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!
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
Amalia flies back to the inn on wings of starlight, heart thundering violently in her chest.
She'd thought about following Remi home, tearing his door down and demanding... what? Apology? Forgiveness? Truth is, Amalia doesn't know what she would ask the Alchemist for, or what she would be able to give. The impasse they reached feels insurmountable, and yet the stubborn, anxious part of her that is pathological in its need to fix things aches and screams within her.
Shoving her way into the small room, the Shield slams the door behind her and collapses face-down on the bed. She isn't sure where Deimos is, if he is here or not. She's blind to everything but the roar in her ears of rising panic, the anger and hurt that leaves her vision spotted and red. And beneath it like a river shrouded in mist, guilt lurks, waiting for her to sink into it, a deadly dark pool so very comforting, inviting her to drown.
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
He’d returned from the Hanged Man, mind full of condemned creatures, murders, mysteries, and dead ends – the finality of situations hanging precariously on the balance, already conspiring to implement investigations when they returned home. His arrival and the barren darkness of the room indicated Amalia wasn’t there either; conducting some other kind of business, visiting friends, or something else – and he lit a few lanterns, candles, flames in the hearth, before dropping the food off along the table for two situated in the corner.
The monolith thought to bathe, erasing the pinnacles of unsaid, unknown, unholy figments off his skin, the grime of failure, of nothingness threatening to seep further into bones. He got no further than the notion when the door slammed, announcing the Shield’s arrival, a rush of a body meeting the bed, and then the pulsing, pervading presence of trepidation, oblivion, rage, and wounded sentiments.
Reels of emotions and none of them his own: overwhelming, overbearing, swallowing the small room into snippets and fragments, and any ruminations towards enigmas of moments prior were engulfed by the current one. He marched steadily to the doorway, leaned along its ramparts while piercing eyes went to her back, words unfurling slowly, calmly, attempting to parse through the situation. “What happened?”
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
She feels him before she hears him, doesn't see him at all. Her back to the shower Amalia sits, silent and motionless save for the roaring of her blood. The fur on her back has not abated, nor has the lilac in her hair, the claws that now cling to the mattress, the smoke which curls up from her lips. She is not human, this version of Amalia, and certainly not whole. Fractured into pieces, all of them conflicting, utterly unable and unwilling to reconcile for now.
There is a long, drawn minute where she doesn't answer, doesn't breathe a word. Which isn't to say her mind is quiet: it is surging as heavy as the sea, roaring and screaming behind her ears. What happened? Where to even begin to answer is a mystery for the Shield.
"Nothing," she says at last, a tight, low whisper. "Nothing happened. I'm fine."
'
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
The suffocating sentiments didn’t cease, circumventing through the room, pressing in their emboldened heights; and were he not so deliberate in his calm, composed fixtures, they might’ve been choking, suffocating, sticking to walls and throats. He watched as she sat, but nothing else changed, fur and hackles, lilac hues, claws and talons – and the beast couldn’t quite fathom what had brought this alteration.
The Sword moved away from the doorway, not engulfed or swayed by the obvious lie. Instead of invading her space, instead of pressing into the talons, into the gulf, into the spike of fractures, fragments, unfurling, uncoiling strands (and gods; how many times had he felt exactly the same?), he grabbed hold of one of the chairs, settling before her. “You are not.” Not fine, not fine, not fine, a familiar war drum; and it echoed, reverberated against his skull – uncertain whose hissed more vibrantly. He leaned forward, arms on thighs, hands extended in case she wished to take them – and waited, simply there.
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
Footsteps on the wooden floor; the scrape of a moved chair. Amalia's eyes don't raise to either noise, a flick of her ears the only sign she notices his approach. Staring at the wall behind him she waits for him to sit, pain and anger continuing to radiate off of her in waves.
No shit, flashes through her thoughts, dying before it hits her tongue. I'm not okay, the Shield's mind screams from beneath layer upon layer of bitter anger. She hasn't been fine for a very long time, but she's held the cracked and frayed edges together. Held them together for him, always.
Now she tries again.
"I'm fine, I just... I saw Remi. It was difficult. But I'll be fine." She'll be fine, because she has to. Because the time and place to fall apart is neither here nor now.
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
Deimos had long since perfected the art of smothering down any emotions, any sentiments, any sorrows, until they painted his core black; hollowed out the proportions until he couldn’t remember what it was like to not suppress the dominion. They spoke of vulnerability, of weaknesses he didn’t want the world to see, of frayed parts where he’d long since burnt the edges and left them to fester, weaken, decay, and die. Somewhere along the way Amalia had seemed to have done the same, no release to the world, clustered, hidden, tucked in between. The Sword didn’t know why; could hardly begin to imagine it was for his sake, the beast suffocating under the weight of all his other looped nooses.
