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!
Delphine stood there, staring at her, and every instinct in her screamed to make herself small. "I... would have been just as bad of a mother if I'd left them home alone." She whispered, voice breaking.
But while Noah's tone was firm, stern, almost yelling but not quite yelling, it was... comforting. Kind. It was what she needed.
"You don't get to forget. You don't get to waste yourself away. You don't get to sink into oblivion. You do as you were told, by that god, so that at the very least their lives--their deaths--weren't in vain."
She perked up at that statement, he'd put her feelings into words, into an order. Orders was something she understood, and without really stopping to think, she moved to carefully pull out the various vials and herb pouches from the pack, sorting it all into piles, glass in one pile, drugs in the other, herbs in another.
Delphine was quiet, until she'd finished the thing he had ordered her to do. "I... want to learn to be useful. But... I need this." She nodded towards the piles of drugs, sniffling quietly. "It makes me feel... less."
With one order, though, he could force her to sober.
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe,
Believe in him and believe in me,
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green,
To your beautiful destiny.
The emotions were not subsiding as he stood there before her. She looked up at him and she seemed so small, so fragile. When she said she would have been just as bad a mother to live children than dead, Noah felt his tensed body start to shake. It was not apparent, the adrenaline coursing through him, pumped and fueled by anger and sadness and confusion. He was a hunter--his body knew not to make shaking apparent. His survival instinct said that he needed to do whatever it was to stay safe, and shaking like a leaf while an ursur runs passed you is not the answer. While Noah could feel his muscles shake, Delphine would not be able to detect it.
He turned his attention to her actions, watching her move the different things she brought with her into piles. A lot of it he didn't know, but he would not say that to her. He would not admit it aloud. He would not give her any foothold to fool him into thinking something was a simple herb for cooking or healing when in fact it was a drug. So he kept his face stern, his jaw hard, and locked eyes with her again. She said she needed the intoxicants, and Noah shook his head. "Not here you don't."
"...Okay." She murmured, without a fight. Noah would find that she responded to orders, to an authoritative tone, without much thought. It was how she had been trained. "Burning them would be... bad," she murmured, indicating that she didn't know what to do with them.
She could have tried to burn them, one last high, but she didn't. On top of being trained to obey, she was trained to anticipate how someone might react to something else. These were skills she hadn't used in years, but they were etched into her very being.
Quietly, staring at the piles of various drugs, she turned her gaze to Noah and inquired: "Do you want some tea?" With obedience came memories of keeping house for a couple, of making meals and tea, of anticipating their every want before they had it.
It was... normal. As normal as Delphine knew, anyway.
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe,
Believe in him and believe in me,
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green,
To your beautiful destiny.
Noah couldn't interpret her hesitation to destroy the drugs as ignorance of the proper method, or of trickery. Noah knew about people who fell too far to drugs -- men who gave away everything they had, women who sold their bodies to get their fix, orphans ding whatever they could to reach come semblance of comfort -- and he would not allow himself to fall to the deception that Delphine may or may not be trying to create. Pushing off the table, the tall man moved quickly towards his room. He slammed the door behind him, but was only in there momentarily. When he emerged again, body still tense and jaw still fixed, he was holding a small wooden box affixed with a latch and lock. "Put them in here." He said, handing it out to her. He would never tell her his intentions for the box and its contents, but she could be sure that they would not be in this home as soon as day broke.
When she asked if he wanted tea, he nearly scoffed. "No. I don't want tea." When she had placed all of the illicit substances in the box, Noah slammed it closed and locked it without a second thought. He veered back to his room in an instant, the door closing behind him again. He hid the box from her sight. He returned to the larger living area and just stood for a moment, watching her. All of the emotion still bubbled in his core. He hated this. He hated every second of it. Nothing felt good, nothing felt right. All of it felt dark and angry and sour. His large hand lifted to his face and he rubbed his forehead some, trying to release the tension of his own muscles. He didn't know what else to say, so wordlessly, he moved over to his chair by the fire and sat down.
The box was filled with all of her illicit substances, most earned by selling her body to the people that sold them. Once they were in the box, Delphine did not linger, instead she moved to rummage through the kitchen cabinets. He might not want tea, but she wanted tea.
Making tea when someone was upset was... well, hardwired into her being. She warmed the water over the fire, silently. It was cathartic in its own right, making tea for a man. As she finished making the tea, she moved past him, away from the fire, to pour it into two cups, lamenting at the fact they were not tea cups, but they'd do.
