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!
He’s dreaming about here - or at least... part of here. Or is it the Falling?
Wherever Finn is, he’s hanging by one ankle over the side of sleep cliffs. The rope has cut into his skin, chafing and rubbing the flesh raw, and a sharp gale tosses him back and forth, scraping him against the stone. His clothes have been cut to ribbons, and though the blood ought to have pooled to his head, he sees as clearly as ever.
He gazes out into a choppy sea, where something small and white flutters against a jagged rock below him.
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
Music slips into the gale as neatly as a leaf. The melody is a whirl of piano keys and strings, wrapped up together like a ribbon over a brightly coloured package. Hopeful and bright it meanders and plays; optimism for the ears and the soul.
Until of course it isn't.
"You shouldn't be here." Neither should I. His voice harshly cuts the strings, their song squealing to a discordant halt. Is it the wind that suddenly quickens his heart, or does his heart quicken the wind? "How is it that you're here..?"
In my dreams? How can I see you?
He can smell the blood, and in his belly a beast lumbers awake, peering out from behind his eyes as it considers its hunger.
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The music is beautiful. It tugs at his heartstrings, plays them better than any guitar, and Finn feels a smile tug at his lips. But it fades, abruptly and painfully, at the sound of a voice that might be his own, only with a different accent wrapping around the words. Peeling his eyes open, they watch the world as an upside down haze of nothing.
”Go away,” he says, his voice more blunt than it ever could be in the waking world. ”I don’t want you here. You don’t belong here. Go away, now.” On the discordant music of the wind, he is tossed again into the cliffside. More flesh sloughs from his ankle - his head cracks against the rock, and through blood and and saltwater, he watches the sea churn.
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
"I'm the only one who belongs here." The wind repeats back. Whether he can't hear the music because it isn't meant for him or whether it is him, Remi doesn't know. Either way he doesn't take his twin's advice, instead coming nearer to hunker down on his heels where the Spyglass's ankle is brutally bound in rope.
"We used to catch rabbits like this." We...my father and I, or you and I? He doesn't move to untie Finn, merely looking at the knots that hold him. His stomach growls (or is it the manticore?) and though the wind that roars from behind him is strong, dropping over the side of the cliff and buffeting Finn as it goes, Remi isn't at all moved by it.
"Who was trying to catch you?"
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Then cut the rope and end it all,” Finn says to the waves, unaware that the voice is coming from above him. His eyes, in fact, are on the fluttering mess on the jagged rock, and he swears he can see a splash of red here and there, a soft curl of dark hair. ”I have never caught a rabbit. Not before it’s cooked,” he mumbles, the gale tossing him to and fro, not that he notices. He’s more bruised and bloody as time goes on, but if anything the violence against himself brings him contentment.
”They weren’t trying. I am already caught,” he mumbles. Out in the great swathes of water, a structure begins to rise out of the waves. Finn knows it as the Tower, with its spiralling towers and gothic architecture, gargoyle and turrets a far as the eye can see. Within it he can swear they all watch him. They all look out at him hanging there, before the steep cliffs and his mother’s corpse.
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
"That won't end it. It will only start it over again." The rocks reply.
"Then you have been fortunate to have never heard one scream." Fortunate is probably not a word Finn would ascribe to himself, but the cliff certainly seems to think it apt, despite how it coaxed more blood from him. "They sound just like a human child. Sometimes it's impossible to tell the difference." He's heard the screams, and closing his eyes now, he can hear them again. Can Finn?
His father used to let them suffer. There were times Remi couldn't discern his own childish cries of torment from the rabbits. Now the screams of children make him feel hungry, and then nauseous.
"It sounds as though you've made it very easy for them." The Lullaby observes. "What will you do now?" Dangle? Fall?
Fly?
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”I have heard enough human children scream not to care about rabbits,” Finn replies, waving a hand that’s long gone numb as if to tell Remi not to bother, then, if he’s just going to waffle about it. And oh, he can hear them, their realities melding together until their screaming bubbles out of the waves, replacing the rich crash with the cries of suffering animals. The windows of the Tower all look like eyes, and Finn closes his own against them.
”I don’t know. I don’t much care,” he mumbles, spitting blood down the side of the cliff. He’s tired of being topsy turvy, though - so he simply isn’t any more. He’s still hanging, he’s still every inch of upside down - Finn has just flipped the world so he can stare down at Remi instead of up, dangling over him like some broken, bound angel. ”Are you enjoying yourself?” he asks. ”I feel like your life must be very boring, to watch mine all night long.” And it is night, suddenly, because Finn decides it.
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
The world switches and sways and with it the alchemist turns, though he doesn't seem bothered at all by this change. Instead, he simply looks up at Finn as one might a petulant child who has thrown his toy across the room. You don't acknowledge the outburst of course, because you know it's actually about something else entirely.
"You know my life is not boring." I'm the Lullaby now, after all. Shall I sing for you, Finn? Moving closer Remi stands such that the tip of his nose is a foot or so away from Finn's, perfectly mirrored save for the rotation of their bodies.
"If you don't care about the cries of the children, you don't care about yourself, then what do you care about? You could cut yourself down anytime you want, although.." Remi turns toward the Tower, which looms oppressively out at sea. It dwarfs the ocean somehow make the waves around its base look like mere ripples, but still he can see the scowls of the faces within as they whisper and watch.
