Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
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Jigano relaxes the moment the button is unclicked and light filters in again, and she gives him a brighter smile to his relieved one. His question of how far it extends, she nods slightly. “Not too big, about my height all around.” She says contemplatively, wondering what kind of uses it might have. But Jigano seems on top of it, and she puts the trinket in her pocket before she regards him again with a smile.
“That would certainly make things much easier.” She adds with a quiet laugh. “I’ll have to test it out and see.” She manages before she looks out over the ears around them before she thinks on it. “Certainly would make getting around while I’m figuring out council things much easier.” She adds on, glancing back to him with a bright smile.
The return of the light was more welcome than he cared to admit, but he hid it well (he hoped) and nodded thoughtfully to Rexanna's description of its size. "Not too much, then, but big enough to protect you," he said with a slightly quirked grin. "And that's what matters! We can't have our Queen getting lightly toasted on her rounds about town!" He'd never actually seen any Ascended having much trouble in the daytime, except for Isla, come to think of it. The ones he saw out during the day, like Wessex, usually seemed perfectly fine.
"I remember suggesting Lucas try to use his shadows for the same thing," Jigano mused, a moment's nostalgia distracting him. He shook his head, blue eyes finding Rex once more at the mention of the council and he chuckled at her teasing. "You're going to kill me with curiosity, my lady," he threatened, pressing a melodramatic hand to his heart. "If you don't take pity and reveal your plans soon!" He winked to show he was joking, returning to the stone to watch Isuma chase young fireflies through the growing grass. "But in more serious matters, did you ever see such a council work on your world?" he asked curiously. "I thought your f... your king was something of a final word in your kingdom, and the... mm. Unfortunate excuse for a featherduster that had the gall to call himself your husband was a control freak?"
She snorts at his comment, shrugging and nodding along despite it. She’d rather not – she’d already felt what it felt like to get the sun near the more sensitive parts of her skin, how it felt like when she had Ascended and the fire magic within her had writhed and struggled to get free. It hadn’t, but she felt for a moment as though she were burning from within, until it was all gone in the end.
At Jigano’s musing though, she sighs almost wistfully, glancing over to the bard with a light smile. “I do miss that pain in the ass.” She concedes, green eyes meeting blue as he chuckles. “All in due time.” She winks, lips edging toward the curve of a smirk, until it fades as he asks a more serious question. And while Rexanna hadn’t seen them work, she’d heard of them working before.
“The king did have the final say in Halyven.” She pauses thoughtfully, until he comments about Calstron and she hums a brief snort at that. “Ah, well, Cal was a prince, not a king. He was a control freak but had little to no say in things.” A thing of which he had often taken out on her, but that was beside the point. “But while I was in training for becoming the next queen, there were many books and stories about how my mother had a council when she ruled. And it had worked, until the King beheaded her.” Her green gaze lifts to meet his with a small shrug.
"He might have had something to do with one of Remi's curses, but he could be a charming devil," Jigano agreed wryly. "And it was never proven that he stole the mask. I wish I'd gotten to know him a bit better, either way." But he shrugged, for it was past and gone now, and the blond heartbreaker wasn't going to return.
He pouted dutifully at her smirk, but the teasing faded to a more serious curiosity eventually. He listened carefully to Rexanna's words, nodding slowly at the description of her mother's court and style of rule. "I've read accounts of other countries with councils, too," he concurred thoughtfully. "But... I've never seen one in action, either. Not beyond the level of a town council, at least. My land was ruled by a Sovereign who was the unwilling puppet of another... who in turn was controlled by a dark iron god. They were not any of them the sort of individuals that, ah, cared much for the input of others," he said wryly, with the driest of humor. "There may be some trial and error in getting this to work, but I think the single-ruler style has been proven to go poorly for the Hollowed Grounds, for a multitude of reasons." He shrugged lightly, but the humor didn't quite reach his eyes. "If nothing else, we won't know unless we try."
