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!
Delphine had never made it to Torchline, or anywhere else. She'd packed, and then... she just didn't make it through packing. She took up residence in Ezekiel's room again and tried her best not to slip back into old habits. It was hard. For a while, the old habits threatened her every waking moment. She itched for a smoke; she itched for a drink; she itched to feel cool metal across her flesh.
She missed him, and... she mostly withdrew in on herself. She painted the first week or two, that was all she did. She painted the demons that wanted to claw their way out of her head, and left the paintings half finished, littering the room that was hers.
The room she didn't want.
She talked to Noah, but as much as she wanted things the way they had been, she tried not to get too close. Especially when she was still feeling self-destructive urges. Her promise to herself had been, if she could redirect those urges, she could have a date night.
Poe eventually convinced her to leave the house, to help people how she could. Poe was bored, so he drove her nuts until she finally left the house. As a healer, she was fairly useful, and once she figured that out and gained confidence in this, things started to be okay again. She had a purpose that wasn't just 'make him love me'.
Tonight, she was dressed casually, though still nice. Nicer than she'd been dressed in a while. She was cooking for two, hoping that he'd come home tonight. She didn't know where he was staying; she didn't try to find out. She wanted to work on herself before she tried to fix them.
The woman's hair was in a messy, tangled bun as she danced around in the kitchen, covered in flour and honey. She'd baked a cake for dessert, and while her stew featured more vegetables than anything else, she had made meat to go in it. She knew what he liked, after all.
She heard the door open, and she called, "Dinner just finished, can you eat with me tonight?" She was in a good mood; she'd struggled for a bit, learning how to sleep without him there to hold her, but there was no sign of that struggle on her face. No bags under her eyes, no weight loss.
Delphine was... functional, perhaps more functional than she'd ever been in her life. She left the house everyday now, to run errands for those who couldn't, heal those who needed it, and sometimes she'd cook for families in their homes. She knew more people now and was no longer as shy around strangers or crowds.
She didn't exit the kitchen, stirring the stew one last time before removing it from the stovetop. She ladled herself a bow of stew as she moved to set the table. Usually she made dinner and left his dinner where he could see it, but she rarely waited for him, or hoped he'd join her.
It had been awkward, and that'd been partially her fault.
Noah had avoided his home for weeks now. As the seasons changed, he stayed further away for longer and longer. The neighbors were starting to whisper, and the man hated that. If his father were here, if he had known the situation, he certainly would not approve. It was not the Olson way. Olsons were meant to be good. Meant to be beacons of wisdom, excellence, selflessness. In his hurt, in his pain, in his sorrow, Noah was acting selfish. He tried to run away from confronting the woman by burying himself in his work. He moved between his office and the tundra, coming home only to check the fire in the morning before she woke and to store meat in the underground freezer behind the house.
But he needed to be more present. This wasn't healthy, for either of them.
So he stepped through the front door. He stood in the doorway for a long time. He looked around the house. Somehow it didn't look like his house anymore -- it looked like their's. Her's. He took of his coat, slowly, and changed from his outdoor boots to his indoor shoes. The house was cleaner now than it ever had been, even when his mother was alive. She was a great many things, but she often chose to keep her sons alive rather than keeping the house -- and with raising two young boys, no one could blame her. He watched her move about the kitchen silently, working hard at whatever she was cooking. He watched her for several minutes before she asked him if he wanted to stay for dinner.
Delphine missed him, hated the glances that the neighbors gave when they saw her. She hated the quietly implied questions when she spoke to the neighbors. It was almost enough to stop her from going out. She was determined, though. To better herself, to find a way to be worthy of the man. She'd worked hard to be less selfish, to fix herself. She was proud of where she was.
And, when he answered her, she was pretty sure her heart skipped a beat. She'd been expecting a no, even though she was hoping for a yes. "I wasn't sure if you were coming home tonight, but there's more than enough." Her voice was steady; which surprised her. Part of her was elated, excited, thrilled. The other half of her wanted to cry.
She still didn't like confrontation. And this was a chance for confrontation. The first chance since the dragon had teleported her out of Halo, really.
Awkward. Awkward.
It was so awkward.
She remembered what they had... have? Did they still have it? It didn't feel like they did. No, she supposed they didn't, she'd said she wanted to start over. They'd done it all wrong last time. Were doing it all wrong this time, too, probably.
Awkward. She shifted her weight, tidying the counters before she took a seat and began to eat. Uncomfortable, because she didn't know where she stood. Where he wanted her to stand.
And she hated herself for feeling that way. Where she had once felt comfortable only when he was around, she felt like she was walking on glass, waiting for it to shatter underneath her. "How's... work?" She finally asked, biting her lip.
The tension that filled the house like a noxious gas consumed him. He stood there, even after saying yes, still for a few minutes. He felt like a stranger, standing in the entry way of his own home, of the house that he was raised in, staring at her. Delphine made her way to the table and Noah hesitated, but finally did sit down--in his spot--and start on the stew the woman had made. It was packed full of vegetables she had brought home from her teleportation time, but there was still some meat. For him, he knew. The woman did not care for it, and it was a sacrifice for him for her to cook it, and especially eat it. Noah swallowed hard before consuming his first spoonful of the stew.
