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!
Like some dark tableau of a what an Abercrombie and Fitch poster might look like if directed by a madman, Remi and Roninc reclined on the beach. Wearing little (the day was hot) and with visible patches of dried blood in various areas (they'd been hunting), the pair dried off beneath the unyielding sun overhead.
Fingers smoothed Ronin's untamable hair as Remi looked out at sea, letting his eyes unsuccessfully try and pinpoint where the sky and ocean actually meet. Pulling his eyes away to look down at Ronin sprawled on the sands before him made his breath catch. Sand peppered a chest scarred and bruised from various monsters, blood remain lodged in bits of fabric and beneath nails. There was no part of the Star left virgin or unblemished by the realities of the world. No part left unloved by the alchemist.
"Makes three for me." He said, a roguish smile on his lips. "Sam, Phoebe, Sunjata. Though apparently Phoebe is just as uncaring as me. Wahh.." Remi added, a fake whininess coating his words.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
There was very little in the world that allowed Ronin the sort of comfort he experienced right now. Laying back on the hot sands with his head in Remi's lap, eyes shut to enjoy the fingers in hair windswept and damp from salt and sea, he was in a very rare state of calm and contentment. Not much could steady the storm inside him, could tease it and warm it to something like the man he used to be - but Remi managed it every time. "Mm...?" Blue eyes flickered open so he could gaze dozily up at his husband, and he softly snorted as he realised what the alchemist was saying.
"I'll do you one better. I was there for Sam and Sunjata and Phoebe. Apparently Phoebe isn't even married any more." He sounded absolutely unsurprised by this. "But I've seen Amalia. That makes four."
The alchemist raised a brow before it lowered with a roll of his eyes. "Serves her right for not inviting us." He scoffed, as if they would have gone. As if they would have cared.
Pretending to looked shocked and unhappy at the news that he was apparently behind in this unhappy game, Remi licked his tongue across his teeth as if stealing himself. "Well, weeks not over yet. There's still hope of Loren to come whining back, though he might show up for either of us.." Squinting, Remi considered. "And I'm sure once Jigano hears about what I've become I'll hear from him as well."
Which was all just to say there was time. Time to pull ahead in this ridiculous battle of which of the two was cared about the least.
"What did Amalia have to say? Is she still so very cross about her precious temple?"
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh yes. My life is thoroughly incomplete without having attended that spectacle," Ronin said dryly, raising an eyebrow up at Remi and suppressing a smile. That absolutely fell away at the mere prospect of the Lorens and Jiganos of the world coming to find them, and Ronin let out a huff as if there was something wrong with Remi as he was now. "Oh, and what have you become?" he wanted to know.
As for Amalia... "I'll tell you when I figure it out," he murmured. AKA Sorry Odd I haven't got that far in the thread yet.
Relaxing further into Remi's lap, Ronin turned his face away from the light and shut his eyes again. "It was too much to think that we might be left alone here, wasn't it."
'Well don't worry. So long as Amalia and Deimos haven't already tied the knot, we'll have that to look forward to. Assuming we're still invited of course." The flatness in his voice was all Ronin would need to know about his level of enthusiasm. As for what he'd become? "Monstrous." His teeth pointed as he said this, grinning upside down at Ronin as he leaned forward to press a kiss to his husband's forehead. "But not beyond saving. Apparently I'm still so very good and kind." Running a hand through his curls the alchemist huffed out an unhappy breath, before returning those fingers back into Ronin's hair.
"Apparently. Though I don't know which is worse. That we've changed, or that we don't care about it."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh do spare me the thought," Ronin said, scrunching his nose and smirking up at his husband's descriptions of himself, pointed teeth and all. "Monstrous? Hardly. You're fucking perfect," he murmured, the words quiet given Remi's suddenly close proximity, and as the alchemist pressed a kiss to his forehead, Ronin reached up to twine his fingers briefly through unruly curls.
Eyes shut now, Ronin still grinned into the sky, leaning into the touch so expertly delivered by his husband. "Good and kind, huh? You know, I believe it. Just not to them. Fuck them." He shrugged. Humour fading with Remi's last comment, the hunter sighed and remained quiet for a few moments. "Remi, what good is it to question what happened and why? Does it change anything? Does it make us anything other than sad and guilty? Everyone changes, and caring hurts, unless it's about you."
"If I have to think about it, you have to think about it."
There was nowhere Remi would or could be like this, save for with Ronin. It didn't smother the still-burning ash in his heart, but it did blow away some of the smoke if only for a time. "As are you." He agreed, lips pulled into a smile against salty skin before he sat up again.
"Good is a matter of degrees. Kindness just...circumstantial. And even if it isn't, I don't care." They'd lost the only thing they had to care about, save for each other. They both knew that.
"No." He agreed softly, fingers wrapped around strands of sea-washed hair. "Sunjata asked me if all I do now is kill things with you and make things to trade, as if our lives here have to be meaningful" Remi said with a snort, his thumb dipping down to massage Ronin's temple as he shook his head towards the sea.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh, I see. I wasn't aware that our marital equality extended to thoughts and feelings," Ronin quipped, amusement lacing his tone. Cracking an eye open to look up at Remi, he considered the other man above him, in all of his uncaring and circumstancial kindness. Did he care, he wondered? Certainly sometimes, when it came to his husband, but Torchline was still too new and his latest wounds still too raw to figure it all out.
