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
She does not evade but neither relents, settling stiffly into his embrace, her body still coiled tightly as a spring. Shuddering a sharp inhale the Shield falls against him, not turning, not easing into his arms, not melting down from stone. Though there is comfort in contact it is not enough to break through the anger, the anxiety, the pain.
And again his voice, a low refrain that chafes against her mind. What else would she say to Remi? "I don't know," she repeats uselessly, her voice now a hoarse, tired whisper, resigned to disappoint. If she'd known what she would say to Remi she would have said it then; now she can only fetch snippets and feelings, a whirling scream beneath the calm that she desperately wants to subdue.
Tired; she's tired. "I'm sorry. I don't have... I don't know what you want."
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
He’d lost count of many iterations his efforts had negated to naught. The same expression clambered from her, and every movement, harsh and stiff, seemed all the more unyielding. Perhaps they were at cross purposes again, roaming down different paths and roads, and his lack of experience in ever truly assisting someone in emotional capacities rendered glaringly apparent. Uncertainty meandered, and he detested the sentiments right down to his bones; feeling useless and inadequate. But he remained still, while she stayed in his threshold, coiled and contorted, walls and barriers up, and he’d yet to truly comprehend to do with hers, when he knew how expertly to hide behind his.
The exhaustion clung there too, and he offered a sigh, extensions enduring. He went no further in touch, in things she clearly didn’t want or need, confusion furrowing down the length of his brows. “Nothing,” quietly stoked in the columns of the room. “Just trying to help.” Maybe that was the true error; and she hadn’t craved that support. Mulling it over, jaw clenching and feathering, another consideration lingered. “Do you want me to leave?”
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 wishes she could do or say something to assuage him, but the words and emotions keep slipping away, carried on the wind of her grief. As swiftly as he clings to her she is released, allowed to return back to the stormy sea, a buoy floating on the turbulent waves. She doesn't draw away from him but she doesn't lean in closer; stagnant, uncertain, still at a loss for who she's supposed to be.
She knows that he is trying to help. She knows she knows she knows she knows she knows she doesn't know she doesn't know Idon'tknowIDON'TKNOW, and yet as those words flutter like butterflies around her head they refuse to rise to her lips. What's the point? All she knows is she doesn't know.
Arms around her knees the girl shivers, suddenly feeling both hot and cold. "If you want," she answers noncommittally, alto voice low and blank and hoarse. She doesn't know if she wants him to leave, but she does know that saying so wouldn't be helpful at all. Curling up tighter around herself, the Shield tenses, half-buried in her knees. "I'm sorry, Deimos, I.... I don't know what I'm doing anymore."
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
Too much; they’d all seen and harbored and strived to save so many damned times, to watch it all unfurl, to be told it was effortless, nothing, naught, was just one more piercing jab in a line of nettles and thorns. The void was still and silent now, the unknown barraging down upon his shoulders with anvils and earths, until she shuddered, shivered, and he moved to wrap his arms around her. Not to smother, not to suffocate, but to pull her back further in the crook of his hold, underneath his jaw, or head upon his shoulder, a shield to ride out the incoming storm, the brewing, battling tempest stirring throughout.
Because it was an onslaught, a brutal conjecture to try and try and try and never amount to anything. For all the determination, for all the convictions, for all the tribulations, even those with steadfast, stalwart decrees grew tired, exhausted, and diminished. So he attempted to dive down with her, in between the demons and the parallels, amongst and amidst the high towering walls that seemed endless, bestowing the remnants of his strength, the reverential manifestation of his love and devotion, the echoes and reverberations of I am here, I am here. “That is fine,” he murmured into the quiet, into the hollowed sanctions, the brim of darkness. It was okay for them to be swept into the current, because he’d be an anchor, and it was okay that she didn’t know where to go or what to do, because neither did he. Accepted, for everything and anything. The Sword could stand and remain there with her, in the folds of shadows and the vast unknown, heartbeats and fortitude in the turbulence. “We can be lost together.”
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
"No it's not." The line of steel snaps through her voice, sharply stinging herself with its tone. Tense as a live-wire, she vibrates in his orbit, ready o shatter apart at the smallest provocation. Days, weeks, months of suppression quiver beneath her skin: she can feel all the things she hasn't said rippling across her tongue, clinging to her throat.
Abruptly Amalia stands up, as though though movement she might save herself from entirely falling apart. Pacing, stalking, through the room, the leopardess looks anywhere but at her husband, radiating frustration and confusion and pain.
"I don't want to be lost," Amalia snaps, hands balled into painful fists. "I- I- I- I'm not fine. This isn't fine. It hasn't been fine for a long time. And I'm so sick of pretending-"
Stopping abruptly in her pacing and speech, the Shield sinks into a chair, pulling her head into her hands. "I'm not the same person anymore. I've changed so much the past few years and.... it frightens me. Not knowing who I am."
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
He’d meant it’d be fine to not be well, to not be whole, to acknowledge the emotion, the feeling - but it scarcely seemed to matter. Gone out of his arms quickly; a strike against a match, and he remained still as her ire spiraled, eyes widening, attempting to exude something, anything, but incapable of finding the right note. And maybe there wasn’t one, nothing he could truly say, that would help the hurt and shattered remnants. A mask broken and quivering, gone in its ties, and maybe it was time to fall apart, for her to be rendered more than torn or frayed at the edges, so she could heal? So she could find ways to come back together?
