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!
'What do you think I mean by it? If you really are being realistic about things." Cian raised a brow slightly. She must have some idea, if she truly was as practical about all of this as she was claiming to be.
Drawing in a breath and turning his pale gaze out towards the garden, content to listen to the sound of the rain as he was to continue this conversation, the Eye considered. "I don't believe I said you'd stand against them. Not all wars are fought by soldiers. The best sorts of wars have no kill at all. All the fighting is done long before the battlefield comes into it." Cian said slowly, before glancing back at the bottle containing the whiskey.
Phoebe took a sip of her drink before looking up at Branbast in the rafters. She sat that way for a time, fingers absently thrumbing against the arm rest of her chair. But after a few long moments a slow smile curved her lips. Then a light laugh parted them and she shook her head, stifling her laughter with another drink. "If you think Frey would create a demigod from a living person and miss a prime opportunity to fuck someone then you clearly don't know them well." she said. It was absurd to her. She knew Frey cared for her - but make her a demigoddess? Why? For what purpose? She could not imagine what she could do for Frey as a demigoddess that she couldn't do as a mortal - and without that need, Frey simply wouldn't be bothered.
Besides, they had spent enough time trying to make her a better human - why would they negate that by making her something else?
"You did not, but you haven't exactly said what you want either." she said, setting her own drink down so she could refill his. "If you know as much as you have led me to believe, I doubt there is anything I know that you don't already."
Despite Phoebe's laughter, presumably at him, Cian remained as composed and casually sat as ever. He waited until her chimes had died down, the laugh-lines straightening out from her cheeks, before his head tilted ever so slightly to the side, denim-blue eyes piercing. "Do I strike you as the sort of man who would walk in here, and not know what I was talking about?" He asked, tone pleasant and entirely confident.
Nodding his head with appropriate thanks as she filled his glass, Cian picked it up and gently twisted it in his fingers. "Plenty of things you know that I don't." The Eye said easily on the exhale. "But when it comes to this particular matter, no, I should think you don't."
Leaning back in his chair again, his expression one of excruciating calmness, the Eye merely smiled. "All I wanted was to meet you. To find out of the information I had on you was correct." Though Finn and Phoebe would likely have gotten on quite nicely, his disarming wounded-dog aura the sort of thing the midwife would gravitate towards, the Spyglass had a thing about brothels.
At him? Hardly. The situation however proved far more amusing than Phoebe could have imagined. Her - a demigod - such a proposition seemed entirely ridiculous. "I think you do believe what you have insinuated, but I equally think it unlikely. The only one who can confirm who is right is Frey alone." she said simply. His own confidence was the only thing that kept her from protesting more strongly. She would be sure to ask Frey about it later, if only to make clear she knew her friend as well as she thought she did.
"Like what?" she asked curiously, twirling the liquid in her glass. The Madame did not think she knew many things others could not also easily discover - and that which she might know that others did not were certainly no grand secrets.
Her head tilted as he finally relaxed into his chair. "What information on me did you have? I've certainly nothing to hide." she asked, sipping her drink. "Though, you do not strike me the sort of man to walk in here, just to confirm some information " Phoebe still wasn't entirely sure what he wanted - what she had to offer even. Even {if} it was true Frey would make her a demigod, it would not change the god's stance on a war. It would not change that she was far from any circles of use. Why take the time to single her out?
Cian smirked at that. Whether it was a condescending gesture or one of amusement was hard to say. "Is that right." He murmured conversationally, though clearly he wasn't looking for an answer to his question, having it already.
"How to run a brothel, for one." Cian said easily, his accent a dry and dusty fog around the words. "Haven't ever done that. Owned a few, never run one." His shoulders shrugged. Raising the newly filled glass to his lips again and taking another sip, he regarded Phoebe over the rim of the glass with an amused frown. "No? And just what sort of a man do I strike you as?"
Phoebe laughed a bit at his response, sipping her wine as she shrugged. "Like any other business. My goods are the services of the prostitutes, and my business expenses are their care, housing, food, protection." she said, as though it were as boring a profession as running a bookshop. Though, the fact that he had owned a few brothels did pique her interest. She wonder briefly if they had been the sort of places Frey would have approved of, or the sort that made them mourn the fates of those who worked there. "Were the ones you owned like this place?" she asked out of curiosity.
The Madame considered him for a moment, tapping her nails against her knee. "The sort who has people to confirm information for him. I doubt you would have come here if you hadn't already been sure that what you had been told was true." she said, shrugging a bit. He seemed the powerful sort, the quiet type easily underestimated, but behind the scenes was pulling the strings to raise and ruin monarchies and countries alike. "You know...the sort of man who can own a few brothels and never have to run them." she said with a small smile. Only a powerful or wealthy - likely both - person could manage to pull that off.
Cian nods along affably enough. "But it isn't always so easy as that. There's a..." He pauses, intentionally, to search for the right word. As he does so his eyes seem to scan the Madame's hair; the way the golden light shines off her curls. "..balance to be maintained." Between the books and the tits, between appearances and reality. Between the noise of it all and the deafening silence.
"They're all a bit like this place, aren't they? Whiffs of Frey everywhere, moans ingrained into the floorboards." He takes another sip of his drink.
"And yet, here I am." Cian replies, his tone dry and effortlessly casual. Nodding his head a fraction in agreement, the Eye downs the rest of his drink. Powerful or wealthy was it? Well, she'd see soon enough. "Don't get up, I'll see m'self out. You've done enough already."
Tipping his cap politely, the Eye would place his hands in his pockets and stroll out the front doors where, as it turned out, Finn would be waiting for him.