She stood in front of him, holding out a mug, and studying him. After a moment, she spoke up, "It'll help." She murmured. She doesn't clarify if she'd brought tea with her, which she probably had, or found tea in his cabinets. She'd set the mug near his chair, and settle on the floor, by his feet, leaning against his chair.
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe,
Believe in him and believe in me,
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green,
To your beautiful destiny.
He did not speak to her as she rummaged around for tea. He also did not stop her. Even though he has said he did not want any tea, she still persisted in making it. He leaned back into his chair and studied the fire, not wanting to look at her. His anger still bubbled in his belly and he could hardly stand it. So, he sat, listening to her look in all of cabinets and make tea.
When she held the tea out to him, he turned and looked at the mug. He contemplated taking it from her and tossing it into the fire, but he would not dare to let his fire go out at the beginning of Deepfrost. Instead, he took it, and set it down on the table, without saying a word. When she settled at his feet, he sighed. It was deep and exhausted and, a little sad. His hand came up to rub his forehead as he spoke, "What are we going to do?"
Delphine sipped her own tea, murmuring, "I... guess we have to get better." She didn't know who he had killed, but it would probably scare the man to know that at one point in time, the little healer girl who could take away death, would have killed for a man of shadows. Any little thing he'd wanted done, she would have done it thoughtlessly, and for what?
Praise, a false love.
"We can get better, right, Noah?" Seeking reassurance, that just maybe, maybe things would be okay. Not that, well, things would ever be the same. But maybe he was right, maybe she needed to heed the God and love her memories, her past, the recent past too.
"You said we earlier." She spoke up, her voice sure, though the moment he grew angry with her she'd go meek, and still once more.
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe,
Believe in him and believe in me,
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green,
To your beautiful destiny.
His tea sat on the table, while Delphine sipped on her's. He continued to rub his forehead, an action he often did while he was stressed out. The anger that roared through him started to simmer down to just a blank, cold sadness. Here they sat, murderers, with tea and a fire. What were they to do? Noah slumped back in his chair, letting his head fall back and his eyes find the ceiling. "Yeah." He said, though it was not clear whether he was agreeing to her or filling the silence with a response that felt necessary.
She spoke up, again, however, and Noah listened. Her voice was firmer than before, clearer than it had been since he had met her. He leaned forward, and took his cup of tea in his hand. It had cooled enough that Noah could take a rather large drink of it, though his tolerance to drinking hot drinks was probably higher than the average. After taking a drink, he held the mug in both of his hands and sighed. "My brother is not coming back to Halo until Flowerbirth." He leaned back in his chair again, hands still clasped over his mug. "You can stay in his room."
Delphine nodded, leaning to rest her forehead against his knee, "Thank you." She studies the fire, and quietly, "Can I go to bed?" She was still cold, shivering lightly, but she was mostly just... tired.
Not that sleeping would help; she dreamt about them, replayed that moment.
She was a guest, a sad guest, but nonetheless. And right now, Delphine didn't know what to do, except maybe clean, tidy, pretty the place up. Noah had given her a taste, an order, and she craved more direction.
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe,
Believe in him and believe in me,
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green,
To your beautiful destiny.
Exhaustion started to set in his bones as he sat in his chair, the fire warming his outsides and the tea his insides. The emotions of the last few weeks were more than Noah had dealt with in a long time. His eyelids drooped some, and as Delphine spoke, he nodded. He did not mean to command her, did not intend to rule over her with an iron first, but they both needed sleep and time apart. Noah set his mug down and stood. He stoked the fire and added more logs, although he knew he would be coming out through the night to continue to make sure it burned bright and warm.
"There are always extra blankets in the brown trunk at the end of Ezekiel's bed. Don't mess up any of his stuff. He's weird about it." He did not look at her as he went about his normal bed routine. He made sure the window was covered tight, the door was latched and he placed a thick, heavy bar across it for safety, as well as hung a large, thick urser pelt over it. Finally, he stood outside of his bedroom door before, softly, giving her kindness: "Goodnight, Delphine."
Delphine listened, nodding, and watched the routine. Memorizing it, as only someone who was used to being treated as the household maid, the pet, could do. It was only when he finished, that she stood from her seat, and moved towards the second bedroom door.
"Goodnight, Noah." With those words, she enters the room that's to be hers for the season.
Trapped in a snowy hellscape with a man she's met once.
But he was nice to her, and that's why she came. Remi had a husband, and she hadn't wanted to intrude, but Noah...
He seemed lonely, and miserable. And misery liked company.
-FIN-
He sprinkled me in pixie dust and told me to believe,
Believe in him and believe in me,
Together we will fly away in a cloud of green,
To your beautiful destiny.
