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!
"What else is there?" Eloise raised a brow, though her eyes were still closed. She grinned a wide and white smile, looking entirely smug. "Clever girl." She hummed under her breath.
"They....got handsier than I'd like before I managed to get out of there." Eloise replied with an equal sort of casualness to her tone. Though given the subtle way she thought she could feel him tense beneath her and how he'd reacted to talk of Jack before, she thought perhaps she might leave the bit about mageglass out of the next round, if it came to that.
"I think I do...I was never allowed a pet, but I rather like the idea of a tiny predator on the ship with a mind of its own. They're great big fluffy things too, much larger than the cats I'm used to." It seemed....of the same sort of spirit to the woman Eloise was becoming.
Raising one of her arms and draping it across her face, she began to trail her fingers against his thigh, where the line of underwear would be, if Saiden ever bothered to wear any. "Your turn."
As Eloise praised Maea who Saiden had dealt with, he just smirked. "Why, legitimate business interests of course." The cook winked at the woman in his lap.
"So long as you got the better of them, that's all that mattered." Strangely enough, he sounded approving. Any fight she walked away from was a good fight, in his mind.
Nodding decisively, he grinned. "Let's get you a kitten then." He said it as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
As her fingers slid against his thigh, his breath hitched in his throat. His own hand shifted from stroking her hair to stroking her shoulder, tracing patterns against the tanned skin there. "I trained with a woman from Halo who used a scythe."
"Pfff, have you looked where we live now? All business interests here revolve around sex, murder, or theft." She said with a laugh.
Eloise absolutely hadn't gotten the better of them. Not by a fucking country mile. She's bamboozled them with magic and slipped through a gap in the Fingers too small for them to follow. She'd spent the night there, holed up and shivering in the cold. But she had her life, and her illusion magic to mask the rest of it.
"Mmm sure. Just pop down to a shop then." The illusionist said, eyes opening to give the cook a crooked smile. "Not like they're hard to come by or anything." Hence why she'd been dealing with the men she had in the first place.
If she heard his breath hitch, she gave no notice. Just a bit of...light petting between friends, of course. In reality though, Eloise couldn't help herself. She wanted to appear casual while at the same time riling Saiden right up. The pressure of her fingers increased by minuscule amounts as did her proximity to his inner thigh. As his hands found her shoulder, Eloise leaned her head back luxuriously into his lap, moaning a content note. "Halos the cold place right?" She wrinkled her nose again. "Why a scythe. Not like they've any wheat up there." Given that it was now her turn, Eloise pulled in an absolutely innocent breath. "I think I'd like to have sex with Raza."
"Smuggling." Tone smug, Saiden laughed as easily as Eloise did. "The goods are already acquired, so it's just a function of transporting them from one point to the other." Grinning broadly, he raised his eyebrows at her, almost daring her to pick apart his logic.
However, his eyes narrowed as she continued speaking. "Giving up so easy? That's not like you." There was a gentle concern in his voice.
Nodding at her question, he shifted to massaging her shoulder. His fingers were slow and soft at first, though he increased the pressure at the same rate she did. "Something about wanting to catch her opponents off guard." He shrugged.
His eyes widened when she mentioned wanting to have sex with Raza. Then he smirked. "Who doesn't want to have sex with Raza?" Expression still wicked, he bent forward, face hovering over hers. "I let a man bite me, and it basically gave me an orgasm."
"Smuggling." Eloise repeated with a laugh. "Right, of course. Silly of me to have lumped that in with theft."
Sighing a tough, the illusionist made a non-committal gesture. "Not giving up, just pointing out it isn't as simple as walking into Haulani and asking for one." That, and with Jack's latest warning red in her mind, Elo wasn't exactly willing to risk her life just to secure herself a companion. Not when she could hardly take care of herself.
Moaning a sound of understanding—or more likely, just reacting to his fingers—Eloise grinned broadly. "Well if that's the case, maybe you could joi—" Words cut off as he neared, her inhale suddenly stuck in the back of her throat, her mind vacillated wildly between the nearness of his lips and the words they were saying.
Cheeks flushing, Eloise gave a nervous laugh. "Wait..like...you came in your pants like some adolescent child? All because someone bit you?" Eloise tried to push a strand of hair from her face. "I've bit you plenty of times. I must be out of practice."
Saiden grinned disarmingly. "Not all illicit activities are theft, sex, or murder related." Voice cheerful, he winked down at Eloise.
However, his playfulness faded into something much more comfortable and affectionate. "So?" With his free hand he lifted her chin so they were staring into each other's eyes. "You are Eloise Teralux. And I've never seen you fail in the end once you set your mind to something." He smiled. "So we will get you that cat." There wasn't a hint of doubt in his words.
Fingers still massaging her shoulder, he leaned just a little bit further down, tantalizingly close. "What was that?" He spoke in a wicked whisper, clearly pleased to have elicited such a reaction from her.
"Mmmm. I think it was magic or something. He drank my blood, and it felt incredible." His fingers slid across her skin, teasingly pulling the strap of her bra. "I supposed we could test your out of practice theory, though." Although his tone was suggestive, he wasn't insistent. Reaching up with his other hand, he slid the hair she was fiddling with out of the way, then captured her fingers with his own.
'Well we've not reached the end," Eloise quipped back defiantly, scrunching her nose playfully at him as he lifted his chin. "So don't discount my efforts yet." Hearing him say it like that, especially like that, did make her want to succeed if only to show that, issues of Jack aside, she was still in charge of her own life.
"Mmmmm." Eloise all but purred, letting her head tilt back over his leg that he might have full access to her shoulders, and of course anything else. That's what was in between friendship, was it not? "Said maybe you could join Raza and I. Not quite sure I feel like sharing your fingers right at this moment though." She replied, her voice like honey; stretched out and sweet in response to his ministrations.
