one ever chose the Launceleyn in these situations.
It seemed that he’d touched a nerve, perhaps with the pet name. He would've jumped up and down on it, but she wasn't worth the effort. ”You know what I realized recently? A few conversations can’t really make two people friends. Friendly, maybe, but not friends.” His voice came out almost idly, but he’d said pretty much the same to Phoebe, and meant it. The same held true for Rexanna: the blue-eyed woman and the blue-eyed man were not friends, not really, just people who might have been close had Loren’s life taken a different course.
Shame about how things turned out, then, though he thought he was doing just fine. Indeed, he was already suiting himself, so he didn’t stir from his position or say anything further. However, when she commented on how his relatives and houseguests were nowhere to be seen, Loren just smirked. ”It’s because I’m a dick” He hit the k sound hard, letting it click off his tongue. Her words, not his, and he didn’t mind admitting the truth. In fact, he was embracing a kind of radical honesty these days. It was liberating
As Rexanna approached, the summoner stayed where he was. Her bright smile—which exposed her fangs, a nice touch, that—was at odds with the way in which she invaded his personal space. If she was trying to intimidate him, it wouldn’t work. He’d stared into the eyes of far scarier monsters and even more horrific people than her, and the fury within him left no place for fear.
Besides, he had nothing left to lose but his life, and that had little value to him at the moment. ”Seems we’ve both got a deity in our corners. Unfortunately, my healing doesn’t seem to have worked quite as well as yours.” His cold eyes examined her expression after her last comment. ”What makes us human?” Because it seemed to him that between her husband and her friends and her growing family and her place in the community, she was far more human than the frozen soul that he’d become.
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
Well, at least he knows the reason she’s come. But she doesn’t plan on letting him get away with pushing her away this easily. And she wonders if deep down he begins to realize that too, as the words that fly from his lips are decidedly less pointed and directed at her this time around. But he knows the answer to the question he poises to her, and she knows deep down that she will say herself. And so she leaves it unanswered, giving him a look.
At least Remi has plenty of friends.
Sometimes you need to befriend the monster in the end. And if he knew her, truly knew her, he’d know she has a tendency to do exactly that. So who’s to say she wouldn’t choose the Launceleyn? Because outside of this hardened, icy exterior she can see, she wonders if he’s afraid deep down. If he knows that he’s doing exactly what he’s told her he’s good at. And while they may have had a few conversations, she has a decent idea about who he is. Why he tries to push people away. What his family had made him do.
And why he’s reacting like this.
She folds her arms along her chest at his comment, tilting her head before she approaches him. “I think you’re right.” She agrees, but somewhere deep down she still considers him as such. “Just means we need a few more conversations, then, hmm?” Because she doesn’t plan on going anywhere.
But he turns her words back to her, and she laughs, a bright bubbly sound at the click of his words. He got her there, because there’s nothing she can say to deny it. But she’ll let him wallow in it a bit longer, as she approaches. She’s not trying to intimidate, either, just trying to close the gap between them, to look up at him and make sure he sees that regardless of how much he will try to push her away, she will stay.
“The Voice is great at healing physical wounds. And yet, none of them are quite so good at the mental side.” Sapphire eyes flicker up to dance along his face, seeking those iceberg eyes compared to her dark, stormy ones. “I suppose that’s up to the person.” Her head tilts here, and she focuses on him. “Are you human based off the blood that runs within your veins? Or are you human because of how you are?” Because sure, Rexanna has all those things. But she still just… Isn’t human. Not entirely. “Likewise, do you become a monster because you were born that way? Or because of how you were raised?”
Although Rexanna came closer physically, nothing she could do would bridge the emotional gap, breach the glacial exterior that Loren had surrounded himself with. That was because it wasn’t just his outside, but his inside, his core, his very soul that had turned to ice. So as she agreed that they weren’t friends, he just grinned savagely at her. ”Glad you finally admitted it. However, we don’t need to do anything. And I don’t want to have a few more conversations. Go home. I’m sure you have people waiting on you.” Bastien, Hotaru, Kiada, Deimos, Remi: everyone seemed to congregate around a few individuals in the Hollowed Grounds. And the Launceleyn was not one of those individuals.
