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!
Cian is the sort of man who has very much earned the post he holds. He has done his time in the trenches, he had proven himself. He has bled and broken himself for this cause. One of the few luxuries that such a life offers is that his time is typically not spent running erands. Or, in this case, telling his goddam spyglass to do his fucking job.
The Eye does not knock. Instead, he throws open the door to Finn's room, sending it slamming against the wall. His face is a neutral mask, and rather than yelling as one might expect, he simply halts a few feet inside the room and reaches into the pocket of his long coat for his cigarettes and a lighter. Lifting one to his lips, the Eye lights it carefully, without having so much as given Finn a look. No doubt the Spyglass is trying to contain his racing heart like a startled rabbit and looking for clothes, but as it is, one might think Cian alone in the room for the utter lack of attention he pays to anything that is not the cigarette between this fingers.
It’s been three days since Finn managed any more than a couple of hours of fitful sleep. He’s getting worse and he can’t get away from it - no amount of breathing exercises, journaling, gentle and not-so-gentle medicine can change that. But wouldn’t you know it? Precisely when Cian decides to burst into his room, he’s managing it. More than simple deep sleep, Finn is even dreaming. And they’re not the night terrors or the strange and vivid things of the past few weeks. It’s a good dream.
More than a good dream. Ahem. Finn doesn’t even have a memory for when he last had a dream like this, but it’s thoroughly interrupted at the blunt slam of his door bouncing off the wall, leaving a pleasant little dent from the handle. He jerks awake, groggy and not at all as well rested as he could have been, but somewhere distant in the back of his mind, he knows what’s happening.
”Cian.” Finn’s voice is rough, muffled by the pillow (he’s belly down, which is both a blessing and a curse right now). He can’t be late for anything, or have missed anything. He’s certain about that much. So this is going to be bad.
The end of Cian's cigarette flares crimson as he inhales. The tobacco is rich and wood-heavy, not at all like the garbage peddled on the beaches here in Torchline. The smoke which the Eye exhales is expectedly thick, curling upwards and briefly obscuring Cian's denim-bright gaze—not that Finn's looking. If the Eye is upset at all that his Spyglass is still ass-up in bed, he doesn't show it. Instead, his eyes casually survey the room, taking in the dark bottle of liquid with a brown paper bag wrapped around it, the small baggy of powder. Clothes askew and partially tucked into drawers. There are things Finn keeps neat and tidy of course—his glasses on the bedside table—and others that he doesn't—newly bought shirts in the market, for instance.
Pulling the cigarette from his lips with his thumb and forefinger, Cian regards the smouldering tip for a moment before speaking. "Tell me Finn. What is it you do for the Order?" It has the ring of a rhetorical question, though no doubt the Spyglass will feel Cian's eyes pinning him with an expectant stare.
It may surprise Cian to learn that, actually, Finn does keep things in order (usually). But as his mind becomes more unravelled, so does the rest of his life - and funnily enough, that’s the only time the Eye ever seems to come to see him. There’s a correlation there, and if his mind wasn’t so muddled Finn might be able to see it. Alas, it’s not to be right now. Passing a hand over his face, rubbing at tired eyes and he stubble on his cheeks, the Spyglass leans up on one arm.
Usually, of course, he’d get up right away, but he’s acutely aware of a rather pressing issue that he needs to ignore a little longer until it’s gone. ”I find people,” he mumbles, his voice still thick with sleep. It’s definitely rhetorical, but he knows whatever he says or doesn’t say, it’ll probably still be wrong. ”All the potentials in Torchline have been found.”
"Mhmm." Cian agrees, walking towards the open window and looking out of it. "I wonder then..." The Eye leans out slightly, watching a child splash from puddle to puddle, utterly soaking wet and laughing with bright delight below. "..why it is you're still doing here." Spinning on his heel, the blue-fire in his gaze made all the more vivid contrasted against the utter lack of expression on Cian's face.
He lets the silence linger for a moment.
Then two.
"If all the potentials in Torchline have been found," Cian continues, his voice dry and dusty, the cadence one of casual conversation. "why am I hearing reports of afternoons spent with the candidates? Picnics near the market and midnight drinks here in your room." Without blinking, Cian flicks the ash from his cigarette onto the window sill. "What of the Greatwood, ey? Halo?" With each question Cian's eyebrows softly raise, as if trying to prompt an obvious answer out of a child.
The words hit with all the potency of a whip crack - and Finn knows intimately how those feel; it’s written all over his bare back, revealed a little more as he turns to blearily follow Cian to the window. If anything can cool the residual fire in his belly (and what was he dreaming about, anyway?), it’s this. Clearing his throat and running his fingers through his curls, Finn considers an answer and then wisely changes his mind.
How Cian knows all of this barely needs consideration - he is the Eye, after all. So instead, Finn merely shifts to sit up (there’s precious little to show now, and he’s not naked, at least, just shirtless), rubbing at a kink in his shoulder. ”Point taken,” he mumbles. ”I’ll be gone within the hour. The Greatwood first - my research shows Mort’s daughter apparently lives there.”
There’s no point arguing, no point trying to. It’s his job, as Cian says. ”I will move on to Halo from there.”
"I see." Cian takes another long drag on his cigarette, his eyes like cold water raining across Finn's bare skin. "And yet you stayed here, making friends when one of the god's own candidates has yet to be contacted." Which was of course Cian's way of asking just what excuse Finn could possibly have for putting his cock—or anything else for that matter—before their mission.
