From Attuned to Ascended to Ancient, Kiada Njovu-Reyes has been reborn several times throughout her short life, but her fighting spirit has never once been diminished. With beauty, grace and a quick wit, Kiada is the whole package wrapped in an infectious smile. Recent endeavours have found her in the heart of the Hollowed Grounds, aiding the region and bettering it for her new Ancient kin, and whatever she does next, we know it's sure to pack a punch.
Congratulations, Kiada!
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!
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
He waited for the eruption, knew the Kraai was a sore spot for the both of them and that it would likely remain so. He couldn't let it go, and couldn't quite accept it, and as long as he remained undecided in his relation to the place, nothing would be resolved about it.
Reading her response, Korbin could almost feel the exasperation in the words. He felt his own frustration churn on reading it too, and chewed on it, stewed and turned the situation over in his mind. Until, surprisingly, he actually laughed. A breathless, desperate sort of sound, that was muffled as he buried his face in his hands.
"I just want you to need me, I gues," he said, as plain and raw in his motivations as he could manage. "I know. I'm an idiot, and I don't have any answers either. I just wish there was something I could do for you that no one else can. Actually do, you know. I'll be your brother whether I'm here or on the other side of the continent, that doesn't count. But anyone can help with your bar. Anyone can play music there. There's no role for me there that can't be filled by someone else." He shrugged helplessly, unable to say it plainer than this.
It was sadly true for everything he did these days. There was nothing he excelled at, no part for him to play, no role to fill that couldn't be done as good or better by others. Nothing vital at least, which was why he didn't seriously consider the music.
"And even if I wanted to change my mind about playing... It's too late now. I can't, even if I wanted to." And gods, did he want to play. His hands ached with the need, his head bursting with melodies and rhythms begging for release. It was a constant ache that did nothing to help his current tangle of emotions.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
He laughs. He actually laughs. She smiles a bit, exhaling the breath she’d practically been holding. Not that his response is actually helpful, because they’ve had this conversation too, but it always softens her in some way. Some part of her simply doesn’t want to bear it anymore. She wants to throw away the responsibility of it all, wants to simply be done. But she loves him far too much for that, and it softens her that he wants to be needed. He is the only person she would never toss away like day old clothes. She could, technically, particularly now when their survival doesn’t depend on it. But she never would.
At least he knows he’s an idiot. Though she may have to tell him a few times anyway.
Do you not get that I don’t want it to be someone else? Sure, it could be, but I want it to be you. No one else is you, and I don’t care about them nearly as much. She didn’t know how to better explain it to him. To be needed is to be tethered. At one point they were stuck with each other whether they wanted to be or not. There was no choice in the matter. They needed one another to live, and that defined their relationship. Now? Now there was a choice and even with all the new options, she would choose him. Yes, she made new friends. Yes, she came and went. But at the end of the day, she came home to him. She picked him, first and foremost, always. She wanted her brother around. It felt like so much more than simple needing.
She reaches out a hand to him, offering him some small comfort. Curses can be broken. We’ll try. She can make no promises, but maybe she can ask Ludo when she gives him the leather. Maybe he’d have an answer for them.
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
No, somehow that had never quite gotten through to him. That tether had been iron hard, cold and clear and unmistakeable. 'Want' was so much more fickle than 'need', and perhaps a part of him hadn't even trusted her to stay if given a choice to leave.
But it did stroke his ego to hear that she didn't want anyone else to help her. Bolstered a faltering confidence, reassured him, now that he actually listened to what she had been saying all along. Out on the Tundra, he'd been too caught up in his own internal storm to really hear anything she said. But ever since his fight with Sunjata and that breakdown, the beatdown, some part of the darkness had grown lighter. Not as overwhelming.
Not gone, oh no, not by far. That would take time, and effort, and he still very much needed to be left alone to figure out what he would do with a life that no longer was supposed to circle around his sister. Had to figure out what might be even half as worthwhile - because he could do anything, everything, if he needed to - but he had no idea what he wanted.
