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!
Remi lay on the sands, arms outstretched, clothed only in a pair of shorts. There was a strip of cloth on his forehead to keep his curls from his eyes, his lips sunburned and pink as were his cheeks. The sun was relentless, but having been in Torchline long enough to develop a tolerance for it, there were only a few beads of sweat that dripped from his brow towards his closed lashes and that sparkled on his stomach.
The alchemist was still, save for one hand which cycled through picking up sand, grinding it between his fingers until it was gone and then repeating. The world felt empty and far away and for the time being, Remi was content to let it. Losing himself in the heat and the relentless thrum of the waves on the shore seemed as good a way to spend an afternoon as anything.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
She is only mildly used to the sun, but her skin has tanned slightly (which is to say it is not ghostly white, anymore), and her nose has stopped being constantly red. It is usually just a nice pink, along with her cheeks. She’d traded for a light-weight, long-sleeved shirt to allow her to wander in the sun, and had generally taken to not wearing shoes anywhere she could possibly get away with it. This was the luxury she most loved; bare feet. It was not a luxury one ever got to enjoy in Halo.
Torchline appealed to her in a way the Grounds had not. She and her brother had gone to the Grounds to trade, to see what had been happening. Weaver found herself just wandering Torchline with no goals, no plans, just pleasure. It was an absolute waste of time that grated against her Halovian sensibilities of survival, and yet, here she was. Enjoying herself.
She’s wandering along the coast when a form, lying supine in the sand before her, comes into view. For a moment she thinks about skirting around him and leaving him be, but something stops her, and she makes her way a little closer before speaking. ”Care if I join you?” Because honestly, that looks like a damn fine way to spend an afternoon.
Without opening his eyes, Remi pulled in a breath. Were he another sort of man, hearing the voice of a woman at his side in what might look to some like paradise, might have made him sit up and flash her a charming smile. Remi was, with angelic-like wings if he wanted them and a body hardened by life into muscle and scars, the type to fit such a trope. Instead though, he merely nodded as he exhaled the breath he'd been holding.
"I mind very little these days." He answered in a voice thickly accented. That she was on the side of him where he was grinding away at the sand with one hand, Remi smoothed out the small mound he'd been making and instead folding his hands on his stomach, directly over the massive mound of scar-tissue that collected below his sternum.
Cracking a lazy eye towards Weaver and getting enough of a glimpse of her to realize he didn't know her, Remi hummed thoughtfully under his breath. "What brings you to Torchline? I haven't seen you around before." Pleasant though the sound of his voice might be, it was anything but a line.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
She has a pretty good sense for men that are interested and men that aren’t. There are a few reasons that he doesn’t bother to open his eyes that come to mind. One, he’s just really enjoying his nap in the sun. Two, he’s an asshole (but his response and the tone of his voice suggest this is not the case). Three, she just doesn’t do it for him. And in this instance she can assume it’s not just her, because he hasn’t even looked at her. Which is entirely fine. She simply likes to know what she is dealing with before walking into a situation. It changes things, or at least, her behavior, if she has a guess.
His voice is thick, accented, and either it’s a Torchline accent she hasn’t run into or Outlander. She doesn’t know enough about this place to be sure, and truthfully, she doesn’t care. Outlander or not, she’s always just more curious to know what they know, what sort of questions she can ask. Currently, she is just curious about him, the somewhat cryptic reply, the way he folds his hands over a scar. That’s the sort of thing she won’t ask about, because she hides her own scar beneath a shirt and a braid, even if the act of hiding is more habit than anything else.
”The sun,” she says, sitting down a polite distance beside him, propping herself up on her elbows with her toes digging into the sand, making little holes to bury her feet. ”The sand. Curiosity. No good reason.” She says with a shrug, letting her head fall back and closing her eyes against the sun. ”I’m Weaver,” she adds.
"You know, you can find the sun anywhere." Remi comments with a dry smile, cracking an eye open again and turning one un-shaven cheek into the sand to look at her. His sea-glass stare is softly inquisitive but not impolite. 'Those all sound like fine reasons to me." Remi agreed after a moment, before extending a hand towards her. If taken, she'd find his grip strong and his hands well-calloused from the work he did. "Remi." He introduced with a crooked smile, the gentle and kind man he was once flashing through for just a moment before he turned his eyes out towards the sea.
Overhead a noisy squall of birds flew, before descending onto the beach likely looking for scraps. Narrowing his eyes at them, his irises changing from sea-glass green to a predatory amber, he suddenly grinned before glancing back towards Weaver. "Ever walked on water?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Not like this,” she says with a contented sigh. Sun in Halo was not like this. It wasn’t warm, it was often blinding, and she couldn’t just laze in the snow beneath its rays. The Grounds was closer to this, but it lacked something fundamental to simply relaxing. Perhaps it was the sound of the ocean’s waves, crashing against the shore nearby, that gave Torchline an edge. Perhaps it was Torchline’s lack of ruins and the ravages of war. Perhaps it was a little bit of both.
