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!
The sun had gone down over the Temple, and Ronin had watched it. It was his third LongNight, but the first time he had been outside when the darkness had come. He stood with the rest of the luxere herd in his shift, feeling safer with them somehow, at least until the stars all winked out. Then it was real, and no matter how long he stood with the rest, it didn’t change what he was there to do.
Lighting the way with his antlers, the luxere stag began to walk a perimeter around the outside of the Temple - he heard a commotion up ahead, but by the time he reached the Temple doors they had been shut tightly again. Snorting, Ronin glanced around and stamped a hoof. Here was as good a place as any to stand guard.
A snowball is thrown from the darkness. The sphere of Ronin's light blocks whoever has thrown it from view, but it doesn't dampen the child-like giggle. Indeed it is quite musical and bright, but also familiar. "Oops." The voice mumbles, before another is thrown, this one landing much closer to Ronin, eliciting a child-like peal of joyful laughter from the darkness.
His head shot up as the snowball landed, though it wasn’t the little projectile that got to him. It was the giggle. And given where he was, and when it was, Ronin had no doubt about what tricks he ought to expect. He’d trained for it, in fact. Stamping his hooves again as the second snowball hit closer, he turned about, trying to decide whether or not to respond.
Slowly, for although he had practiced it wasn’t something he was used to, the luxere shifted into the shape of a man - a man with large, glowing antlers spreading up from his head and a ruff of fur about his neck. Crouched in the snow, Ronin narrowed his eyes. ”Get out of here,” he warned the creature.
A tense and wounded silence followed Ronin's command. Sulkily almost from the darkness, there came the sound of shifting feet upon the snow. "You never used to sound like that..." The voice—she—pointed out.
Crunching forward yet again, the sound like small bones breaking, the glint of starlight eyes and porcelain skin framed by dark curls just came into view. "I only wanted to show you what I learned...You never had the chance to teach me about making snowballs, so I thought I'd teach you." Aoife said, her small childish hands clenching at the dress she wore with youthful nervousness.
He’d prepared for it, steeled himself for it, knew it would be the weak point that they would go for. But hearing her, seeing her, listening to words she’d never said...
Ronin could only look at her out of the corner of his eye, feeling tears already prickle there at the sound of her voice. Raising a hand, a starbolt alighting in his hand, he shot it towards the monster masquerading as his daughter.
”Out,” he repeated, voice gruff, throat trying to close around the words. He couldn’t fall at this first hurdle. Wouldn’t. There was too much to lose.
Stumbling, she falls to her knees which crunch in the snow. A sound like a wounded animal leaves her trembling lips as her hands shakily touch against her chest where the bolt struck. It has seared away her dress revealing fragile and pale skin. Softly she traces where the flesh is now puckered and red. "With the ice....it didn't burn. " She says softly, almost in awe.
"Please," She begs, looking up with starlight eyes. "There's so much you never showed me....so much I never had the chance to ask...please can't we, now?" Aoife reaches out with a hand smeared in blood, her fingers trembling in the light from his antlers.
He had to fight against covering his ears, at the bleat that left her. It sounded like her but it didn’t, all at the same time. His daughter had been much too young to make such pleas - it sounded almost like Seren at times, and whether that was better or worse was beyond Ronin. (It was worse, almost certainly). ”I said get out of here!”
The words dragged out of him in a growl, tears tracking his cheeks, and he threw a second starbolt her way. This one was a great deal more forceful, lighting the darkness in a white burst. Then, not quite turning his back but definitely moving to walk away, he continued his patrol around the perimeter.
She'd slipped out in the midst of the excitement and grieving, utterly lost for how to react to the sudden and staggering death toll so early and easily wrought. Deimos' mourning had been agony to watch, and as other succumbed around them Amalia found herself strangely cast out. She had told Nephele mere days before that the Ascended, Rexanna included, deserved to die.
Now that she is gone, the Shield does not know how to feel.
So she fled the chaos and sadness, making her way back through the cursed door and into the dark snow. And there she found him among the luxere, half- shifted and taunted by a phantom at once recognizable and chilling.
Jyoti and the dreamfish in her wake, Amalia makes her way toward Ronin and the specter. Her mouth dries as she does her best not to look at not-Aoife, instead extending a hand to her friend, intending to grab his arm or shoulder. "It only wants to hurt you. She would never do that." It isn't her.