It was delicious, and it helped melt away some of the tension as it slid down his throat and warmed his gut.
He breathed out.
With difficulty, and between bites, he looked up at her. His glacier eyes were just that -- cold, far away. "Work is fine." It was the whole truth -- this season was a time where the people of Halo truly buckled down in on themselves and almost entirely left the government alone. Save for Chulane's work with the ningo farm, there was little room for government in the people's everyday lives. "Morgan is in the Hollowed Grounds for the season to help them fight the monsters there. Deimos is acting Warden in her stead. We went out on a hunt a few days before Morgan left...we killed two ursur." He moved his arm so that his sleeve lifted up and she could see the puncture scar just below his shoulder. Deimos' unicorn had healed him, but the scar remained.
Delphine couldn't help but notice his gaze, icy, cold. He wasn't here with her, she'd seen that look before. He began to give her the rundown, and he said something that made her stop, spoon in her mouth.
He rolled his sleeve, and showed her a scar and she felt her heart break a little bit. He hadn't come to her about healing it, and she could understand that. It looked deep. But he hadn't bothered telling her? Letting her know...
She dropped her spoon into the bowl and exhaled shakily. "Two ursurs?" Her voice trembled as she spoke, and she leaned back in her chair. "Why didn't..." She wasn't sure if that question was one she had a right to ask.
The woman lowered her gaze to her stew, murmuring, "Do I have any right to ask about you, anymore?" She shifted, reclaiming her spoon to continue eating, pausing to add, "I don't... know where we stand. It's my fault, but I love you, and I've been trying." She didn't mean to imply that he wasn't trying. He certainly was.
But words weren't her strong suit when she was overwhelmed.
Noah hadn't been trying to hide what had happened from Delphine. He understood her distress over it, however, and sighed. "I am sorry. I should have told you." He apologized truly, setting his spoon down and looking across at her for the first time with honest contact. He wanted to reach over and put his hand over her's, to feel the warmth of it in his. "The truth is, I don't know." He sighed again. "I love you, too. I do." He leaned back in his chair and put his hands in his lap.
"I've never felt this type of hurt before. I am having a hard time trusting you, and I don't know how to repair that." He confessed. He was not sure how to fix this. He did love her, and wanted to be close to her again, but he was guarded. He wanted to protect himself from her. She wounded him, and Noah felt like at the time of it she hadn't even cared. How was he supposed to let her back in after that?
Delphine wished he'd reached for her hand, but she did meet his gaze. "I'm... sorry." She was torn; her heart fluttered excitedly when he said he loved her and then broke again when he admitted that he was having trouble trusting her. She'd hurt him, it was her fault, she understood that.
But being reminded of it still hurt. She idly scooped and dumped her stew with her spoon, biting her lip as she thought on it. "I think, maybe not avoiding me might help? I can't show you how good I'm doing if you're not here." It sounded selfish. She shifted in her chair, fighting the urge to avoid the issue.
"And... maybe we could have a date or two. We don't have to go back to where we were, we can build back to that. But I think people who are romantically interested in someone go on dates with that person." Bellamy had certainly had the whole date-thing down pat.
Noah listened to her without interrupting. He kept his hands in his lap and continued to make eye contact with her. She had a point, and he didn't disagree with it, but if he was being honest with himself he wasn't sure if he wanted to do it.
Never in his life had he felt like he wanted to flee from a person. He was not afraid of people. He had faced ursur and dragons and ice giants on the tundra and people were miniscule compared to the danger they brought. But, in his heart of hearts, he wanted to crawl away from her and hide away and protect himself from the danger she posed.
It was true what his mother told him as a child, that only those you loved could hurt you. Your enemies couldn't hurt you. Your critics couldn't hurt you. Only the ones you let into your heart.
"Okay." He finally said, nodding. "We can do that."
For the first time, in a while, Delphine smiled. She smiled at him, a bright, pleased smile. "Okay." She didn't know where to go on a date in Halo. She wasn't allowed to drink, so she avoided the tavern. That seemed like a big place to spend time.
So, she'd leave that to his decision. She wanted to see what his idea of a date was. A real date. Sure, they'd trekked up the volcano in Torchline to practice sparring, and she'd had fun. But that hadn't been a date, that'd been part of a vacation.
"What shall our first date be?" She inquired, beginning to eat again. Delphine had warned the man love hurt; that it hurt especially when one loved her. He knew her past, he knew almost everything about her. She couldn't fathom that he'd never loved before her.
She smiled and it made him feel softer. His muscles, muscles he hadn't been consciously aware of being tight, loosened and his shoulders relaxed. "Okay." He almost whispered, lifting his hand to continue to eat his stew as she did.
Noah wasn't sure if he had ever really taken a woman on a date. He had never courted a woman before, even Delphine. Halo's ideas of dates were usually just doing things alone. Whatever things needed to be done. He was sure that there were romantic men and women who would attempt to woo their partners and swing them off their feet (and into their beds) by huge gestures of affection. Noah, in his practicality, wasn't really sure he could do that. Or, if that was what Delphine wanted.
After a few minutes of silence, and the hunter mulling it over, he finally did speak. "Oh," He set his spoon down, "I can take you to my favorite place."