He was okay with that. Everyone around here sucked—and he included himself in that category—and he had little time for any of them. Little time for anything but trying to keep them alive. Because even now, he didn't want anyone else to die. However, he didn’t care about their happiness. Not anymore. If they were in physical pain, he'd heal them. But he didn't care about their petty concerns.
At her happy laughter, he smirked. She might’ve been amused by his comment, but her reaction did nothing to move him in any sense of the word. ”No one’s good at the mental side. Some people just try harder to pretend they are.” And he, well, he’d stopped trying. Why bother, when everything within him resonated with the fact that, while he might be crazy, at least he wasn’t lying to himself or to others anymore. ”Oh, it’s how you are. No doubt about that. And some of us were born and raised to be monsters. And then we found out what happens to monsters out in the world.” They were met with fear, and anger, and suspicion, and hate, and attacks from all sides, so it was no wonder they lashed out. For a while he’d done it unintentionally, reflexively. Now, though, he’d given in to his instincts.
Let them see the Launceleyns as dragons once more. Everyone had thought Zariah was a tyrant, but thankfully for them all Loren had no interest in ruling over a broken kingdom of self-centered and short-sighted people, no interest in venturing out into the world that had rejected him time and time again. Because if he had, he’d make her look tame in comparison.
i want to teach you a lesson in the worst kind of way
still i'd trade all my tomorrows,
He tells her to go home and for a moment she actually contemplates it. But no, she won’t go that easily. If he wants to wallow being this version of himself, she’ll let him, but not before she’s done making it abundantly clear that if he decides to stop being a dick to everyone, that he might have more people willing to be around him. So she remains, drawing herself nearer to the summoner with that same saccharine smile. “We can agree on that.” Because while Loren has built walls to keep himself contained, Rexanna had her moments of breaking and repairing, rebuilding brick by fragile brick.
Right now she looks at Loren and feels as though she’s standing in a house, decimated by storms, with broken shattering windows and walls halfway held up.
But she knows he’s going to say that you’re born that way. And that’s where the Penumbra disagrees with the summoner. Her head tilts as her eyes scan his face, the same smile crossing her face as before. “Ah, dear Loren. That’s where you’re wrong.” She hums to him, playful like his sharp words had been.
“Nobody comes out of the womb a monster. You become one when you aren’t given what you need to survive. You adapt. You become what they want you to, so nobody can hurt you anymore.” A brief pause. “And when you do let someone in, you lash out eventually, because you don’t want to let them in, to tear down the walls you’ve so carefully built up.” She’s aware of it, because she has done it before. She had lashed out and fought back, inevitably becoming the self sacrificial lamb Frey had said she was. And she thought she deserved it for a time. But no, not any longer. She wasn’t going to roll over for anyone. And she decides from that, that there’s still hope for him. But she can’t be the one to do that.
While Rexanna got closer, with that sunny smile, and then spoke, Loren remained motionless. Apparently they agreed about something. Problem was, the blue-eyed wasn’t exactly clear about what: did she agree they didn’t need to do anything? That they weren’t friends? That there were people in her life who actually did need her, unlike him? The only thing that was clear was that she apparently wasn’t going anywhere. That was her prerogative, he guessed. Just as it was his prerogative to treat guests in his home how he pleased. He wasn’t offering hospitality, not anymore.
And then she decided that she apparently knew him, and his life, despite his claims to the contrary. Unfortunately, it was his life, not hers, and he was the only one who knew the truth. ”Well. Maybe the child of monsters didn’t need to become one as well. But I was born in a monster’s den, and I survived.” Which made him a monster in her eyes, according to her words. They agreed on that as well.
He wasn’t done quite yet. ”Actually, if I’m being honest, which I'm supposed to be, I was forged into a weapon. A double-edged sword, specifically, because I cut everyone including myself.” And then the Launceleyn, smiled, slowly, oh so slowly, glacially slow, and it was a terrifying sight to behold. ”But that last part? Ah, dear Rexanna. That’s where you’re wrong. Because I let someone in. I gave him my heart.”
Now, for the first time in a while, he moved; pushing off the wall, he took a step forward, until they were almost touching, assuming she didn’t back off. All the while, the creepy smile lurked on his lips and darkness pooled in his eyes. ”And he tore it out of my chest and crushed it.”