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”Is that why you are here, then? Because your life is too exciting? So you have to watch me hang?” He swings a little, back and forth before Remi’s eyes, like the pendulum of a clock. Finn isn’t usually capable of cruelty, but here in dreamland? His mind is on fire, and he’s running wild. ”I could. But then you’d have nothing to watch. Neither would they. Fate loves an audience,” he whispers. The Tower is aflame behind him now, and he smiles softly.
”You reached into my chest and you pulled out my heart,” he whispers. ”You said I would be cleansed. You are keeping my soul hostage - both parts of it - and I would have it all back.” The stormclouds in Finn’s eyes promise lightning and tempests, even if the whites of one of them are bloodshot through.
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
"I'm here because..." Daddy, I'm trying to tell you something. I'm not where you think I am— "...it is safer. One of us isn't real, and so none of it matters."
The wind moves Finn like a blade of grass, and Remi has the urge to pluck him down, straighten him between his fingers and blow against him until he whistles. He used to do it as a boy, earning himself deep grass-cuts before he learned how to do it properly. "You're not all there is to see." But the words do hurt because Finn is the only reason he's here, whether or not he knows it.
He has come from across the world, drawn here by fate or misery or both.
Near enough to see the broken capillaries of red spiral outwards like strands of thread, the Lullaby smiles softly, his gaze lowering to the shadow Finn casts. "Nothing to watch...nothing of you left..." He says thoughtfully. "Why would I do that?" Raising his gaze, the tumultuousness of the sea reflected in his eyes, he frowns crookedly, merely humouring Finn it seems.
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
”If I cut myself down, and I fall and I break against the rocks like she did, will I die? Am I the one who is real? Will it end?” he wonders, watching his own face dance dizzyingly before his eyes, eyes that are the wrong colour. For a second the Spyglass reaches out, like he wants to thumb one of the eyeballs out and pop it into his mouth, but his fingers merely caress Remi’s cheek.
He laughs - a strange gurgling sort of sound; blood is running in rivulets down his bound ankle now. Finn things the bindings have almost worn through to the bone. Will the tendons snap and muscles tear soon? Who will save him, if he falls? ”Then why can’t you stop looking at me?” he asks, the words thick in his mouth.
His fingers tighten suddenly, spasming against Remi’s jaw, and he drags him forward so they really are nose to nose. ”Because if you don’t, you’ll only have yourself to blame for what happened.”
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
"There's only one way to find out." A gust of wind blows Finn more towards the sea-side than the land-side of the cliff as a wave explodes over the rocks that may or may not be serving as a coffin. Whether it's a warning or an invitation, whether the coffin is empty or already occupied, is yet to be seen.
Remi feels the urge to both snap his head to the side, removing the thumb which has coaxed such soothing sounds from instruments and people alike from Finn's hand, but also to press his lips against it. He does neither of course though the possibility of both—and neither—makes heavy the air around them.
"You know why." The Lullaby whispers—admits— softly. He doesn't tense as his curls are used for leverage, Finn nearing until the fever-hot plume of heat from his skin washes across Remi's face. There's something serene about this, something uncomplicated and free of pressure. Though they might both be the Hanged Man, it matters if they are right side up, or upside down. And just now, it's impossible to tell. "Has it already happened, then?" He wonders, his lips nearly brushing the bridge of Finn's nose.
Raising both hands with his palms toward Finn, a feather appears in one, and a knife in the other. "Which will it be?" A feather to fly with, or a knife to cut away the rope? A feather for the wound, or a knife to carve away the flesh that his soul might be put back?
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The sea claws at his back and the Tower goes down in flames, but Finn never stops watching Remi. They stand together, two halves of one whole, and he feels like he can finally see them both for who they are. ”I used to think that I could save you. That you were the shadow and I was the light. That I could fix what was broken in me, by saving you,” he whispers. ”But that’s not true, is it? We’re both the shadow. We’re both the light.”
A feather and a knife, and Finn reaches out to grab the front of Remi’s shirt. ”Both.” He grates the words out, yanking the other man forward. The tension on the rope causes it to break, to snap, leaving a good deal of the Spyglass stripped away on the fibres as it does. He doesn’t break his grip on Remi, dragging him off the outcrop if he can; two hanged men, flying on knives into the abyss.
& i feel like i'm naked in front of the crowd
'Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
Bathed by flames, his curls wreathed by red, Finn appears every bit the sacrificial lamb he was never meant to be. "Nothing is ever broken." Remi says softly despite the roar of the sea that has reached a bright crescendo of sound. "Only changed from how it started." Teacups that have been shattered are not broken. They just have extra room for light and darkness between their pieces.
The starburst scar extends from Remi's chest to where Finn grabs tight to his shirt, covering the Spyglass's hand with silvered tendrils. Maybe if Finn's hand had been there, it would have stopped the spear.
And then they fall.
The weightlessness of the fall sparks against the wind that rushes around them; it's like grinding gears before forced to turn the wrong way and the world aches with it. The cliffside softly rumbles its amusement as greedy waves snarl and reach upward. Reaching out for one of Finn's hands, the Lullaby tries to lace his fingers through the other man's that they might fall together.
But that leaves only one hand free. "Both, then. But you can only hold one."
& i know that you'll use them, however you want to
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