Still, he snorted at learning what Sunjata had said about their lives in Torchline, Ronin relaxing into the gentle fuss and following Remi's gaze out towards the sea. "The Hollowed Grounds is a world of wannabe heroes shouting at the gods," he said. "If that counts as meaningful then I want no part in it. I find plenty of meaning here with you. Just because I'm not chasing a monster through the Spire or falling out of the stars doesn't make it any less of a life."
"Consider yourself informed." Remi smirked back, looking at the slits of blue beneath dark lashes and brows.
"But Ronin. They go on quests. They complete errands for gods. They have all their items and magic. Surely all of that has already made them heroes. That it's all for their own self-interest and egos hardly matters." Whether or not Remi agreed with his husband's sentiments wasn't entirely obvious. He wasn't sure if this was a life or not, or if it was just waiting for death in the company of a handsome man. But as with most things, Remi didn't think he cared.
"Raza says she might have a job for us. It involves some nefarious dealings, the underground caverns, and a high chance of death. Obviously I said we're in."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The sun is a star as we all know, and as Safrin appears on the beach the light of it breaks upon the waves like a comet. The world is momentarily bathed in a world-ending glow that casts away the shadows and contours everything in the sorts of colours one would expect to see at the beginning of the world. And suddenly it all fades back, more vibrant though for her presence.
Draped in billow white, the garment either one or multiple scarves, Safrin is ankle-deep in the waves. She is perfectly painted to appear effortlessly natural, though of course there is nothing effortless nor natural about Safrin. She is manipulation incarnate, never one caught without a perfect face. And there before her is her fallen one, and his fallen one.
"Hello my darling. Remi." Her gaze flits from Ronin to the alchemist and then back again. A warm sea breeze wraps around her, her elegance somehow made more obvious by the play of the wind. "I think it's about time we had a little chat."
Later, Ronin would be suspicious that their talk about gods and heroes had summoned Safrin, and he'd be more careful with his words. For now, however, there was very little he could do, and as the starshine on the water momentarily blinded them, something in the Dark Star's bones shuddered in warning. He sat up from Remi's lap and turned to face the ocean, to face Safrin in all her burning beauty, and gods but it hurt to look at her.
Not just physically either. One of Ronin's hands found Remi's, if for only a moment, and he swallowed hard. His previous encounter with the goddess had been sharp with grief and madness - how else could he have achieved all that he did, said all that he had? But the razor on the grief was blunted now, by time and by the warmth of the sands and day-to-day living with Remi. And the celestial thread in him, the one running through his core to keep his heart pumping... well, that certainly felt yanked right now.
"Leave him out of this. Please." The formality was tacked on out of nerves, and he glanced sidelong at Remi as if to ask if he wanted to stay or to try to leave.
It wasn't the first time the alchemist had stared at a god with thoughts of attacking them. His first meeting with Ludo had ended with his claws tearing at material suddenly unsatisfyingly empty. Knowing his efforts would be futile made them no less desirable though. Especially not with how she smiled so.
Ronin's hand was a distant anchor, but one his fingers responded to. As blue eyes found his, a sight so familiar he could do nothing else but smile despite himself, Remi rolled his shoulders. It's up to you. That sentiment unsaid, the alchemist looked past his counterpart towards the goddess. "Well I've nothing to say, so perhaps I should leave you two to it."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Safrin fixed the pair with a saccharine smile that was an intentionally poor veil to hide her dwindling frustration. "And here I thought those rings on your fingers meant better or worse." She pointed out, brow raised. "Which is precisely where you find yourselves."
Ignoring the look shared between the lovers, Safrin gave Remi a pointed look. "You might not, but I do. Perhaps though this first bit might be just Ronin and I. Don't go far." Despite this, it was actually Ronin and Safrin who disappeared.
The Dark Star would find himself in a void; a galactic soup of potential that swirled with aubergine hues amidst flashes of twilight. There was no up or down, no weight, no physicality to speak of. Just he and his goddess.
"Ronin." She didn't need to cross her arms, huff, or sigh dramatically; the world around them swam with her displeasure and disappointment.
Ronin found himself narrowing his eyes at his goddess, at her barbs and snark, though he refused to bite however much his temper flared and frothed at the implication. She had dropped them here, after all, with their daughter's corpse, and she wanted to point out that they were not their best? Good job, starmom. Before he could turn back to Remi to respond to him, the world melted away into a celestial mirage, and the hunter found himself swallowing a hard lump in his throat.
In the midst of this nowhere and nowhen, Safrin called his name - a scolding, a judgement, a call to action, and he found he didn't know where to look. So he simply kept his eyes forward, frozen in the moment. "What," he said flatly, though his thoughts were in turmoil. What do you want from me? Why are you here now? Why won't you leave me alone?
