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!
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
Rather than bringing an obvious game or toy, the Alchemist brought a piece of chalk.
Sitting down on the dock, he drew a series of lines, 8 to be exact. Then another series of lines that would, eventually indicate a hangman's block. The game was of course hangman. It seemed a fitting game for the raggedy god, given the childlike nostalgia of it and the deadly results for getting the game wrong.
Rather than praying—if Ludo was about and willing to speak with him surely it wouldn't take offerings of fielty to catch the herald's attention—Remi merely tapped the first dash of the mystery word.
"Guess your letter."
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ludo’s voice came from beside Remi, where the god was suddenly sitting cross-legged in the form of the child he had seen when last they had met. With blackened fingers and toes, dark eyes and hair and skin as pale as porcelain, it might have stepped out of Deepfrost in the Grounds.
Reaching forward, it tapped at the lines that the Alchemist had drawn with his chalk, a smile slowly spreading across its face. ”This is clever. I like this,” it informed him, wiggling its toes.
”You are all full of storms though, sweetling. Freshly made and already scarred again.”
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
Without glancing up, the Alchemist nodded and added a 'head' to the hangman's block. "Try again." He said, before writing an 'R' below the block and crossing it out, to indicate the letter had been incorrectly guessed.
It was always hard to look at Ludo like this. Whatever instinctive and kind fragments of the man Remi had once been yearned to reach out for the youth, to wrap his fingers around the frostbitten toes and fingers, and to drape in cloth. It was precisely because his mind was so at odds with his instincts, reminding him that the cold didn't affect he god now, and that he hardly needed handouts from the Alchemist, that Remi found it hard to look fully at the god.
"Perhaps I am...but what use is a pristine canvas anyways, to someone like me?" He asked with a ghost of a smile. He, who was always covered in paint or charcoal or some other type of ink.
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”L.” Ludo fired off another letter automatically and without missing a beat. Whether or not that was because it wanted to win, or it wanted to complete the hangman... well, they would find out. Shuffling forward a bit, as if to get a better look, it glanced up to Remi. ”Good,” it said softly, suddenly, responding to thought and feeling. ”It should feel uncomfortable, to look at this.” It proved that regardless of Remi’s role in Ludo’s machinations, he was still affected by death and pain.
Snorting, it propped an elbow on its knee and cupped its pale chin in an ink-tipped palm. ”I suppose that is true, sweetling. Tell me of your storms, then. You have chosen now to come and see me. This is not arbitrary.”
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
The Alchemist added the body to the stick figure and below drew an L with a line through. "Guess again."
Swallowing, his mouth both dry and suddenly too full of saliva, Remi merely nodded silently as if having been both reprimanded and praised all at once. It was uncomfortable, but Remi wasn't entirely sure that that was permission to simply look away. And so it was that as Ludo spoke again, the Alchemist turned his sea-glass stare upon the deity to give it his full attention.
"No, it isn't." The Alchemist agreed, before tapping his finger on the sand to indicate the game. "I think you already know what this spells. Shall I spoil the game then, to answer your question?"
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Black eyes bored into Remi’s as the Alchemist finally turned to look at Ludo, the youth offering a smile that might have been sweet once, but seemed curiously empty now. ”What does it spell?” it asked, like it really didn’t know, lifting a hand to tap the sand in a mimicry of Remi’s action. ”I do enjoy our games, sweetling. But you are no longer a mere visitor to my shrine. You come burdened, and I have chosen to hear you. So let us have it, shall we?”
Sitting back, Ludo turned its gaze out towards the sea, to where he had first implored Remi to kill out of mercy. It liked the sea. It liked Torchline, in truth, for its warmth and for the absence of frost and snow.
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
Considering for a moment, the Alchemist nodded. Reaching down into the sand with a finger, he traced the missing letters. A S C E N D E D.
"Roana once said you asked her to kill the Ascended. To prove herself to you. I .... should think I am past the point of that at least, but.." Remi closed his eyes, but showed no sign of wanting to simply trail off. If he couldn't say the words, who was he to follow out on their implications? "..what role would you have me play in this? Ban the ascended from Torchline? Try and thwart their efforts? Stop using portals?" And then, because it couldn't quite go without being said, "Take down Wessex? Demolish the Voice's shrines?"
