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!
At first he had disliked this shrine. He had disliked the way that Wessex and her Ascended had placed it within Halo's hallowed mountains, without permission, without his involvement, without the knowledge of the majority of the people who lived in the icy clutches of the tundra. But over time - especially recently - he had come to appreciate the furtive home for this Ascended goddess. Indeed, the more he knew about those who had taken on such a transformation, the more he could not help but be tempted by its pull.
A life under the thumb, that was his future. A puppet leader in a land wilder than any other. And behind closed doors, a Launceleyn through and through. It feathered his jaw as he stood before the shrine, his cold hands clenching. His own body betrayed him at the hands of the head of the family. Upbringing, habit, trauma, pain, pleasure...
It was driving him mad.
"I understand that you are called the Voice," he said, speaking softly in a voice that rang through the metallic hall. "If you deem it so, I would wish to speak with you please."
Well wasn't this an interesting twist of fate. We'll skip over the preamble of the Voice appearing—wisps of petrichor and sparks of electricity at her heel—and get right to the good part. The death of Neron Launceleyn that was. The ascension of the new man he might become.
Might being the operative phrase here.
"You know well what I'm called, Neron Launceleyn, and what it is I offer. I'll offer you the courtesy of not invading your thoughts and reading your motivations." She said simply, sat atop a pillar of stone that vibrated with electrical current.
Neron was lucky in that he had already experienced goddesses. He was also brought up a duke, and knew well his place and the necessary etiquette for those of a much higher station than himself. Bowing his head in a gesture of respect at the static charged appearance of the Voice, he awaited her response and felt a pang of respect that she allowed him to explain himself on his own terms.
"I imagine that you know my past already. My pact with the Eirachi - leadership of Halo in exchange for a first-born child." A child he both did and did not have. "And yet there are some things that she cannot give me. She cannot stop me feeling the cold or the heat. More importantly, she cannot stop me feeling pain. That sensation has been the root of the majority of the problems in my life."
He sighed deeply. "I love my family dearly, bright lady. I do not ever wish for that to be misconstrued. But they are complex and toxic, and I cannot remain bound to a past that does not serve me."
"I know much more of your past than that." The Voice concedes with a knowing (and perhaps dangerous) nod. Indeed, in recreating his presence here, she knows very well his history as a Launceleyn.
"And pleasures, no?" She asks, her head tilted slightly to the side, pupils dilating slightly, already knowing the answer.
"And so you would bind yourself to a future you cannot predict?" The Voice seems to scoff slightly at that, as if Neron were a small child who answered a problem too hastily. "A curse born into...a monarchy not of your choosing...family head after head...Eirachi...and now potentially, me."
Sitting up, chin lifted, the Voice appraises the hailstorm with an unreadable gaze.
"I may not be toxic Neron, but I can assure you this ... arrangement you seek would be anything but simple. Complexity is the spice of life after all, or so they say."
"I have little doubt of that," Neron murmured in response, and suddenly there were a dozen other questions on his tongue. Why bring him through at all? Why bring through Zariah with memories of their marriage, with a child? Why not bring him to the Hollowed Grounds like the others?
But such things were the past, and as he had already clarified, he did not wish to go there any longer. Indeed, his cheeks coloured slightly as she reiterated the truth - yes, and pleasures as well.
"I would bind myself to a future that I choose, bright lady," he said, straightening his back. "I did not choose my family name, or the monarchy I served beneath. I did not choose to come to Caido flung into the Tundra, or to make a deal with a being I did not understand to survive the night." He flicked steel eyes upwards, attempting to meet her gaze for the first time.
"I do not come to you blindly," he said. "I have met the Wraith. I have met the Queen of the Hollowed Grounds. Both have explained to me some of the nature of that which I ask."
"Oh, but you did Neron. You did, so that you would not die. But death is a choice, just as continuing to live beneath the dark gaze of your kin is a choice." The Voice replies with a subtle narrowing of her eyes. But Neron was no paladin, no lawful-good servant, and she recognized this easily. He'd do what was necessary to keep himself alive and to maintain the lifestyle he was used to.
"Some of my brightest children." She acknowledges with a nod. "You will have no doubt heard from Rexanna that your request is...not so easily granted. You with your abandoned blood, your knack for making deals when it suits you..." What would stop him from trying to arbitrate a new deal when he found himself no longer quite pleased with being a hybrid anymore? When the itch for pain overwhelmed him, when the need to feel again was unbearable?
'What was your curse before? Defy the orders of your monarchs and be engulfed by flames?"
04-02-2020, 07:28 PM (This post was last modified: 04-02-2020, 07:36 PM by Neron.)
the hailstorm
Neron could only nod in agreement with the Voice, unable to disagree with her points as they came. Death certainly was a choice, as she would well know with her abilities; death had been a choice he had been indeed considering, as an alternative to this.
"I have heard as much," he said; Rexanna had informed him proudly that she was one of a kind, in fact, and that it was not a feat easily achieved. He spread his hands. "My knack for making deals has kept me alive so far," he pointed out. "It has allowed me to help your children too, in their motivations."
He heard the implication in her words as she asked for clarification about this former curse, and a muscle feathered in his jaw. "Yes, I believe that was correct," he murmured.
