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!
Quite how he knows the things he does isn't to be revealed just now. Suffice it to say it is a large reason why he holds the position he does, why he's been given the title he has. Wearing his standard-issue trenchcoat, the Eye stands in the center of one of the Citadel's roadways, casual as anything. Like a boulder in a river, horses and merchants yield to his presence, winding around him instead of telling him to fuck off as they otherwise might have done. It's something in his stillness, in the icy depths of his pale denim stare, in how he's infinitely focused on the cigarette he holds between his fingers. All of it speaks of danger, of a man to be avoided. There is something riotous about Cian, a quietly brewing storm that if you're lucky, might just pass you by.
The Climb has been blocked off for...quite some time. An uninteresting and hostile place it has never been of much interest to the Order. But now with rumours of the reappearance of Tanau? Of a new demigoddess?
To say that Cian waits patiently for Finn would be a devastating misrepresentation of the Eye's stillness and neutral expression.
Finn is on time. It means nothing to Cian’s early appearance in the Citadel, but then the Eye is always where he needs to be long before the occasion arises. For Finn, however, he is neither a minute too early nor too late. The Greatwood chewed him up and spit him out, it’s safe to say, but a few days in the comfortable solitude of the Tower has done him a world of good. A visit to Doctor Hart, a few days of decent sleep in a familiar place, time to arrange his notes and his thoughts (and, let’s be honest, leaving his glasses far from his eyes) and it’s a different man who approaches the Eye in the street.
The merchants and horses do not move around Finn in the same way they do for his counterpart, and he must wait until there is space before he can step up to stand at his side. In a dark coat with a scarf wrapped around his neck, they look nonetheless like strangers to the rough and icy streets. ”Where is the job?” he asks. A well rested Spyglass is an effective one.
Cian breathes deeply. The air here is crisp, but he doesn't mistake the sharp brightness of it in his lungs for freshness. His soul has no longing for the sparkling-white vistas of this place, nor the roaring mountains. It's true there is some part of him that understands the predatory coldness of Halo, but that doesn't mean he wants to be here any longer than is strictly necessary. This place of unfettered magic and ascended alike makes his stomach curl.
Pulling in a long drag of his cigarette and letting the smoke leave his lips in what threatens to be an endless stream, finally Cian looks towards the Spyglass with dull interest, before turning his gaze back towards where the tundra stretches out. "I would have hoped you'd already know the answer to that." Cian says lightly, almost with amusement. But no one is laughing.
”The Climb.” Finn’s stormy eyes are on the road before them, on the people hurrying to and fro, strangers moving around them. At Cian’s side, he’s caught in the ebb and flow that the Eye exudes, no longer having to step or dodge those who might be walking toward them. ”Or the Cordillera.” Those are the only two places which border Halo which are not inhabited, that he knows of anyway. And he is not privy to the same information as his counterpart.
He glances sidelong at Cian as he speaks about Amalia, however, brow furrowing. He had sent his report from Torchline, and Dorian had been the one to seek out the Shield. Nonetheless, he knows better than not to comply. ”She is an Attuned who is close to Vi,” he says slowly. ”A baker in the Hollowed Grounds, married to the General. Prone to fanaticism, some say, but with a strong moral core.” He speaks quietly, factually, leaving out any personal opinion.
Cian receives very different reports from the members at his disposal. Dorian, with a lifetime of shared experience between them, often treats his duties as personal favours to the Eye, rather than that which he has been groomed to do. But it's for precisely those reasons that Cian lets his boyhood friend go unchastised. Finn's account is clinical and sterile in its accuracy, granting him a nod of approval.
"The Climb." He says in a dusty voice, tossing his cigarette onto the ice-packed ground and striding off towards the gates, expecting Finn to heel.
"You are familiar with the seasonal gods?" Cian asks, though for once, there is a genuine question there rather than his standard-issue veiled test.
Finn does indeed heel, his cold weather boots able to easily grip the ice and snow of the road as he follows after Cian, his hands buried deeply in his pockets and his stormy gaze somewhere over the Eye’s shoulder. Towards the gates, towards the Tundra beyond. Towards the Climb, as the other man confirms with rare approval. It’s approval that Finn can appreciate but not desperately crave in his current state.
His question has the Spyglass tilting his head, mind whirring back to books, to research threaded very carefully together from various tomes from ever more curious places. ”I am, though accounts of them vary. The Deepfrost Goddess is here - Eirachi, they call her. She is the only one I know to be present in an inhabited place,” he says slowly.
