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!
Broken; weren’t they all a little broken? Cracks and fissures from life’s antics, catastrophes, and despairs? None of them were innocent, they had all delved into some manner of immorality or irreverence, and he bore those marks with every movement, every motion, every breath, a carved, sculpted, and whittled contortion of chiseled anarchy. They bore their fractures, their pains, their agonies, either inward or outward, and if she could accept every damned nuance of his, with its hollowed vitriol, with its pulsing vehemence, with its sometimes disastrous outlook on life, fiends for fiends, demons for demons, then he would do the same for her. He’d borne lifetimes of lesser things, of lesser values, than someone’s heart – but he was willing to strive, willing to attempt.
Space for her in his presence, in his existence, eternally open and there, in the proximity and boundaries of his soul, where he could provide whatever she required. Wrapped and tucked and accorded, security and safety within his grasp, a sanctum, a refuge, when once all he’d ever been was the opposite (mayhem and oblivion, trapping, inveigling, ensuring there was a disaster on the horizon and it’d come from their mountains, from their plains, from their valleys, from their grit and teeth). She did not deign to flee again, so he sighed, he breathed a little easier, found the orbits easier to sink into when there wasn’t an imminent evasion; his eyes sliding across their wake while the rest of her found his embrace, both held, both scattered, both entangled; leaning and pressing his wake into hers, a grounding precipice, earthen forms and tangible protection. I am here in no words, in no discourse; the notes and wonder all enshrouded in their beloved motions.
The words thereafter though were stark granules of truth; as much as he’d like to refute them. He probably had once already; in discussions about the Spire, when misunderstandings convoluted and blew up, when his presence of mind hadn’t been on the interpretation or meaning of his words, but a proffering, an extension, of her to come along. He sighed and didn’t negate it either, people hurt each other a little stinging, a little barbed, because of its reflection of truth. He didn’t ponder over the amount of times it had sparked against him; because his notion was to always push and suppress, pretend it didn’t smash against his heart and lungs, a coating of apathy, a wayward claim of indifference, sizzling off into isolation so when he broke apart no one saw and no one cared. “Then we will work on it together.” Another statement of fact to follow hers – better off than searing and smoldering in opposite directions, than blazing and unfurling to other strands, than not saying anything at all, a festering, withering conjecture where everything slowly rotted and died. He’d already done that for what felt like an eternity – watching others leave, watching others go, watching others spark off into the distance; left behind in his shell, along his winter crag.
What he didn’t expect, expanding his arms and making more room for her along his chest, was for her to ask iff he was okay. Because no one ever really did. Because most of the world knew it would be nothing; no feelings, no emotions, naught to spare from his enigmatic grace. The beast repressed those sentiments often, and had to furrow his brows at the question, the answer sadly unknown. He figured at some point all the collections of upheaval would eventually sink and claw at him, and he’d carry on with their misgivings and melancholy; perhaps just as guilty of not sharing his thoughts as she. His gaze maneuvered along the hearth, a shrug, tone rumbling along their threshold, tucked and quiet, just for them. Other than the restlessness, the only thing that had truly affected him was Cera – a swift demise the golden prince hadn’t deserved; a figment of the past simply gone again, roots of other kingdoms died, twisted, and gnarled. “I will be.”
She knows that they are not pleasant words, that it is not something anybody wants to hear or say: you will hurt me. I will hurt you. Perfection is impossible, and at times we will both ache. Once, not long ago at all, Amalia would have shied away from saying it, would have hidden and shielded against the very possibility of pain and distance. She would have risked ruin rather than look upon the flaws and shadows, and thus they might have fallen apart from the inside, rotted until the foundations were gone and any slight blow could shatter their shell.
Taking his hand back into hers, Amalia laces their fingers together before raising his knuckles up to her lips. "We will," she exhales against his skin, warm breath fanning out over his fingers as the statement is met with a promise, an oath. She will let him see her broken parts as she puts them back together, expose the places where she is still growing and trust him to nurture them, not drown them in the dark.
He will be implies that he is not, and the baker turns her dark eyes to him, splaying the rough palm over her cheek. "You can tell me." I want to know. The part she does not say aloud hangs clearly in the attuned bond, her gaze earnest and honest as it locks on his, onyx warm in the glow of his blue. Then she sighs, her face dropping again, head falling against his chest, his warmth, the stalwart presence of her bulwark, her Sword. "I fought with Jigano. I think... I said things I shouldn't have."
