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!
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
Oh, Remi understood. But when it came down to it given all they'd discussed, he wasn't so sure Loren's was the best magic to be coursing through everyone's veins. Why not his earth magic, to shield them away in a mound of stone of it came to it? Why not fire, given how they knew it repelled them? Why was it up to Loren to protect everyone, and to disregard the efforts of the rest of them in wanting to do the same? The memory snow had fluffed back up the place where the amulet had fallen, but it wasn't as if Remi would have to look particularly far to point out where his own efforts had been rebuked.
'You know what?" Remi's accent was all the thicker for his upset and no longer did he try and prevent his feathers from curling throughout his hair. "You are right to want to find yourself, to say what is on your mind with as much brute honesty as your heart desires, to be cruel even when it is not warranted if that is what you want. But look at yourself, Loren." He implored, his cheeks reddening now as if having just been slapped. "Why would you think I would tell you anything about how I feel?" Indeed, with Loren's arms tightly crossed, lips thin, eyes narrowed and hard, he was the perfect picture of someone not to be trusted, of someone who wouldn't be kind, or gentle. Still, this last sentiment was said softly and brokenly. He would always love Loren, but the man before him was not someone he liked at all. He was callous and cold, he wounded both intentionally and ignorantly and seemed to care very little either way. If Loren couldn't understand why Remi of all people would loathe the thought of the ascended biting him, knowing all it entailed, then there was absolutely no reason for Remi to explain it. Surely Loren would just laugh at him, as he had done moments ago.
"Be well, during LongNight, Loren." Remi said, hating the tremble in his words, his lips, and fingertips but not having the strength to fight it anymore. He was exhausted, freezing, and broken. There was nothing left to say, and he was sure anything that he did would be twisted all the more. And so he turned to leave, back into the blinding snow that somehow seemed warmer than the summoner's doorstep.
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Loren probably should have just let Remi walk away. However, that had always been the Launceleyn’s way—to push away, to leave, to hide—and to see it in the alchemist, even after everything that had happened, that the summoner had done, seemed wrong. If he was going to make a new version of himself, he couldn’t let it cause the very behavior in others that the Launceleyn hated in himself.
So as the other man turned to go, Loren dropped his arms and let his eyes and voice soften somewhat. That didn’t mean he was gentle, but at least some of the edge drained away. ”Because our feelings got in the way last time, Remi. And, if there’s going to be any sort of relationship between us moving forward, I need to be able to trust that it won’t happen again. Both of our feelings.” The summoner would own up to his culpability. But the alchemist had his own issues with the Launceleyn, and there was nothing he could do about that.
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
Stopping but not turning, at least not for the moment, Remi found himself smiling sadly down at the ground. Strangely, it felt as though a weight had been lifted off of him. The weight of indecision, of his mind and heart constantly on pins and needles to see how this would all work out. If there was a future that included Loren despite all the large signs the summoner had erected saying there wasn't.
And now, in verbal technicolor, Remi was finally able to make out the last sign Loren would ever need. And that sign read no.
Still, his shoulders slumped as he half-turned to regard the Launceleyn. "I cannot be anything other than who I am, Loren." He said softly. Whatever stuff the Launceleyn was finding himself to be made out of, Remi already knew what largely comprised him. It was his feelings, messy as it they were and hard as they could make things. Remi felt strongly, loved deeply. The changes in Loren would never change that. "I will not lie about how I feel, or ignore it. And...if this is who you are now, I..." Remi swallowed against the clenching of ice water that felt as though it was flowing through his heart. "..do not trust you with it either." His smile warbled sadly as it grew crooked, a dimpling appear on just one cheek.
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Well, at least the Launceleyn had gotten the alchemist to stay. Whether Loren could keep the other man here was another matter entirely. As it was, the ice inside the summoner felt fragile, as if one misplaced word from either of them would shatter it into pieces, for good or for ill. Sighing—and trying to breathe out his tension as he did—he regarded Remi with those half-thawed eyes. ”Why? Because you’re afraid of how I might respond?”