Was that something any of them were capable of?
Some instances it was just his head above the water, barely floating, barely existing, down the barrage of currents and strife, taking them through twist after twist, turn after turn – and she’d saved him from going under. The Sword simply wasn’t sure how to go about the same, and the confusion lodged its way into his heart. “What are you pretending to be?” Fine? Well? Whole? What most of them painted on their features, day in and day out?
He followed, stopping at a crouch before her, remaining steady in the tempest, swallowing down bile choking, making its way down his throat. “None of us are the same.” For better, or for far worse. Terrifying, even. He offered his hands once more, uncertain if she would take them, if she wanted the support, if there was anything he could do. “What parts have changed?” What had sunken, to be revived, or merely lost again?
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
What is she pretending to be? Everything and nothing, someone who can hold the world on her shoulders and who wants to hide beneath the rug. A good wife, a good friend, a good acolyte, a good person. Someone who can smile and hold up despite the crushing weight; the woman he wants her to be.
"Happy," Amalia breathes at last, staring at her bare feet on the carpeted floor. Head still wrapped up in her arms, she doesn't look as Deimos stops before her, doesn't reach out to take his hand. Words and anxieties rush through her like a hurricane, and she stands in the center, strangely calm. Not at peace, nor anything close, but dimly watching her world spiral to pieces around her ears.
Tightening her grip upon her hair, the girl closes her eyes. "Everything. Everything has changed. The whole world- my place in it- who I am- us-" She shakes her head, biting her lip. Everything has changed.
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
Had she of mentioned the Amalia-constructed expectations, because he’d never, never extended those upon her shoulders, he could’ve tried to take them away. Instead, there was a listless sort of haze surrounding them, hands not taken, his attempts at support otherwise ignored. He ceased his crouch into a sitting position, there on the floor before her, no monolith, no tower, just human and bone-tired, etchings and carvings cracking. His eyes fell to the carpet as she spoke, of pretending to be content, and maybe he understood. Of pretenses, of attempting to stay above the surface when everything else was drowning, suffocating, asphyxiating. He could feel himself choking now, words crawling through his throat. “When was the last time you were truly happy?”
His palms fell to his thighs, staying there, fingers clenching over the fabric of his pants. The beast was at a complete, utter loss. Gone were the days where they weren’t so burdened, so beaten, so bruised – cultivating mischief in fields, rescuing one another from brink after brink after brink. His voice felt hollow, just like the rest of him, as if sculpted along annals of nothingness. “We either change or become like the rest.” Perished, lifeless, or some twisted cataclysm, misshapen things (if her and Remi’s fight had truly landed those magnificent blows). Then, manifestations of the helpless, of the unknown, coiled against his chest, out of his depths and boundaries, sinking into the ether with the rest. “I am here for you, but I do not know what to do.”
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
"I don't know." There it is, those same three words. I don't know when I was happy, I don't know why I'm not now. She doesn't know how to fix it, either, how assemble her jigsaw soul back into an image he can recognize.
Maybe she never will.
He retreats again, thrown off by the whirlwind of cruel confusion that surrounds her as the panic rises like a storm behind her eyes. Eyes now closed, stung with tears, hidden behind hands and hair. She draws her knees up too, cocooning herself against the oppression of her own mind. Stupid, useless, broken. She needs to snap out of it, to pull herself together.
But she can't, and it isn't fair.
Again she feels the crushing pressure landing on her chest. Of course he doesn't know what to do for her: she doesn't know what to do for herself. "Then go," she grinds out between clenched teeth, feeling the tears dampen her knees. "I'm sorry I'm like this. I'm sorry I'm not okay. I'm sorry you have to see it. Just... Give me some time to fix myself. And then we can go back to pretending everything is fine." Like always. Because if there's one person Amalia always seems to pretend for, it's him.
08-09-2020, 07:24 PM (This post was last modified: 08-09-2020, 07:29 PM by Deimos.)
DEIMOS
the fire can't touch me for I have burned too many times
An echo, a reverberation of the same; and he had no place there, in the shells and remnants, in the broken pieces. Before, before, before had been traces where he could fill in the gaps and spaces, provide reassurance, lifelines, anchors – now it was just muddled confusion, and she’d made it clear he wasn’t welcome in it.
“You do not have to apologize.” For feelings, for doubts, for everything else; and all she’d wanted was time, and him gone.
He rose, batting away something collecting on the edge of his eyes, swallowing down the sudden onslaught and terrors bombarding him. Sent away, insignificant, incapable of contributing, useless, useless, useless. His voice was quiet, a whisper in the frenetic air, wishing she’d merely take his hands or grab onto the support he always provided – no matter the circumstances – completely, utterly, at a loss. “I do not want you to pretend.” Rather it be real; even though he’d eternally done the same, smothering every nuance, every figment, of trauma down, down, down until eventually it ate away at him.
Would it now?
The Sword traced his way back to the small bathroom, to the tub, running the water, wondering what it would be like to merely succumb to all those pressures and sentiments again.
{FIN}
the sea can't harm me for I have been drowning all my life
