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!
As much as Sam was sure he could do it, he was swiftly finding that map making was a very different endeavour from books indeed. With an instructional tome open on one side of the desk and his shaky first attempts at a compass rose on the other, he was absolutely a beginner: for the moment the sign on the door said closed, though the door itself was open to let in a pleasant breeze (and to get out the old meat smell from the building, which did not yet want to forget it's past as a butchers).
Looking up from his best attempt yet, which still left quite a bit to be desired, Sam reached out to touch the top of his paperweight, the flower within having recently taken on new meaning after he'd learnt once more of it's origins. Those early days with Remi seemed like a simpler time, like something that almost hadn't happened. Remi, the gentle young alchemist he'd known then, didn't exist now; Sam was sure he didn't in the way he had either. It all felt fake, yet there was this glass paperweight on the desk before him, it's cold touch on his fingertips the only way he could be sure that the memories were real.
Closed signs meant little to Remi these days. For better or worse (worse more often than not), Remi now did things without first thinking. Losing his gentleness had not only resulted in a harder man, but a much more thoughtless one too. Leaning into selfishness had made Remi blind to many of the ramifications of his actions: like barging into Sam's new shop despite the sign indicating he wasn't welcome. He was the governor after all.
"Sam?" Remi called, squinting for a moment as his eyes adjusted to the light. Running a hand through his hair, the salt from the ocean tugging heavily at his curls, the Alchemist made his way back towards the sound of rustling parchment. When he came upon the bookmaker, if something didn't prevent his entry that was, Remi would rush right through the typical pleasantries. "Sam, are you the only ascended here in Torchline? Other than Nate?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Looking up as he heard someone enter, Sam was surprised to see Remi, partly because he had just been thinking about the man. "Yes, I'm here!" He called back out, knowing that the odd, thin shape of the building could make it difficult to see him behind his desk when one came in from the door.
He was expecting Remi to maybe ask him about his new shop or some other pleasant small talk, thinking back to when they had agreed to get together every so often. Sam was just about to stand up and offer the man some tea (of course, his kettle had made the move from the Grounds) when Remi instead launched into a far more urgent sounding question. A little alarmed, Sam raised his eyebrows, attention taken for now entirely off the paperweight or any memories.
"Um...I think so? I'm not sure though, honestly. I'm not exactly the most popular Ascended, so someone might come here and not tell me. ...Why?" Sam asked, curious but also a little nervous, a coil of dread in his stomach awaiting the answer.
For a moment Remi's jaw feathered as if he was annoyed by Sam's lack of knowledge on this subject. If anyone should know the answer though it was Remi, but as it was, that wasn't the source of his frustration. As his once-friend answered with about as much detail as he could, the Alchemist exhaled a relieved breath. He wasn't naive enough to think that his search was suddenly over, but it was good to have his assumptions corroborated.
Crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against a wall or table, whatever was closest, Remi sighed and offered Sam a look that was almost apologetic. "Someone is targeting the ascended. It sounds as though they are trying to rile everyone up for some sort of confrontation. So I was wondering if it was only you and Nate to worry about here. Nate has..." Sunjata (and Hotaru, though Remi didn't know it); he didn't say this though, knowing how close the men had once been, and not really knowing where they stood now. "Are you still staying with Zeph?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
If there was irritation on Remi's face, Sam didn't pick on it in the moment, more concerned with whatever it was the Governor had come to tell him: any facial expressions were chalked up to the unpleasantness of the topic at hand.
And unpleasant it was indeed. As soon as Remi mentioned targeted Ascended Sam had flashes to when there had been a knife at his neck and a voice in his ear, who he had later found out to be Roana threatening him for no more reason than his Goddess; he had hoped to come away from that, by moving to Torchline. To find it might follow him was worrying indeed, and he began to wring his hands together, trying to find a way to channel out the sudden anxious energy.
"What do you mean by targeting? Has someone been hurt?" He asked, clear fear on his face. It was hard to know, with Remi's now often quite flat delivery of words, the seriousness of any given issue. "Yes, I'm still living with Zeph. I'm not sure I could fairly depend on him to get into all of this, though..."