Cracking an eye up at him, not wanting to draw attention to the movement of her clothing lest it stop him, the illusionist snapped her teeth up at him. "There is a lot of you to bite. Maybe I just never found the right spot." Lacing her fingers in his, easy as anything, Eloise felt the familiar clench of worry and anticipation grip at her heart. Silently she looked up at him, feeling at once so at ease draped over him as she was with his hands on her, and yet so utterly uncertain at the same time.
Grinning a bit stupidly, Saiden nodded at Eloise’s statement. ”Wouldn’t dream of it.” He was inordinately pleased to hear it, and he shifted his hand from her chin to her cheek so he could stroke it with his thumb.
Laughing brightly at her comment, he moved to massage both shoulders, his fingers seeking out every knot he could find and easing them. ”Good thing you’ve got me all to yourself, then.” He smirked down at her, skillful hands continuing to rub her tense shoulders
”What’s stopping you?” Voice a suggestive whisper, he let go of her hand so he could pull down both straps of her bra, though not fully. Instead, his fingers ghosting teasingly across the skin he'd just exposed, even as his lips continued to hover just above hers.
'Sure, until some naive idiot pops down here to make a wish." Eloise said in a voice just a shade too bright given the blush on her cheeks and the nearness of him. Though just who she was trying to fool, she rightly didn't know.
She ought to wriggle away, to push him off and say something about bad breath; something for them to laugh off and cut the tension. But she didn't. Warmth spread like liquid fire through her belly and inner thighs, and she actively had to keep herself still lest she clench her legs together in an effort to cull that particular burn.
Her expression in response to his question was simultaneously suggestive and sad. Breathing out an unapproved note of need, her brows wavered slightly as her lips parted unbidden. "Well, if I start biting you, you might stop touching me." Eloise whispered, breathless, her head raising off his leg ever so slightly.
Saiden cocked his head to one side, eyes smoldering. "Let em watch." Arching an eyebrow at Eloise, he made a show of looking around. "There's no one in sight, though."
Then he grinned. "Besides, you could always hide us from view if you were really concerned." His voice was deeply amused. His grin broadened as he felt the waves of tension course through her body under his hands.
As she lifted up though, a little whine escaped his throat, unbidden. Still he took advantage of the situation, sliding one hand behind her back to work at the knot that held the strips of cloth she called a bra together. The other reached up to brush her hair away from ear so he could lean down to whisper in it. "I won't stop until you tell me too." Breath hot, he turned his head so he could kiss her cheek, as tender and chaste as the kiss he'd pressed to her forehead earlier.
"Might be a bit distracted. You're a lot to hide, after all." Her words were hardly more than rough etchings of air over her lips. But it didn't matter, the words were just a bluff anyway, to see who would call first, who would raise.
The tie that held her bra together gave way instantly; it was little more than paperclips at this point. Turning her cheek against his as she felt the puff of his words against her ear, the air in her lungs escaped her lips in a small puff. The hand of hers still on the rock at her side moved to tangle into his hair, her fingers curling at the far too gentle sensation of his lips against her cheek. "Won't stop what?" She whispered, back arching slightly to press herself closer to where he hovered over her.
Laughing at Eloise's comment, Saiden nodded smugly. "Yes, I'm so big." Wearing a shit-eating grin, voice gleefully teasing, he cupped her cheek affectionately.
Pulling the bra off completely , he slid one hand down her now bare skin, fingers brushing against her nipple. His other hand still remained on her upper back, supporting her weight as his nails dug into her just slightly.
At her question, he hummed, mouth still against her skin. Shifting slightly, he nuzzled against her neck before lifting his lips to her ear again. "Touching you." It came out more as a growl than as words, and he nipped at her earlobe at the end of it. Then he kissed his way from her ear across her cheek to her lips. It started soft, but soon enough his teeth were biting down on her lower lip.
Eloise' exhale was shaky at best, desperate at worst, as Saiden relieved her of her top. Her body rose easily to meet him, eyelashes fluttering closed that his skin against her nipple might resonate all the more keenly in her mind. And oh gods, did it ever. It wasn't as though Eloise hadn't been with anyone else as of late, she absolutely had and hadn't tried to hide but, but no one knew her quite the way Saiden did. No one touched her this way.
Her lips parted though nothing came out as his teeth found her ear. Whatever clever retort about her being the one to bite him dissolved as her body shivered. Just before his lips pressed against hers, she found her fingers tense in his hair, the hand on his thigh falling to a halt. Say no, say no, say no her mind screamed, but the second his lips touched hers, soft and decadently familiar, she felt her willpower breaking like a poorly constructed dam. He was a master of water, after all.
Gasping softly against him, her nails in his hair replicating the pressure of his teeth against her lip, she thrust herself forwards and up in his grasp. She wanted so much more of him; both wanting his teasing but also wanting to take control. It made her putty in his hands, this constant tug of war back and forth.
Moaning as she arched up to meet him, Saiden's fingers continued to dance across Eloise's breast, fingers rubbing and pinching at her nipple. The hand on her back slid up her body to tangle in the hair at the base of her neck. As her hand tightened in his own hair, he used his grin to deepen the kiss, tongue and teeth hungry to taste every part of her mouth.
Breaking off the kiss, he just stared down at her for a moment that seemed to last forever. "Gods you're beautiful." It wasn't seductive or sensual, just a sort of breathless wonder that she was his, even if it was just for now.
With that, he leaned down again, kissing and biting his way down her neck hard enough to bruise. He wanted to mark her, wanted her to know that no matter how far she might stray, no matter how long it would take, he'd always be a part of her and she him.
