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!
Despite the similar settings, this is a far more somber get together than the other one on the beach, with no food, the games quiet, subdued, much like the people. Despite being in Caido this time last year, Nate had never actually made his way to the Festival of Lights before, had never made lanterns, never hung them.
Now he walks in with two clutched in his hands. Both of them are rough, Nate not used to making such delicate things. One is made of silver braided wires, shards of sea glass wrapped in it and refracting the light of the candle held up within. The other one is darker, thin twigs bound together, hiding instead of highlighting the candle light. Maea, and his brother. Maybe it would bring some actual closure.
There’s nothing he can really say in response the the awkward words, though that’s not going to stop him trying. ”Maybe next year you won’t have any.” Then a smile, a bump of his shoulder as Nate tries to offer some small comforts. Some hope, for the coming year. He’s glad Sunjata takes the lead, tells him where to hang the lanterns, because he’d be lost without it.
Even after his talk with Jigano, after the pre-festival gathering, after staring at the rough lantern he’d made and thinking about the past… he wasn’t really ready. This might not have been his festival, his world, his god, but it carried enough of the same meaning to make his walk through the portal from the Grounds a solemn one. The ache in his chest wasn’t just for the loss of his sister, as old an sorrow as that was. He might have released a lantern for his family the last time he’d visited the coast, but this night would be reflection for what he’d lost inside himself, as well.
Never had he felt so alone as when he arrived at the torch-lined beach. Being amongst strangers wasn’t such an odd thing, not with his lifestyle, but he’d always shared something with those strangers. A culture, shared stories, shared troubles. Here, on Caido, these people might as well have been creatures from the stars. Even when they were just as alien to this world as he was.
With an aching heart, hollow with a loneliness he was only half-heartedly trying to talk himself out of, he carried his lantern to the Festival. It was a simple box of sky blue paper and delicate wood, the small candle balanced inside as Jigano had instructed. On the paper was painted the outlines of jewel-colored feathers. Red, purple, yellow, and a darker blue. He’d looked through the paper with a light behind it, just to get an idea of what it would look like when the taper was lit, and the outlines had become shadows, nearly black as the paper turned to smoke. Even more fitting, for a raven fledgling who’d spent so much time collecting the feathers of other birds.
He’d brought a decent-sized branch along, stripped of all but the strongest couple of arms. Finding a relatively uncrowded patch of the beach, he jammed the branch into the ground and twisted until it was deep enough to stand on its own. Then, with much more care, he hooked the lantern on the longest arm via the string he’d tied across the top. Lighting it was another challenge and he nearly burnt himself and the thin paper trying, but the effect when he managed it was just as he expected. Hints of bright colors turned nearly black with the gold and green of flame seen through blue paper. Like raven feathers beneath summer leaves. An unexpected effect that made him smile ruefully. With a sigh. He dropped down to sit beside his lantern, one hand on the branch, the other draped over a raised knee.
She trails in like a wraith, a single lantern held within her hands. Dark bruises are pressed beneath her tired eyes, and her normally loose and flowing hair is knotted atop her crown. Each step feels like an uphill battle, and the gathered crowd only makes her feel sick. Still she does not let herself falter. This is one of the last things she can do for her son, and Hotaru will not allow herself to fail.
Her hands tremble against the lantern as she holds it, but her gaze is steady if perhaps a bit deadened as it stares ahead. Ignoring all the familiar faces around her she instead seeks out an empty branch, and takes a moment as she stands beneath the darkened boughs to stare down at what she has made. A beautiful collage of coppers and blues, a lovingly crafted glass enclosure and the lightning scorch marks her magic had left on the metal portions. Decorated with bones, shells, and other beautiful things she'd managed to find in nature to reflect Ru'in's soul. It is cold in her palms, because for all it may represent him, it is not her son. She will never be able to lay her hand upon his warm cheek, will never even know firsthand what he had looked like in this world.
Tears slide down her face despite her unblinking, vapid facade. Gentle fingertips trace the whirls of copper embedded in the glass, wishing she could have changed things. "I will always love you, my son." Her voice is a wretched whisper, eyes finally falling closed, lashes dripping with her tears as she fights to keep her composure among these many eyes. "Until the Gods let us meet again."' And she can't even say it confidently, for his soul is still lost and suffering, and Hotaru is not strong enough to reclaim it. A failure of a mother.