She didn’t take either of his hands, and he knew he wasn’t grand or good at this: diffusing bits and pieces of her anger, of her bitterness. One time he’d thought to leave her alone while he fought her demons, and another time they’d merely spilled their pain upon one another in aftermaths of trauma. No one ever came to him for emotional support; he was built for slaying, for battles, for skirmishes, for clinging to shadows, for waiting, waiting, waiting.
And he would, for lifetimes, for her.
Stating the obvious hadn’t worked, her stature of I’m fine ringing around like the worst kind of lie, and calloused, rough fingers aimed to take hold of claws and figments of rage, share fortitude, and not oblivion. “Do you want to talk about it?” About why seeing Remi had been difficult (hadn’t they been friends?), about anything at all, instead of being trapped, or drowning in the abyss.
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
Now at last Amalia moves, looking down as his hands approach hers with a strange, detached curiosity. The ones he grabs don't feel much like they truly belong to her. She isn't her body in this moment. Shes someone and something else.
Still she does not draw away, letting him capture her clawed fingers in his. They disappear beneath Deimos' brawn, engulfed and drowned out by his touch. She ought to be better, to look up and smile, and yet it feels so desperately hard. Almost as difficult at honesty might be, as vulnerability, as truth.
"Do you want to talk about it?" The words are hardly more than a whisper, yet even as they leave her lips she can feel the way they sting.
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
Hands in hands, questions for questions, no true answer curling out of the smoke and fumes. If the inquiry was meant to wound, he didn’t feel it – either understanding the notions of his inability for proper discourse (hidden, tucked away, away, away, no one permitted to see – in between cloaks and daggers and decayed elements), or that he’d failed in some other way. His recollections preside in the claws, in the wake of talons, in the ways he cannot measure up. Fingers coiled around, until they hit at rings, at promises and benedictions they’d made to one another, vows and assurances for the hours like these – the contentment so few and far between now. Worlds careening, colliding, blistering, and scathing; rapaciously intertwining down notches in spines.
“Yes,” he concluded, a hushed whisper to match hers, his head bowed over connections, before raising up, hoping to catch her eye, her gaze, more than cosmic entities. Willing to try, to offer, to understand the lacquer chipping, the wilted fragments underneath. He’d error somewhere along the way, the beating resonance of not enough, not enough, not enough stirring in his ribs, but stayed striving, fortitude and might because there wasn’t time to be anything else.
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
Yes. One word, one syllable, knocking gently on her defenses and leaving scarcely more than a dent. Still not looking up at Deimos the Shield furrows her brows tightly, something tortured dancing heavily across her shuttered face.
She opens her mouth and closes it, and then repeats the act. Finally her vocal cords remember how to make sound, though inflection is still suspiciously absent: her tone is dull and flat. "Fine. He told me I should have left him and Ronin to die. And that I'm pathological." Blankly she recounts this abbreviated version, still staring at her hands. "And I told him he was an idiot, and he couldn't pretend the rest of the world didn't exist."
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
For a woman he’d known to be expressive, to jump into each and every fray, decipherable from across a room, the shuttered remnants pulled at him, the torturous wake flickering, then falling away, numbed. Was this how she felt when he did the same, when he fled the horrors, the trials, the tribulations? Like he could barely scratch the surface, like he knew nothing at all? The designation of his defects coiled behind hearts, lungs, ribs, and clenched tightly in the weight of his jaw. If he were to pry, would it matter? Would it just be enamel? Would it just be lacquer? Would she hate him for it?
Patience knotted him together, as she eventually unveiled sentiments, and the Sword didn’t miss the lifeless disregard in the way it was spoken. In the reaches of Remi and some toxins, yearning to be left for dead out in LongNight’s revolution, for her compulsions and impulse to save. To snag at dying lines and pull them from the brink. To impart life where so many others would’ve done exactly as the Alchemist requested. “How many of us are still here, because of your efforts?” Himself included; out of the dregs and shadow and clusters of oblivion, where he would’ve comfortably resided until the earth swallowed him whole. Quiet rumbles followed, made in the small room, remolding faith. “Was Ronin grateful for you?” Because that should’ve mattered too – two lives out of monster clutches – and not everything should’ve amounted to Remi's opinion.
But she’d clearly taken it to heart; friends becoming more fire-forged, reeling in their sway of time, changes, and status quos. The beast was briefly reminded of Jigano, orchestrating his narratives to the beat of his flare for twists and turns. “That is his choice, but the world always catches up to us.”
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
"How many are gone because of them?" Amalia fires back, the first true sign of the heat that burns behind her dull, cracked shell. Adam, Peter, a child at LongNight, au unnamed Ascended, and all the others she led to chaos, the ones she couldn't save.
