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!
Not quite a shout, but the words still cut like freshly-broken glass and Jigano flinched from them. From the honesty in them, because he had only meant to treat her as a less experienced team member learning a lesson that could be life-threatening in future delves... but to her, to anyone else on Caido, was there any difference between 'less experienced' and 'a child?'
Or was it simply that he didn't know how to split the difference between the two?
She was angry, fierce and bright and burning like a wildfire as he looked up at her. He had caused this hurt, this anger - not once, no, but a dozen times. A hundred. how many more? How many little cuts and digs and wounds had he caused her before this one finally broke the dam? But she had wanted honesty, and now she was angry because misquoted her. "That doesn't answer my question," he said, letting some of his frustration bubble up for once. Not hiding it. Not giving in to anger, either, nor not letting it control him. But letting her see it. "What am I supposed to think when you say 'maybe I won't come with you' instead of 'leave without me next time'? It sounds like you don't want to be there with me, but you want me to be the one who leaves, when that's the last thing I want." She held him to the fire and nothing he said would change things. A hollow pit in his stomach knew that now for certain. If he apologized and said she was right and he was sorry then she would - rightly - accuse him of avoiding the conversation.
If he tried to explain himself any defense or protest would only drive her further away.
She listed her virtues and his heart ached for the strengths she found in anger that she was blind to otherwise. No, she had never left him before. Never threatened to leave him, before today. Or rather, never tried to get him to leave without her. Because if he did then he would be the bad guy, and it wouldn't be her fault, would it? Except that he was done with being the villain. He was done with leaving people behind.
"No," he said quietly, "You never have." That was the truth, and he would not deny it just to give her the fight she seemed to want. He had spent a year telling her she was strong and loyal, brave and true. Had he also spent a year breaking her down in small ways and large, chipping away at the very foundations he was trying to help her build with every criticism and every fear? And through it all, she had given him her everything, often at his request, though he patently didn't deserve it.
And there it was. The crux of it. The truth of it. Jigano bowed his head and exhaled slowly as the last blade sunk deep and drew blood. "Tell me how," he said softly, closing his eyes tight for a moment against the pain of her honesty before he raised his head to look at her again. "What have I said, what have I done, to make you feel that way?" He needed to know. To hear it from her, as he had heard it from Remi. He needed her to lance the festering infection that he had laid in her heart and let it all out, even if it hurt them both. And maybe, this time, she wouldn't give him what he asked for,
"Why is that even important?" Why does it matter how she said it? But it does, and at least he's finally being honest, not hiding behind the armor of martyrdom he so very expertly seems to wear. Exhaling sharply, she looks away. "You're right. I said you should go without me. Because if you just feel like you have to watch me, and keep me from getting in trouble-" She clenches her teeth and bites her lip, irritated at him, at herself, at the whole damn thing. She thinks about telling him then and there that she plans to, has to go again, but it seems like an inopportune time.
Her face is a scowl, not just anger but focus, a painful and failing attempt to maintain her composure despite the cracking of her heart. No, she's never left him, but maybe this is just as bad. Maybe she should have kept herself bottled, kept wraps and blinds on her injured parts. She does not want to hurt him, but she doesn't have control- she's lashing out, the unsaid things like raindrops from her tongue.
Her toes flicker on the wood floor, claws scraping across wood as they curl uncomfortably. What has he said? "You haven't said anything, but you... you say so many nice things, but you don't act like it's how you feel." It's confusing, sometimes, for a girl ill versed in the nuances of careful mind games. "You hide from me, and I keep trying to make you happy. But... but every time I disagree with you, you just..." She falters, falling, her words unchecked and wild. "When you became king and we said anything - anything - about it you ran away. From all of us. For weeks. You treated me like a stranger- like I betrayed you. After I almost lost my freedom to protect what you built, and you never came to see me. To... to show you were still okay."
