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!
Indeed. Ianto had warned him and gone as slow as he could, but in the end, need overtook his carefulness. By then Remi's legs had been wrapped around the merchant's torso, which hadn't helped his haste at all. "Mmm, actual sex I was never very good at. Not the way most men are. Oral sex on the other hand.." Remi chuckled, blushing again but this time more out of a much happier embarrassment.
Snorting a touch at that, Remi might have argued with his husband but he wasn't in the mood. "Alright then. I choose truth again, but this time..." Turning to Ronin now as if they were just boyhood mates about to chat about sexual conquests rather than doting spouses, Remi considered. "Was...sex with a god...different? Not in that she was a woman, but was it...I mean.." Well, he didn't really know what he meant, and that was sort of the point.
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”I couldn’t possibly comment,” Ronin said airily, smiling down at the sand, though the faint flush still against his cheeks said everything about his opinion regarding Remi’s skill at oral sex. Clearly his talents transcended gender. Shifting to sit back a little, he let the nimbus drift lazily across the beach of its own accord; they had done plenty of litter picking and were due a break anyway.
Remi’s truth earned something of an awkward smile from Ronin, the Star leaning back on one hand and gazing up at the cloudy sky, like he could find answers up there. ”I don’t know if it’s the same with every god,” he said, rolling his shoulders in a shrug. ”But with Safrin it was like being drugged. She was more... real than ever before. More woman. I don’t know if that makes sense. But the world felt heavy. I couldn’t remember where we were. How we got there. What I was doing before. It was all just her.”
'All just her.' Remi repeated, thinking those words over. The pair hadn't exactly talked in detail about what Ronin's 'dream' had entailed, but the Alchemist couldn't say he was surprised to hear his husband's description. After all, it was very like Safrin to want everything to be about her, including sex.
"I always just sort of assumed that..." Breaking off with a bit of a huff, Remi squinted up at the sky trying to say what it was he meant. "I mean...she's a goddess. Your goddess. Even under regular circumstances, I think I would have expected you to want her in a way that had nothing to do with us." Almost as if it were a type of worship. Something that necessarily transcended love and bonds of matrimony. It wasn't cheating if it was with a god. Something like that, anyways. "But I never really knew the full extent of...her, I suppose."
Then, with a boyish grin, Remi nudged Ronin in the ribs (softly). "So the sex was good, then?" Much as the Alchemist might want to describe some of his encounters with Ronin as being 'total' or 'all-encompassing', it wasn't. They were always somewhere, in time, with distractions and bodies and all manner of other things to demarcate their mortality. But to be able to focus entirely on the one you were with? That did indeed sound heavenly.
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
There was a darkness to Ronin’s expression as Remi spoke, something that had taken seed and had grown over time, and he shook his head softly. ”Maybe once,” he said. ”Not so much any more. She is my goddess, but sometimes I don’t know if I worship her out of devotion or whether I am shackled to her side like a dog.” The things he had done, the things that had been done to him in turn... it was not a pure relationship now, between he and the lady of starlight. But he was tethered, bonded to her nonetheless.
Clearing his throat and awkwardly shrugging a shoulder, he glanced to his husband as if wondering what he wanted to get out of Ronin’s answers. ”Obviously,” he said of the sex, a lopsided smile slanting across his lips. ”But I don’t think I would like to do it again.” Safrin had given him constellations on his skin, and an unwanted daughter, the last time they had danced together in that way.
Given that Remi's relationship with Ludo was not so terribly different, and that it was really the only divine relationship he'd ever known, he shrugged lightly at his partner's admission. "Maybe all devotion is like that. There are just those who don't see it, and those that do."
Remi wasn't sure what he wanted out of this either. It was a morbid sort of curiosity he supposed; knowing all the details would force his mind to stop filling in the blanks. "I wonder if the situation presented itself again...in the way you described it, if you would be able to say no." It wasn't quite rape, because at the time, Ronin would indeed be willing. The problem started before the sex even began, in the incredible unbalance of power.
Did Safrin even know what it was she was doing? Or was godly sex simply the sort of thing that always came wrapped up in these strange packages, balanced out when it occurred between other divine figures?
"Your turn."
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Maybe so,” Ronin agreed with a light smile. ”I think I would have preferred not to know, given the choice again.” Ignorant devotion had been a happier existence than cynical devotion, if nothing else. He actually shivered a bit at the Alchemist’s what-ifs, hand reaching out automatically to lace his fingers with Remi’s, like he was something to hold onto if the worse should happen again. ”I wonder as well,” he admitted.
Then it was his turn again again and Ronin drew in a deep breath, trying to rally himself in the face of the conversation that had suddenly turned so dark. ”Okay,” he said, ”since we’re on the truth wagon, we’ll choose that again. How is being Governor, really? You think you’re cut out for it?”
Remi nodded. There was no jealousy nor mistrust writ in the tanned lines on his face, just a simple if not distant sort of understanding. Remi had never been seduced by a god of course, but he knew enough of both Ronin and Safrin to imagine what the tryst might have been like. Uncomfortable as the topic was, perhaps shedding more light on it might help Ronin to keep himself—even a fraction of himself—should he encounter the goddess in her snare again.
Remi snorted as they continued down truth-lane. He looked down at where his fingers were laced between Ronin's and let himself answer a truth he hadn't yet spoken: "No, not at all." Glancing over his shoulder at Ronin with an uncouth sort of smile, he merely shook his head. "I thought...I'd be good for it, and it for me. Having something to work towards. A goal. I thought not being politically minded would actually be a benefit, but...that was just naive." Running his free hand through his curls, Remi let it drop behind him to support his back as leaned his head up towards the sky.
