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!
There are doubts; the potential level of rejection and sadness is massive and unknown. It lingers like a giant black hole over Wessex’s head, throwing questions and internal disarray into her life at a time when she cannot afford to have such quandaries.
The skies are blue. LongNight is fading into yet another distant nightmare. Flowers bloom and singing bees are beginning to show up, the tree tips turn green and yet - and yet -
That sense of dread continues to invade, and in the end she is able to manufacture some bullshit excuse as to why she needs to go to the Outskirts and see Rory. Which is ridiculous, because she’s never needed an excuse to see him before. But they are two people who will uniformly respect the other’s need to privacy and hermetic tendencies, assuming that there are reasons for the others’ absence and in this way, continuing a cycle that can be difficult to break. I should have... or I assumed… are already prepared, along with I’m sorry… for any number of things.
The Wraith waits until Rory is alone at his farm, no sign of either Jigano or Amalia, though she has no doubt they’ve already whispered poisoned words into his ears. There’s a big part they don’t know about - nobody does, really, and she’s not entirely sure how he’ll take the news, but Wessex is mentally prepared for the worst. Or so she thinks.
The evening light is waning and Wessex remains cloaked, despite the low levels of light filtering through the not-so-skeletal trees. She pauses, just outside the boundaries of his farm, to allow the dogs to catch her scent, in case they didn’t catch her near-silent footsteps. More like her nickname than ever before, Wessex knows what she’s capable of, in theory, but has yet to test her new demi-abilities in front of people. Secrets keep her alive in a world where it she keeps making enemies, and right now all she can think of is sitting at a friend’s hearth and catching up, hoping that he won’t reject her too
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
It wasn't strange that Rory had rarely found himself alone since Long Night: the appearance of a (monster) memory?—wearing Karlia's voice and scent had been.. well. Soul-crushing, for him, worrying, for others.
He still hadn't quite brought himself to admit to anyone just how close to killing himself he had come. Perhaps they had seen it in his eyes when they had come to check on him in dawn's pale light, or perhaps that clarity had hurt too much, and they had turned their gaze away from it.
Rory hadn't asked.
Didn't want to know.
He still hurt in so many ways, but it all seemed foolish. Desperate. Hopeful and hopeless. He swallowed, hands on the kitchen counter, eyes on nothing. Jigano had left only recently, to attend some matter or another.
Rory didn't care.
Oh, he cared, about Jigano, about Jigano's safety, but ever since the whole debacle with Kings and Queens had began, he had found himself turning away from the world and society. The Greatwood loomed with all its life and intricate secrets and mythical allure, lush and thriving, but he did not care. Some new portal had opened. Rory did not care.
Wessex had attacked Jigano for some bloody reason.
Rory cared, but he forgot about that detail most of the time. It hurt too much to think about, and he did not know the whys and the hows, for he had not seen Wessex in far too long. She was busy ruling her kingdom, and he was busy trying to justify his own continued existence to himself. Not much had been enjoyable to him lately.
So he simply stared dead ahead, lost in his own miserable thoughts, until Vaya gave her usual someone's here and it's okay bark. For a second he thought it was Jigano coming back for something, but no one came to the door. With a frown Rory pushed off the counter and padded over to the door, slipping out onto the porch into the oncoming dark.
A thrill traveled down his spine.
It wasn't the same as letting the darkness of the night murder you, but it was a whisper of what it would've been like, a trace of it, like a cold breath down your neck.
There’s something wrong with him, she thinks, the moment she sets eyes on Rory. Wessex may not know Rory intimately, but she’s been around him enough,seen enough of his dark moods to know. The aftermath of the LongNight before this sent him into a spiral. Maybe some kernels of darkness had lodged into his soul, sunk their claws into the tender parts of him and continued to drag, drag, drag him down. LongNight is enough to wreak havoc on anyone - but for the chronically sad, it can be an utter nightmare. She’d even heard of the occasional suicide by monster, suicide after losing your whole family to monsters.
So Wessex is surprised to see the blankness in the eyes and the listlessness in his steps. And also not surprised. Maybe her next goal will be to open a portal to a place where Rory can live without the fears and memories of LongNight. Some place he could farm again in comfort and safety.