Taking a shuddering breath, the girl falls silent, the torrent ending as quickly as it began. There's more, but she already can feel her ability to be coherent slipping, and she knows how this will inevitably end. "I don't want you to leave," Amalia says softly, dark eyes staring at a spot on the wall. "Or... I don't know. I'm not saying I don't... don't want to be your friend. But I... I've spent so long feeling small, and I'm tired, and... and I don't know, Jigano. You say that you believe in me, but I never feel that way."
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
It was important because he needed to understand what she meant, if she hadn't meant to stay behind, to stay away from him. He swallowed hard before responding, and because he waited she did explain, and he shook his head in vehement negation. "Gods, that's not... It's half of it, yes. But it's not all of it. Yes, I want to protect you - all of you who come with me. And I want to keep us all out of trouble. But I'm counting on you to protect me, too. To watch my back. I'm not good on my own, Amalia. I'm used to protecting others, but not so much myself. I'm..." Too willing to take a blow, to think that he deserved it because of what he had done in the past. Safrin had seen the hypocrisy in his actions, and Ludo had warned him about it, though far more gently. He curled his arm more tightly around his knee, giving a sharp shake of his head at the memories. "I don't take care of myself as I should," he admitted reluctantly. Letting the words take shape for the first time. "But I'm better about it, if people close to me are there. If they need me to... it's easier to remember." He had already said he was going back down there again, had assumed they were going together, the four of them, but would she go with him when he did? After this? Or would she go on her own, with Deimos and Kiada, who wouldn't question her? Wouldn't criticize her choices they way they did his?
The leopard's fur and tail and claws were out, all signs that spoke even louder of her unhappiness than scowls and sharp words. He wanted to reach out and give her comfort, to reassure her that it would be alright. But how could he, when he was the cause of her pain? When she pulled away from his touch and stood like stone in his arms? So he stayed where he was, feeling the expanding ache in his chest and wondering how many times a heart could break for its mistakes.
She lashed him with pent-up frustrations that went back months and seasons, anger that he thought she had already spilled out, but that had continued to simmer when he had thought they had moved on. How wrong he had been, and his jaw tightened as the list grew. So many, many things had happened, but she glossed over so much, too. "I ran because I was hurting. Not just from you, but everyone. What you just said - 'we' - is why I ran. It wasn't one person, it was most of the people I loved and trusted to have my back telling me how badly I'd screwed up all at once, as a group, then demanding that I continue to be their scapegoat. No, not everyone was that harsh about it - you weren't, Bastien wasn't - but there was no 'us' versus 'them' that night. It was one versus many. So yes, when I finally left that basement after everyone else was gone I was hurting and feeling more alone than I had since I arrived here. And then I got sick. I wasn't hiding from you deliberately. I would have stayed with Rory if I'd been remotely lucid. But I wasn't. I was feverish and lost and the gods might know what I did that week but I still don't, except that something I did while I was stumbling around feral was enough to infect me with the blight. And then when I finally did understand what was happening to me? Why I was shaking and angry and cold and hopeless? I came to find you. I came to apologize, and to tell you that I wasn't okay." But it hadn't been enough. Not if this was the result. Not if even after apologies and forgivenesses there was still this much pain in her heart towards him.
His hand had clenched while he had been talking, fingernails digging into his palm and leaving deep crescents as he forced it to relax. His shaking breath was a match for hers. "I'm not the only one who's hidden, though. You hide your pain and your anger behind sweet smiles and laughing eyes no less than I do. I don't know when I've hurt you because you're too afraid of hurting me to tell me. I can understand that... I've let you see how broken I am. How fragile. You know me. But if you can't be honest with me I..." He trailed off, suppressing the shiver that ran down his spine as he caught his breath.
"What am I to you, Ama?" he asked softly, hearing the 'I don't know' echoing like a pit without a bottom. If he looked at it too closely it would swallow him. "What are you saying? If you can't believe me, if I cause you pain and make you feel small... but you can't tell me what it is I do or say to do that to you... how can I change? How can I be what you need me to be?"