As calming as the sea was, Remi felt that to look at it now was to continue to try and skirt round all that he was saying. So instead he fixed his gaze on Ludo's long eyelashes and the dark circles therearound.
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Well past that point,” Ludo murmured, gazing down at the word as Remi spelled it out - spelled what they had both known he always would. Absently, it reached out to draw in the sand as well, adding a small and petulant frowny face next to it. ”Astute of you, to come to me of your own accord, before being asked.” With a smile, it added fangs to the frowny face and sat back again, cross-legged, eyes on the waves.
”Your role is one of mercy,” it said quietly. ”That is what I made of you. That is all I ask of you. There are other tools that I may use to deal with the Ascended.” Perhaps it was intended to ruffle Remi’s pride, to make him feel unnecessary to Ludo in this matter. Or perhaps the god was offering him precisely what Remi always wanted - the opportunity to not get involved.
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
Remi watched the face turn from frown, to Ascended. Whether it was meant to indicate Ludo's dislike of the race or their dislike of whatever plan was brewing he had no idea. Both, probably.
Other tools. Maybe the Alchemist should have been offended at that, to being reduced down to something the god could pick up and use at will, but he wasn't. It wasn't precisely the sort of response he expected from Ludo, and knowing that it wasn't for him to actively think was a true comfort.
"Mercy requires compassion." Remi said after a moment. "When you are not around to provide direction, I find myself forgetting how to be compassionate." Using his illusion magic, the hung-head dropped from the noose, falling to the ground where it wouldn't strangle any longer. With a bit of a sigh, Remi reached forward and brushed away the entirety of their game.
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Then would you like me around more, to provide direction?” Ludo asked, watching as Remi swept away the sand. Particles of it leapt into the air as he did so, twisting and forming, until suddenly a miniature version of the Alchemist was suspended before them, wings outstretched, a sailor in arms. The sand danced to mimic movement, the mercy-killing of the man taking place in slow motion.
”You were compassionate when you opened your soul to me,” it pointed out. ”What has changed since that time? What makes you so callous to the suffering of the world?”
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
Tugging in a breath that felt slippery in his throat to see himself with a soon-to-be-dead-man in his arms, Remi stared soundlessly as he watched the life slip away from the reenactment. "I don't want to make you my babysitter." The Alchemist says at least, watching the sailor in his arms grow limp. "Or my crutch." He adds with a glance towards the black-eyed herald.
Swallowing as if preparing to taste something unpleasant, Remi lets his gaze grow unfocused for a moment before answering. "I think..my own suffering has made me deaf. It was so loud for so long that everyone else's..." He shakes his head as if straining to hear something far away. "It seems so dull." Picking up a handful of sand, Remi lets it slowly sieve through his fingers.
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”The time when you had a choice about that is long gone, sweetling. Don’t you think?” Ludo could be either, or both, and Remi might not even be aware of it. Still, it appreciated the illusion of autonomy, shuffling to stand up beside the Alchemist and reaching out to rest a hand upon his crown of curls, as if he is the child and Ludo the adult.
”Perhaps we need to open your ears again, then,” it suggested. ”Tell me, when was the last time you shed a tear for someone else? Someone who was not your husband or your lost child?” Ludo tilted its head. ”If you can find it in yourself to do that... perhaps there is something I can offer.”
Remi has received a spoopy vague quest: he must be able to shed a tear for another person out of empathy. Ronin and Aoife are excluded from this.
07-24-2020, 04:04 PM (This post was last modified: 07-24-2020, 04:05 PM by Remi.)
REMI
the alchemist
You broke me like the dawn Breaks through the night
"All the better I shouldn't want it then." Remi replies. Looking up through a curtain of curls into a raggedy sleeve that surely bore nothing within, the Alchemist exhales with his eyes closed, as if preparing to be knighted. Or decapitated.
Searching his memory, Remi could not find a ready answer to Ludo's question. Even futher introspection revealed...a shocking lack of empathy. Sunjata and Maea were close, and Remi had offered nothing but a latent sorry for her death. He'd killed Delah. Sam had been outcasted, had gotten Rexanna killed. Gods, Bastien. Lashes pinching shut, Remi just shakes his head, the answer already known to the god.
"Alright. One more game then, since you didn't actually guess the first answer?" With a sly grin, Remi draws a series of dashes in the sand.
The word to be guessed is: CARDIGAN
~FIN
That didn't even know that it needed light & I'm in love
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