Yes. Yes. There’s another worthy goal. Though she is dismayed at her friend’s appearance, she doesn’t let it show (does she ever let something like that show?) Wessex smiles awkwardly and gives an even more awkward wave. She is all of a sudden full of hesitation and dread, the kind that says ‘this must be done, but you probably won’t like the outcome.’ At least she doesn’t have the physiological side effects of nervousness to deal with.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m sorry it’s been so long.”
The Wraith will take the blame for the gully between them, for the time missed, for shouldering such a debacle on her back alone. She didn’t have to do any of those things, but she did. Wessex chose decisively, the way she always does - the moment at hand weighing far more than the potential repercussions ever could.
It was strange, really, how long it took for him to register Wessex standing there—she was in the strange borderland between his doorstep and the world beyond, like someone who hadn't quite made up their mind about whether to knock or not. (Unlike other things, wearing the voice of your sister.) Rory's blue eyes slowly sharpened to the play of light and dark, the sunset and the fire behind him; part of him wanted to ask her why she was here, because what was worth coming out here for?
He was not bitter.
He did not feel abandoned.
He had just forgotten that he had worth.
Really, it was far too tempting to stay in his dazed state, to not quite acknowledge the fact that she was there, now, but like a frozen limb brought too close to warmth he had begun to thaw, and oh, it hurt—
Why did she always find him like this?
(It said much, that she kept finding him at all.) Oh, Wessex, headstrong, ambitious Wessex, the lioness in the night, she who never backed down, she who simply forged ahead—time and time again she came back for him, the one who couldn't keep up, the one who slipped into shadow.
He barely registered the awkward edges of her smile, the (perhaps) uncertainty in the wave: he only registered the fact that she was there, again. Warm tears pricked and pooled the corners of his eyes, brought on by the ache of thawing emotion, and without thinking about it he stepped forward, folding his arms around her, because—because he needed it, needed to feel that she was real,
Of the two people Wessex will let touch her in such an intimate way, one would probably rather claw her eyes out, and the other stands like a pillar of pale smoke before her. She’s losing them both and there’s nothing she can really do about it. One solution requires her to change herself and give up everything she’s achieved, the other requires them to change, and that’s never been something she’s asked of people. There’s too much guilt, too much responsibility associated with such a request. So Wessex is upfront about who she is and has an open-door policy, but she is always forging onward. Upward.
Alone.
She will never have a Deimos or a Jigano.
And in moments like these, when Rory wraps his arms around her, when she isn’t sure if he’s holding her or she’s holding him, that Wessex finds she desperately wants that kind of partnership. Not Deimos, not Jigano, but her own, made-for-her kind of love and understanding. Unlike the last time, her arms slip around his too-thin frame and pull his heart-center towards her. She can feel it thudding against her own chest, a reassuring sound she associates with her mother. With family.
“I missed you too,” she murmurs gruffly into Rory’s ear. More than he could ever know.
It was different from every other time: it was his raw, wounded heart, beating and bleeding and full of salt and gravel, it was the darkness lingering in his shadow and wrapping spindly fingers about his ankles and tugging him back, back, back—
It was Wessex, who was both light and soothing water, the Wraith in the darkness yet somehow the sun; it was Wessex, not a Queen but a friend.
Someone who remembered.
Someone who had seen the wolf pup in Rory at the Festival of Lights, someone who had always left her door open for him, someone he felt like he kept letting down by being such a depressive failure and yet she did not give up on him.
It was different because it wasn't Jigano (he loved Jigano, and Jigano practically lived there, so it was not all that strange that he received many an embrace from him, now, was it?), and it was different because her strong arms wrapped around his narrow chest and he held her as much as he was held and his heart beat for both of them.
He was content to stand there in silence, the vibration of his life stuck between them, in his veins, her words moving the small hairs by his ear and his soul wondering what on earth he had done to deserve her devotion. (Loyalty.)
Finally, he began to relax—just the shift, the easing across his shoulders, and with a sigh he turned to rest his cheek against her shoulder. "You always come back for me," he said quietly, glad that she was there, that she was real, and not just a ghost of his guilty mind.
It was different because of the rarity of the event, of the nature of the two of them that makes an embrace worthy of starsong and clap of god-sent thunder. The meeting of two lone wolves is a cause for celebration, particularly when they are kin - albeit distant, genus-only kin.
