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!
10-25-2019, 07:09 AM (This post was last modified: 10-25-2019, 10:41 PM by Kiada.)
KIADA
the harpy
It’s morning when she wakes, but her home is unfamiliar. There’s the armor that Deimos has made her off in the corner, but the layout of the room is entirely wrong. And for a moment, she panics, wondering if perhaps she’s jumped worlds once more — having to lose her family again. But she looks around, eyes drifting from the armor in the filtered light, to the light hum of hooves as Auni slips out the room, having been roused from sleep by likely the need to eat. And he seems okay, but things are still wrong. Her ring from Ru’in still sits on her finger, and she glances to it as it catches the glint of the light as she pushes back the furs and blankets adorning her bed.
And when she finally gets out of it, stepping over to the window she can spot snow, mountains, and an incredibly familiar hot springs steaming off in the distance. The Basin. With the faded light of the northern lights dancing in the sky, her heart thunders as she peeks beyond the window, withdrawing back as soon as she realizes how cold she is. Wearing hardly anything but an oversized shirt of sorts, she grabs for a blanket to wrap around her shoulders, poking her head out of the bedroom toward the living room, somewhat like her house in Caido, and yet still mostly wrong.
What is happening?
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
10-25-2019, 06:09 PM (This post was last modified: 10-25-2019, 06:10 PM by Odd.)
Her bed? No. Their bed.
Hopefully the vulture will follow the smell of coffee and cooking breakfast. It isn't a regular smell, given how positively awful Ru'in is in the kitchen, but today, for her, he'll try. Their wedding is only a week away, and if things go sideways? Well, it'll be a funny story for later. Sideways they do appear to be going though; the eggs stick to the pan, not flipping at all as they should, and instead of finely chopping up basil to place on top, the stonework has merely thrown a clump into the mix. Frowning, for it looks nothing like how Amalia showed him, the elephant grimaces to himself and goes to see about the coffee.
The living room has vaulted ceilings constructed entirely of stone. Though it should all look and feel cold given the grey stones, there are flourishes of bronze inlaid in everything. A massive fireplace, chandeliers made of bone with intricate foxes carved into them, and furs adorning nearly every surface. The walls are large windows looking out into the mountains and river-valley below, allowing the light from the rising sun to filter in, warming the air as it passes through all the glass.
As she begins to make her way from the bedroom, wrapped up in a blanket, the smell of breakfast drifts toward her. And she’s surprised, immensely so, because she’s so used to living alone that should there be any form of breakfast made, it’s her making it. And she wonders if perhaps Deimos has appeared to surprise her in some way, with the help of Amalia of course, and she wonders if perhaps she should have put more clothes on before farting out of the bedroom in her confusion.
But the room takes her by surprise, the grey stone with bronze inlay, like flame, like veins as she stares and continues to walk aimlessly until she reaches the kitchen, gawking at the beauty of it all and the surprise.
It isn’t until she sees him as she rounds the corner of it, iceberg eyes landing on a tall frame, mixing and melding batter, frying eggs in a pan. Is this a dream? She doesn’t entirely know. But her fingers tighten on the blanket as she approaches, dark hair a tussled mess along her head, eyes flitting about the familiar curves of his spine, of the beautiful dark skin that covers every inch, of the freckle like constellations on his face.
She figures she’ll go along with it, dream or not. Because it feels real enough, and she’s not ready to let go just yet.
There’s some frustration she can sense in him, and it’s enough to get her to smile faintly as she leans against the entryway to the kitchen, the smell of coffee bright and stark against the rest. “Am I dreaming? Or are you cooking?” A simple question, but she drifts closer toward the table in the middle, eyes seeking out his blue and black gaze.
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Dressed in a simple dark-coloured sleeveless shirt and loose fitting pants slung low on his waist, Ru'in glares at the coffee, raising the kettle to inspect the little floating bits whirling merrily within. Glancing at the piece of paper Amalia left for him, he scowls at the word filter!! which has been underlined several times. Even so, he's apparently forgotten it.
Hearing the sound of her voice makes him pause, not because he's startled, but because he had planned to have everything ready before she awoke. Their large dining table hasn't yet been set and the flowers he'd gone to pick early that morning still sit in clumps of dirt and snow on the counter.