He tilted his head back towards his friend, patting the stone beside him again in invitation. "Would you tell me about your mother? What you learned of her in books, at least?"
Her gaze flits over to him as he mentions Lucas might have had something to do with one of Remi’s curses, and she half smiles at that. “I wish I could say I was surprised.” She announces before exhaling, looking out over the grasses and earth once more, running a hand through her hair before she hums a small chime of a laugh. “He left me drained of my blood at the fall of the barrier, it’s why I was so weak last Fiat Lux.” She glances over to him, her lips quirking in a slight smirk. “And yet, somehow, I still managed to sleep with him twice.” She shakes her head.
“Him and Bastien had this sort of… Rivalry. And after my Ascension, right before Bastien’s and my wedding, I invited him over alone. And I told him if he dared to lift a finger or be a problem between Bastien and I, I would kill him.” She doesn’t know if she would have or not, but if he dared to harm her or Bastien, she would have. She snorts slightly, shaking her head. “I did brand him, as if to prove I could, though I doubt I would have.” Her head tilts then, drawing quiet before she focuses on Jigano and the mention of the councils.
At the tidbit of his own homeland, she perks up and listens. “People grow too attached to the power at their fingertips, unwilling to concede even if it’s the best option. Pride, I think.” She agrees, perhaps a bit solemnly before she shakes her head. “But one thing that Halyven did teach me, is that there’ll always be opposition regardless of what you do. You roll with the punches and compromise when necessary.” Her shoulders rise and fall in a shrug. “And it’s easier to keep from letting it get to your head if you aren’t the only one thinking on it all.” She offers her own dry humor back.
But she has to pause at his inquiry, at the stone that he pats as she goes to join him again. “She was fair and kind, according to the books. A bit strange for a royal, more of a dreamer than what they wanted. But she did well for a time, until she started exploring the rest of our continent. She’d been married by then, but my father, the General took her eye.” She pauses then. “The King remained behind to rule while she was away, and that’s essentially how I came to be.” She says, looking over to him with a light shrug, a small smile. There were little records of who her father was, what he was like. And she finds that she wishes she knew at least something about the strange man.
Jigano nodded, remembering when Rex had told him about Lucas's lack of control at the Spire last Fiat Lux. That wasn't new to him, though what followed certainly was.
Oh.
Well now.
A brow silently arched, and Rexanna indulged his curiosity with a synopsis that made him even more frustrated about the blight, for this sounded like the sort of hot gossip he would have delighted in having the details on while it was happening, rather than slowly turning into a black-blooded rage monster. "But was the sleeping together mutual?" he couldn't help but ask, fascinated. "Did he have reason to think you might choose him over Bastien?" It was the sort of high drama that he wondered if Lucas would have appreciated. Bastien certainly would have - if Rex had been leaving Lucas at the altar for him, rather than the other way around.
He probably would have appreciated it far less, otherwise.
The thought of Rexanna branding someone as she had been branded once earned another raised brow, this one more cautious. It was a reminder of the fugitive she had been before coming to Caido, and the lessons of mercilessness, even cruelty, learned at the bird-prince's hand. They'd already had one 'merciless' Queen of the Hollowed Grounds, and it gave him pause to consider another so soon.
He didn't like to think of his friend being cruel, but then, he didn't like to think of Sam being a killer, either. Caido was full of unpleasant truths, so he stayed silent to give himself time to think over what she'd said, when the newness of it wasn't so surprising. He offered a bit of his own history instead, the barest bones of a tale stretching back a thousand years, and ending little more than six years prior. "You can't make all of the people happy all of the time," he agreed wryly, nodding along with her line of reasoning. "And hopefully the blame gets spread a little thinner when things go wrong if there are more heads to bear it."
For that's what they'd be, he knew. Advisors, yes, but also scapegoats.
Because Caido never stayed peaceful for long.
