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!
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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!
Amalia shook her head and Sam understood; he too felt like they were working against certainty with fantasy, trying to desperately push away the war that would one day envelope all of them, the dichotomy of Voice or Old Gods. Still he had argued for this many times, with many people, that it would be possible for them all to co-exist. He had to try this himself, or he would be a hypocrite.
"I think it would be difficult." He admitted. "We are both passionate and...believe a lot is at stake." That much was obvious. No matter how annoyed he got at Amalia, her faith and devotion to her Gods clearly matched his to his Goddess. "But if we try and don't succeed, well, we'd just be in the same place...we've already had one huge fight about it." Sam tried to smile, just a little, a weak breath of a laugh escaping him.
She barks a laugh at his observation, unable to keep the dry amusement contained. "I told you we have a lot in common." Passionate, stubborn, and firmly loyal to their side - it's almost dizzying to look back through the years and not see how similar the pair of them are. If Amalia had been raised differently, if Samuel had been made to Attune instead of Ascend... Who's to know where they'd be now, what side they would argue for in this war.
What a deeply unsettling thought.
Pushing a lock of hair behind her ear, Amalia exhales a long, slow breath. "The gods themselves couldn't succeed. Why would it be different for us?" Dubious, she places her head on her palms, looking up into Sam's blue eyes. "What is it about the Old Gods that frightens you? Maybe we can start there."
Sam smiled too, supposing Amalia was probably right. Maybe there had been something shared and split between them from their father after all. The quiet determination, the dedication; different from Evie with her bright optimism and sunshine ambition. Though considering the secret he had learned of her, the one he had not yet gotten to speak to her of...Sam supposed he could not really pretend to know his sister that well.
"Because the Gods don't have to live with each other in the same town all the time." He offered, the wry smile still on his face. This was a serious, hard conversation, which meant it was worth it to try and find the chances for lightness where they were.
Her suggested starting point was an odd one, but he didn't want to argue. "They don't frighten me. Well...I mean, I suppose in an immediate sense they do, because any Ascended praying at their shrines is quickly hurt with sunlight." Had Amalia known this? He paused for a moment, unhappy expression on his face. "But...philosophically, or on a grander scale...I don't side with the Voice because I'm frightened of the Old Gods. It's more that I see them as stubborn, old fashioned. Traditionalists. Clinging to the past and their old grandeur, at the expense of the people here."
"They don't have to work together, either." Sam must know about her appointment to Rexanna's cabinet alongside him, though perhaps not the full extent of what she has asked for from the Penumbra. No matter- the point remains a valid one, and his smile is met with a dry one of her own.
She glances away when he mentions being burnt by sunlight - yes, she's been told by Wessex before - her eyes on her feet as he explains. Slowly Amalia's expression shifts to a frown; for a moment hot vexation cuts through her brows, but she schools it quickly, taking a breath. Opening and closing her palms, the Shield feathers her jaw in thought.
"Do you know.... do you know what the Voice was trying to do? Why they locked her away?" There's a frank curiosity in Amalia's gaze as she meet's Sams, legitimately curious. She has her own understanding, based on snippets and stories and what she has witnessed since, but she wonders what reasoning the young goddess gave.
"Mmmm...oh, in the Guild." Sam nodded, assuming Amalia was referring to their various tasks for Jigano, though he hadn't seen her in the hall recently. Their assignments were likely rather different, he supposed; she likely did not know how to bind books and he would not attend on trips related to her interests.
He could see Amalia suppressing her anger for his sake, frustration cutting through her face before she calmed it; it was an effort, one he had to put in for her to be fair now. He breathed steadily, keeping his mood and tone calm as he spoke. "As far as I understand it, she was referring to herself as a Goddess, trying to take more power than the Old Gods wished to permit her - and...so was given a punishment. Because the Old Gods did not like someone trying to become one of them. Is that similar to what you've heard?"
"I meant the government," Amalia says with a shrug, deciding just now is not the right time to get into the fact that she hasn't been doing much for the Loreseekers guild. Busy with other things, yes, but she's also been on difficult terms with Jigano of late, the thought of it causing her fingers to fidget, hands clenching and unclenching into balls.
She bites her lip thoughtfully at his description of events, a vastly different tale than the one she has come to accept. "My understanding... is more that she, she corrupted parts of the world, to make it more like her. Advanced, maybe, but soulless. Empty. And that her experiments led to monsters, like... like the Spire Demon, and the Prince. And the Blight. So the Old Gods created the barrier to prevent her from corrupting more of the continent."
"...The...government? You, um.." Sam looked off to the side, trying to put what he had to say in the most gentle way. "...You weren't voted in." Did she not know? Did she think they shared a position?
Amalia's version of the story almost made him laugh. It was like a twisted mirror version of his, words swapped out to make The Voice sound as terrible as possible. Initially he wanted to react disgustedly, swat it away, tell her it was a lie - but she hadn't done that to him, so he waited until it had passed to speak: "Well, I suppose neither of us were there, so neither of us can claim to know the absolute truth, can we?"
Something Amalia had said had caught his attention, though. "Let me ask you this honestly...do you think I'm soulless?"
She furrows her brow: "Yes I was," she replies, confused, tilting her head at Sam. "Rexanna... she came to see me. Said they made me historian or something." She does not mention that she then demanded more responsibility; the decision feels rather foolish looking back, and part of her hopes Rexanna will entirely disregard that part of their conversation.