"Do yuh oftehn dreahm of me burnin' breahkfahst?" He asks, turning around, his expression like stone until his eyes fall onto her. And then, as she always seems to, she makes his lips crack into a slow smile, bi-coloured gaze focused on her with a ferocious intensity meant only for her.
She watches him pause, turning to that stone expression as he always did. A statue, a figure that quirks the corner of her lip up as she watches him turn to her. The mismatched events of what he had planned, not going to plan, seemed far more like them. And she’s always loved that about him.
Their eyes meet and her smile grows a bit wider, a snort leaving her as he offers his own small smile in response, before she bounces over to him, blanket loose around her shoulders. “No, not usually.” She admits with a knowing look, coming up beside him to look up at him in amusement. “It's usually about boys that turn to stone that like to push little innocent girls over in the fields.” A fiery little gleam to her eye meets his with a smirk before she turns to grab the coffee mugs, knowing him well enough that he’ll work towards figuring it out. “That or that impenetrable look you get about you when you can’t figure something out.” She teases, turning back to him with mugs in hand, a playful wink sent his way. “Though usually those dreams are short.” Fleeting ones, of a look, of tinkering, before fading away to nothing more.
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
He watches her spring towards him with the patience of an elephant, his eyes quietly amused though his expression is still subtle. That she still knows how he feels despite his rather impassive appearance is one of the first things that drew her to him; that, and her beauty of course which has only grown as she has. Language has never been his strong suit after all, and it is a testament to her cleverness that she can read him as well as she does.
"Innocehnt?" He repeats, peering down at her, lips curling slightly more as his brows arched upwards skeptically. Bi-coloured eyes fall upon her shoulder, partially revealed as it is by the slouch of her shirt and the drooping of her blanket. It makes his mouth water, the juxtaposition of his rough hands on her smooth skin always sending a fiery thrill through him. Watching as she fusses around the kitchen, grabbing mugs and turning back to her, it's as if she moves in a time stream different than she does. His movements are slow and sometimes clumsy, whereas hers as quick and precise.
"Whaht I cahn't fihgyur out is—" But before he can finish, the smell of burning is rank in the air. Turning his shoulders towards the stove to see the blackened remnants of their eggs charred, the basil softly aflame, the elephant curses under his breath. Grabbing for the handle with his bare hands (the palms of which have grown grey and leathery with his partial shift), he dumps the pan into the sink where it softly hisses.
He questions her innocence, and she waits to respond to it before she has grabbed the mugs. A knowing look sent his way once she does. “Innocent enough.” She tips her head as though she’s giving him a look that dares him to say otherwise. But she has missed, in her movements, the glaze to his eye, the attention given toward revealed skin riddled with scars and a life lived as the agile warrior she had never wanted to be. If she had a choice, she’d become a crafter, like him. To create rather than destroy. A better, more serene life.
But the smell of burnt food distracts all of her thoughts as he rushes to the sink, dipping the pan into the water with a hiss. A light smile crossing her face at it. She’s always been a good distraction for him, interrupting the things he has a tendency of focusing all of his attention upon. Perhaps that’s the most fun part of it, after all. When the flames that licked upon her back weren’t real enough to activate the bronze charm, distracted by the curves of spine and perhaps more energy between them rather than the one they had hoped to activate the butterfly he had created.
She lets him deal with it for a moment, focusing on the coffee and grabbing a filter to get the grains of coffee out before she pours two mugs and moves toward him, setting it on the table before reaching for his rough calloused hands to pull him to her. “What can’t you figure out?” She asks, a tilt to her head, shirt hanging somewhat sideways off that same shoulder, a dark brow lifted in question with her attention entirely on him.
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
"Mmmm." The elephant grunts. The lines of war that stretch like silver pathways across her body indicate that if ever Kiada was innocent, she isn't anymore. She bears more than just the scuffles of having been pushed down by a boy, but he loves her no less for it.