She grins though as he says they are fine reasons, her smile a real thing, pleased and pleasant. Taking his hand, she returns his firm grip, her own calluses evident. They come from the knives around her waist, or the scythe that is unusually absent from her person today, and the years of hard work in Halo. She can appreciate a hand made of tough skin and good calluses.
She follows his gaze to the birds that land on the beach, though she is unable to see the way his eyes change from her current position. ”Only if walking on ice counts. Otherwise no, because everything is frozen where I come from.” Honestly, she is both fascinated and fearful of the sea. It is beautiful and it is deadly, and she has little experience with anything like it.
Remi chuckles slightly at that, a genuine sound not often heard by anyone save for Ronin. Murder will do that to a man. "Well then I suppose what I've got to offer will seem very mundane to you indeed." His grin suggested it might just be completely the opposite, however.
Standing with surprising elegance given that Remi looked like he tossed around bags of sand all day, he turned his back to the sea to look at where the flock of Hels were eating some fried fish left near a trash can. Whistling a low note and compelling the creatures to him, four began to waddle their way over.
"These fine trash-eating specimens are called Hels. Rather flighty bastards that can leave you in quite the lurch if you aren't careful. But if you are, you can do this." Holding out a hand so that one of the birds could jump into it, Remi began to walk backwards towards the water. His sea-glass stare never left Weaver, not even as his heel touched a wave and then walked atop it.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Color her curious. It is clear he’s got something entertaining in mind, and she’s always up for a new adventure. It’s the sort of thing that’s probably going to get her killed one of these days, but at least she’ll go out doing something epic (hopefully). He stands, all muscle and grace, and though she’s pretty sure he’s not interested in her that doesn’t mean she doesn’t appreciate the look of him, the ripple of muscle beneath skin.
She sits, wrapping an arm around one bent knee, watching as he whistles to the nearby birds. Hels, something she has not heard of and cannot recall a fairy story that might even fit the bill. There were plenty of fairy stories and tall tales suddenly coming true with the portals opened, but walking on water wasn’t something they really talked about in Halo. They just talked about learning how to tell where the ice was too thin to tread.
As he talks, one bird now perched on his arm, he walks backward and on to the water. Her smile turns to a broad, excited grin. Weaver gets to her feet with a slight bounce, sticks out an arm, and looks between him and the bird. ”So how do you get it to jump on your arm?” she asks, wondering if it was magic or luck, or a little bit of both. Because she absolutely wants to come play.
The alchemist smiles a wide and crooked smile as he retreats further. Water ripples over his bare toes, but only as if he were standing in a shallow puddle despite the fact that the water must be about 2 feet deep beneath him. "Why as with most things in life, you ask nicely." Remi replied with a boyish chuckle.
"You there, if you'd kindly find your way onto the lovely Weaver's arm, that'd be most appreciated." So saying, with no small amount of magical compulsion of course, the bird did as asked. Waiting for her to join him, Remi turned to gaze out at the sea. They moved as if on board a ship with the waves undulating softly beneath their feet. "The birds have quite a habit of staying with you just long enough that you can't swim back to shore, before suddenly flying away." Remi said, almost casually if just commenting about the weather. "It's probably what keeps some of the larger sea creatures fed, I should think."
Walking farther out, Remi turned to see what impression this might have upon Weaver, if any at all.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
She can’t help but laugh as he politely asks the bird to jump onto her arm. The laugh is quiet, contained, though it’s clear it would be a loud and wild thing like the girl it comes from if she didn’t stop herself. She doesn’t want to startle the Hel though and have it fly away too early. Maybe his magic would keep the bird from startling, but based on his next sentence, she assumes at some point it’s going to get sick of her and leave her to drown. Might as well not have that happen too soon.
”So stick to the shallows, got it,” she says with a grin, taking a hesitant step into the water. Her feet don’t sink, and her face lights with a childlike glee. It’s a version of Weaver that’s not often seen, the version of Weaver that belongs to her brothers. Well, brother, now. Though Remi, in some small way, reminds her of Erebor, and maybe that is why he so easily finds her childhood self. ”I do think I’d like to pass on being dinner for sea monsters today, if possible.”
Weaver follows, refusing to look back at the shore that creeps farther away, though she is keenly aware of all the water around her and the fact she doesn’t know this man. Maybe he’s trying to feed her to a pet sea monster. It’s possible. Yet she can’t help but venture out after him, tempted by his bravery and the sheer joy of walking on water. Most days she found herself thankful for the ability to leave Halo, but today of all days, she is overly thrilled. ”Do you do this often?” she asks, toes wiggling in the waves a bit, enjoying the impossible feel of it beneath her.