He thought he knew the answer but, gods, he was so afraid of hearing it.
Clenched fists and clenched jaw and unfathomable distance: these are the things she feels most acutely, as Jigano continues once again to explain his actions, to justify them all. But how, how to possibly explain it, to make him see in a way that doesn't make her seem petty and small?
Maybe that's all she is, though. Petty, small, unable to forgive, to see that his actions are always well intentioned, to overcome her own ego and wounds. Maybe that's the way he sees her as she stands above him, ears pulled flat, listening to the reasons and explanations, the defenses to make him always right. "I don't care why you did it," Amalia whispers, her voice hard and without inflection. "I don't care that you meant well, or you fucked up in the past, or you were wounded. I don't care why you never came to see me when I was willing to give up my freedom to Zariah, to save what you had built. I don't care how right you always are."
Inhaling deeply, she closes her eyes, a crooked and mirthless half smile on her face. "But... but you always have to be right, don't you? Even when you make a mistake, you have to have a reason. A defense. You can never have messed up... just be sorry." In a way that may be the crux of the issue, the thing that hurts her most of all. Because it feels as though if she lets herself be hurt by him, it is she who has done wrong.
What am I to you? "You're my friend," she answers swiftly, certainly, dark eyes blinking open to meet his blues. And just as quickly darting away, wincing as again she asks what she needs him to be. Exhaling sharply, suddenly tired, Amalia shakes her head. It feels like a pointless fight, and the more she struggles the less she understands, drowned in her own insecurities and fear and just wanting to be told I'm sorry, to be told that it's okay to hurt instead of having to explain. "I don't know. I should- I shouldn't have said anything. I'm just tired and worried about LongNight and... and I should go." You do always leave me, she can hear it now, but she doesn't know what else to do.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
His good intentions had led him straight to hell before, and it was no different now. Her body language spoke clearly that he was wrong; every word made things worse, but she had asked him to talk to her, to treat her like an adult, and so he did.
But talking only fanned the flames. Every time he opened his mouth he hurt her more, not knowing what else he could do but try.
And he flinched from the whispered ‘I don’t cares,’ the Shield’s words a whip that struck again and again. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t asked her to save the Guild – a Guild he had trusted to be stronger than a Tyrant’s words, but Amalia had not. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t come to ask him for his opinion or advice on what she was doing with that Guild, when she knew that Rory could reach him with any message to meet with her. It didn’t matter that she had kept her correspondence with Zariah hidden so that he hadn’t known that her freedom was threatened until Deimos had told him… and then he had gone straight to the Launceleyn Manor to exchange his freedom for hers, willing to take responsibility for the choice she had made without him. It didn’t matter that he admitted to flaws and faults and fuckups, that he knew he wasn’t always right and had said so before, on several occasions. That he had apologized and thought those apologies had been accepted when her words now seemed to indicate otherwise. But she didn’t care about any of that, and he stayed silent while she spoke, doing his best to listen in the face of her dangerously quiet anger.
What could he say? Ten minutes before she had been frustrated that all he did was apologize when she tried to talk to him. Now the problem was that he didn’t apologize in the right way… or at all. Or… something else that he was missing. Something else that he had failed her at, and he let his head sink down as he drew in a steadying breath.
At least she still considered him a friend after all he had done. Perhaps she shouldn’t, not with how he had made her feel, but he held tightly to that swift assurance, even as he acknowledged that he had put too much on her slim shoulders. He had needed her, but she had never asked for that burden. She had born up under it for so long while he only added to it and now…
”Please don’t,” he said – begged – swiftly. He pushed himself to his feet, not bothering to straighten his tunic as he looked at her and saw the weariness in her. He wanted to reach out but was afraid of being rejected again, and his hands curled and uncurled helplessly at his sides. ”This isn’t just LongNight worries. I’ve… I’ve hurt you, Ama, and I didn’t even realize it. Thank you for telling me. I should have realized sooner what I was doing to you.” Should have, but never did. Too blinded by his own fears and his own arrogance. Too certain of her patience and forgiveness. He drew in a careful breath, looking down at his flexed hands for a moment, white ears still laid back with pain and guilt but no longer flat against his skull. ”I’m sorry for taking advantage of you for so long. But I meant what I said earlier.” He looked up, and his gaze was steady even if the pain was still fresh. ”I love you, and you will always be welcome at my side.”