"Especially now all cleansed thanks to Ludo, I...I don't quite feel like being beholden to anyone. You perhaps, Vai and even Seren maybe. But Torchline? To Raza and Sunjata? Nate?" The Alchemist tsked under his breath and shook his head. "And then there's the whole issue of the ascended and Ludo to sort through." Since this is before that given the thread isn't resolved, I guess.
Sun-chapped lips curling into a knowing smile, he turned his gaze back to Ronin. "I'm guessing none of this comes as a surprise to you, though."
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
It would be a lie to say that Ronin hadn’t expected as much, and he sat and listened to his husband with quiet understanding, his thumb grazing across the back of Remi’s hand. As he turned to face him, the Star offered him a crooked if not entirely understanding smile. ”No,” he said in weary agreement. ”While I’d hoped things would be better for you, none of it comes as a surprise,” he said, lifting their clasped hands to press a kiss to Remi’s fingers.
”But the only thing I care about is what you think you want to do about it,” he said. ”Are you going to keep trying? Find a replacement? Or ought we just pack up and run away on that boat we have planned?” he wondered, honestly not minding either way.
"Why should it have been?' Remi wondered with an equally crooked smile. "Just because I thought I wanted it, doesn't mean it should have been any easier than when it was thrust upon you. Naively I suppose....since Torchline was fine on its own before me, I assumed she'd carry on just fine despite my lack of experience." Though Remi sighed at the end of this, it wasn't quite out of disappointment. But then, it never really feels good to fail at something, does it?
"I'm not sure." Remi replied, raising their intertwined hands and pressing a kiss to a healing scab on Ronin's knuckle. "I'll carry on at least until I speak with Ludo. I think that will be the most telling of all. Although..." Grinning as he leaned over to brush his lips against the place Ronin's neck curved into his shoulder, Remi let his teeth feather ever so gently against his husband's skin. "If you say that again, I'll make us a boat right here and now and we can disappear before lunch."
He was only half-kidding.
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Perhaps egotistically, Ronin had assumed that his husband might have an easier time of things because he was at his side, having shouldered that burden before. But then he hadn’t really been there for some time, had he? He’d been dealing with Seren, and dealing with Remi’s demigodhood, and dealing with LongNight. Things had been left by the wayside again. ”In what way hasn’t she been fine?” he wondered of Torchline, though he knew what it was like to not feel... present, in something you were apparently in charge of.
His free hand reached up to smooth through unruly curls, breathing in Remi’s heat and closeness, eyes slipping shut at the feeling of teeth against his collarbone. ”I think you’re good for the place,” he murmured. ”You just haven’t had the chance to be yet.” Ludo was another matter entirely, though.
But Ronin preferred to think of Remi than gods, and he tilted his head up to kiss him suddenly, with as much want and need as the first time their lips had met. ”Can we disappear back to the house?” he asked.
"I thought she had." Remi said with a bit of a shrug. "Hasn't stopped the criticism of me, though." Whether that was just par for the course or not, the Alchemist had no way of knowing.
As Remi's lips were captured, for a moment, he tried to freeze his descent into his husband. That he might fall forever with nothing but the slow and steady promise of Ronin's lips meeting his seemed a fine way to spend eternity. The rise of Ronin's tongue to meet his was a welcome interruption, and Remi almost found himself feeling cheated as the kiss deepened, if only because it foreshadowed the inevitable end of it.
Pulling back slightly, his heart unsteady and heavy in his chest, Remi offered Ronin a quick smile without raising his eyes. "Just...one more." He whispered, biting the inside of his lip for a moment as if to steel his nerve.
"Do you...miss the man I was."
He paused, his mind trying and failing to find the right way to get at the heart of the matter. "I know you understand, and I know you love me. But we both know I've changed, and I..." Sam's criticisms rang brightly in his hearts. "...do you miss who I was?"
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”They will always criticise,” Ronin murmured. ”You could have been attentive to Torchline’s every need, answered every query, solved every problem. And they would still have found something to criticise you about.” Uneasy the head, and all that. It came with the title, practically, and Remi had dealt with it remarkably well to say that a number of thing had happened which he’d been forced to deal with alongside it all.
His husband pulled back and Ronin raised an eyebrow at the sudden awkwardness, the sudden uncertainty. And the question, when it came, had a tightness knotting in his throat that he had to swallow down. ”That is an unfair question,” he said. ”That man was my best friend. I fell in love with him and married him.” Ronin sighed deeply, giving Remi’s hand a squeeze.
”I miss the men we were,” he said softly. ”But I do not blame the men we have become.”
It was an unfair question, but one Remi had wondered at for a while now. Now asked, he found Ronin's answer entirely lacking. But perhaps it was unfair to have expected anything more than a gentle dance around the truth of it, but Remi found himself expecting more.
Needing more.
"That didn't answer my question." Remi said softly, his lashes fluttering slightly as if to blink away tears that weren't quite there, before turning his eyes out towards the sea. "But I suppose in a way...it does." He added, swallowing down such an odd mixture of emotions that he couldn't quite name them.
who's got their claws in you my friend?
into your heart i'll b e a t again
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
It didn’t answer the question, and Ronin sighed and gazed down at their clasped hands. ”Yes, then,” he said, as if to make it better by making it worse. ”Yes, of course I miss the man you were. You were bright and kind and looking for the best in people - for the best in me.” He sighed deeply, a shuddering thing that betrayed his nerves.
”And I still see him sometimes, when you’re too tired to be jaded, or just drunk enough not to be bitter.” But he didn’t know whether it was an illusion or a truth buried so deeply that it didn’t dare face the light of day again. ”It doesn’t change how much I love you,” he murmured. ”I need you to know that.”