Grabbing at a sponge and scrubbing at the pan with brutish and gruff motions until the egg has been removed, scowling at it the entire time, he pauses as she reaches for him. Yielding a soapy hand immediately, not caring at all for the droplets that fall to the floor, he stares at her blankly for a moment. Or at least, the stare might appear blank to any who don't know him. They who would miss the way his nostrils flare, how the lines around his eyes deepen for a moment, and how his upper lip twitches slightly. How the resonant energy he carries inside of himself hums around them with frenetic potential. Once, he was a shy boy who would turn to stone in Kiada's presence, far too awkward and fearful of what he might do and think with her near. Now though, in this other place and time, with his ring upon her finger and their vows only days away, his hungry gaze needs no stony cover. Stone and ice coloured eyes slip from her revealed collar bones, to the swell of her breast beneath the shirt. His eyes pause on where her nipple is, hidden behind the fabric as it is, his lips parting ever so slightly.
"What yuh whill eat." He growls, his gaze still trending downwards to the body he knows like the back of his hand, even hidden behind the length of one of his shirts. It's clear what Ru'in plans on having for breakfast.
Carrying little about the mugs she holds—let them shatter, he doesn't mind— his strong hands reach around her, firmly grasping her ass as if it had been made to precisely fit between his fingers. Lifting her as if she weighed absolutely nothing at all, he carries her to the table, kicking away the chair that is in his way. Placing her upon it, he reaches to curl a hand through her dark hair, though his movement is not at all a caress. Instead his fingers are brutish and rough, strong fingers immediately tugging at her brunette locks as he pulls her face up and back to gaze upon her, a heated smile on his lips.
He yields a hand, sending droplets along the stone floor, but it’ll dry easily enough — it’s the look he gives her, blank to some but s flame erupts beneath it. And she can tell, because she’s always been able to tell, but what surprises her in this… strange dream where things are perfect, is his openness to her. And it ignites with the intensity he has in his stare to her. Roving along her as though he can see beneath it all, and her head tilts enough to perhaps show off a small amount to him, shaking the dark crown of hair ever so slightly, to move away from covering her scars and her neck, her smile growing a small amount more bright, more leading —
And he’s moving to her, mugs having been discarded already on the table, she leans into his touch as though she’s starved. He wraps around her, and she presses back against him — always having that rough touch, always having been too afraid to do much of anything because of the inability he had for gentleness. Ah, but she has always been stronger than he thought, and she molds herself to him as he picks her up to move to the table, heart thundering and body awakening with the sudden electricity that zips beneath her skin. Then, she’s on the table and his rough hands reach to tug and run through her hair, and she obliges, a wolffish smirk on her face as she looks up to him, pale scar flecked fingers reaching for the strong columns of his neck where her thumbs can brush against his freckles.
“I think you might already know.” She hums to him, breathless before her hands move from his cheeks to the back of his neck, to trap him, legs wrapping around his waist as though the distance between them is too much. She knows the clothes are too much too, and with that same feral gleam to her eye, wolffish smirk, hands tug at the collar of his shirt before drifting lower and lower down his torso, tantalizing until she reaches the V of his abdomen, before veering off for the fabric.
She’s going to make him have to work for it.
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Through lust-hooded eyes the elephant merely snarls in silent acknowledgement. Even if he does know, he will have his fill first. He has lost her in so many lifetimes now that every moment he treats as both the first and last time. Determined to savor and draw it out, he will let her starve as he takes from her what he wants, what he craves. Alone for years, he's a glutton for her skin now, for her laugh and the ice-shine of her eyes. Even so as she tugs him closer and wraps her her legs around him, he growls, cleft lip curling upwards ever so slightly as the hand tangled in her hair pulls all the harder, his gaze ferocious and indomitable. Though his body is as hard as stone, her touch still melts him as surely as her fiery magic always had, her gaze fixing him in place the way his youthful magic one did.
With a softness that compliments the fingers tangled in her hair, Ru'in's other hand frees itself from beneath her, softly moving like raindrops down her hip. It is only because of Kiada that he has learned gentleness and care, though there is still a season and a time for his brisk, brutish ministrations. Tilting his head to lean into the hand on his cheek, his lips pressing against the raised flesh that ribbon-through her fingertips, the snarl on his face smooths out slightly as he offers her an equally predatory smile. Reaching for the bottom of her shirt, Ru'in lets his fingers wander with shocking softness up her spine, the pads of his fingers hardly touching at all. He wants to feel her shiver, wants goosebumps to rise under his fingers like pebbles. He wants her entire body to hang on his movements, imaging where they might go next.