Taking another deep breath, Loren tried to figure out what the right thing to do here was. And as always, it was entirely unclear to him what that was. ”I’m not asking you to change who you are, or how you feel. Just tell me, so it doesn’t muddy things. But if you don’t trust me with it, then I can only offer what you offered me before: if you have something you want to say to me before you go, I will say nothing in response, if that’s what you want. Because I’d like to hear it.” As always, with them, despite his best efforts to the contrary, it was ironic and dark echoes. However, this was important enough that Loren would hold his tongue.
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
"Because based on the past five minutes I know how you will respond." The alchemist said mournfully. "From the beginning I encouraged you to be who you were, to leave your scars behind and just be you, and I stand by that now. But.." His eyes fell towards Astra and Remi felt his heart nearly separate as it was impossibly pulled in two different directions. "Right now you are cruel, Loren. Maybe it is just...part of learning who you are, maybe it is how you are dealing with everything but..it hurts. Especially from you."
Looking up into the overcast sky and wishing he could scream and claw at something, instead Remi just pulled in a breath and closed his eyes, holding the frigid air until it burned in his lungs. "You cannot have it both ways, Loren. I have always told you how I felt. About all of this, about you—" His voice broke there, but hopefully the summoner would forgive him that. "But what am I meant to say when you mock me, tell me my feelings have only ever gotten in the way of things and that you won't have that going forward, and then in the next breath say you want to hear them?"
It was rhetorical, mostly, because there was simply no way to have it. Remi could not simply swallow his feelings, however selfish they might be. If that was truly a flaw, it ran deep enough that to remove it might split him entirely in half. He loved Loren, and he always would. There would never be a time he could brush things off as if the summoner meant nothing to him, as if his mind wouldn't always be tempted to wander in secret. It probably was right and good for Loren to put up barriers, but then Loren would just have to accept that the alchemist would always be at a distance.
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
10-08-2019, 03:13 AM (This post was last modified: 10-08-2019, 04:05 AM by Loren.)
Love mends even the broken parts
As Remi spoke, Loren could feel the anger, the cold, the darkness cresting. The scars hadn’t been the problem: the trauma that caused them had been. The cruelty was similarly just a symptom of the world and the people in it beating him down time and time again, before he’d finally decided to punch back. And the alchemist’s words and actions had cut the summoner deeply, made a mockery of his heart, and made it impossible for the two of them to just be friends. As hard as it had been for the other man, the Launceleyn had been devastated by everything, both before, during, and after his return.
The ice broke, and the jagged shards and edges sliced him deeply. Screwing his eyes shut, he turned and braced his hands on the door behind. He was shivering, from the freezing air of course, but also from the emotion cascading over him. Comepletely overcome, and knowing he couldn’t direct it at Remi, Loren growled, an inhuman sound, then pulled his hand back and punched the wood of the door hard enough to make his knuckles split, leaving a smear of blood on the door and droplets of crimson on the white snow below. As always, pain brought him clarity and focus. Opening his eyes, he stared at his cut and bruised fingers, knowing the other man would probably be hurt once more by the summoner’s actions. For just this moment, though, he wanted to be alone with his agony.
10-08-2019, 04:35 PM (This post was last modified: 10-08-2019, 04:35 PM by Remi.)
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
There needed to be a less self-righteous way of saying that he was damned if he did, and damned if he didn't. But whatever the words were, as Loren turned away, Remi failed to find them. Instead he just felt hollow and defeated. He couldn't pursue Loren properly, couldn't encourage him properly, couldn't befriend him properly. He couldn't leave him alone properly, couldn't withhold his feelings properly, and now seemingly couldn't be honest properly either. Everything he did, no matter how hard he tried, was wrong for the summoner.
I made one mistake Remi wanted to scream as Loren's back turned, expecting the Launceleyn to go back inside. ONE. How many have you made? But it was no use. Remi had tried fighting with Loren to keep him in his life, only to be told it was too much. He'd tried explaining his feelings, and then, he'd tried not explaining his feelings, all leading to the same point: Loren leaving.
Only Loren didn't leave.
Flinching and stepping back so suddenly that he nearly fell backwards into the snow, Remi stared wide-eyed at Loren's gaunt frame as the Launceleyn's eyes dipped down towards his bloody knuckles. Feathers burst through his curls as he instinctively reached out, before freezing in place. He couldn't touch Loren now, more than ever, and wholly uncertain what had caused this reaction, he let his arm fall back to his side as he stared with tear-blurred eyes.