For the first time in over a season, Korbin's expression lightened. He sighed, a long, deep thing that looked like it expelled half his soul before he was done, and smiled at her. Relaxed, and reached up to swipe at her nose with a gore-stained finger.
"Thank you," he said simply. "Let's give it a bit longer... it can still lift on its own. And I will continue to help you with the bar. Half days, when I'm not working at the infirmary." That ought to fill his days to the brim. Leave no time over for brooding, between working two jobs and learning everything Loren tried to teach about healing without magic.
Just what he needed. Something to lose himself in.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
Want is a fickle thing, and that’s why it means so much more. To want someone, alwys, by your side is so much more than to need. She would never choose someone above him. There would be ‘ands’, for her heart was capable of loving more than just him, but it would never diminish his place in her life, the love she has for the only piece of her family she has left. Though she will always encourage him to live his life, to find what he wants, she will cling to him through it all. She will support him through it all. He is hers, and she is his; two pieces of one whole person. There was no other way for them to be.
This time, finally, he hears her. His expression lightens, and she can see it on his face. She knows that face too well for him to hide anything from her. He exhales a breath that sounds as if he’d been holding in for months, or years, and perhaps he has been. A ball of anger and tension, unable to let it all go, to breathe it out and leave it behind. This would not be the end of the problems, but perhaps it was a beginning.
She chuckles as he swipes gore on her nose. There’s a pile of flesh and fur around her feet, and she reaches down, picking some up and throwing it at him. Hey, he started it. She only nods at the mention of half days, entirely fine with whatever he chooses. She’d hired another bartender to fill in when she and Korbin were not there, and also just as another set of hands. They’d need plenty of people, between the kitchen and the bar and the rooms, to keep the Kraai running through Deepfrost. Already it was busy there daily, and the season would only get more boring and brutal.
She gestures to the hide, a question in her gaze, asking if he’s ready to move on to the next step.
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
Seeing her smile made everything better. It even made the disgusting piece of scraped off flesh she threw at him tolerable - if barely - though he gave her a look that promised he would pay her back in kind. Some other time, when she wasn't expecting it. Some of his old mischief was ghosting back into the blue of his eyes, not quite as bright as it used to be, but... not dead either.
There was still hope.
Content to let the discussion settle on a comparatively good note, Korbin nodded and shifted where he sat, reaching for the tools he'd collected earlier. Dull scrapes that would stretch the still damp hide without cutting it, removing any last lingering pieces of flesh while smoothing the surface.
"Leather or suede?" he asked; they could scrape the skin side too, remove the epidermis and make it velvet soft and absorbant. Or they would leave it, to create a supple, versatile leather that could be used for anything from knife sheathes to bags or clothing. It all depended on what Ludo planned to do with it.
Either way, he was content to keep working; it was nice to just sit there beside her, letting their hands do the talking while the silence settled over them both. Because they chose it, rather than because a fickle god or spirit tried to impose rules on their relation.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
They were always paying each other back for some small slight or another. The list was long, and she’d lost track of who was winning (it was probably her). He’d been so very boring as of late that the small spark of mischief in his eyes is a welcome relief, as if maybe he’d find some balance between who he’d become and who he once was. He is not a boy anymore, and she knows that, and he will never be the boy he’d once been. That was okay, but she wanted him to find some spark, some reason, to enjoy this life they’d been granted. It was a gift, and they knew that better than most.
Leather she writes. That’s what Ludo had said, and so she won’t overthink it. A sturdy, good piece of leather for the herald. If it’d wanted suede, she assumed it would have said so. Weaver grabs her own tools, the same dull scrapes that would help them pull the leather and remove any last bits of flesh.
She sets to work, finally finding that the silence between them doesn’t feel so charged anymore. It feels like them, feels like they way they used to work together. They don’t need to talk, not really. She just wants him to be there with her, and he just wants to feel needed by her. To be wanted, now that he seems to finally understand. Her eyes drift back to the hide, her hands moving in the practiced motions, a soft smile on her face.
