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!
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
We'll ignore why it is you're here. Delivering supplies maybe, which likely means you're a bit cross given that you don't like to be making house calls. And if that's the case you're probably bundled up in a sweater over your scrubs making your upper body look like a massive blob of fabric on top of two long legs. Up here the wind whips up from the sea, catching and snagging your hair, sending it in all directions. Grabbing at it, twisting, and pulling your dark locks to your shoulder, you mumble something incoherent under your breath as you exit the boat master's hut.
Above the stars are a twinkling symphony, but you hardly pay attention, so focused as you are on putting one foot in front of the other. Its been years since you've been on these cliffs, and being back has brought with it the memory of the friends you lost back in your school-days. Swallowing hard and pulling your sweater farther around yourself, you stare at the ground as you make your way toward the Tower.
"Careful!" Strong hands reach out to catch Tobi by the shoulders, Ronin grinning to her over the scarf wrapped around his nose and mouth. She'd been on track to blunder right into him, and he'd been happy to step out of her way until he'd recognised her. "What are you doing up here?" he asks, already distracted by the dazzling sprawl of stars overhead. Rumour and the promise of boats that could fly have brought Ronin up here, and he lets go of her shoulder to tuck his hands back into his pockets.
"And more than that, why didn't you ever tell me to come up here? You spoke about visiting new places but you didn't even mention this one." The Star sounds fairly awed, shrouded in a soft glow of celestial light that makes his blue eyes all the brighter. He's like a boy as he gazes out across the Falling, never having expected Stormbreak to be capable of such beauty. "This is incredible."
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
'Mmmhhff?' You elegantly murmur as you're halted by strong hands on your shoulders. Glancing up, half-expecting it to be Dorian with a line and a further attempt to get you into bed, you're surprised (and not) to see Ronin. 'Oh, delivery.' You say, inclining your head toward the hut you've just left. "One of the pilots apparently sustained a fairly nasty concussion, but wouldn't come to the clinic himself." You say this with a bit of a scowl, wondering if all men are such babies, or just the ones inclined toward danger.
"I did actually." You reply, fixing the Star with a smug smile as you fold your arms around yourself to fight off the wind. "The first day you came to see me. I recommended both this place and the Celestine." Reaching up, you 'knock' on the side of Ronin's head as if it were made of wood. "Maybe you should try and avoid getting hit in the head so often."
Turning around slightly to gaze up the stars yourself, you scan them as if Ronin sees something that you don't. The harder you look the more your vision just blurs. "Yeah it's...really something." You agree with a sideways smile that doesn't quite reach your eyes. 'You'll have to come back another time if you want to go out though, the pilot having a concussion, and all.'
"I didn't think you would come so far from the Tower yourself." Even if his face is half hidden, the smile on Ronin's lips is clearly audible, and he gives her a good-natured nudge as they watch the stars together. He is, of course, completely taken off guard as she reaches out to knock at the side of his head, barking out a surprised laugh and trying to duck away from her hand. "A'right, maybe I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have been. I am dreadfully sorry, Doctor Hart."
Still, he deflates somewhat to hear that the pilot has a silly old concussion, and with an exaggerated sigh, Ronin swings his arm around Tobi's shoulders - half to keep her warm, and half to steer her away from where she's going, back towards the hut. "Or," he says, "we could take a ride ourselves. How hard could it be? In return, maybe you tell me why this place doesn't have you quite so chipper as usual?"
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
'Me neither.' You say with a self-deprecating laugh as you gesture toward one of your legs, holding it up slightly as you take his opportune nudge as an invitation to hold you up. You're hardly graceful or coordinated, that's for sure. "Despite rumours to the contrary, there's nothing but scrawny under here. Even walking this far makes me out of breath." Grinning up at him as if having finally backed him into a corner his charm couldn't get him out of, you nod victoriously. "As you should be, Mr Taliesin. "
Raising a brow as you're suddenly coralled beneath the arm of this madman, you put on the brakes (half comically, half-seriously), as you wind one of your arms around his waist in return, trying to pull him to a halt. "No, no. There is no way you're adding skyboat pilot to your already ridiculous list of professions." You reply, half frowning, half beaming up at him and of course completely ignoring the tail-end of his request.