Leaning forward, his nose just beside hers, he simply inhales her scent, nostrils quivering. He is a beast at heart, she both predator and prey and it is all he can do not to slam her down onto the table and tear the cloth from her body. Instead he lets his lips part ever so slightly, near enough that the soft hairs on his face might well brush against hers, but nothing else. She might want him to work for it—and oh he will—but he wants her body to scream for his touch, all the while.
A man of little to no words, but she’s taught him to make up for it with his actions, and the slight snarl he gives her in response has her sizing him up easily with the look she gives him, eyes drifting from his face to devour the panes of his neck, stopping enough as she pulls him closer and his hand tugs harder. Good. Her feral smile grows a bit wider, humming beneath her breath the quiet acceptance of it. The welcome of it.
But his hand trails, featherlight and teasing in a sense as her hand rests on his cheek and his head tilts into hers. It doesn’t last long, as she drifts those hands lower and lower, reaching for the V and stopping short, legs locking at his back as his hand begins to drift upwards along her spine. Ah! So hes teasing her? She has half a mind to press into it, to force the hand that drifts to press into her scarred skin. But she doesn’t, she gives this to him as his hand trails further up and goosebumps riddle her skin. “Mhmm.” Her back arches then with a light whirl of a whine leaving her, moving toward him as he leans into her space, and she lifts the shirt that he wears, to remove and discard somewhere along the soapy floor.
And his lips part, soft hairs brushing by her face that she tilts her head to. Predators they may be everywhere else, but here? Here she exposes her neck to him, head tilted enough to brush her nose equally as feather light against the side of his neck. And there’s this tension that her body can feel, and yet she doesn’t want it to leave just yet, hands drifting up along his sides to his shoulders, she presses herself upwards again but still just enough away from touching him, perhaps to give him a show of her agile movements, the shivering of her spine, the goosebumps that continue to climb up her shoulders to her neck and along her arms.
He could make her steel resolve melt, and she thinks that he knows this. “Are you sure you don’t want just a taste?” She questions, a breathless voice dripping with her teasing. Two can play at this game as she tries to mold him, tries to fold him into her. She wouldn’t complain if he were to pin her down right there, ripping his shirt from her body with all the brutality she knows sits beneath those carefully soft hands. “You know I won’t break.”
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
It is the beauty of her, that she is not hard in the ways he is. She is supple and yielding at times in a way he can never be, and as her body sculpts itself around his, as his fingertips press against her skill down to the muscle beneath, he is suddenly ravenous for all that she is. For the differences between them that have always made them fix together so seamlessly.
Beneath her wandering fingers his stomach tightens, midnight-sand skin stretched even more thinly as his abs tighten as if trying to suck back to allow her fingers entry. Already he is hard for her, but that is no surprise. He has never been able to simply look upon her in distant appreciation. Just as with his crafting either with bronze or stone, he needs to feel it beneath his fingers. The curl of her hair down her spine, the jut of her cheek across her shoulder, a raise of her eyebrows, the way she twirls her ring when she's thinking; any of these minute movements are enough to drive him wild with want.
There is a rumble of displeasure if only because removing his shirt requires pulling back from her, his hands parting from her skin. As she arches near—but not against him—the elephant places his hands on either side of the table, strong fingers clenching into the wood. The muscles of his upper arms are taught as her fingers roam across them to his shoulders, his ever instinct tenuously held back. Gods he wants her. Every inch, for every moment. He wants that pretty mouth contorted around his name, wants her fingernails to drag at his skin and wants her sweat to stain the table below. He wants to have and take in a way that is so primal that for a moment the elephant's gaze goes slightly blurred as the overwhelming need of her threatens to drown him.