"I..." am sorry? don't understand? want you to understand. miss you? hate this? can't do this? "..will go." His voice was a scratchy whisper, raw and bloody with emotion. He was only making things worse, Loren had said as much repeatedly.
With a sob bursting in the back of his throat with such intensity that Remi had to tighten his stomach muscles and clench his teeth together to keep it within, he turned. Dazed and confused, somehow even more shattered now,
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”No.” Not this time. This time, Loren was going to say his piece. Because every other time he’d tried to actually express himself, he’d screwed it up, or Remi had reassured the summoner that it would all be okay somehow. But it wouldn’t be okay, and he’d always known that. They just needed to find out a way to live with it not being okay, and the alchemist hadn't seemed to know how to handle that. On the other hand, Loren had always know how to live with everything being wrong in his life. His voice came out quietly, and if the other man had already left, so be it. The Launceleyn needed to say this for himself as much as Remi.
So, while he shivered uncontrollably, felt the cold creeping in from both without and within, and as his injured hand turned numb, he spoke. It came out in a surprisingly light tone, given everything. ”I have all this anger, and fear, and sadness, and pain, and darkness inside me. And it’s not going anywhere. It’s been a part of me for as long as I could remember, and it’s always terrified me. So I turned it inwards. Then that just worried and upset people, and I couldn’t stand to see the pity and suspicion in their eyes, and it would leak out at the most inopportune times. Finally, that drove me insane, and I ran away from it all." That had been before. Way before. "But I came back.” He’d come back, and hoped it would count for something.
It hadn’t. ”I came back. But I felt more alone than ever. And then I found out that everyone else had someone they were close to. You had people you were close to. Who you’d told everything. Ronin. Phoebe. Everyone cares about you.” This might not be fair, but the summoner wasn’t particularly interested in being fair. ”And I had no one. No one I could trust at least. And certainly no one I could talk to.” Beatrix was a child, and all the houseguests were strangers, and all his old friends had moved on—not that Loren had expected them to be there for him, all things considered—and Remi. Well. Everything had always been far too complicated with Remi. ”So I took all that darkness in me, and for once I decided not to hate myself. I decided to hate the world instead.” And it had felt good, he wouldn’t deny that. If that made him a monster, so be it. Still, his teeth were chattering from the cold and the emotion and he sank down in the snow, unheeding of whatever else was going on around him. "I guess I couldn't even do that much right." It was too late to take it all back now.
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
And for the second time, Remi was instantly halted by the words. But he always would be. He'd always come with Loren called, like an abused pet who adored its abuser just the same, if not more, for the brief moments of kindness made all the more precious by their ever increasing lack of frequency.
But he listened, understanding and wanting to reach out for Loren as he had done before. To reassure the summoner as Loren knew he would, with words of easy affirmation, promises that things would be okay. Only he didn't. The gulf that existed between them, that Loren had used whittled away his soul to use as a bridge, was gone. Honesty made things more clear, but not any closer.
Seeing Loren sink down made it nearly impossible for the alchemist to remain where he was. Magic itched in his fingers, the need to solve, to help, to warm and protect. But Loren could conjure any number of things to keep himself warm, and the door was only a few feet behind him if not. It was precisely this behaviour that had always made Remi think that Loren wanted to be pursued. That he let himself be wounded as a litmus test to see how much those around him cared. But when he'd pushed and fought and screamed and argued to get into the Launceleyn's mind and heart, he'd been told he was all the more wrong for it. And so, shivering himself, he merely watched the summoner in a terrible silence that seemed to stretch on and on.
"Well...you said you wanted to find yourself. It seems..you have.." Remi managed after what felt like an eternity. From where he was standing, Loren seemed incredibly successful at hating the world. The alchemist surely felt hated. Phoebe did, as did others.
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Maybe this was who Loren was meant to be. Had been born and raised to be. Had always been meant to end up as. However, if this was his true self finally showing its face, he wanted no part of it. Everyone who’d asked him what he wanted from life had gotten a similar answers not to be the person his family had always intended to make him, with their torture and their lies and that thing they pretended was love. Even after he'd succumbed to what felt like the inevitable, he hadn't done it willingly. At least that's not what it had felt like. It had felt like he was lost again; he hadn't found himself, he'd just given in to the darkness.