"I thought you'd stopped doing that." Remi said in a low voice, almost unconsciously. His eyes fell on Sam's hands, endlessly wringing his fingers again and again. He half expected the man to start tugging at his hair or curling his knees up to his chest as that was how his anxiety once had progressed. Such wasn't Remi's problem now, and if he gave himself a moment to think about it, he'd wonder why he even mentioned it at all.
"Killed, I think." Remi answered honestly, despite the shock his words were likely to bring. "We received an ascended's feet in a box, with a letter. I am contacting the other leaders but...I believe they received similar packages."
Raising a brow as Sam mentioned Zeph getting into it, he shook his head. "No, no..I...was asking if you were alone." He clarified, perhaps a touch awkwardly. Sighing and running a hand through his curls before folding his arm back across his chest, the Alchemist's gaze drifted to Sam's desk and the various sketches thereupon.
"Cartography?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Until Remi mentioned it, Sam was not conscious of what his hands were doing; he looked down as if mad at them and softly clapped them together, keeping them with some effort still in his lap. Some habits were hard to break.
When he received the news that an Ascended had been killed though, it took an almost impossible amount of willpower not to curl up in his chair and scream: first Rexanna and Clem over Longnight and now this? "Who? Wh..who's feet?" Sam asked, feeling sick to his stomach over the imagery of the amputated parts of his kin. That Remi seemed so unbothered about the entire ordeal made it that much worse, Sam feeling entirely unsettled by the world.
"No, I know, but...I may as well be, if anyone were to come to the house, because I don't want to impose on him. Make him fight for me." Sam sighed, knowing full well that Zeph likely would. "Still...maybe him being there would be a deterrent." He hoped if he spoke those words confidently enough, they might come true.
There was a moment of silence as he tried to recover himself, blink away any threatened tears and take a breath to steady his panicked soul. "Um.." Sam looked over his maps, now thoroughly distracted. "Yes, I'm...just learning."
The Alchemist raised a brow at that, silently wondering why Sam thought he might be able to identify the ascended by his (their) feet. "We don't know." Remi said in that same, monotone, voice. It wasn't as though DNA testing was available, and without news of a missing ascended (or at least a foot-less one), they had no leads to follow. "There's no way to know." He added, though his tone was no warmer for it.
Biting the inside of his lip and saying nothing despite the arguments fluttering through his mind about Sam and Zeph, Remi just nodded though there wasn't much encouragement in it. Zeph...would look after Zeph. The bookmaker was right in that the smuggler likely wouldn't risk his neck for him. Hopefully, though he'd at least serve as a deterrent.
Uninterested in the paperweight, Remi's eyes brushed over the markings on the parchment. "Not bad. You always did have nice writing." Having recently regained his creation magic, there was much he might have offered Sam in the way of cartography tools, but for the moment he remained silent on that subject. "New shop, new profession? Is that it?"
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"...Oh." Said Sam, not having really thought that far about the logistics of his question, too upset in the moment to realise it would be difficult to know who had been hurt from their feet. He supposed he'd have to work it out himself from seeing who was missing next time there was an Ascended meeting, assuming there was only one...Sam swallowed, the whole thing terrifying the more he thought on it.
He tried to put on a smile as Remi looked at his maps, feeling like he was wearing an ill-fitting mask over clear panic. Sam opened his mouth, meaning to say something about the paperweight or why he'd decided to move on from making books, but instead found himself looking up at Remi with confusion and frustration in his face. Maybe it was the memories of a sweeter, kinder man that had resurfaced, but something about Remi's reaction to this just felt...wrong.
"Are you not bothered by this at all?" Sam asked, exasperated. "You just told me that you found disembodied feet of someone like me in a box and I'm getting the impression that you think it's odd I'm upset about it. You can't be that uncaring, surely."
Glancing up, Sam would be reminded again surely that the man staring at him was not the one he'd once known. That he'd once loved. There was no kindness in Remi's soft sea-glass stare, the colour of which was almost an insult now. Laugh lines had faded away from the Alchemist's face, leaving his unshaven cheeks looking harder than they should have. Even his curls had lost their boyish playfulness, somehow.