"A taste," He agrees, his voice ragged and hard as he arches his own back if only to force himself to see her clearly. Raising a hand, he fits it around her throat as if marveling at just how delicate she can be. His eyes linger on the way her chest rises and falls with her breath, his thumb softly stroking down the strained chords of her neck before it lowers to her sternum and he presses down with surprising control and strength. With eyes that dare her defy him, his fingers ghost down the length of her stomach, wandering over the fabric that still covers her until he reaches her underwear. With a groan that slowly became a growl, his fingers hooked beneath the soft fabric, pulling them down her legs with painful slowness. Through hooded eyes, he looks at her for a moment as desire broils inside of him with a strength to rival the perpetual energy that his magic can harness.
Keeping his eyes trained on her even as he lowers himself down to be eye-level with the table, he reaches his arms around her thighs, pulling them apart. With a lingering and hungry look, a slight twitch of his cleft lip, his gaze dips down to her as his nostrils flare. "A taste.."
Oh she knows it drives him wild to lose the way he’s touching her skin for her to remove his shirt, fingers dancing and trailing along the contours of his body as she lets her gaze dart up to meet his heavy lust lidded ones. And the electricity grows further within her, extending like static to her fingers, dulling her mind until there’s only one thing left on it. Him.
And the harpy happily obliges to his movements, mimicking him as one hand leaves his body to lean back on it, the other following the curve of his forearm as his hand wraps around her throat. “A taste.” She confirms to him, a smirk rising along her features as her voice vibrates against the slight pressure to her throat. But then his hand is moving, and she’s incredibly attuned to it, goosebumps rising again as it trails lower and lower and she leans back on her hand to give him the full view — a half slung on shirt, tightening against her swollen breasts and the perk of her nipples, as his pressure tugs at the shirt as he drifts lower.
She meets his gaze with a fiery one of her own, half lidded and breathless as she is, he doesn’t have to work hard to get her to oblige to the fabric he’s removing. But the slowness of it has her hissing under her breath, hips shifting with a silent plea of going faster. She knows it won’t help, but she tries anyway. And she obliges even further when he spreads her thighs, making sure he finds that she’s prepared for this, that she wants this so badly, if the indication of the slickness of her thighs are any help. That and the slight buck of her hips with it.
But she does slide forward just enough, lifting her legs so they align over his shoulders, before slipping out of the shirt as though she’s had plenty of practice, and discards it with the other along the floor.
what a shame we gotta pay for reality
Kiada has a large X scar on the right side of her neck.
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Kiada, without killing her <3
Gods if she isn't the most exquisite thing he's ever seen. It makes him want to utterly destroy everything else that isn't her, to decimate all that stands between them. Even in this illusory not-quite world, this dream, he feels the gulf in the back of his mind. It's haunting and dangerous in the way it makes him burn for her. The elephant has always been a creator, but instinct makes him destructive simply based on who he is. Though he'd never hurt Kiada, it's undeniable the way his strength and her petite stature drive him wild. The way her nipples press against the stretched shirt, knowing how easily it would be to tear it from her body. How his hand closes around her throat but knowing that he has the strength to crush her windpipe. That she understands this darkness and lets him revile in it from time to time is what makes him putty in her hands.
With a feral grin he peers up at her over the landscape of her stomach, before regarding the way she twitches before him. He grumbles with approval as her legs slide over her shoulders, staring at her the way a lion might as it sizes up a meal.
A taste, they'd agreed. The only question now, was who would be the first to demand more.
With a tongue coated in saliva, Ru'in pressed his tongue into her, gliding upwards with glacial slowness. He made sure to add to her wetness, rather than take away. Much as he wanted the taste of her to drown his senses, he wanted to torture her even more. To do that, he'd withhold the friction his tongue and lips were capable of. Indeed as he reached the teardrop of her clit, he moistened his tongue again so that as he slowly rolled the top of his tongue around it, it would simply glide. The pressure wouldn't be enough, the texture not enough. The heat of his breath and the hum of his passion for her simply not enough. Much as he wanted to shuck of his pants and thrust himself inside of her, to make her scream with the length of him and then to sink himself in even further, he made himself wait. With a snarl on his lips as he pulled back from hers, the constellation of his freckles underscored now with a crimson glow, he gazed up at her from beneath her thighs.
