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!
one by one they lay the world at my feet,
one by one they drive me crazy.
"I would." Your cheeks are round with enthusiasm and joy at the mere prospect of seeing a creature tangentially like you. Familiar prickles of embarrassment and unease temper the feeling somewhat knowing that, in some sense you're lying to Finn by not telling him that in fact the clinic already has such a creature. "I really would." You add, beaming, happily making your way into the mottled shadows cast by the strange and wonders plants that serve as make-shift walls within the Celestine.
You let Finn slide away. You should have known better to reach out and grab at him like that, but you just...well, to say you couldn't help it feels like it's putting it mildly. Invisible hackles raise along your back and neck, though in this form it's merely the few mammalian hairs there that have raised. Shaking your head—what Molly wants is not the point—you wrap your arms unhappily around your waist, biting the inside of your cheek. "I wouldn't let him do that to you." You grumble, almost stubbornly. It is a rare look for you, this blatant disobedience. Given what a waif you are in this body your protectiveness is almost laughable. But still you stand your ground, levelling Finn with an indomitable dark stare. "Not ever."
”Then that is what we will do,” Finn says, nodding in confirmation and slipping under the shade of the leaves after her. There is a unique sort of whimsy about the Celestine; there’s not much noise outside to begin with, but here within the glade and the gardens, a sense of calm and tranquility blocks out all but the sounds of nature. Finn lets his shoulders slump a bit; he’s already cooler, out of the direct rays of the sunshine.
His lips part to ask her how she plans to stop Cian from doing whatever he likes to the Spyglass, but he stops himself. Even awkward as he is, Finn can’t pop that bubble, especially when she looks so serious. So instead he merely lets a boyish smile curl at the corners of his lips, nodding to her. ”Thank you,” he says. ”But please, don’t stay angry on my account. Do you know where this unicorn might be?”
Neither of them get out that much, so they are just as likely to get lost as finding the creature.
one by one they lay the world at my feet,
one by one they drive me crazy.
Immediately you're soothed by the magic of this place. It's the sort of thing that makes your stomach flop and your heart soar. Absently you let your fingertips trail along the ivy, softly pulsing as if trying to incite a melody out of it.
Exhaling a shaky smile—anger is not an easy emotion for you to hold, and so you release it the way you might release a heavy barbell someone has asked you to hold—you shrug slightly. "Absolutely no idea." You hum with laughter, grinning at Finn as if it doesn't matter at all.
If only Finn could understand you as an attuned. If he could, you'd happily trot along at his side. You still might, though the thought of it makes the corners of your lips curl as you glance sidelong at him. "Have you ever thought about attuning?" Some are perfectly happy being the golden-children of the gods. And here in Stormbreak, it's certainly the norm, if not more or less a rule within the Order. But seeing as Finn has never struck you as particularly pious and with his current probation when it came to the Order...?
It absolutely doesn’t matter, and Finn strolls along quite contently, providing they stick to the shade. They might not even find the unicorn on this walk, so large is the Celestine, but they can at least mark off areas where the creature isn’t. One would expect there to be signs or directions (and there probably were, but neither Spyglass nor doctor is concentrating so much on that). He can almost sense Tobi’s urge to shift in the bundles of energy she exudes from his side, and he has to hide his smile from her.
The question, though, has his curiosity piqued - because Finn honestly hasn’t ever given it much thought. ”Not until right now,” he murmurs, gazing down at himself like his own body might give him answers. ”I don’t know if it would be a good idea, in truth. What made you decide to Attune?” It’s a personal sort of question, not one usually asked. But safe to say that he and Tobi have been through something intimate, even if it’s as far a cry from the norm as humanly possible.
one by one they lay the world at my feet,
one by one they drive me crazy.
"Do you think it would be a bad one?" You say, lobbing the question back to him with a cheeky sort of grin.
"Well...Rae, honestly." You reply easily. Personal questions aren't hard for you to answer because there's not much about you that is hidden. Just one thing, really, and it's easy enough to steer conversations away from it. It would be strange indeed to have someone say, Do you have any shifts you aren't telling people about? Or Any chance you're actually a unicorn? "Given how much time I spent praying to them early on in my studies, I suppose I just..gravitated toward the naturalistic element of it." You explain. Every now and then you alter your stride to step over a crack, or keep your feet in the shade. It's a rather childish thing to do, but the smile on your face suggests you absolutely don't care how ridiculous you might look.
"It was Rae who gave me—" both my shifts "—the Bernese mountain dog. At the time I thought it was meant to mean I should get out more, or exercise more, but it really has helped with my work." Finn would have seen it first hand. "Honestly it's really refreshing to just...be a different you, if you know what I mean." Though, given his life experiences, he might not.
”A bad one?” Finn echoes, a little befuddled. ”Is there such thing as a bad shift?” It’s a fine way for him to dodge the answer, and he has little doubt that she will recognise that much. But the truth is that Finn doesn’t trust what might happen with the sort of enhanced senses that some animal shifts might give him. He has enough dancing around in his head (and outside of it) without adding something into the mix on purpose.
They step back out into the sunshine and onto a beautifully cobbled path, and in the distance Finn swears he can see something drifting across the sky - a dragon, perhaps? An over large cloud wyrm? Glancing across at Tobi, he smiles softly to hear her speak of Rae, of her own Attuning. ”I’m glad that you were able to better find yourself,” he says softly. ”I don’t think it is for me, but... perhaps I ought to go to the shrine, one of these days.”
one by one they lay the world at my feet,
one by one they drive me crazy.
"No, no." You correct with a laugh that seems to sparkle in the air much the same way the dappled light does. "You said it might not be a good idea. I guess I wondered if I thought that meant you thought of it as a bad idea."
