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!
09-01-2020, 11:24 PM (This post was last modified: 09-01-2020, 11:26 PM by Amalia.)
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Her delirious laugh echoes his, even though she isn't sure what they're laughing at. This isn't how she'd imagined the encounter going at all, but it does feel better than standing up, so she supposes she can accept the strange turn of events. "A lemon cake. With a raspberry filling." She nods at this assessment, smiling crookedly up (down?) at the face that floats across the bed from her, so close and so far away.
This time it's less laugh and more scoff, her cheeks coloring up as she snorts dismissively. "You're the sun," Amalia parrots swiftly, as though it had been a schoolyard taunt rather than a compliment. "The sun sounds nice. I'm so cold." A shiver racks her body at this, as though her nerves have just now remembered to react to the chills. She's burning up, but she's too far gone to know that.
Tilting her chin down (up?) towards Finn, Amalia peers at him from beneath thick lashes, the coral flush still on her cheeks. "Can... can I share your blanket? I don't want the snow to get me."
”Don’t we all have raspberry filling? Would it taste good?” Finn wonders idly, looking down at his bandaged hand, bloodstained and clasped in Amalia’s still. He shakes his head, as if telling himself that it wouldn’t, but by then she’s speaking again, and Finn sniffs a bit and lifts his free hand to wipe the rest of the tears from his cheeks. ”No,” he says. ”I’m not the sun. I don’t shine, Lia. I orbit.”
The name slips unbidden from his lips, stolen from a warm encounter in a music shop before he’d known he’d been injected with madness. Her shiver already has him moving, the movements clumsy but earnest, pulling the blanket over the both of them. Obviously with their current ying-yang state of laying down, it ends up a lot of nowhere, so Finn surrenders it all to her. He’s shivering now instead, but it’s alright.
”The snow shouldn’t get the sun,” he agrees, a wobbly smile on his face, his hand seeking out hers again unconsciously.
09-01-2020, 11:45 PM (This post was last modified: 09-01-2020, 11:46 PM by Amalia.)
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
"If we were all full of raspberries the world would be much sweeter." This is spoken with a great deal of sagacity, as though the secrets of the universe might be unlocked through understanding whether or not people were raspberry filled. She's only brought back to her fractured reality when the nickname slips out from between his lips, strangely natural given how intimate and little-used it is. Again a shy smile creeps over her lips, eyes crinkling over the dark circles on her cheeks. "People can't just orbit, you know. You shine when you play music. It's like listening to stars."
The blanket is offered, and then there is some awkward finagling on both sides as he valiantly throws it over her and she attempts to reorient it to cover them both and ultimately she winds up turned around, so that now the world is right side up (or is she now upside down?).
Scooting in close enough to throw the comforter haphazardly across them both, Amalia bundles down beneath the blanket with a contented, nearly-purred sigh. "You're a good friend, Finn," the Shield murmurs, letting him find her hand again as her eyes flutter and fall shut. "I'm sorry I tried to stab you. Do you want some bread?"
”It’s not the same,” he whispers, feeling the world spin and spin and snap into focus as suddenly she’s there with him, the right way up, and warmth spreads from the inside out. It could be because of the blanket she’s thrown over him, but either way, Finn is orbiting all over again. ”That’s not shining. It’s just... shrugging off the dark, for a bit. But you never get away. It’s here now, clinging to the ceiling, hiding under the bed. A monster.”
He takes her hand, his heart stuttering in his chest, his bones turning to ice and his blood into honey. ”I’m sorry for being like this,” he says softly, almost under his breath, as if the words have never left his lips before. ”It’s all my fault.” His head tilts, his forehead resting against hers, leaving them only a breath away. And gods if he doesn’t itch for a sweet taste of her, this sour man with so many layers that he’s lost himself.