"Am I? I'm bothered as Governor, yes. That someone is threatening our people. Or at least, you and Nate. But am I upset, the way you are? No, I'm not." Remi's arms remained crossed, his posture casual, and his expression one of a man who has seen far too much loss to be upset by a pair of feet. "I've told you time and time again that I haven't it in me to care about everyone anymore. I don't know who this was; it isn't for me to mourn their death." Remi replied. It likely wasn't the answer Sam was looking for, but bald honesty was still a trait the Alchemist possessed, despite it being far more bluntly said than it was before.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Indeed, Sam did discover for the thousandth time that the Remi he had known had gone: perhaps it was the memories that had been returned to him, but he supposed he had been harbouring some hope that with enough asking, enough poking, the Alchemist might remember his gentleness, that which had once set him apart. He watched with some disbelief still in his face that anyone could be so unsympathetic , never mind the man he'd once known as the kindest in his life.
"If you don't have it in you to care about anyone, are you really a good fit for Governor, Remi? If you don't care, why are you trying to lead and help people?" He asked, tired of the jaded persona his friend had adopted. "I'm not asking you to mourn, just...be less cold." Closing his eyes and taking a breath, Sam tried to settle his nerves before he said something he wouldn't be able to come back from - there were certainly words on his tongue that could damage whatever small fragile not-friendship they had at the moment.
"I don't have to be personally moved, in order to do things that are beneficial." The Alchemist pointed out. "I'm still going to track down whoever did this. Still came here to make sure you were alright." If anything Remi thought his lack of emotional zeal towards everyone and everything was likely to be more of a benefit to Torchline. A man with few ties was harder to be bound up by them.
Though Sam might have the good sense to bite his tongue, the Alchemist did not. "Sam, if you don't like who I am now, what is it you want from me?" He asked, arms still crossed, posture still far too casual. "I'm not going to change for you and I'm never going to be who I was." With soft frustration, Remi let his arms fall from his sides as he sighed, shaking his head towards the bookmaker-turned-mapmaker.
"This is what I am now, and if it isn't good enough for you..." Not quite knowing how to end that sentence, Remi just trailed off, giving Sam an impossible to describe look. One that asked for patience, but also said he was just as happy to jump ship on this attempt at friendship.
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
While yes, Remi had still come here to make sure Sam was alright, Sam wasn't sure how sustainable a leader that didn't care was. What about when the job got too difficult, or Remi had to solve an issue between his own people that required a delicate hand and soft speech? Not only that, a leader had to be relatable and Remi, at least for Sam, was anything but. He let out a sigh, listening to the rest of what Remi had to say without comment, eyes fixed on the hard glass paperweight and it's delicate flower held within.
He returned Remi's look with a softer one than he had held before, but not yet ready to give up on the point. "I should apologise, because I feel like...I'm concerned, Remi, and I think it's coming out as frustration. I am sorry for that." Sam could see his approach was probably not helping foster understanding between them (though he wasn't sure he believed a different tone would actually help either).
"I just...you know, you must know, that I am not very um...healthy, emotionally. I suppose I just worry that I can see signs of that, of things I've tried to do, in what you're doing." He sighed, hoping this more gentle approach might get something across. "Cutting yourself off like this, putting all your...well, everything, into Ronin...I'm worried you're going to realise one day you've lost any friends you ever had and regret that. That you've become so jaded you can't see the goodness in the world anymore. You're...young, Remi, it's just..do you really want the rest of your life to be emotionless and grey? Without any significant relationships but one?"
07-16-2020, 05:10 PM (This post was last modified: 07-16-2020, 06:47 PM by Remi.)
aúsi, nos paramas // & still we stand
Young. It seemed a funny word to ascribe to Remi now, but Sam wasn't wrong. For all the Alchemist had done, there was still much that life had to show him. Things he simply had to go through. It was his birthday this season, matter of fact. So perhaps he was one step closer to being just an idiot in Sam's eyes, rather than just young.
"My life isn't emotionless." The Alchemist whispered, pulling his gaze away from Sam and turning to peer absently at something on the wall—a painting or book or some such. Anything to distract himself from the worry and care he saw reflected in Sam's blue eyes.
"Regret is a far better alternative than enduring more of what I have already had to bear." He said after a moment, voice low and wounded sounding. "There are some things you don't come back from, Sam. "
THE
ALCHEMIST
Table coding by Sky
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