But for the moment it was, and he took hold of it with both hands, turning the conversation to the mother Rexanna had never known, but had grown to admire. "If he was a general he was likely stern and commanding, but if he caught your mother's eye he must have also been kind and smart," he mused. "More than just a weapon or a butcher - a role it sounds as though the king was better suited to." He grimaced faintly, then sighed. "Still, I'm sorry you didn't get to learn more of him. It can be difficult, not knowing your roots, or only knowing them from a distance." He'd had his parents, at least, but they had left their homeland and families behind to travel to Numeria before his birth. He didn't know if he had aunts or uncles or cousins somewhere; whether he had grandparents that were still alive, or anything else of that part of his heritage. He had learned the language of their people, and some of the traditions that his mother had passed down to him when he was still small, but the rest he had to learn from books or other travelers.
At his question, she can’t help the slight chime of laughter. “Oh, yes.” She begins with a small shrug. “Well, you see, I think it was that Bastien had threatened him for what he did to me. I think that Lucas was trying to use me to get back at Bastien. He knew I would never choose him.” There’s a hum of laughter that leaves her at that, because it’s a thought she can’t fathom.
As for the mention of the branding, she had only done it because she knew that neither of them could feel the pain, but that Rexanna held the fire within her veins that could end him, should the need arise. It had never gotten to that point, and in fact she wonders if perhaps it would have backfired – would have made him more obsessed with trying to use her, sway her, to get back at Bastien. She’ll never know, and for a moment she’s thankful for that.
Instead, they speak of the council and her own history, and a wry smile meets her own pale face as her emerald gaze drifts over to Jigano with a small shrug. “Ultimately it’s the person’s fault who ordered whatever it was. This just makes it easier to be able to essentially be where we need to be at once.” She tries to give her friend a comforting smile. Should something happen, she fully intends to take the blame for it all. But this way she’d be able to help out where needed, with those she can trust and depend on.
She snorts to his assumption, nodding as she brushes her hair from her shoulder to tuck it behind her ear. “Everyone said I got his nose.” She offers, wrinkling her nose at it. But she looks back at him then, green eyes alight with the apology given and yet not needed. “Thank you.” She says quietly, inhaling deeply despite not needing to as she looks back out over the fields. “It can be difficult… But it can also be freeing in a way. There’s nothing I can blame for the things I do. I can’t just say it’s in my lineage and use it as a crutch.” Her gaze flits back to Jigano with a small smile.
"Ah, men fighting over you. I'm only surprised that there were only two of them," he teased, falling back on humor when he was still trying to wrap his head around the soap opera that had been playing out while he'd been blighted. At least it made for a good story, and with Lucas now dead and gone from a different matter that Rex had indicated she had no part in, he could at least enjoy the telling of the tale from a position of more distance.
"It's also the fault of those who agreed to go along with it, though," he said with a wry smile, having seen too much of the effects of those who stood by or agreed to let bad things happen because they were afraid to stand up or speak up. "Or, if you remain the head of this Council, do you intend to shoulder the blame for whatever goes wrong?" he asked shrewdly, remembering one of their earliest conversations. "I thought you and Frey had a chat about that habit of making yourself a martyr?" Or had she rejected the old gods so thoroughly when she chose the voice that she had abandoned even the lessons they had tried to help her with?
Not that Safrin hadn't tried to hammer something similar through his own head, with admittedly mixed results.
"Ah, then he was stern and commanding, and also had a very cute nose," the bard agreed solemnly, mischief twinkling in his eyes. "But even if you did know more about your parents, I doubt you'd be shifting blame," he added, smile softening. "But what about the other world? Helovia? Do you remember your parents from there?" He didn't envy Rex the burden of two sets of memories of lives lived, though at least it had given her a second chance at a family here on Caido, with Hotaru and Deimos and Kiada.
Another snort is given to Jigano at his teasing. “Only two I’m aware of. Surprising, given Frey’s curse.” She offers a playful wink, recalling their first true conversation with one another during that time. But regardless, she focuses on other things, the conversation shifting toward scapegoats and councils, and she listens to him as he questions her.