Wessex has seen his truth and loves him from afar. It is the kind of love that she gives best; neither suffocating nor totally absent, dropped in bits here and there so that the receiver knows and does not doubt. He has seen hers, and knows it is not the monster that others would have her be. It is the proud matriarch, the tough-love caretaker, the one who has said over and over again that she will make the hard choices and then does so, to many’s dismay.
What can be said, other than they’ve seen each other’s demons and still show up?
That’s love. Loyalty. Call it what you will.
A soft snort as he relaxes. “Can’t leave you entirely in Jigano’s hands, now can I?” she jests, sure that he knows full well about their mutual distaste. “And you didn’t show up for LongNight,” Wessex continues softly, pulling away to arm’s length, her hands still on his arms if he’ll let it . “Thought to be honest, I can’t blame you. The Outlanders were insufferable about going out. Was yours… alright?” Isolation during that week is risky, it’s gotten the better of stronger minds than his. Her brow furrows in slight concern, feeling like she’s trying to put something together, but doesn’t have the final piece.
Is he hiding something? Is there more to this picture than meets the eye? For all their silent understanding and kinship, the Wraith has never been good at reading this kind of subtext and emotion - not with Magrethe, and not with him.
Even for him—tattered and broken and barely held together—it was difficult to remain in darkness when so clearly loved. It was not the nights spent under the same blankets as Jigano that devoured him, nor the mornings and evenings when the bard passed through, but the long hours of sunlight in between. It was in the empty spaces, in the dust in the nooks and crannies, in the single shadow he cast—it was the death that laid over him, but pulled back every time someone else's soul brushed against his.
She was the spring sun thawing the winter from his bones.
She was the breeze blowing off the dust, breathing life back into him, giving him strength to hold out a few more hours—
He lived from touch to touch.
"I suppose not," he responded, a slight laugh pulling on his words; oh, he wished there was some way to join these two parts of his world, some way to mend the rift between them, but.. he didn't see a way, not now, not then, so they would just have to live with the fact that he would not cut either of them loose. That was not how Rory worked: he did not compromise on family.
She pulled back, then, and he let her; she had already given him what he needed, so with haunted eyes beneath some escaped golden hairs he watched her. Feral, raw, honest; whatever downward spiral he had begun after the barrier's fall had brought him low, deep into a shadow he did not know how to escape.
Perhaps it was just mourning.
"Mmh," he mumbled, thinking about what she had told him the year before, how the monsters had come to his house—into his house—and threatened her. He thought of how he had wanted to help her, solve the mystery, of how he had almost died during his fool's errand and how Jigano might've died because he was in the barn but also, how, of all the places to spend that long night, Wessex (and Amalia) had chosen his place.
But at the question he let his gaze slip away, and he caught his lower lip between his teeth. It was still..too much.
"Karlia came for me," he finally said, deathly quiet, a confession that needed no further explanation: a monster in the shape of my sister came to kill me.
Whatever it was between him and Jigano, Wessex would never ask. Would never tell him her thoughts on the matter (and they were manifold, biting, vicious thoughts, the like he’d never seen from her before) because as she would tell him if he disapproved of a partner - it’s none of her damn business. It isn’t until Jigano’s an utter dick and he hurts Rory, or misrepresents him, or something to that effect. But until the bard missteps, she’ll make tiny barbed jokes and leave it at that.
His eyes are haunted; she’s used to that now. In a way.
She aches for the old Rory, for the wolf she saw in the sparks of the Festival of Lights. The Wraith holds his gaze for a moment, searching, and finds that in his eyes are all the reasons she needs to try and defeat the LongNight Monsters. Though nothing’s been decided yet and she would never parade him around like a spokesman for the horrors of that week, she can’t help but want to bring Sam here and force him to tell Rory that he won’t stop the nightmares, the darkness, the cold teeth that gnaw at his soul.
Because Karlia...
There’s no air in her lungs but she exhales anyway, a sound without motion. She can imagine the war raging inside him; without a body, without definitively knowing if someone were dead, let alone a beloved - “They’re getting stronger,” Wessex confesses, agreeing, understanding what he says.. “This last one was really bad.” She tries to catch his gaze again, should he lift his face to look at her. “But I’m so proud of you for holding out.” And Goddess, she hopes he’ll never have to hold out like this again. Softly praising Rory for his strength, she tries to banish all her sharpness and cold edges for a moment, she tries to become a safe, strong space for him, to lend him some of her own.