The Sword had lived amongst a lifetime of flaws and defects. They were a much broader scale and faction than his virtues, mottled portions and contortions of his existence that sometimes made up the very way he breathed, maneuvered, and existed. Perfection wasn’t a prevailing action – but other things were: creeds and convictions, faith and beliefs, devotion and ardor. The monolith chose his reverential regards carefully, had only collected them amongst a scarce few, regarded his efforts to protect, to shield, to harpoon, to devastate for them as shards and traces of eternal vows. But it was a part of being human, to slide back into those sketched moments of ill regard or infinite stupidity, a war of ignorance and ineptitude; and he was capable of forgiving, and held steadfast faith that those he surrounded himself with were too. Growth, instead of erosion, renewal, instead of demise, sprouting, clambering towards the sun, instead of withering – things he’d learned, things he’d cherished, things he’d attempt to endeavor for again and again.
Because there’d been a time where he’d held grudges and raised hackles within his disappointment, gestured wildly and commanded swiftly, made oaths of bloodshed and annihilation, prospered vengeance well before absolutions were a thought.
The notions scattered, the upheaval segmented, eased a breath from his lungs, billowing air soft, not wounded, not massacred, not defeated. His lips pressed somewhere along her brow and skimmed upward, an outline, a sketch, along her hairline, grateful, supportive, cherished. At his turn though, the cosmic pull of resistance bit at him, bore a familiar retreat, a torrent into nothingness; a makeshift void and abyss in his mind, where he drifted and went when wounds threatened to escalate, to deepen, to do anything more than remain. But it wasn’t fair – to ask her to tell him things when he wasn’t willing to do the same, and his gaze dropped away, uncertain of how to proceed. He didn’t voice these ruminations. He didn’t give them credence or credit. They simply existed in the back of his mind, a weight, an anvil, a space filled with ghosts and wraiths, presuming he’d merely hold them there for an eternity, allowed and permitted to haunt him. They were his notes of failure. They were his infernal doubts. They were his punishments and defeats, collapsing, floundering moments.
So his voice didn’t rumble in their structure, because he didn’t know how to proceed when they were given freedom of speech, of notice, of anything beyond his skull. I wish I could have done more for Cera. For Rexanna. The Golden Prince’s death was a blow; barely known him for an instant beyond titles spread from Helovia’s primordial ages, dunes and dust and ice and rime never crossing paths until lifetimes later. And what had he done for Rex, besides pull a beam out of her chest? Zuriel had done the rest – and even then, it hadn’t amounted to what she truly required.
Amalia’s honesty remained though, and as he quieted, she settled into his chest, and he remained the rumbling fortress, the wall, the steadfast Sword, listening quietly at her admission. A rough snort managed to segment its way along his form, incapable of being ceased or stopped, trying desperately hard not to laugh. “I have done the same.” Except he meant them and probably could say them again – hostile and infuriated, irritated and exasperated with the bard for multiple things at one time or another. He hesitated in noting the Sage sometimes enjoyed and reveled in being the martyr, the wounded, poor, downtrodden soul. “What do you want to do?” Perhaps Jigano had needed to hear the pieces the Shield had to say; maybe it was good for him.
She turns into his gentle kisses like a flower turns its face to the sun, basking in the warmth of his affection, the simple generosity as he gives and gives and gives. Dark eyes flutter closed again as she leans against his chest, finding solace in the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, the way his lungs fill in time with hers. These simple, innate actions form a metronome, a baseline, a foundation upon which his mental voice can land without fear of retribution, without her hesitating that he might be upset. I'm sorry, Amalia replies softly, sincerely, pain for his loss and the loss of life evident through the bond. We can have a funeral for Cera... after. Did you know him well? It seems cold to say that she is accustomed to this, the death that accompanies every longnight, so she leaves it further in her mind. At least it wasn't you sits there selfishly, taunting, haunting the back of her tongue. If someone had to die or be hurt- at least it wasn't you.