It was nice to be them, even if only for a moment.
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
Alright, leather it was. Korbin nodded and set to work, and the quiet swallowed them up. As his hands moved and aligned with hers in a familiar rhythm, the raven began to relax. It was a nice feeling, to lose himself in the task. Cancel out all thoughts, see and hear and feel nothing. He had a penchant for falling into trances when he worked, and more so than usual when there was a lot on his mind.
Working the scrape from top to bottom, only to start over and repeat the process a bit closer to the edge, he regretted the inability to hear. They couldn't talk without interrupting what they were doing, and he couldn't sing, couldn't even tell any stories, or ask about her days, her time, what went on in her life while he was busy nursing his own hurts.
In the end, he tried to just enjoy the simple comfort in her presence. Absorb the awareness of her beside him, and not ponder so much the things he didn't know.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
They work in silence for a while, making good progress on the hide. Though they don’t need to talk, it does bother her slightly that they can’t. She knows other Attuned have the luxury of actually speaking to him, and it makes her feel a little alienated from her brother. Perhaps this is what it felt like growing up for him, Attuned in a house full of Abandoned (and John, their one and only Accepted).
She works though, scraping and repeating, pulling the leather slowly but surely, cleaning off whatever they may have missed in the first round. After a time, she pauses, to give herself a moment to rest and also to write. She scribbles on the paper, how’s it going with Loren?. He could talk while they worked, at least, and she could listen, find out how he was enjoying the lessons.
Honestly, she didn’t have anything to tell him anyway. She had no secrets to tell him, not right now. Nothing new had happened. It’s not like she made it a habit of entering into new business ventures regularly.
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
Weaver broke the concentration eventually, and it was cue enough for Korbin to take a break as well. Stretching to soften up the muscles of his shoulders, he leaned back to see what she'd written. Of all the topics to choose from, she somehow managed to hit the one that was as sore with him as the Kraai. Korbin tried to keep himself from grimacing, but the sigh he heaved spoke volumes anyway.
He could have tried to pretend that things were fine... but that would have been pointless. She would find out anyway eventually.
"Strained. He keeps trying to be all brotherly, and when I don't want to, he gets annoyed." An abbreviated account of their interactions, but true enough. "Apparently he's entitled to being my trusted friend just because he hasn't done anything to be hated for."
Shrugging, Korbin brushed off his clothes, letting hair and fragments of skin and flesh fall off onto the floor. His expression was neutral, but there was a tightness around his jaws that said much about how annoyed he was at the whole thing.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
Well, it couldn’t last long, could it? She almost laughs at that sigh, at the look on his face even if no one else would catch it but her. After all, she knows her brother, but she keeps herself from eye rolling in his direction before he’s even spoken. Though she does laugh at his account of Loren. There’s probably some truth to that on both sides. Loren did seem to worm his way right in, though she clearly hadn’t minded. Not that her brother has quite figured out just how much Weaver didn’t mind. She’d have that conversation with him only if it actually mattered, and so far, she wasn’t sure Loren felt the same.
She stretches as he talks, hooking her hands behind her back and pulling, trying to stretch out her shoulders which have slowly hunched with the work. Then she picks up the pencil again, scribbling in her lap before turning the paper back to him. Have you ever thought that maybe it's not you he’s doing it for, but himself? He may not even realize it.
The thing she’d learned about Loren is just how much he cares, and for so much of his life no one had cared back. Even now, she wasn’t sure how good his relationship with Neron was or wasn’t, and maybe Loren just wanted to find some place he actually belonged. Sometimes it was easier to hide behind the guise of helping though than realizing you needed it more for yourself. That ought to sound familiar to her brother, if he could be so introspective for a moment.
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
She didn't laugh or roll her eyes. Neither did she chide him. All things he had expected... but they did not come. Korbin gazed at her with stubbornly set jaws, and the expression only faltered slightly when he read her response.