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
"But that's still shining." Amalia half-smiles, shifting so that her cheek is on her palm. She says it like it's the most obvious thing in the world, like the fact that he can be luminous simply makes sense- and to her, it does. She wants to wrap her arms around him, or to turn on a light, or start a fire, but all she manages is a tighter squeeze on his clammy hand. "I'm not afraid of your monsters. They can't get on the boat."
There's sweat on her neck, making her hair cling to her face, and despite the blanket tucked above her shoulders the occasional shiver still racks her narrow frame. Too tired to realize what's happening and desperately eager for warmth, she hums a low note into the fraction of space that lingers between herself and Finn as he brings his forehead against hers. "What's your fault?" Amalia murmurs, her breath hot and sticky, eyes still closed. Unthinkingly she presses closer, until their shins touch beneath the blanket, skin burning on skin. "I can hear the sky singing. I'm going to dream about stars."
She insists that he’s shining anyway, and Finn feels his eyes prick and burn with it, a lump in his throat as he breathes out an unsteady laugh. ”You’ll make sure?” he says of the monsters, pulling his feet in a bit as if worried that they’ll claw their way over the side of the boat and eat their toes. He doesn’t realise, at first, that she’s scooted close enough to press her legs against his own, because his head is spinning and his skin is burning and it almost feels good.
”All of it.” All of it is his fault. ”World’s on fire. It’s too cold. We could run from it, if you like.” He feels like he’s whispering right into her, so close are they, and her remarks about the sky cause him to shiver, the tremors racking through his body. ”Will you take me with you? To your star dreams?”
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
"I'll make sure," Amalia promises with unearned conviction, pulling the blanket up further around his shoulders. "This is the... the friend ship." She snickers at her own joke, finding it far more amusing than it really is, her giggles coursing through her body in a spasm of amusement that quickly turns into a shiver of cold. "Only friends allowed."
The world has disappeared around them, leaving only the ship on the turbulent sea and a smattering of starlight that shines in his eyes. Amalia blinks, surprised to open her own eyes and find him so close; "Oh. Hi," she murmurs, coral lips curling into a smile. Something nags at the back of her mind, screams that she's forgotten an important facet of her life, but then Finn slides into the dark space she usually sleeps beside, and it makes an amount of sense. He's here, and he's warm, so this must be right.
Right?
"Where would we run?" Her voice is a whisper, too, as though she fears someone else will hear their conspiring and stop them. "Somewhere bright and beautiful? Where the sun and stars are always out, and the trees play music when the wind blows."
”The friend... ship. I’ve never been on a ship before.” He’s said it already, but there’s little chance of either of them keeping track of conversation at this rate. Finn is giggling too, though he doesn’t understand the joke - it’s usually on him, anyway. ”Hi,” he whispers back, stormy eyes filled with the sight of her, flushed cheeks and chimes of laughter.
Then she’s gone for a second, because the world grows hazy and black, and it’s with a stuttering breath that he comes back from the brink of unconsciousness. ”Somewhere... without an ocean. Somewhere without cliffs. Without torn silk or fingers that bruise. A place without colours.” The whispers come out in a rush, Finn brushing his nose against hers. ”A place like that sounds perfect.”
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Her nose wrinkles at the touch of his, tickled. She doesn't know what she's doing, figuratively and literally, but it feels nice to drift beside him while the world floats away. Her hand shifts in his, finger knitting delicately together beneath the shadow of the comforter. There are shadows flickering at the edges of her vision, but if she keeps her eyes on him then the darkness stays at bay.
No cliffs, no ocean. "So we can't break. Or drown." It makes a good deal of sense to her, and she nods eagerly, nose and forehead moving against his. "No more monsters. No more red." A cloud passes over her face; she shivers curls in on herself, closing her eyes against the crimson that suddenly stains the room. "So much red. It didn't taste like raspberries when his insides came out. It tasted like metal and death." A tear escapes to drip down her cheek, across the bridge of her nose to his.