They sort of frog-march each other, do Tobi and Ronin, she trying to corral him back and he trying to urge her forward, the Star grinning broadly and chuckling at the idea of adding another profession to the feathers in his cap. "Oh, but I am," he says, whispering excitedly and using the fact that she's just told him that she's scrawny to bustle her forward. "All I need is to know where the boats are kept and if they're locked up."
And really, it's as simple as that, Ronin giving the medic an encouraging squeeze. "Come on, Tobi. Haven't you ever thought of doing something like this? Just..." He shrugs. "Just something because?" And then, because suddenly he realises that he has no idea where he's going, he backtracks so she can lead the way.
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
12-10-2020, 07:42 PM (This post was last modified: 12-10-2020, 07:45 PM by October.)
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
It doesn't take even half of Ronin's godly strength to usher you forward. Honestly, the strong breeze was making quick work of you before Ronin came along. But at least that was blowing in the right direction: away from the cliffs. "Nnnn—" You protest as he pushes you along, your shoes on the cliff doing absolutely nothing at all for you, traction-wise. "Oh no. My lips are sealed." You grump, fingers now trying to press through his jacket to find that soft pocket of skin above his hip that you might be able to tickle your way free.
'Something like this? This being theft with an outlander demi god with a penchant for finding himself in trouble?" You wonder, cheeks flushed from adrenaline and the chill of the wind. 'I don't have a life, like yours.' You protest weakly, your arm still around him, weirdly both enabling all of this even as you try and call it to a halt.
Because at the end of the day he is an outlander and a bit of a medical marvel.
"Oh, come now, that's no fun-- hey! Are you trying to undress me, Doctor Hart?" Ronin predictably squirms and wriggles away from her, chuckling under his breath and trying to stay her hands, not that it does much good with her wormed beneath his arm. They continue this way, past the boat hut and the pilot concussed within it, until they're inching along the cliffsides and Ronin spies tell-tale mooring that says there might be vessels tethered nearby.
"This is not theft, Tobi. This is just borrowing, with the full intention of returning. Okay? Okay. Now we just need to pick a really good ship - a big one." Obviously. As if Ronin is going to steal borrow a dinghy. "Also - you could definitely have a life like mine. You just have to choose it, now come on. Please?"
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
"You'd know it if I was. I have a 100% success rate, let me remind you." You chime back, slightly breathless and not entirely upset about it. You keep close to Ronin (to block the wind, of course), though the closer to get to the cliff's edge the more tightly your hand anchors itself to Ronin's side, your eyes dark and uncertain beneath your thick bangs.
'A big one. Predictable." You grumble as playfully as you can manage. Though as soon as the thrashing waves appear far below in the darkness, your skin grows pale save for the roses of fear that bloom brightly on your cheeks.
'Okay, but just...slowly." You nearly whisper, head turned up toward him. It's hard not to believe he knows what he's doing, outlined in moonlight and shining like a beacon, somehow boyish and confident all at the same time. Even so, the rocks below have claimed faces just as handsome as Ronin's, and they will again. "I...stopped coming here after..." You swallow using your free hand to drag your oversized sweatshirt closer around you. "..there was an accident. Four of my friends died." Being a healer, this is of course all the harder for you to admit, but you do anyway: "I couldn't save them. Didn't. I was too afraid."
"It doesn't count when you get people's clothes off as part of a medical exam," Ronin drawls, his grin returning as she finally seems to get on board with it, and he gives her a playful little jostle as he leads them ever further towards the moorings where the sky boats are tethered. "Well duh. You don't want to go riding on like... a sky canoe, do you?" He raises his eyebrows at her as if to say no, I didn't think so.
Still, her reluctance is difficult not to notice, and as she concedes with a caveat, Ronin dutifully slows his steps and glances down at her. His expression softens a bit to hear her explain, the Star subconsciously leading them a bit away from the edge now as well. "I'm sorry to hear that," he murmurs; well, if there's anything to take wind out of one's sails, it's death.