It did falter though. A slight softening, a hint of guilt, of compassion... Then the raven bit his teeth together as if to steel himself against the emotions.
"Even if that's true, it still gets me involved. And I don't want to be. He can find someone else to fix, I'm not a renovation project for him to use as therapy." It was humiliating, annoying, and it made him feel inferior when the guy looked at him like he was a child to be taken care of. Loren wasn't old enough that it would be taken as genuine, not enough for Korbin to respect whatever small difference there might be in accumulated experience. Even Sunjata had more to find there, for all that Korbin loathed the man.
It wasn't even that he didn't care about Loren. That was never the problem. The thing was, Korbin felt himself starting to care too damn much, and it made him scared. Keeping the Healer at a distance was an act of self preservation; he still hadn't earned the trust of the young raven, still hadn't proved he wouldn't disappear or die when things became rough.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
She sees the way his expression falters, knows that she’s planted the idea that she wanted to plant. She knows that he understands this, if only a little bit. Besides, it gives Korbin a reason to endure it, to realize that his presence might be helping Loren just as much as the other way around. There may only be two Hale’s left, but both of them had grown up knowing the love of family. They’d had the world given to them in the family they’d been gifted. Loren had never had that, but rather had been made to feel worthless because he did not live up to the expectations of his family. Maybe here, finally, he could find something to begin to fill that void.
Why do you think he’s treating you as a renovation project? Maybe he just actually likes you. Gods only know why, but…” she flips the paper back around, grinning slightly. She couldn’t resist the jab, and to be fair, her brother rather deserved it as of late. The fact that Loren hadn’t thrown him out yet is nothing short of a miracle, and like so many things Loren does, it seems to make her like him more.
Which of course means she has something of a vested interest in her brother at least tolerating the man, though she knows Korbin will for her. If she really cares about Loren, Korbin will tolerate just about anything. Particularly because it is vastly unusual for Weaver to truly care about someone like that. Though for now, she only adds, How much has Loren told you about himself? What secrets had Loren been willing to share?
Remember when I swore That you and I would never die
Korbin clenched his jaws tighter, the familiar crawling starting up again under his skin. His grip tightened around the tanning knife, closing so hard the knuckles whitened.
"Enough to know he's had a fucked up life. So what? What does that have to do with me? Why do I have to care about that? I never asked for him to like me, or for help with anything. All I want is to be left alone. I don't need to be saved or changed or fixed and I have no interest in being anything to that guy. Once I've paid the debt I owe I will be done with him."
His expression hardened with every word, until the last ones came out like a snarl. Weaver could scowl all she wanted, Korbin had no intention of giving in on this point.
"What does it matter to you anyway?" he asked, eyebrows drawn down in a frown as he shot a glance at her. She'd been doing an awful lot of defending when it came to Loren, and it struck him as unusual.
What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.
He goes on a rant, and she lets him, just shrugging in response. She won’t keep pushing, won’t try to make him see what he’s doing. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself of his disinterest as much as her. Maybe she’s reading too much into it and he really doesn’t like Loren, but honestly, Loren was kind of hard not to like. He was an ass sometimes, but he cared, and oh, now wouldn’t that just scare the living shit out of her brother?
She lets it go, having accomplished all she can at this moment. Instead, she turns back to the paper at his question, scribbling. You haven’t guessed? It was hardly just this conversation that she’d found herself defending Loren, far more than she defends any other Outlander (though she does defend others as well). Still, it seems almost obvious, except of course that Weaver never really likes anyone. Not like this.
Sighing slightly, she grabs for the paper again, adding to the note. I don’t even know that there’s anything to tell, honestly. You are the only one I’ve said a thing to. She turns it back around, waiting. There is something strangely earnest about her expression, and if her brother is paying attention, he’ll see it. He’ll see that Loren isn’t just another boy, or at least, that the possibility of him not being is real. It’s too soon to know for sure, but still, it is unusual for Weaver to even consider it.