A brief laugh is given his way with a small shrug. “More of a sacrificial lamb than a martyr.” Shoulders rise and fall in a shrug as she shoots him an interesting look. “I am trying to be better. Old habits die hard, after all.” Another small shrug. She’d never wanted to be a hero, never wanted any of that. Never wanted leadership or anything like it either – and yet here she was. Newly minted Queen, at least interim, and still hoping to take most of the pain and blame to ensure that others don’t have to suffer the way she did.
She speaks of her true father next, and her tongue clicks to Jigano at his agreement. “A button, one might say.” She retorts with a snort before shaking her head, dark locks spilling around her shoulders in a small halo affect until his question about Helovia hits her and her head tilts slightly as she regards him. “Ah, well. I have memories from Helovia, but I was not born there.” She notes. “Once I stepped through the portal here, I started to get memories of that other life starting at the same point. The events were all the same, just… This version of me landed here, that other version of me landed there, with Deimos and Hotaru.” She admits a bit ruefully. “Same parents, same lineage, same everything.” But what happened in Helovia was leagues different from what happened here.
"I expected you to be swinging sticks at them to keep them back," he grinned at her wink. "Though I suspect you had many more admirers from afar who were simply too intimidated by your poise and beauty to approach." That was said more gallantly, more sincerely, as he produced another flower for her, this one a yellow rose. "If Rory had not already held my heart I surely would have joined them!" Okay, that was teasing again, but only because Rex had always been more of a friend to him than anything else.
'Sacrificial lambs' weren't all that different from martyrs, not in how they ended up, at least. But he dipped his head in acknowledgment with a wry smile at the mention of old habits. "They do," he agreed quietly. "But we both have a few that are worth trying to slay." His smile faded to curiosity as they turned to talk of families, and he resisted the urge - barely - to reach out and boop her button nose himself.
He blinked a little in confusion as he tried to piece together Rexanna's double (triple?) lives. The time skipping involved was enough to cause a migraine and he smiled sympathetically. "Then may I ask who Kiada's father was?" Surely not some far-distant version of Bastien?
She snorts at the teasing, shaking her head again before her green gaze lands on the sky and the sprinkling of stars beyond. “A little fire would keep them at bay.” She responds with a hum of laughter. She’d never done it, had never been around while the two of them were together — aside from once, when Bastien made his threat.
At Jigano’s teasing though, she raises a dark brow as she looks to him with a small hum of laughter. “Well, I’m glad you have Rory. Need to leave some of me for the rest of them.” She jests, another wink sent his way.
But she settles at the mention of old habits, and she looks away from him then with a softer smile that crosses her lips. “Indeed we do.” But she’s been trying, and sometimes the only thing one can do, is try.
Though she is surprised when he asks of Kiada’s father, her gaze taking some kind of far away look as she looks to the sky. “He was tall, a man from the plains of Dorobo.” She hums with some small amusement. “A general, a fighter. Fought in some battle between Dorobo and Korofi, though I don’t recall what it was about.” She shrugs. “Crushing blue eyes, quick mind. But ah, we mostly danced around each other like we were stuck in one another’s orbit, never made anything official until Kiada and Kianzo. And even then, that was shaky at best. Even after the twins were born and I left the Basin to go to the Edge where he reigned as King, he’d fathered a child with the Queen of the Edge. Fathered a few more with some other women.” She waves her hand at that.
"I don't know... there are some, like Loren and Deimos, who seem a little too keen on fire," he mused with rueful humor. "It might only fan the flames of their ardor even higher!" Beauty and fire? There were plenty of men who would find that combination irresistible. Perhaps not Deimos and Loren specifically, but others like them. He, though, was more of an air person. Hot air, to be sure, but still. "I will be happy with whatever you give me," he promised teasingly. "A kind word, a fond glance, or even just a fleeting smile." Maybe he was laying it on a little thick, but it was rare he got to indulge his theatrical side so outrageously with someone who'd laugh at his cheesy lines and not just roll their eyes at him.