"You don't need to be afraid with me," he says warmly. "If anything happens, I can always call a cloud down and get us whisked off home."
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
"Oh, I'd say there are a handful of Molly's employees who'd disagree with you on that one." You reply, rolling your eyes. A mEdiCaL ExAm being one of the easiest scenarios to roleplay. Or so you've heard; you like to bring work home with you, but not like that.
"I'll let you have that one, seeing as you've already tried to make a joke once about your wood being so big it would take all of our hands to deal with it." This is both a joke and a warning: you are not, in any way, shape, or form, fit to help him fly this thing.
That he mentions the ease with which he might whisk you out of danger is both as comforting as it is difficult to hear. If only you were better, faster, stronger, you might not have lost all those you had. 'Okay, well if anyone asks, I'm here to make sure the Order's best asset doesn't get himself killed.'
Glancing at the ships as they bob on invisible waves, you squint in the darkness. "How do we...turn you up?" You ask, eyes lowered to his glow, before rising again.
"Hey now, Doctor Hart. We are on an adventurous mission to commandeer a skyboat, enough about my wood," Ronin drawls, easily finding the uplift in conversation with inevitable sex jokes. He deigns to comment on Molly's however, knowing the place a little too intimately to want to think about it when he's supposed to be a pilot. And whilst the mood continues to bob along nicely, perhaps the Star does hold onto Tobi a little more securely; a gesture of reassurance, of apology for those who fell here at the cliffs.
"If you ever want to talk about what happened, I can lend an ear. I know sometimes it's easier to talk about things with someone with some distance from the situation." He won't push more than that, of course - because he's still a stranger, and Ronin is as guilty as anyone else of bottling up his feelings. Speaking of which, he follows her gaze down at his dazzle and smiles. "Hang on."
He taps into the easiest source of emotion, of course, letting his thoughts drift to those he loves the most, to Remi and to Mateo. And the soft glow of excitement becomes a bright pulse of affection, illuminating the area enough to make out masts and prows in a scene similar enough to Torchline that it makes the Star's breath catch. "Wow," he whispers.
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
lights will guide you home, & ignite your bones & i will try to fix you
'Alright, alright. How unprofessional of me.' You chuckle back, the sound bordering on a girlish giggle as you realize that you, straight-laced and always working Dr. October Hart, are about to bOrRoW a skyboat with an outlander.
'I appreciate that.' You say earnestly, thinking that like all the other things he's somehow remarkable at, he really would be a good listener as well. "Besides, your ears are certainly big enough." It's probably the only anatomical quirk he has, and you can't help but point it. Though having said as much, you tap your nose, which is equally disproportionate. "I won't hold it against you." You add with a wink.
"Wow is right." Though you mean his dazzle, and not the skyboats floating in their air-y harbour. You find it terrifying and invigorating how easily (and literally) this man exudes magic. "Any catch your eye?" You ask as you walk onto the platform.
Hopefully Ronin will make his choice quickly, because in the dock master's hut, someone is stirring, their attention caught by the sudden burst of light.
"Oh ouch, my feelings," Ronin says with a cheerful grin, giving one of his ears a tug with his free hand as they take in all of the vessels worth borrowing. He's got his eyes on a sleek little boat, a pale colour with ghostly white sails, and is inching towards it just as he realises they might soon have company. "Quick, come on!" he hisses, the picture of a mischievous teenager as he hustles her across the sky dock, thinking nothing of scooping her up so they can be quicker and quieter about it.
"How the fuck do these things even stay in the air?" he wonders, clambering aboard and setting Tobi down, moving to release the boat from its moorings and bring down the sails. It's not really a skill he ought to possess, but since he spent so long planning for the honeymoon trip that wasn't, he made sure to get a little sailing experience beforehand.
"Say bye, boats!" He beams, pushing them off and away from the dock, eyes like saucers as the ship bobs off into nothing but the air.
TALIESIN
they said it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