Shaking her head in curt dismissal the Shield pulls back her hands, wrapping her arms across her chest and clinging to her skin. Dropping her chin down to her chest the girl begins to shake her head. Yes, Ronin was grateful; yes, they were alive. But it doesn't erase the terrible feelings that rise within her at the turn of the tide.
"Yeah. You're right. Like I said- it's fine." She tucks her feet onto the bed, pulling her knees up to cling to like armor. "I'll be fine. Thanks." Petulant, maybe, but the girl can muster little more at the moment being.
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
The fumes fired back, and he listened, like stone and rocks, forged amongst acrimony, used to the pummeling weight of worlds lodged behind skulls, the first volleys hard and ignited. He instantly thought of Peter, of Adam, still in the icy cave, beholden to the dragon – but of her making. It was a pattern here, and he’d ultimately joined that circle too due to LongNight’s claws and his unfortunate planning, feeling the pulse of those entropies sinking behind his shoulders, within a clench, a feathering, of his jaw muscles. “You did not cause their deaths.” An echo, from when he’d been broken on Temple floors – whether or not either of them believed in the statement. “Would you prefer to have not tried at all?” They both knew better; and still often launched themselves into frays and danger, intending to guard, protect, and find a way.
A swing and miss thereafter, and she sealed herself up in cracks and crags, hands pulled back, away from him, snaking over her frame. For once, he didn’t take it to heart, rising from his chair, meandering over to where he’d left the food, taking things out of the bag, slowly, one-by-one, while measuring out his response. He was not made for these sort of things, and his lack of experience showed in the stumbling of abilities, eyes on the array of choices, wishing he knew exactly what to do or say. Perhaps this was why he craved the battlefield – tactics and strategies, mayhem and dominion, never having to question the workings of a blade. The Sword listened to the singular lie, quietly placing things along a plate. “You can take your armor off, Amalia. You do not need it with me.” No judgements here, no verdicts, assessments, or decrees. One day he might listen and hasten to his own declarations.
Deimos meandered back with the plate, bursting now with variety, and two glasses filled with water, placing them on end tables by the bed, and the plate along blankets. He made a space for himself without touching her, room and expanse for both, reaching for a few berries on the dish, motioning it towards the middle of them in case she was hungry. Lower reverberations stirred in his chest, while he contemplated, while he asked. “What do you need?”
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
I sailed seas of emotion to wander a forest of scars I am a dance of light and darkness, a galaxy of shadow and stars
Whether or not she caused their deaths is a matter of debate, at least in Amalia's mind. And at least sometimes- far too often there is no room for discussion, the guilt easily drowning out any voices of reason or forgiveness. Including his, at this moment, the question doing nothing to stir her from her position wrapped around herself.
And as for her armor? "It's not for you," the Shield answers softly, more into her knees than into the air. She is keenly aware of his movement, his abandonment of the chair, the way he begins to move through the room with a comfort and assurance of which she can only dream. Will he leave her here, she wonders idly? Does she want him to?
She doesn't know.
She doesn't know anything except the roar of panic in her ears. She doesn't know how to open back up, how to escape this shell she's trapped in except through virtue of time. She doesn't know, doesn't know, doesn't know, doesn't know----
"I don't know," she snaps back sharply, her back to him as she sits on the bed. Her voice is bright and fire-lit again, anger the easiest emotion to muster. "I don't need anything. Except for this feeling to go away."
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
Nothingness, no movements or motions stirred save for coiling in tighter on herself. He’d hoped for something to salvage, to do, rather than meander out into the unknown – not to fix, but to help. But he wasn’t, and never would be, the type to conduct feelings accords, checks, or balances; and wouldn’t think to provide any advice (his preferred method of smothering it down and forgetting it existed not a healthy method). The sentiments, the quiet, the brooding, brimming surfaces made him restless, because they weren’t familiar, or his own ghosts, demons, wraiths, and phantoms.
Armor not for him, but for herself then, to guard calamity away from the void, to slip out of the irreverence, the soullessness? He wondered just how far this argument with Remi had gone, if there were other notions intertwining amongst the ether, if moments beyond choices, declarations, and calamity had been shared. Failures, losses, and devastation wrecked and ruined – he could recall days upon days where they’d done naught but laugh amidst the lands, and now they were here, on another molten precipice.
She snapped again, and he ignored the press of nettles and thorns, shaking them off and out of skin when the anger curled around the room. Instead, he moved the plate of food out of the way, allowing it to join its brethren on the end table, pondering his next motion. He moved back towards the headboard and propped pillows, and then stretched long arms, to snag, to grab, to hold, and pull her into his chest. Liberation presided still – she’d be able to evade, escape, and he almost expected her to. But it was meant to be for comfort, to uncoil, unfurl, or tuck away, further and further.
Did feelings ever go away?
“Okay.” Resignation for a moment, while he pondered, dug in. “If he were here, what else would you say to him?”
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