Lifting the lantern she hangs it upon the sturdiest branch she can find, the light within flickering warmly. She stares up at it somberly, wrapping her arms around herself in silent vigil. Unable to celebrate his memory when she feels the loss so keenly still.
my heart bends and breaks
so many, many times
HOTARU
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
This was harder than Ronin had expected it to be. He walked quietly by as they headed onto the beach, his hand in Seren's as they looked for a place to hang their lanterns. "I think maybe here," he murmured to them both, having paused beside where one of the canopies had been set up, posts driven into the ground with strings hanging between them for the lanterns to be placed.
Leaning down, he scooped Seren up into his arms so she could hang her lantern... which was about the time when he saw Loren across the way. Wordlessly, his free arm went around Remi, a silent touch, a reminder, an invitation to lean into the comfort of what they had rather than the anger that lay beneath the surface. For both of them.
everything i knew is turning into ruins in your shadow
That Loren thought that the festival would protect him, would serve as some excuse, was precisely the sort of wrong-headedness that Remi expected of him. Even as Ronin's arm twined around his waist, the alchemist stiffened as his eyes locked upon the far too recognizable silhouette of the summoner, stood next to the captain.
Remi's snarl was punctuated by fangs as he brutishly shrugged off his husband's embrace and stalked through the torchlight towards the Launceleyn. "YOU—" He bellowed, his voice carrying easily across the sands. Wings sprouted from his sides bathed in literal fire as his eyes narrowed to mere slits of rage. It was Loren after all who'd cast the ice that ultimately killed Aoife, and while causation wasn't always linked to blame, on this night of all nights, Remi didn't need the reminder of the frigid spear that had left him scarred and childless.
"GET OUT." He roared, reckless fury tunnelling his vision as his heart ran away at an unhappy speed.
Halo had its own fucking festival and if they didn't? The Grounds did. And if they didn't? Well Loren could have his own little sad candle-lighting ceremony of his own. The Alchemist didn't care.
THE ALCHEMIST
i thought that i'd be ready but falling isn't steady once you let go
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
As the familiar voice came screaming across the sands, Loren whirled to face it. Immediately, he held up his hands, though whether he was trying to placate Remi or fall into a more defensive posture, even the healer couldn't say. Fur rippled along his arms for a moment before he grabbed a tight grip on his emotions.
"Okay. I'm going." Tone low and soothing, he started to back away as quickly as he could without tripping. Entirely unwilling to turn his back on the Alchemist, he put enough distance between them that he felt safe. Then he shifted into a goose and took to the sky, winging towards the portal as quickly as he could.
Melita marched down to the beach, missing the entire dramatic spectacle (might’ve caught a glimpse of goose feathers in the twilight sky), but any notion of worry or trepidation had long since left her. While Fangorn wandered at her side, distracted by the mystical lights and the games openly played beyond shores and sand, the youth’s hands were full. Both palms held lanterns – one for Coffee, one for Apricum – melded and molded together to resemble portions of the now-gone companions (wood blackened, stripped a little by fire for the dragonling, bare-bones, skeletal birch branches made to look like Apricum’s structure).
It might’ve been the slowest she’d ever walked, careful and precise, having already lit the candles within the lanterns, permitting them to glow in an eerie sort of ambience as they grew closer and closer. Her eyes went to hordes of lanterns already ready for Adam and Peter, meandering down to those, and ensuring hers laid underneath the other hanging ventures, so they were all together again at last.
I don’t have a lantern in hand; Mum died when I was a kid, I don’t remember her well, and Dad was a shitty drunk, where the best thing I could say about him was at least he didn’t try to touch me. But the lanterns are always beautiful and it’s a chance to see people I don’t usually see day-to-day. The people I grew up with. In fact, I’m chatting flirting shamelessly with a man who’s hung a lantern for his dead wife when Remi’s voice screeches across the sand.
I stand up suddenly and take a look at the Governor, eyes narrowing. Loren flees the scene and rather than go and check on Remi (he has Ronin, and I’m not willing to publicly head over to him yet), I just make sure that everyone around me is remaining chill before sitting back down and turning my attention to the man - but he seems to have disappeared.
Well, fuck.
Taking my bottle of mamajuana with me, I begin to wander the beach.
Ronin's voice was low and exasperated as he was shrugged off without a care, the Dark Star unable to do much with Seren in his arms. But luckily for him, he had plenty of tricks up his sleeves. And so it was his projection that headed after his husband, leaving the real deal to finish hanging both of their lanterns while trying to reassure Seren.
Loren was already taking wing when the projection arrived, Ronin gazing sternly at the Alchemist with his arms at his sides, starlight flickering within him like he possessed a lantern of his own. "Don't you dare make this about him," he said of Loren. "This is for Aoife. Not for him."