The Voice let the banter slip away; it mattered little what Neron had or hadn't done in the past. Sure, he'd aided her children, but then again, who was he to stop them? Impervious to the cold and brutally strong, what would Neron have truly been able to do to thwart their efforts?
"To become an ascended has always been a choice for the accepted of this world. None are made unknowingly or without their consent. You already know what it is to be part of a family with motivations that do not align to your own...to be a cog in a larger wheel rolling towards a future you don't desire. But in many ways, what I offer and what Zariah and the other Launceleyns grasp for, is not so different. I offer power, family, security, and unimaginable potential and reach...for most, there is no price for being welcomed into my family, but not so for you, Neron Launceleyn."
Rising, her bare feet touching the icy ground, she moves towards him as if on air. Youthful but somehow also ancient and hard, she stares up at him without blinking. "But at least this time you have a choice, so here it is. I will make you into what it is you want. A man free of pain is one who cannot be manipulated by those who like to wield it. You'll be stronger and faster..and given your fair complexion, I take it you won't mind staying away from the sun as you have been." Reaching up a hand, she acts as if she means to stroke his cheek, though her hand stops short. "But hear this well, Neron Launceleyn. This is the last bargain you shall make regarding your future. Defy me and you shall wink out of existence faster than a—" the flat of her palm slams against the side of his face, sparks sizzling brightly from his skin.
A price? Just for him? Neron had to bite back the inevitable sass that tried to spill out. The Voice was not like anyone else in the world, and he would do well to learn to hold his tongue sooner rather than later. He had yearned for freedom for so long, and in truth what she was offering was anything but. However, it was a balm to the flaw that tied him so closely to Launceleyn machinations. Pain followed by soothing followed by pain... he would not heel to those masters any longer.
Her hand came up towards his cheek, Neron watching it out of the corner of his eye. He heard the goddess out in full, intending to ask one further question, but before he could respond her slap beat him to it, echoing loud and bright in the metallic cavern. The force of it turned his head, sending crackles of pain rocketing through his jaw and down his neck, and he near shivered with the sudden rush of adrenaline that came with it. Cheeks colouring, he resisted the urge to touch his burning skin.
"I understand," he said, the slightest tremor in his voice.
That he didn't immediately snarl and snap, that he held his tongue, that he hadn't begged for more or even less...perhaps Neron would see the future he was trying to preserve. Fantasy though the Northaven curse upon the Launceleyns might have been, Neron would find the justice of the Voice swift and quite real.
The opposite hand she'd used found his cheek, resetting his gaze and everything about him at the same time. Neron would feel his blood run hot and then brutally cold...and then seem to disappear altogether. The world around them blurred as she worked: upgrading his nervous system, removing superfluous parts and adding in the uniquely ascended traits that her children were known for. Where once Neron had always been cold to the touch, he was now perfectly room temperature. The need to breathe would disappear, just like the need to eat and relieve himself. His muscles were flushed of lactic acid, his senses heightened.
Stepping back, her eyes static-bright, she reached out to pinch one of his cheeks. He'd sense it only distantly, as his body continually scanned itself and provided updates. "You'll have to find a different way to see if you're awake or in a dream now, my bright one."
His cheek was still stinging when her hand found the opposite one, steel eyes locking on the small but somehow infinite goddess before him. Neron's lips parted to speak, only suddenly everything rushed through and out of him and the words would not come.
He saw the world around the Voice as a crackling blur, and felt an awareness of himself and his body and the magic that resided within it as something so present, in ways he had never been able to before. Heat and cold and numbness all followed, one after the other, until he felt lighter than ever before, more than, and whilst the physical sensations were far away, there was a deep sense of calm that resided within.
As the Voice stepped back, Neron's gaze seemed to snap back into focus, and he stood quietly, still, as if sensing his body's need to adjust. "Do Ascended dream?" he asked softly, feeling the points of fangs in his mouth as he formed the words. Her fingers pinching his cheek were registered but nothing more, and the very last of the tension he'd been carrying drained away. There was a thirst, though, a dragging need that he could not place.
Chuckling slightly at that, the Voice offered her newest creation a bemused smile. "They do indeed." She replied. "You are now so much more than ever you were before. Now all there is for you to do, is find that out for yourself."
Offering her hand forward as if she might have expected him to take it and press a kiss to it, not unlike he might have done during his days as a duke, she instead rotated it so that her wrist was facing up. "One last thing before you leave..." Quite sure that his instincts would take over, she'd allow him all the time he needed to drink and experience all that it entailed. Though sexual gratification was not something that came from drinking from her, still the feeling of being entirely satisfied in every way was surely not something the Hailstorm was used to experiencing.
It was strange, this reflex to want to breathe but only because not doing it felt so uncomfortable, so other, but Neron was sure he would get used to it in time. More pressing now was the other matter, and as his goddess lifted her hand and bared her wrist, his instincts would not disappoint. Taking her hand not unlike the kisses he might have delivered once as a duke, he pressed his mouth to her wrist and bit deeply, satiating for the first time a thirst he had never truly known; a thirst that predated his ascension by decades.
Drawing back, both body and mind singing with sensation, Neron didn't notice the ground meet his knees, and only as he gazed up at the goddess rather than down did he realise he had fallen. "Thank you," he murmured. "I will not disappoint." He could not afford to.