You follow Finn's gaze upward but miss whatever it is that he seems to have seen. "You never know. You might surprise yourself." Shrugging, you look thoughtfully over at Finn, wondering what it is he might develop into. "A giraffe, maybe." You chuckle. "Or...maybe a really big bird."
Grinning, you twirl so that you're walking backward. "Ah! I've got it. An Alpina." You laugh brightly at your own joke, imagining Finn as some ridiculous magical sheep who went out of his way to headbutt mountain-climbers to their doom.
”It’s an idea,” Finn says with a non-committal shrug. ”It can be good or bad, depending on who you ask. It would be bad for me, good for you.” Still, he does manage to direct a playfully sharp look across at her. A giraffe, indeed. ”I would make a fine Alpina,” he informs her, sweeping his sweaty hair back from his face before returning his hand to his pocket. The shrine is somewhere out here, he knows - but he won’t attune. He wouldn’t dare.
”I’m beginning to think we ought to have brought a drink with us,” he says, stopping next to one of the exhibits (there’s only a small plaque to advise what it is that might be running around nearby). ”You think you could sniff out this unicorn to save us some time?”
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
"Well, I was asking you." You point out with a reprimanding crinkle of your nose. Clever with words as Finn might be, you have a fairly one-track mind which isn't easily swayed by the pretty circles he tries to walk around it.
"All that magical wool. I imagine that's how much one would sweat, were it down here too." You muse as Finn pushes a sweat-soaked curl off his forehead. No sooner has he mentioned water but you realize how devastatingly thirsty you are as well. "I think there's a water fountain ahead...somewhere." It's hard to know where 'ahead' might be, given how the pathways seem to move and shift like currents in a river. "Oh, in a rush, are we?" You let yourself look woefully wounded by the comment for just a moment before you shrink down.
With your head at Finn's hip-level, the world looks dramatically different to you. Offering up a cheerful bark you jog ahead, glancing over your shoulder to hurry Finn along.
”And I answered,” he shoots back easily, Finn seeming uncharacteristically carefree to say that they’re out under the LongHeat sun without water, talking about potentially changing the course of his life. ”I asked you to come for a walk,” he points out - in a rush to not burn to death, perhaps, but not in a rush to end their stroll. Still, a water fountain sounds great, and he’s glancing ahead as if he can see it when Tobi shifts by his side.
It’s her bark that draws his attention, and Finn follows after her with a lopsided smile. He should probably not jog after her, not after just getting his sanity back and rotting away in bed for weeks. But he does, of course, hurrying to catch up, working muscles that have tried very hard to atrophy. ”Well? Where’d you reckon this fountain is? Or the unicorn?” he pants.
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
Neither of you are in particularly good shape—Finn far worse off though—but you're filled with canine enthusiasm and exuberance such that you think you could run all the way through the Celestine. You don't of course, instead spinning in a circle and barking your happy impatience at the Spyglass who chases after you, albeit a bit clumsily.
Darting around a corner, should Finn follow, it will be to see you on your hindlegs with your paws against a fountain. Every time you manage to press the button on the side of the faucet to dispense the water, you move to snap your teeth at the stream. Of course this means the water stops, leaving your chomping at nothing but the air. Still, your tail wags happily as you continue this process.
Finn is breathless almost straight away, which is saying something given that he’s used to being active (even if it’s just the walk from the Collegium to the attic and back), and by the time he rounds the corner after Tobi, he’s dizzy and his vision has started to fog at the edges. But that doesn’t stop him, and he lets out a soft chuckle to see her trying to snap her teeth at the water. ”Here, let me,” he pants, falling to a halt at the fountain and pressing the button for her.
Really, he should take a drink as well, but it’s almost automatic for Finn to forget about himself at this point, and so it’s only when he feels the overwhelming urge to sit down that he realises he might be about to pass out. His finger slips from the button again so he can hold onto the fountain to keep steady, the Spyglass blinking hard. ”Perhaps we should have waited for a cooler day to come out here,” he suggests with a wobbly smile.
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
You cock your head adorably to the side at the sound of his voice, all perked ears and lip slightly curled over a section of your teeth. Barking a loud note of excitement, your tail wags even harder as he leans against the fountain. Messily but enthusiastically you drink, likely covering his hand in water and slobber. With a wet pant, you hop down waiting for Finn to quench his own thirst.
The speed of your tail slows at what he says next, and you offer a sympathy wine. Moving to stand next to him, you roughly knock his hand with the top of your head before sitting down on one of his feet. This, for reasons you don't understand, is something you just instinctively do; berners all over the world have a habit of sitting on feet, such that they're prone to knocking people over by keeping them rooted in place.
Tilting your head all the way backward so that it rests against his leg, you open your mouth to pant happily, tongue lolling from the side. You haven't picked a cooler day, your honeyed-gaze seems to say. You've pick this one.
He manages to focus enough to look down at her as she sits on his feet, Finn tilting his head as if to ask her just what she’s doing or how it might help. Still, wonder of wonders, it does help, and when the dizzy spell passes (and he’s wiped the slobber off his hand), he leans in for a drink as well. Almost immediately the Spyglass feels better, thinking nothing of cupping water in his hands to wet his curls, too.
A soft breeze tickles through the air, and the icy coolness on the back of his neck is pure bliss. Closing his eyes for a moment or so, Finn leans down for another drink and finally glances back to Tobi, giving her a nudge. ”I can’t carry you,” he informs her, and to any walking past, it might appear that he is just another dog owner, cheerfully chatting to his canine companion. ”We’ve got a unicorn to see, have we not?”
