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!
it's a like small bells someone is snapping them, crunching and stepping on—
thrown into an empty cathedral. spaces that should be filled with something scream. the emptiness roars as it devours; the silence decomposses. because of the heat. it will kill you and consume you, so find it first and at least have it be your choice—
madness at first blush is unbounded in its vastness. the stars work as hard to be what they are as do the rocks underfoot, yet still we turn our eyes up better then to pluck your eyes out
and prefer what we see.
I think I have seen this madness of now, before. on a beach. there should have been fire, but there was only ice. a hole, but nothing devoured. decomposition, but no silence. that madness was loud. there is something I am meant to be doing. another dream I am meant to dream... the eyes are blue. always blue—
..but I told him not all stories end happily, so perhaps he'll understand. and die with a smile.
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Braved the forests, braved the stone Braved the icy winds and fire Braved and beat them on my own
”Shhhhhh...
It’s the voice of a child, drifting deep, deep under the surface of Remi’s feet. Or is it his hands? Where is he, anyway?
”You’re lost, sweetling. Don’t fall too deep, or you might not ever get out again.”
The world splits between light and dark. Something shines, disorientating. The chime of a bell. The hiss of sand against stone.
At Remi’s back(?) something presses. Pushes, and nudges, and climbs right inside him, wearing his skin like a suit. It laughs. It’s nightmarish.
Odd is cashing in MP to give Remi the following:
Hushabye (Upgraded) | Through touch, can enter into the dreams of those he is sleeping next to. Using his Psychometry ability, can lock slumberers into this state such that they can't wake up.
She is also using her CotY reward to change Remi’s LT to The Lullaby!
"can you fall up? or only ever
down?"
it's in my skin like a welcome cancer. it infects and invades, but this glass house will cast no stones. I have invaded
endured much worse.
how can you tell what's an ending and what's a beginning, when the world is a sphere? I think I need to find the end of the universe
door. but for that I need hands, and I only have seashells.
the way is dark and corroded. Is it better to stay lost and whole, or return blistered and unrecognizable? but mine is not the only face like this. there is another. I've seen the edges of his face and how they peel away near his ears. there is a thread i've already started to pull, and I think I could just cut
ask him for it. why would he say no?
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
09-02-2020, 05:19 PM (This post was last modified: 09-02-2020, 05:28 PM by Ronin.)
RONIN
Ronin is sailing on a seashell to the moon when he hears it. He can’t place what it is, exactly, but it’s like an itch in the back of his brain, like someone’s attached a string to the base of his skull and is tugging him down. Down...
His shell soars into thick, deep blackness, the Star radiating light to try and make sense of it. It feels like wearing a coat that’s too big - he has the distinct impression that the shadows he sails through are not his own. At first he thinks the light is doing no good, but then he realises it - there’s nothing to see.
”Hello!” he calls, rising to his feet and glancing down at himself, brow furrowing. He’s in his Storm Guard gear, a uniform he hasn’t worn for years - but his mind can craft its every detail. ”Hello?” he calls again, Ronin squinting as he thinks he hears something in return, in a voice he recognises well.
Can you fall down?
”Remi?” He urges the shell towards the sound of the voice, keeping his eyes keen for his husband, dropping to one knee so he can pull him up if he needs to.
don't close your eyes
something beautiful is still alive
there is a world above. or at least I think there is, but down here, there is only madness
the absence.
and...movement?
but there shouldn't be. there should only be death
the void.
"don't fall"
if you fall up instead of down, do you get down when you try to get up? I don't know where to look. "you shouldn't be here." there's danger all around. the nothingness holds the potential for every sort of madness, and the heat of illness is as righteous as the flares of life during the big bang.
i can create anything and yet i only create death
there is thunder on my hand.
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin is lost, the Star beaming out light and trying to make sense of his surroundings. But it’s just thick, shimmering darkness, and the sound of a voice he can’t quite reach. He sails lower to the... ground? and tries to scan for Remi - and when his husband’s words slide through the air again, Ronin realises. It’s from beneath him, but not in any discernible way.
The thing about dreams is that they can be... whatever you want them to be. And Ronin sees Remi, in his mind, trapped behind inky glass in a world below the one he sails through. So the Star reacts in an appropriately Ronin way, and decides to smash straight through it.
It shatters as he leaps from the seashell, shards of wet black scattering and glittering against the light that roars out of him. ”Remi!” he calls again, spotting the small, fragile figure of the other man as he lands, running full pelt for him.
don't close your eyes
something beautiful is still alive
can the pieces go back together?
but...how do you know what edges align, when nothing is broken? cracks are a roadmap, but this is smooth. i don't know how to fix it. i don't know how to create anymore. i am listless here. adrift. if there is a point to all of this, it has become too rounded to make sense.
heat consumes and destroys and I don't know how to ask for what i need.
i think i need to burn.
and drown.
salt turns the fire green and then blue.
then i can sink.
then i can die.
maybe then i can dream.
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
It feels, at first, like one of those scenes where the corridor grows longer and longer the faster you try to run to the end of it. Ronin has to remind himself that they’re dreaming - and it’s taken a little while even then, for him to be able to tell the difference - and so the burning in his lungs isn’t real, the screaming of his muscles is imaginary. It’s all imaginary, in fact, and in that moment the Star grins wolfishly.
A small thought is all it takes for him to just be within reach of the alchemist, and Ronin is glowing brightly as he leans down and scoops him up into his arms on the way past. Stopping doesn’t even occur to him, not until he’s running up stairs made of feathers and leaping onto an opalescent shell.