Shoulders slumping, deflated, tired, Amalia shakes her head. She doesn't have it in her to fight anymore, to try and make him understand the feelings she lacks an ability to voice. He says nothing in response anyway, give no inclination that he sees the injury his defensiveness causes, the way it has chipped steadily away at her self confidence where he is concerned.
She would go, wants to go, to drown her anxieties in frustrated tears. But Jigano's voice as he pleads for her not to is enough to hold the girl there, glancing to the floor as the slender bard stands. Her right hand rubs the spot where the scar used to be; she sighs softly, closing her eyes a moment, trying to decide if it's worth the argument as he misunderstands her once again. "You haven't... the Shield trails off, frustrated by the pointless of it all.
"I'm sorry, Jigano. I've... I've been under a lot of stress. I shouldn't have lashed out at you." She wants to abandon this conversation, so she attempts to steer him into a topic she knows to be safe. "Is Rory at the Temple? I was hoping he'd be here, too... I miss him."
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
He fucked up again. He can see it in the way her shoulders slump and she rubs the place where his teeth had once pierced her skin, driven by madness. That was the only wound he might not be truly responsible for, the only one he gave her while not himself, barring the time he had lost while feral within the nightmare of the blight. All the rest, though? Every time he had broken her down? Criticized? Failed to support her? Those were his fault, every one.
And now he did it again, and he didn't know how, and her apology struck as deep as her lack of care had earlier.
"I needed to hear it," he said, though he held the pain back from his voice, keeping his tone quiet and even. He knew a deflection when he heard it, however, and he stifled the sigh as he looked down at her crossed arms, feeling the shutters of her soul close tight against him. She wanted to change the subject, though, and so he followed her lead with a shake of his head.
"He wouldn't come back, no. Not after what happened at the Perch. We barricaded up the farm and he's staying there, like he used to before... before last year. I'd be with him if Kiada hadn't asked me to go with her." A tragic quest for a lost soul, on Ludo's request? He couldn't turn her down, no matter how much it tore his heart to leave Rory alone. But the hunter knew LongNight far better than the bard, and Jigano trusted his mate's common sense to hold firm without the wilding influence of himself around to drag his love into danger's path. "Honestly, with how many times we'll be opening the door he's probably safer at home then in town," the bard admitted with a pained honesty. Selfishly, foolishly, he wanted Rory by his side on LongNight. But Jigano's side was rarely a safe place to be.
She is grateful when he accepts her deflection, more than willing to change the topic away from her own complicated emotions. Sinking down into a chair that sits against the wall, the baker pulls her feet up under her, looking for all the world like the child she refuses to accept she is.
That Rory decided to stay at the farmhouse surprises Amalia immensely. She has always known her friend to be braver - and smarter - than that. Furrowing her brows, the baker shakes her head. "And you left him there? Alone?" Had Amalia known, she would have dragged the hunter here herself, or insisted on remaining with him. Especially after what happened last year, to the Palmers and Valairs.
Amalia's jaw clenches and unclenches unhappily. "Couldn't you have loaned someone else the lantern?" As far as Amalia knows, it is the light which is needed to guide Ru'in's soul to Ludo and Mort. If so, she could have taken the task, or Deimos, or countless others.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
He watched her curl into a chair, and he shifted to lean a hip against Ronin's desk, unwilling to take his fellow guildmaster's seat but uncertain how Amalia would react if he returned to the floor. His hands held more tightly to the wood than was strictly necessary, an outward sign of the agitation that he did his best to bury deep within where it would no longer trouble the baker who he had troubled far too much already.