I am magnet for all kinds of deeper wonderment Destined to seek, destined to know
She hung her lantern next to the other one meant for Aoife, and was busy admiring them both together when something in the mood around her shifted. Father was reaching for Remi, but he was charging off, screaming at... Loren?
The outburst was so sudden and unlike anything she had ever seen Remi do. Startled and perhaps even a bit frightened, Seren clutched herself tighter to her father. "Why is he so angry?" she asked, alarmed.
I am a princess on the way to my throne Destined to reign, destined to roam
✰ Starlight (Passive) | Starfilled night billow around her like a veil as she moves. It is more noticeable in daytime and when she make sudden movements.
everything i knew is turning into ruins in your shadow
The Alchemist wanted to tear the Launceleyn's throat out if only to stop his pathetic attempts at soothing. That he left without a fight was only more indication in Remi's mind that Loren knew he shouldn't be here, but he fucking came anyways. He could easily have taken wing and beaten Loren to the portal or shot him down with any amount of magic. It was only Ronin's appearance at his side that halted further assault.
Rounding on his husband, a whirlwind of anger still making his thoughts chaotic, it was a second or two before the fire died down around him and he started to see properly again. Ronin was right of course, but Remi hadn't the heart to agree with him just then. Not with his heart still on its runaway track.
Looking at Ronin with eyes like dark steel, Remi swallowed unsteadily, still not able to voice the things he likely needed to say. "Give me a minute." He mumbled eventually, stalking off into the darkness towards the sea.
THE ALCHEMIST
i thought that i'd be ready but falling isn't steady once you let go
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The Festival of Light was a sacred time of remembrance and honoring those who had passed in the previous years. While shouting occurred along the shoreline, Delphia paid little attention. Let others make fools of themselves, drowning in anger when the winds of change were waiting and willing to fill their lungs with peace.
With eyes closed, her mother's lantern in her hands, Delphia walked through the festival. Spirits whispered in her ears, guiding each step. The daughter of death followed willingly, engrossed in the healing nature of this event. Her mother had loved it so - seeing the mourning rejoice in the memories of their loved ones - there were few better ways to honor Mort. Only when the spirits left her did she open her eyes. Before her was an empty branch upon the lantern tree, facing out towards the ocean. Her mother had always loved the ocean.
Smiling she hung her mother's lantern up, loose fabric ends billowing like Ludo's cloak, rune stones adorning the top. "My dearest mother, who gave form to the life Mort gave me, who raised me so well to serve my father's purpose. I know you rest well and rejoice in this time like you always have." she said softly, though no tears fell down her cheeks like others. She was happy on this day.
She makes the lanterns every year. It is not about wishing for them to return, but simply about remembering them as they deserve. It is a time to talk about them, not that she doesn’t all year. Still, it feels different. It feels important, to make sure their lanterns are part of the display. They deserve at least this much.
Weaver is surprised as Korbin appears, coming to stand beside her. This, the two of them and three lanterns, is as complete as their family will ever get. ”You came,” she says, clearly pleased that he actually left Halo. ”So, do you hate it?” she asks, giving him a playful grin. Right now, she expects him to just hate everything, but maybe at some point he’ll learn to see the world as she does. As Straia would have taught him to, had she lived long enough (though perhaps this is the real problem). There is always more to something than meets the eye, Straia would have said.
She’s debating taking Korbin around to introduce him to some of the others here, but then Remi’s voice cuts through the festival with such startling force that she does nothing. Weaver turns her attention to watch what happens between him and Loren. ”Well fuck,” she mutters, loud enough for Korbin to hear, the solemnity of the moment killed by that particular display. She knew they were not on good terms, but that was certainly far more than she expected. Perhaps she ought to ask Loren for details the next time they spoke. He’d left something out.
And round about his home the glory That blushed and bloomed,
Her presence was all he needed, anymore. As long as Weaver was there, he would be alright. Korbin draped an arm about her shoulders, and offered his sister a lopsided grin, wry but with true humor glinting in his dark eyes. A rarity, these days, and reserved just for her.
"Of course I hate it," he retorted, deep voice playful for all the truth of his words, "it's too warm. I don't get why -"
But he interrupted what he had been about to say when shouting erupted further off. Frowning, he saw Loren be chased off by a burly looking stranger, turned goose and flapping away like his life depended on it. Judging by the rage in the man's voice, perhaps it might, at that.
"What was that about?" he mumbled, half asking Weaver. Still scowling, as much for the interruption in the solemn festivitie - how tactless, to subject others to your own grievances on a night like this - as for the threat issued towards a Halo citizen.
Loren might be an outlander, but he was their outlander.
Is but a dim-remembered story Of the old time entombed.