”You’re with me. You’re where you’re meant to be. I’ve got you,” he whispers, holding him tightly against his chest.
don't close your eyes
something beautiful is still alive
That it isn't real hasn't permeated through to the Alchemist's mind yet. Or at least, if it has, he hasn't understood the ramifications. All he knows is that he stands on a knife's edge of potential, a kinetic starburst waiting to be moulded, and it could mean the death of him and everything he holds dear. The darkness is calling, in the voice of his mother, in the voice of Isla, in the voice of Aoife.
..in the voice of Ronin?
The world is suddenly sharp and abrasive, sandpaper on polish marble that finally lets reality take hold. "Ronin?" The Alchemist whispers, confused and disoriented. The huntsman's arms are around him, and rather than the acrid scent of burned hair, he smells the warmth of his husband and the salty-sea scent of the shell upon which they ride.
"Is..." Swallowing, the Alchemist hazards a glance around. Mountains comprised of clouds and woodsmoke spike from the ground as a thousand stars wave like grains of wheat. "...has one of us died?"
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Shh...” Ronin whispers against Remi’s curls, not having realised how hard his heart is thundering until they are both together again. He strokes a hand through the other man’s hair and down his stubbled cheek, holding him close and folding around him in the cradle of their seashell.
”No one has died, Remi. We’re dreaming,” he explains in a gentle voice, nodding out at the wispy mountains. He exhales softly, blowing out a stream of air, and if to prove it, the mountains before them part to reveal a glassy lake.
”That’s all this is. You got a fever, and we’re just dreaming,” he says, the words heavy as a promise. ”Or in your case I suppose it was a nightmare. But I came to pull you out of it.”
don't close your eyes
something beautiful is still alive
"Dreaming?" Remi repeats, glancing around with subdued skepticism only to see a lake made of light spring from between the mountains. "I..suppose that explains the uniform." He says of Ronin's StormGuard garb. Grinning crookedly for just a moment, he exhales a puff of relieved air, believing beyond a shadow of a doubt in the sincerity of Ronin's words.
"It felt like a nightmare before you came along." Looking down at the pearly-pink swell of the seashell's interior upon which they sit, Remi rubs his thumb against the lip of it, smiling softly. "Everything was fractured, but not in a way I could put back together. I felt like I was on fire. But now that you're here..." Raising a hand to Ronin's shoulder, the Alchemist frowns as he places it down on the fabric. His expression suggests he thought something might happen. Glancing up a Ronin, he seems to be trying something, despite it looking as though he'd merely staring-holes into the huntsman's shoulder.
"How..are you here? Because...you do seem to be here. I can't...change you."
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Mm, apparently I thought I was very valiant, in full uniform and sailing on a seashell to the moon to come and find you,” Ronin says mildly, having no idea if Remi would even remember the discussion they had before he went to sleep. Speaking of which... ”How... do you feel, here? You’re making more sense than you have all morning.” He doesn’t try to hide the way his shoulders slump, the way he leans a little further against Remi.
But then, y’know, his husband is trying to win a staring contest in his shoulder, and he smirks. ”I think... I snuck in,” he says slowly. ”I think we’re sharing dreams. I... you remember what I told you, the night Seren disappeared? What Safrin gave me? Maybe you were having a nightmare bad enough that you needed someone to help you get out of it.”
Then, because he’s a nosy shit, ”What were you trying to change?”
don't close your eyes
something beautiful is still alive
"Well, and you're often in uniform when..." The Alchemist trails off, a flush darkening his cheeks that might not be from fever. As Ronin mentions the morning, Remi's brow furrows and his eyes take on a far-away look, as if trying very hard to remember something from so very long ago. "Now that you mention it..I..." Trailing off again, though this time not from the memory of the start of a sex-dream, he swallows and shakes his head. "With you here, I feel...fine. And, much as I'd hate that to be some sort of romantic saying, here at least, I really do think it's you."
Cocking his head to the side—only Ronin would say he'd snuck in—Remi's expression loses its boyish mischief as Seren's parting is brought up. Soured slightly, he nods, scratching at the nape of his neck. It seems far less sweet suddenly that Ronin's presence here is only because of Safrin. It's good of course because now Remi's brain isn't devouring itself, but...anything to do with Safrin seems to set his teeth on edge.
"Oh, well.." With his lips twisting into a smile, Remi offers his counterpart a coy shrug. "..I mean, I do quite like the uniform. It just...doesn't normally stay on long, in certain sorts of dreams. Normally when I do this—" Remi raises his hand again to brush at Ronin's shoulder. "—it...might fall away into leaves and petals and such."
The lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Oh I see,” Ronin almost purrs with delight, grinning at his husband and gazing down at himself as if with fresh eyes. ”Perhaps I’ll have to see if the government of Torchline should adapt a certain manner of dressing. I would hate to deprive you of the joy of stripping me every night.” He laughs, and it’s not just because of their teasing. It’s a freedom, a release of tightly held worry, to hear his husband sound more like himself.
He smiles gently, reaching out to brush Remi’s curls out of his face; distantly, music begins to play (to no one’s surprise - Ronin is practically a kid with ADHD and he’s in a literal dreamland). ”If it’s me, then it doesn’t matter how I got here. I’m the one who snuck in, to find you,” he reminds Remi.
Still, his eyebrows raise in charming surprise to hear that the uniform he’s wearing doesn’t usually stay on for very long - more so as he realises that Remi was trying to get it to disappear earlier, with his focused interest on his shoulder. ”Oh, you mean like this?” He grins, and with a shrug of his shoulders his clothes simply flutter away into white feathers, scattering to the breeze and landing on the glassy surface of the lake beneath them.
don't close your eyes
something beautiful is still alive