The rumbled snort draws her back from her selfishness and guilt, causing her to turn her gaze once more upon the beast. "I heard," Amalia admits softly, her mouth pulling in to a slight, wry smile. The expression is quick to fade again as the baker reflects on that conversation, the things Jigano said. "He told me you threatened him, when he wanted to go back to the Spire." There is more, too, but it is this that has bothered her, lingered in her thoughts like an insidious shadow.
Sighing, Amalia pulls away slightly, still within the circle of his embrace but now turned out to face the flickering fire. "I... He tries so hard to take care of everyone. Of me. But sometimes it feels like he sees me as a child, and every time something happens that... that hurts me, he, he always has to apologize in a way that makes me feel like a terrible person for being upset- and maybe I am, but sometimes I can't help it. He acts like I'm attacking him whenever I'm hurt, and I just---" She takes a deep and shuddering breath, arms wrapped tight around herself, not having expected this fresh wave of anger and hurt to rise again. "It makes me feel like I'm a bad person. A bad friend."
Softness in the proffering of mutual pains and circumstances, blow upon blow, undulating sighs floating, billowing, and proceeding when continually faced with the unknown, or biting loss. Had it been a first occasion for untimely deaths, the Sword might have been more despondent; numbed long before by the echoes of last breaths, in either this life or the last – now they were like hollowed voids and empty chambers, vessels that once lived and breathed and existed, only to succumb, only to disappear. Funerals; there’d been a mass of them in his time, some monumental and some quiet, lingering on the edges of a battlefield because there were only scarce, fleeting moments to honor and remember, some miserable and quick to dull the anguish, and some he never reached in time, gone, gone, gone, on the wind, on the rain, on the rays of the sun. He clenched his jaw and soaked in her essence, staring forward, eyes focused on outlines of fire and vitriol; pondering the means of this world from all the others. What is the tradition here? Aligning with their customs, ushering in an end to another beginning. Not well enough, but he was from Helovia too. He lived in a different kingdom, called the Dragon’s Throat. One who didn’t begrudge him for the Reaper connotations, who’d known who he was and still smiled, still hastened bright convictions, who understood the weight of all those monstrous factions descending upon them; a constant acrimony, an unwinding hostility, and the Golden Prince designating none of it. He’d waited for the blows. For the snaps of hatred and contempt. They’d never arrived; and then he was suddenly gone.
The conversation shifting to Jigano though caused his eyes to meander towards hers, away from the flames, from the demolition, from pending ruin, and back into things he’d already maimed once before. “I did not threaten him.” Jigano wouldn’t know the weight of the monolith’s threat and menacing contributions until it was upon him – warnings and ultimatums, offered once before the slaughter, before the rip, the tear, the opportunities, the chances, gone and vanquished. “I implied he was useless, and said that I would not go with him to the Spire.” It’d been the truth, no matter how cutting, blunt, and keen; the bard had followed through on his jabbing tactics too, neither of them innocent. “We have reconciled,” as best they could; an acceptance of apologies at best, because even the Sword held a grudge.
But it seemed as if she’d had a similar run-in with the Sage, less insults, more of sorrowful, martyr-condoned tactics, furrowing his brows as he listened, as he sought to shake his head at the foolishness of it all. “He has a gift of manipulation. Of altering narratives.” A bard’s weapon; strung along on bits and pieces of the truth and then twisted, turned, back upon the one who’d bothered to say anything against his opinions. Did he try hard to take care of everyone? Deimos’ memories harked back to their abduction and capture in the Greatwood, only Jigano returning, moments in the Spire, collected amidst the vines, other insinuating circumstances intertwined. But why he’d done these things to someone he claimed to care for a great deal – Amalia – sent a new bout of exasperation through his veins, brewing, seething, along marrow, flesh, and bone. “You are not a child, a bad person or a bad friend.” His arms wrapped further, enveloping, seeking to drop his head on top of hers, an anchor, a lifeline, if she required. He’d seen the poise and dignity of her benedictions, had benefitted from the warmth and compassion, amongst and amidst scores of others. “You are allowed to be upset, and so is he. But I have learned anything against his opinion is either met with hostility or dejection.” Maybe Jigano was threatened by her strength. Maybe he didn’t want to be left behind. Maybe there were leagues upon leagues, fathoms upon fathoms, beneath the Sage’s ruminations they hadn’t yet considered or known.