His comment on their lack of knowledge is irritating in its accuracy. "Yeah," she replies, a defeated expression on her face. "Maybe in the Atheneum there's a book about it... an actual account. Or maybe... maybe we can ask the gods for more information. Y'know. Together." This last word is said somewhat carefully; she does not meet his eyes. A family outing of sorts, probably destined to end terribly- and why would he even want to go do something like that with her?
The next question, though, has her looking up, her dark eyes soft as she searches his face. Does she think he's soulless? "I... I don't know," Amalia answers honestly, her voice frank. "I've been told the Voice has the souls of Ascended in the Spire, but I don't know if it's only the deceased ones or the living. And I don't... I don't know if it matters, whether you have one or not right now. But knowing that when you die you'll go nowhere, that you won't find peace with Mort... doesn't that scare you at all?"
"Oh...right." Sam nodded, remembering now, hoping Amalia didn't hold it against him too much that he hadn't fully realised. With the shock of the election day and the lack of any meeting since, he'd forgotten which candidates were which.
There were plenty of books in the Atheneum that talked of the event, but Sam tilted his head from side to side, clearly unsure about the suggestion. "Did you ever hear the phrase 'history is written by the victors'? I don't know if we can trust an account...it could be written by someone with a bias. I don't know if we'll ever know how it happened, really." As for asking the Gods, he gritted his teeth. "You think going together will stop them attacking me? ..You think they won't be mad at you for bringing an Ascended?"
None of those concerns were as worrying as her hesitation to his question, or her answer. Sam sat back as she said she didn't know with wide eyes, clearly surprised. Not sure what else to say, he stuck to facts. "I won't...go nowhere. We go to The Voice. She has a place for us. It is the same as people going to Mort, just...a different place."
They circle each other with words and assessments, both so strongly entrenched on their side that common ground feels worlds away. His counter argument - history by the victors - is apt enough, but the people of the Hollowed Ground hardly feel like victors in this war. "At least we can try." Isn't that what they're doing now, after all? Trying?
Amalia resists the urge to roll her eyes: one time Sam had encountered sunlight. Hadn't the Voice done so much worse, time and time again? "I think they would want us to understand," she says simply, a little terse, though the god she thinks most likely to give them a straight answer is not the one she would prefer to encounter. "Do you think the Voice wouldn't curse me immediately? She threatened me, last time we spoke."
As for where he goes when he dies, Amalia furrows her brow. "That's not what I-" But no: they are trying to avoid making assumptions, or something. Swallowing, she tries again. "How do you know? Have you seen it? Spoken to any of the souls there?"
Sam sighed, well aware that The Voice could be testy with those she did not care for, to put it mildly. "I think we both know there's a risk if we go with the other to a shrine for our Gods. Perhaps if we both went together to both, we might do better." Not that he really wanted to go on two awkward shrine trips with Amalia, but it seemed like the only way to try and guarantee they both might be safe while faced with each other's deities.
He tilted her head at the questions about The Voice's promised afterlife. "Have...you ever seen Mort's realm? Spoken to souls there?" It was possible, but she'd certainly never mentioned this trip into the afterlife. "But...yes, I have seen where our souls go. Not for very long, admittedly, but...do you remember The Core, that was freed from the Spire?"
"You mean petition both at once?" It's an interesting idea - Amalia has never seen an old god and the Voice in the same place before. Perhaps it would be a good way to find an open forum.
Perhaps they'll both be smited in a cosmic, heavenly slap fight.
She shakes her head- no, she hasn't seen Mort's realm, but she's seen something close. "I saw... Ludo's woods. Not just in the Greatwood, but... where it keeps souls it gathers. And I spoke to my grandmother." The content of that conversation she does not share, but it's clear from her face that it was meaningful. Her eyebrows knit at his next question though, confused. "The body at the top of the Spire? I thought it.... well, I don't know what happened to it."
"Ah, no -- I meant go to both at different times. Though...if you thought it was possible we could bring both Old and New Gods together...it could certainly be interesting." Sam cringed a little around the the word, clear that he wasn't sure it would be a good kind of interesting. Would their respective Gods be angry at them for drawing them together, would it end in an explosive battle? Was any of it even possible in the first place?
Ludo's woods were just trees, as far as Sam was concerned. It was hardly the same as seeing the afterlife - his unimpressed expression probably got this over for him, even if he held off from actually speaking any judgement. "You mean...after her death?"
Sam was actually a little annoyed at himself for bringing up the Core, since he didn't know anything further about it himself. "Well..um...I think that might be connected somehow. Anyway, the point is, the Voice has no reason to lie to me about her afterlife. Besides, I doubt the Old Gods would treat me well in theirs."
Sam's unimpressed expression sharpens Amalia's lingering ire, her brows furrowing at how blasely he treats her foray into a god's personal world. Of course he doesn't care, or perhaps he doesn't believe her. "Yes," she says simply in response to his question, obviously written clearly in her expressive face.
Still irate, the Shield does not just let his segue into the Core go. "Connected to what?" she presses, leaning forward. "The souls of the Ascendeds? Is the Core still there? What is it?" Here is a point she knows very little on, just like so many of the Voice's well-kept secrets.
Unlike Sam, Amalia very strongly suspects that the Voice would lie about a good many things, just as she lied about the Blight. "Mort doesn't judge our choices," the Shield points out, crossing her arms over her chest. "I doubt he would treat your soul differently from any other, Ascended or not."