She tested that control though, with accusing questions that he recognized as Deimos's mark upon her, the General's habits already seeping into her mannerisms. So quick to assume the worst, to assign blame to him and no other. He swallowed back the bitterness and hurt, closing it away deep within with the reminder that she was only lashing out because she was wounded, and forcing himself to watch her steadily. He could turn her questions back on her, point out that had she ever come to visit them - to visit Rory - at the farmhouse she would have known what the farmer planned. But she hadn't. And she'd retreat into herself, hurt and even angrier, if he brought it up. He took a slow breath, letting it out carefully before he focused his gaze on her again as she leaped once more to conclusions, and he remembered words so recently said: that she didn't care what his reasons were.
"He is no more a child than you are. He makes his own decisions... and even if I disagree with them, I still respect his right to make them." His voice was quiet, carefully calm in the face of her disappointment and disapproval. "We talked it over and this was a decision we came to together." Amalia had not had a place in that conversation... not least because in all their recent interactions it had been Jigano seeking her out - to offer apology and beg forgiveness more often than not - and never the other way around. They both loved her dearly, but they were no longer the trio they had once been, not as Amalia grew beloved by the gods and the townsfolk alike, becoming the center and beating heart of the Hollowed Grounds while Rory and Jigano faded towards the edges of things. It suited them both for now as they tried to heal and recover from the damage the blight had done to them. Maybe when the spring came again things would change once more, but for now...
For now, Rory had chosen to stay in their home, and would not let Jigano break his word to Kiada even in the name of love.
He tilted his head slowly, a faint frown on his own features as he considered the baker, going over their recent conversations swiftly in his mind... but no, he had never told her where the lantern had come from or what its purpose was. She had never asked, and the blight had distracted them both from sharing their adventures in the way they had once done so easily. "What did Kiada tell you of our task?" he asked instead, slowly, trying to find out where Amalia's misunderstanding had come from.
Even if it's the decision he made, it doesn't mean Amalia agrees that it's a good one. The weight of her disappointment does not lessen, and her expression remains troubled and unhappy. Worrying her lip, the baker sighs, her head placed firmly on her knees as she regards Jigano with tired black eyes. She wants to say more, to express her alarm - or even better, to go out to the farmhouse and drag Rory back herself - but in the end she has faith in her friend. He is capable, and has lived here all his life.
She does not catch the way he falters, the frown that pulls between his brows. "She told me that Ru'in's soul is still lost from last Long Night, and that Ludo said she would need your lantern to bring him back." She doesn't know what the lantern is, but had assumed it was the same one they used the day they went in search of lost souls. Biting the inside of her cheek, Amalia looks over to the door. "I don't like it, but... she's stubborn. And strong. And I... I would do the same, for someone I love."
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
In truth Jigano was grateful when Amalia let the topic of Rory drop. It had torn his heart in half to leave his mate on LongNight. Half of it still beat within his chest, but the other half remained in the farmhouse, trembling in his lover's strong, competent hands. To have that pain thrust back at him was perhaps only karma for how he had hurt her, but fear and despair were not so far beneath the surface that she wouldn't find them if she dug a little deeper, and there was no one here now who he would turn to for comfort if she tore the illusions off those wounds and exposed them to the world. So he was relieved that it did not come to that, and that she was willing to turn to Kiada instead. A sensitive topic, entwined as it was with the choice to leave the farmhouse, but a safer one in general.
He shifted his hip against the desk, nodding thoughtfully as she echoed some of what Kiada had told him. Some, but not all. So she really didn't know, and he felt a little of the tension in his shoulders ease as he followed her gaze briefly, then reached up to push his hair back, the silver mane no longer corralled by human ears as his furred fox's ears twitched towards her attentively. "Not just the lantern," he said quietly. "She told me that Ludo said she needed me, specifically. Me... and the song that it placed in my head last year, the one that doesn't have words but does at the same time." He glanced down at his hand, flexing it in reminiscence of when he'd held the quill in it. "I tried writing it down once, to add to the guild Chronicle. It's not... it's like trying to catch moonbeams. Something you can see but can't quite catch hold of."