But given that Cian has mentioned the Climb, and seasonal deities... it doesn’t take much to work it out. ”Though the stories are conflicting, I would hazard that the Climb is home to Tanau, of Longheat.”
Cian nods, the movement like some long left machine that dustily moves when only absolutely required. "That has ever been the theory." The Eye acknowledges. "In recent memory Tanau has always seemed...less than the Eirachi. Not in power, but in presence. Where she tricks and barters, the LongHeat god has always seemed content to bubble and broil away in the lava. Some say it's a younger god, if that even makes sense given what they represent."
All of this is said in a neutral stream of air. Cian might have been talking about gardening practices, rather than a newly re-discovered deity in a land known for its chaotic and dangerous terrains.
"I do believe our records of it will need updating after this. As will others." Cian smirks and yet his mouth doesn't move. "Amalia's, for instance. She's no longer an attuned, you know." He glances over his shoulder, the movement incredibly subtle, to catch Finn's reaction to this.
”Young may be a reference to the appearance it chooses to take, or even the personality it adopts,” Finn intones as he walks, and though his eyes stay forward, his sharp mind is back in his notes, the theories he had added to the existing material from his own insights. ”There have been no accounts of anyone meeting with Tanau for close to a generation... until now.” The last words are posed as a question, one that he doubts needs answering. If they are on their way to the Climb, then he imagines someone has encountered the Longheat god.
This is probably as close to a pleasant conversation as the Eye and the Spyglass is likely to get - so when Amalia is mentioned again, dragging Finn back to the here and now, it’s like someone has thrown a glass of water at him. His hand moves to his breast pocket, where there’s a notebook and a pencil ready for anything he may need to make note of later, but this...? His stormy eyes are wide with surprise.
”Vi has made a move,” he breathes. ”Such a thing has not happened for...” He cannot remember when, honestly.
"I leave those sorts of speculations in your capable hands." Cian drawls with a careless sort of shrug that seems ill-fitting on a man who seems so intentional in everything he does.
The Eye seems pleased to see the surprise on Finn's face. A charitable reading of this might be that Cian is merely happy to see that he's still of use, that he still knows things that his organization does thought, and thus his utility remains intact. We all know that isn't the case, however. Finn is a tool like any in Cian's arsenal, but he is also a man. A weak one to the Eye's mind. One untested by the right sorts of fires. For while Finn bears scares, they are not ones that garner respect from the Eye.
But then, the two have never spoken to each other about anything of import, before.
"No, it has not." Stopping abruptly, Cian fixes Finn with a penetrating stare. "If I asked you to watch her. To follow all of this up...Do you think you're capable of it?" This is of course, a trap. Finn has no choice but to say yes, and thus anything short of fulfilling Cian's expectations will fall back on the Spyglass, for having agreed to something out of his league.
Can you watch the beautiful baker, with the heart of gold and the powers of Vi at her beck and call? Can you follow her and not become lost to the life she leads; one you'll never have?
He almost believes that they’re having a cordial conversation. And of course, that’s precisely the point; Cian is a master of laying the trap, setting the bait, and watching Finn wander into it. And he does, sometimes out of exhaustion, sometimes out of duty - and sometimes, like today, completely obliviously. The question is precise, a slap to the face, and it wipes the surprise away from Finn’s expression and replaces it with a neutral mask.
He has stopped as abruptly as the Eye, studying him, and - gods, if it isn’t evidence of how much his time in Torchline has hurt him - for a second he hates the man. Truly, darkly hates him, and it’s a surge so all encompassing that it takes him a second and a shaky breath to get himself under control.
”Yes, I am capable,” he says, because he has little other choice. ”I will head to the Hollowed Grounds after this.” Whatever this is, Finn gazing up at the city gates.
If Cian feels the hate warbling off of Finn, he doesn't comment on it. But he does sense it, and it's almost like a smouldering declaration of a mark perfectly hit. "Glad to hear it." The Eye remarks, clapping Finn on the back despite sounding anything other than pleased. Whatever he knows, whatever he senses, it would take an entirely blind-eye not to be able to predict what will happen sending Finn to paddle in Amalia's wake.
Cian isn't one for small talk, and if Finn is, Cian's stoic silence shuts it down. To say they walked in companionable silence though would be a grave mistake. Instead they move through the frostbitten tundra like ghosts swaddled in fine clothing and stern expressions.