"I'll do my utmost to make sure that doesn't happen." The alchemist counters with a smile as sunny as her own, and equally displaced. He can't see the rarity of her glee of course, can't appreciate it for what it is and how rare a thing it is to see, but he can return it just the same. In his own way, at least.
"No, actually." He says almost casually as if just remembering something. Crinkling his nose slightly as he looks up towards the cloudless sky, Remi lets himself grin again. "Normally I fly, should I need to come out this far." He explains. "And even then, it isn't usually for the most pleasant of reasons." Murdering men on sinking ships, for example. "This is quite a nice change of pace, really."
Pressing down with his toes, the alchemist marvels at how sturdy the waves feel. He couldn't collapse beneath them even if he tried, and yet they continue to undulate beneath him. 'So being from Halo then, what brings you to our sandy shores? Other than their lack of Neron and snow?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
She finds she believes him, this stranger, when he says he will try not to let her become seafood.
Which is foolish, trusting in strangers in a strange place, with a Hel on her shoulder as she walks on water. But then again, of all the strange things that have happened to her only recently, believing that a stranger doesn’t mean to kill her is pretty low on the list.
Normally I fly, he says, and she looks him up and down just checking for evidence of wings. There was none, and besides, he was far too large to be Fae. ”Attuned? Or some sort of magic?” she asks, not necessarily assuming Abandoned. After all, he could have a belt made of bird feathers that allowed him to fly. This was Caido, after all, and most anything was possible. ”Perhaps you ought to enjoy a vacation,” she suggests, knowing what he means that not everything is for pleasant reasons (in concept, and not specifics of course), though she finds plenty of pleasant things in this life.
She bobs with the waves, head moving slightly up and down, and the rhythmic sensation of it is so strange, lulling almost. A light chuckle escapes her as he mentions the lack of Neron. In truth, she doesn’t necessarily mind him, but this may only be because she does not know him and he hasn’t done anything particularly bad to Halo yet. ”Ah, I told you, the sun,” she says with a playful grin. ”Honestly, that’s really about the best answer I have. Curiosity. Warmth. A change of scenery. I really do lack any particular reason.” Maybe she was on vacation.
'Attuned.' Remi agreed with a nod. He's more than that, but despite the change in personality the death of his daughter has brought upon him, humbleness is something one does not easily move away from. And with his magic acting ever more strangely, it hardly seems worth mentioning. Laughing a touch at this, for a moment making him appear boyish and perhaps young, the alchemist shakes his head. "I can't say I've ever had a vacation. I'm not sure I'm suited for that much spare time." Indeed, not unlike certain types of dogs, the alchemist has a tendency towards the destructive when left too long with nothing to occupy his mind.
Humming a touch at this as they stroll further out, Remi glances back towards Weaver. Looking her over as for the first time, his eyes cascading down her body, his brows furrow slightly as his gaze finally raises. "You're quite beautiful." He notes, though there is no heat or suggestion in his tone. "It's a dangerous thing here, to be a beautiful woman." This, is sadly rather sadly. It isn't that she doesn't look capable or able to take care of herself, but Torchline has a way of catching you off guard just when you think you're safe, and Remi finds he'd rather risk her thinking he's being patronizing than seeing her dead in an alley the next morning.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
She chuckles with him. ”Vacations don’t have to be dull,” she says, as if there is really an option for vacationing in Caido. For her there is - she could just come to Torchline and find something to entertain herself with. For him though? If Torchline is home, then would life just be like a constant vacation? ”There is always something fun to do.” Something fun meaning something nefarious, probably, or simply unseemly. Or someone to do. Options, ya know?
Weaver’s eyes wander, taking in the ocean, the impossible vastness of something other than the endless tundra of Halo. It is so blue, sky and ocean both, instead of the gray and white she knows. His voice brings her back to him, and she smiles slightly at the comment. Pleased at being called beautiful, yes (though not overly so, for admittedly she is not humble in this regard and she knows what she looks like), but for more than that. Some because she thinks he’s trying to warn her, to be kind, though maybe she is misinterpreting. And some because she is more capable than she appears.
”It is a good thing I am a dangerous woman, then,” she says with a grin so much like her mother’s in that moment. ”My mother believed in raising children that understood the world as it is, both it’s good and its bad. I will not forget the warning, though.” Because she won’t take the advice lightly, either. That is how one dies, by being overconfident, being flippant in the face of reality. Reality was cruel.
”What do you do here, to keep busy?” she asks after a moment’s pause. If he is not one for being idle, she cannot help but be curious as to what keeps him occupied.