They would both try to fight through the shackles of their pasts, but some questions were too curious not to ask. He tugged gently at one of the threads her tale had not yet revealed. Another man, another mate in her life (a different life, though, than this), father of her children - only one of whom had made it through the portals to Caido (yet). This one sounded slightly better than the featherduster. There was a refreshing lack of branding in the story, at least, but he turned out to be a rake and a cad in the end, and Jigano wrinkled his nose. "If Bastien ever pulls a stunt like that and you need an alibi, just let me know what your story is," he promised her, but lightly. He might not have the greatest faith in Bastien but he knew that Rex did, and he made sure to keep his words light. "You deserve to be treated like a ... well. Like a Queen!" he finished with a laugh and a wink.
There’s a snort that leaves her at the musings of the bard, and she shakes her head to that. “Deimos? Never.” She begins, though a finger rises to tap at her lips in thought. “Loren on the other hand, well… Bit him a couple of times. If he hasn’t fallen for me yet, I suppose I’ve failed at bewitching them with my flame.” She teases, winking back to Jigano before she shakes her head further at his jokes, chimed laughter leaving her in response but unsure of how to respond.
Instead, the conversation drifts to Tembovu. And she gives him a bright smile and a gleaming look to her green gaze as she focuses on him. “Out of all of them, ever man I’ve been with… Bastien’s treated me the best.” She admits, something childish and girl-like crossing her features at that. “Tembovu, Kiada’s father, was too busy ruling his home and sleeping with whomever gave him attention. And it… hurt, after having left my home, my friends, my family behind to go there to be with him, just so the twins could have a father around.” She shakes her head. “I had thought he meant it after he broke into the defenses of the Basin to see them after they were born. I tried to go and tell him I was having his kids, but was pushed away by someone outside of the herd, saying it didn’t matter in the end.” Another small shake of her head.
But when she looks back to Jigano, there’s a small twinkle to her eye. “I… Can’t recall if I ever told you, but I was pregnant when I was imprisoned in Asciend. I gave birth to a stillborn in the prison there. Originally, Cal hadn’t believed it was true when I told him, had thought I was trying to get out of being imprisoned. And when it happened, well. They all took it as an act of war, as though I had purposefully killed the child out of spite.” It hadn’t made sense, she’d never be capable of such a thing. “And I finally told Bastien, after the wedding. He made a lantern for my son.” If that didn’t show care, a deep sense of connection to her emotions, she didn’t know what did.
Jigano laughed at her dismissal of the two men, bowing in acceptance of her 'failure' to bewitch every man (and woman) in the Hollowed Grounds to her charms. He began to pluck flowers out of the air, weaving them idly together between his fingers as they spoke Her previous husband, her previous (other?) life made for a fascinating tale in its own right, and one word in particular caught his attention, seeming out of place with all else that she'd said. "Herd...?" he repeated curiously. "But either way, he sounds like a terrible husband and father. It sounds as though you're well rid of him." Especially if she at least got to keep her daughter in the deal, though he regretted the loss of the other twin.
He nodded somberly at the tale told once more of her stillbirth child in Halyven. She had indeed told him before, but it was no less heartbreaking for the repetition. Bastien's action with the lantern, however, was new, and his eyes softened as he nodded, finishing the final twist in the circlet of bright yellow and deepest purple (the closest he could come to gold and black) thornless roses. "Well. Perhaps I've been wrong about him," Jigano admitted with a wry smile. Perhaps there really was more to the artist than the shallow hedonist would-be-cult-leader Jigano still thought of him as. This other side of him that Rex shared was enlightening, and the bard slipped from the rock to offer his hand to her - and the flower crown that now rested in it.
"Then will Her Majesty allow her humble subject to escort her back to her consort?" he teased slyly. "And when you call for your council... I will answer."