This final bolt is more than the small creature can endure. Still, it does not go quietly. "Daddy!" Aoife wailed, her voice cowed and broken as her bod was shattered apart by his light.
A small scrap of cloth—stars and dragons adorned, just like she used to wear for bed—drifted towards Amalia and Ronin even as the half-luxere stalked away.
From the shadows the girl's voice rang out again. "Daddy, why didn't you come to the festival with us? Were you too busy? Didn't you want to be with us? If you had...maybe you could have stopped it." The voice quivered, as Aoife's face appeared again, half hidden in the dark. "Do you not want to talk to me now, because you have another daughter?"
The cry cut him deeply, and he was already half turning to go back when a hand gripped his arm. Ronin turned, the werelight from his antlers casting both he and Amalia in ghoulish shadow - but she had saved him, that much would have been obvious. ”It isn’t her,” he repeated, nodding to the Shield, though the words were shaky.
And the monster wasn’t done. They continued around the Temple, and her little face appeared again. Ronin did his best not to look in that direction, to ignore the words - what made it worse was that all the taunts and insecurities, everything she threw at him, it all came from his own head. ”Amalia,” he said, ”you should be inside.”
The strength with which he disregards the apparition is admirable; Amalia can scarcely bare to look away as the anguished cry rings through the night, an older version of the girl she too had come to know and love. "She's with Mort. Safe and happy. Nowhere else." Is she reassuring Ronin or herself?
What does it matter, in the end.
She, too, tries not to look as Aoife's face appears again, but it cannot be helped. Clenching her eyes shut for a moment, she shakes her head, half-horns licked with lilac fire spiraling from her forehead. "I promised Remi I'd watch over you," she answers softly, with something like humor at the idea of him needing protection from her. But the mirth fades quickly, replaced by the weight of what she has to tell him next.
Rexanna is dead, and another Ascended, too. The door... Trailing off, she raises her face up to the inky sky and exhales a shuddering breath. She hadn't wanted this to happen, hadn't planned on it, and still does not know what to feel.
"It doesn't make the words any less true, Daddy." The spirit replied, the voice sliding through the darkness despite the way Ronin turned away. She seemed to be just outside of his light, but always directly ahead of him, no matter which way he moved.
"You could have been there, but you weren't. Just like when you went mad and lived in the forest. Does part of you like that I"m dead, the same way part of you liked going mad? Are there times you enjoy it?"
Nowhere else. She was with Mort, and the only thing here to torment him was himself. Ronin knew that, so why the hell was this so hard? He faltered in the snow, falling to a halt with Amalia to listen to her. ”Remi...?” he echoed, letting out a deep sigh. His husband was as infuriating as he was wonderful. ”I appreciate it,” he said. ”But please, you really should get inside. This is my mission, not yours.”
Then her Attuned words filtered through to him, and a slow horror crept across his face. ”Dead?” he whispered, glancing behind him. ”I didn’t long pass that door...” Had he missed it? Missed them? Could he have done more?
The monster dressed as his daughter stole his attention, and the force of the starbolt he shot into the darkness surprised even him. ”I am not your father,” he snarled at the dark, stuffing shaking hands into his pockets.
"A mission I promised to help with," she points out in swift rebuttal. Then her tone softens a little, and her expression too, a curl of steam leaving her lips as she sighs. "You don't have to endure the dark alone, Ronin." They are both of them sworn to guard the stars.
She cannot bear to look upon the horror that overtakes Ronin, opting instead to focus on the milling luxere and their bouncing light. "The door... destroys anything made by the Voice. Including Ascended." Her mouth is dry as she says it aloud, knowing the implications too well now. Any Ascended caught outside will not be able to get in.
The starbolt catches her off guard, causing a well of panic to spring up in her chest. Flashes of the day the Temple fell strobe brightly through her mind; she inhales a deep gulp of frigid air, attempting to quell the thundering of her heart. "How... how long are you going to stay out here?" she asks softly, doing her best to keep her composure and looking at neither Aoife nor Ronin. How long can you endure it? Gods know she couldn't, not if it was one of her ghosts.