Maybe if Finn saw Cian's body, he'd come to...understand the Eye a bit more. But even in the hottest of summers, the Eye is always clothed. Only whores know the story of his flesh, and their mouths are gagged with money to help them keep their silence when he leaves them.
”I do not make friends, Cian.” Finn’s laugh is a mix of weary and bitter, and it takes a deep breath of the cool air to rally him enough to rise to his feet. Gods but he’s tired, the Spyglass moving on autopilot to get dressed. He knows well enough that Cian does not wait for propriety or... anything else, really - not even the wide open door is an excuse for Finn’s tardiness.
So he dresses quickly, shirt clean and pressed (one of the few he has left), swiftly buttoned, his tie knotted at his throat, cuffs straight. Adding pants, socks, shoes, and his coat, he ends the ritual by wiping his face over with a cold, damp cloth. ”All of these places are vastly different to Stormbreak. Each with its own... nuances, customs, prevalence.” Makes no difference to Cian, he bets.
”I suppose I must have been suffering with a touch of culture shock. Our Fixer seems to agree, at least. Sooner left behind the better, if that is the case.”
08-04-2020, 08:40 PM (This post was last modified: 08-04-2020, 08:40 PM by Cian.)
names so deep and names so true
"Then what would you call what you've been doing? Market-meet ups. Little home-made cakes. Walks down by the sea-shore." Cian's eyes widen and then narrow, the evidence well and truly damning at this point with both the baker and the governor.
"None of which are any concern of yours, Finn." Cian reminds him, his denim-stare watching with lacklustre interest as the Spyglass gets himself dressed. "Unless you'd like to trade in your glasses for a notebook? I'm sure we could find some use for the recording of customs and the like." His tone however very much suggested how little need there was for such a role. "Perhaps you'd like to leave the Order altogether. Take up residence here, sit in the sand, learn more about all of these nuances." Be stripped of all that you've made for yourself, however little that is. Lose your precious glasses, your access to medicine and Falke, to the safety your position affords you.
Exhaling a stream of smoke upwards with a hard smirk, the Eye merely shakes his head. "Don't flatter yourself, Finn." Cian says, rising and striding towards the other man to clap him heartily on the back. "You're as taken with a pretty face as any man. But mind the wedding ring. I hear the husband pacts quite a punch." So saying he claps Finn on the back again, emphasizing just how poorly Finn would fair against physical violence.
”I suppose you would call it acting well below my appointed station. You might also call it a waste of time and resources. Would that I had merely frequented the brothel instead.” It can’t even really be called a barb, not with Finn’s nature - especially against Cian’s - but if anything can sharpen the Spyglass’s comparatively gentle tongue, it’s sleep deprivation. ”Regardless, you are correct in that it is inappropriate. Thank you for bringing it up.”
As he speaks he is already packing away his belongings, of which there are precious few - Finn is barely at home in his own skin, let alone anywhere else - and soon enough the room is clear of anything that marked it as occupied. All is collected in a small bag on the floor at Finn’s feet, ready to be dropped back to Stormbreak prior to his visit to the Greatwood.
”That will hardly be necessary,” he mutters. ”Though, given that they are only glasses, the only thing that will suffer at their removal is my eyesight.” Because that’s true, isn’t it? That’s how it is for the rest of the world, anyway. As if to demonstrate, the Spyglass slips on said spectacles, glancing across at Cian as if for all the world he can see more clearly. As if the Eye has not come to life in an array of cold fire and deep shadow.
Finn flinches - twice - at the strikes against his back, the reminder of an entirely different sensation thoroughly unpleasant. And at Cian’s implications, his cheeks flood with colour. ”...Yes. Noted.” Denying it is sealing his own fate, so he merely agrees. ”I will see you back at the Tower, then.”
Cian merely chuckles under his breath; it's a haunting and empty sort of sound, and it leaves no warmth on his face. "At least I don't leave my tasks half-done." He drawls in return. Both in the brothel and outside of it.
At this bold skirt around the truth, the Eye merely narrows his, locking a much paler blue stare onto Finn's. It is a look that speaks of warning, of lines that the Spyglass is welcome to cross if he thinks himself man enough. Cian is always ready for the challenge from his soldiers, as any good general is. But Finn is not ready and if he leaps too soon, he'll simply plummet. "Save it for Falke." The Eye grunts, not needing or wanting to hear the lies about his glasses that Finn tells himself and others. Cian might not understand the magic at work, but he knows damn well that there is some.
"I'd like a report on my desk about the Greatwood-girl within the week. " Rising, Cian moves to the open door but halts pointedly just before leaving. "If y'can manage it, of course."
The rebuttal is there, crackling like electricity on the tip of his tongue, and Finn forces it back like the well trained dog that he is. He manages to straighten up again as Cian heads for the door, taking slow and measured breaths in the way he’s been taught, trying to tempt his pulse back down from its current hummingbird pace. ”You’ll have the report,” Finn murmurs, jerking his head in a nod. ”Have a safe trip.” Wherever he’s going. No one checks on Cian either way, that’s for sure.
Once he’s gone - and only once he’s certain of it - Finn backs up a few steps to sink down on the side of the bed. He sets his glasses down and puts his head in his hands, heels of his palms pressed against his eyes until the world is a cosmos behind them. And the word he utters is one of the sort that rarely passes his lips, if ever.