”No.” He rejected the premise with every fiber of his being, every scrap of willpower he had remaining to him. Maybe that’s why it came out so quietly. And unfortunately for them all, he didn’t know who else he could possibly be.
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
"Well...you have only just started." The alchemist said tentatively, unsure what his role here was supposed to be. What it was allowed to be. He certainly knew what he wanted it to be, but of course he'd lost that privilege with the summoner.
"Just stating facts of course, not telling you what to do—" Another poor attempt at humour, though the playfulness in Remi's voice was only a glint for a moment, before smoothing out into raw concern again. "—but you look quite cold, Loren."
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Hugged himself, both against the cold and the other man’s words, not caring about the blood still staining the ground, Loren tried not to give in to the freezing air or the even more chilling statement from the alchemist. Maybe the Launceleyn had started to become a true member of his family, but that was the one thing he knew he didn’t want. ”I don’t like this path.” Just because it was easy and felt good for him to be cruel to others didn’t mean he liked it. And if there was another choice he could make, one that wouldn’t result in more pain for everyone, he’d do it in a heartbeat. Instead of responding to Remi's next statement, the summoner just called his Spark Bird into being once more; his magic reserves were weakening, but a blast of heat spread through the area, warming even his cold bones.
sometimes love is all that can save us, sometimes love can kill a man
Earlier, Remi had very nearly said that Loren was as much a Launceleyn tyrant as Zariah was. He was manipulative, power-blinded, egotistical, and the hallmark of the Launceleyn traits: cold and cruel. Seeing him now, withered and curled in on himself, still Remi couldn't be sure what he thought was within the summoner. He'd seen such brightness and warmth, but it had always been eclipsed by the ice and hardness his family was known for. What Remi truly didn't know, was whether or not Loren cared. It was hard to be vulnerable and lost that was certainly true, but Loren gave in so easily to the darkness and despair. He always vowed to do everything and anything it took, but almost always regaled on his commitments.
What Remi did understand that perhaps the summoner didn't, was that who he was and who he wanted to be, were different. Loren may well have found out who he was. The real question, was what he was going to do about it.
Flinching again at the sudden appearance of the Spark Bird and wondering why Loren didn't just go inside instead of forcing himself to suffer needlessly, Remi looked down at the gaunt man with a worried and broken expression. "Loren.." He whispered softly, the word an easy shape on his lips. "You tell me to leave, and then to stay. You tell me you do not want to know what I feel, and then criticize me for keeping it to myself. You say you do not want anything from me—help, apologies, suggestions.." Helplessly the alchemist shrugged, lost just as Loren was but in a markedly different sense.
"Everything I want to do is either wrong, or selfish, or—" dangerous. Trailing off and biting down to keep the words to himself, Remi looked up at the Spark Bird as he took in a breath.
"I told Phoebe that I should not be around you, be cause of how I feel. And yet.." Eyes closed, he smiled sadly upwards as white spots danced across his closed eyelids. "Here I am." Opening his eyes, shiny with tears, he shook his head with defeat. "I think ... I will always be here, for you." He added in a whisper, bright green eyes alighting softly on Loren.
sometimes love is a soft touch, or a line drawn in the sand
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Remi’s words washed over him, simultaneously soothing Loren’s woes and pouring salt in his wounds. As always. The news that the other man would always be there, despite the fact that it hurt, resonated with something deep within the Launceleyn. And that was precisely the problem. ”And I think if you asked me, I would always be there for you.” He took a deep, shuddering breath. ”And that scares me. Because...because I know that I will put others before myself, and I’m afraid that there’s so much of you, and you want so much from me, that I will just...lose myself in you. And I...I don't want to be lost again. I want to be my own person.” That was a huge part of it, and the summoner could picture it easily. ”But you have a life already. I already told you I don’t see a place for myself there. And if you make one, I think it'll just get so much worse.”
Love didn’t always mean being together.
Maybe for just a little bit longer, though, it could. ”I know I have no right to ask this, but.” He bit his lip. ”Can you...can you just hold me?” In that moment, maybe all Loren needed was a simple sort of comfort, the kind he usually didn’t allow himself and the kind the other man usually couldn't provide, since it was wrapped up in so much else. Right now, though, he needed something to pull him back from the latest hole he'd dug for himself.