”So we can’t break. Or drown. No one to touch us,” he echoes her sentiments, eyes fluttering shut so he can join in this imaginary dream that’s blooming between them. He doesn’t know what’s going on behind Amalia’s eyes, only what spawns in the darkness of his own. And the walls are melting and there’s a blight on the ground. It pulses under the friendship, sneaking out to wheeze at them, to grab them and snatch them away.
Finn is shivering too, but when his eyes drift open again it’s to see her crying, and he shakes his head, gripping her fingers tightly and drawing their hands up, so he can try to wipe the tears away. With both of their hands, evidently. ”It’s okay,” he whispers. ”We can put them back in. The raspberries.”
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
She shakes her head again, because it isn't okay. All at once nothing is okay, even though she desperately wishes that it was. The walls have become black and lightless, cold stone caving in, full of cruel and unrelenting darkness. Full of death and disease, a prison made to keep in the evil that now lurks below their ship, sending fingers like dark tendrils curling up its sides.
"I can't put it back. It won't go back." Her eyes are still shut but she clings to Finn's hand, bringing it to rest upon her frantically beating breast. "It's always there, always red. I can't be bright all the time." Dark eyes flutter open once again, swimming with tears and despair. "I never meant to hurt you," she whispers to a man that isn't Finn. "All I wanted was to dream of stars."
She’s so warm. The flutter of her heart against his hand is a drumbeat that steadies him - strange, really, that the way she falls apart puts him together. Insidious, almost. Finn can stare straight through her, his stormy eyes completely glazed as he takes all of her in. The rise and fall of her breast, the soft column of her throat—
and how easily would it crush beneath his fingers? Would it crunch and rustle, like craft paper?
—and the sweetness of her breath against his face. Finn could take away her colours, he thinks, and it would make her all better. It would take them away, maybe, and she can float in the sky and the stars forever. His hand tightens, his breath catches—
No. No, this is all wrong, it’s all wrong—
His teeth clench in a grimace, and tears spill from the corners of his eyes. ”Dream with me,” he begs, the words riding out on a trembling whisper. Finn leans in to close the distance between them with another whisper, this time of his lips against hers, like he can protect them both from himself with a kiss.
That’s what the stories say, right? About kisses being magic?
born from dark water, daughter of the rain and snow
Amalia is not looking for anything, and Amalia is looking for everything. Adrift and lonely, it's so very easy to fall into his orbit, to let the sea of her emotions carry her closer to the precipice of mistake. To dream, to let the stars envelop them, to vanish away from everything she is and hide upon the boat that they have made.
Here she is not the Shield of Safrin; here he is not the broken Spyglass. They are both of them people, vibrantly colored with every shade but red.
She shouldn't let him come any closer. Her hand releases, reaching out to splay across his chest, but she doesn't push away. She tells herself it is because she's weak, and she is, but not physically. Physically she could stop this from happening with a gust of wind, or a solid shove, or by simply moving.
But Amalia does none of that. She doesn't want to push away. She only wants to dream.
His lips are chapped, his beard prickly, but she doesn't notice it. The kiss lasts scarcely more than a second, and when it ends the girl is left blinking, too tired to wonder what it means. This is a dream, after all. You're allowed to be selfish in dreams.
"Why?" Amalia wonders softly, feeling his breath on her face, his sweat on her brow. "Is it another lie?"
She tastes like sunshine. Like the feel of wet grass under bare feet, like the smell of the sky before a storm. Finn wants to lose himself to it, he wants to drown and burn and turn to dust, until there’s nothing left but Amalia in her shining, shining light.
He also wants to take it for himself, to keep it and covet it, so that no one else might tarnish something so bright. Her hand is splayed upon his chest and he’s afraid she’ll feel the weakness of his heart, the way it wants to have her in no uncertain terms - in the press of bodies and the taste of sweat and the room tearing open to reveal the naked world and all of its terrible ghosts.
”I didn’t lie,” he says, the words barely audible now. His arm slips around her, his heart thundering, and around them the room is on fire.