He looked up at his friend again, someone who could heal him and hurt him, tear him down and build him up with little more than a look and a few words. "I don't like it either," he said softly. "But sometimes... sometimes there's no right answer." Amalia knew that, he knew she did. He just hoped that eventually she'd find it in her heart to understand why he had made the choice he had.
"The one we used after LongNight." Amalia remembers the wordless song, their venture into woods that should never have existed. Slowly she nods, understanding. It makes more sense now, that the song they needed to summon the lost souls should play a role here as well. Still, she remains unhappy about the turn of events, irate with both Jigano and Rory - and with herself, for not asking earlier. For not doing more.
Curled up on the armchair, Amalia looks rather as though she might vanish into the upholstery. She is tired, and small, worn down by weeks of trying her best, of carrying weight not meant for her frame. Jigano's lack of faith and understanding is just another blow to her confidence, as is her own inability to be a better friend. It is more than she can manage at LongNight, to bridge this new divide.
It may be more than she can ever do.
Placing her head back on her knees, the baker curls up further into the chair. Jigano has already made it clear that her attempts to voice her discontent will only be met with more defenses, and she cannot blame him in the end. "Be... be safe, out there," she murmurs quietly, not wanting to voice more of her fears, not when he clearly sees them as a personal affront. She should not ask or need need others to carry and validate the ache of her splintering mind. She can hurt in private, as she always has.
she ran to the lighthouse, hoped that it would help her see
she saw that the lighthouse had been washed out to sea
He nodded, confirming her memory, and there was little more that needed to be said. She looked small and wounded where she curled in the chair, and he wished he could reach out to her like he used to. Wished he had offered the circle of his arms more to her when she had wanted it, instead of being caught up in his own discomfort. Now that he wanted to return the hugs she had once given him it felt like it was verging on too late, if he hadn't already broken things past repair. She was uncomfortable now because of him, though, and he couldn't force her to bear his touch when his actions had already caused so much pain.
So he stayed where he was, sorting through the pieces of his own heart and wondering how many more times it would be broken before he learned his lesson. He had wanted so desperately to be her hero, her brother... someone she could rely on, who would have the answers she needed and the strength to support her.
In the end his own weaknesses had torn her down until he was half-monster himself. She could not trust him, and he couldn't blame her. She had given him so many chances already, and he had betrayed every one, even if he still wasn't sure how. In the end all that mattered was that she had seen it that way, had felt that way, and he had failed to live up to her expectations.
In the end nothing had changed since he had left Numeria, except the new faces that haunted his dreams when he wasn't in Rory's bed. People he had been unable to save... people he had hurt, or left, or let down. Adding Amalia to their number was his failing and his penance, no matter how disappointed Safrin and Ludo would be with him.
"Thank you," he said, voice equally soft, looking away as white ears stayed low against his skull, blending with his hair. "I'll do my best to protect her." He pushed away from the desk, reaching for the door and felt the clink of the mirrors in his pocket. For a moment he hesitated... but he had already pushed too far and done too much damage. Every word, every gesture was now second-guessed. If he gave her the mirror would it be seen as a lack of trust? Would she think he wanted to keep an eye on her? His shoulders shuddered as he realized there was no one else he could entrust the other half of the mirror to, and so he stayed silent on the matter. "I should... go see when she wants to leave," he said instead, swallowing his pain and trying to slip the old mask back into place. He looked back once, but the sight of her in the chair, curled like a child defending herself from him was too much to bear, and he closed the door gently behind him as he hid away the shift of his ears and reached through the bond for Isuma, needing to feel her love against the sorrow that threatened to drown him.