“And if I can, I’ll make sure that never happens again.” A whispered promise, full of the maternal and benevolent leader she might have been, if only she’d grown up differently. Wessex needs someone to save; Amalia’s gone, Melita’s gone, the Ground is in another’s hands, and Clem will end up at her sid. So that leaves Rory. For him, yes. She’d fight the demons the whole damn week for him.
Rory ached for who he had been, too: he longed for the days he had spent in his wilting, withering woods, the hours spent in the kitchen with Karlia, the pointless rides around the Outskirts, the nights spent laughing over drinks and then heading home alone in the dark, a little unsteady but no worse for wear. He longed for the man who had stood up against the Outlanders just because someone had to, the one who had practically dared Edrei to set him on fire for his cause, but—
The wolf was beat. It had snarled from within its cage, proud and afraid, but now it laid bruised on its side and stared at the stars and the door was open but that didn't matter—
He had died, in that darkness. He hadn't needed to open the door. Karlia had come for his heart, taken it, and left him again.
“They’re getting stronger,” she said, and, I'm not, he thought, remembering her fingers tapping against the door, Ella's confused and anxious whine as they did not let her in, the smell of leather soap and freshly polished tack—
None of it made sense, it should be a carnage like what happened to the Palmer's, not.. not.. not this soft, subtle danger, and slowly he lifted his gaze to her face again. He wanted to laugh at her words—bitterly, but he said nothing, just let the shame roll through his eyes. Had he held out?
Or had he just been craven?
Did he even want to live?
(Not like this)
But how could he ever admit that to someone who had reached out and taken life for herself? Wessex was not like him: Wessex was iron, Wessex was.. fire. She was more than he deserved, and he couldn't stop thinking about the night in which they'd left her here, how she seemed almost cursed with figuring out the monsters—their fate—and there it was again.
The wolf baring its teeth and breathing its promise gently, gently down the neck of the lamb.
"How?" he whispered, broken, bruised, in awe and afraid. For her—in this—he would do anything.
04-28-2020, 02:15 AM (This post was last modified: 04-28-2020, 02:22 AM by Wessex.)
you wouldn't even recognize me anymore
not that you knew me back then
Well that was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it? How? indeed.
For once, Wessex falters before him. There’s a flash of indecision, a quick glimpse of vulnerability - because she wants to tell him, she does. But what good would it do, when he shares his bed with Jigano? She cannot trust her secrets with him, she cannot know whether they’ll stay with Rory and only Rory. And that tears at her nanite-made flesh a little more than she realized. What allies, nay, what friends does she have left, outside the Ascended? Who hasn’t Jigano or Amalia gotten to?
I want to tell you, she cries out, knowing he’ll never hear her like the family can.
Gods, she wants to tell him everything.
Her lips even begin to make the words, mouth opening and closing like a stupid fish before she shakes her head.
“I don’t know… yet. There was a thing, and it fell through. I tried, Rory, I fucking tried -” Half turning from her, she runs a had through her hair and looks askance becaues some residual anger at the results of her self-proclaimed mission suddenly bubbles up. “- but there are cowards in our midst.” She doesn’t mean him, of course. Doesn’t mean him at all. “But there’s still time before this LongNight, yeah? Maybe something will change.”
Turning back to the blonde farmer, she attempts levity to dispel the heaviness she’s brought on. “Will you do something for me this year? Will you go to Torchline and be safe? Leave some of your fire here with me and go spend a week - or however long without snow.”
Will you keep my mind at ease?
"I can even pop in and say hello, if you like." And though it's utterly unexpected, there's a soft cry that echoes through the air, something that says I found you!" with delight. No more than a minute later does a black blob come flying through the trees to land on the Wraith's shoulder, its golden eyes awhirl with curiosity and affection for the demigoddess. Wessex chuckles and strokes the dragonling's head as she settles, curling her tail down and around her human's neck. It reminds her how much he's missed - this surprise, her second ascension.
Where has the time gone? She wonders absently. How can we possibly catch each other up?
