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!
The sun rises, the snow begins to fall, and he watches the light crawl up the walls like slow, reaching fingers. He doesn't feel weak, necessarily. Just empty, like all of the light has been sucked out of him. Eventually he rises to his feet, washes, dresses himself, and prepares for the day's training. But there's just... nothing. No energy in his steps, no warmth in his hands.
He finds himself standing before the mirror in the corner of the room, staring at a face that seems more ashen than when he'd set off to the shrine the night before. "You really messed up this time, didn't you," he murmurs, rubbing at his eyes and turning to call Sugar down from the rafters.
She wraps herself about his shoulders - he shivers, and moves towards the door.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi trudges through the snow. His mind is full of far too many thoughts to focus on warmer clothes. Luckily, not much bothers him these days. Not temperature-wise anyway. It took him longer than he'd like to admit to find his way to the barracks. Even from above the entirety of Stormbreak looked like it was all built from the same shapes, and with the world bathed in white (and his attuned-bond from Ronin gone, not that he knew it), it was difficult to find his way.
He did though, eventually.
Remi doesn't bother to knock, though he doesn't call out, "Hey, it's me.." Before tugging open the door. Cold air accompanies him, and so he hurries inside to slam the door shut against the invading winds. "Oh, were you leaving?" Remi has no idea of Ronin's schedule, and it's rather awkward the way he stands at the door, half grinning, looking lost, as if he's somehow intruded on the person he knows best.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
The familiar voice is as startling as it is wonderful to hear, and it's only Sugar leaving his shoulders that stops him from rushing to the alchemist right away. "I was, but... it can wait," he assures his husband with a tired smile, his voice a soft and uncertain thing in the quiet of the room. Sugar, meanwhile, has all but coiled her way around Remi's head, trilling her delight at seeing him again and huffing freezing breaths into his ear. "She has missed you," Ronin says obviously, though he does send a pulse of maybe later towards the pale reptile.
Reluctantly, Sugar peels herself away that the Star might take her place, Ronin wrapping his arms around Remi and all but folding against him, burying his head against his shoulder. "It's been a very long night," he mumbles. "How did you get here...?" The words are muffled by the side of the Lullaby's neck, and Ronin is already trying to guide them back towards the bed.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi's broad smile is hidden beneath pale dragon scales, and had he not been expecting this, he might have been smothered. It was only a matter of time before he and Sugar were reunited, and despite the fact that she's even colder than the world outside he's trying to hide from, Remi can't help the way he laughs at the frosty breathes puffed into his ear. Letting his fingers glide across her pale skin, the alchemist pulls in a relieved breath as she leaves him. "I've missed you too." He beams up at the pale creature.
No sooner are Ronin's arms around him than the alchemist immediately feels something is wrong. Frowning deeply and pulling his husband against him, feeling the unsteady tide of his husband's emotions like a storm brewing and only just held at bay, Remi lets himself be directed back toward the bed. He shakes his head at the questions asked of him—"I'll tell you later"—as he stumbles into bed. Reaching for blankets that he might swaddle them until they disappear, Remi searches for his husband's blue eyes beneath the warm dark of their little nest. "What happened?"
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin's feet are clumsy as he tries to kick off his shoes, to shed his coat as he's swamped into bed, but he manages as much without letting go of Remi even for a moment. Clambering into darkness that smells like earth and spice, he nestles against the Lullaby's chest, his arms coiling around him more tightly. Remi is freezing cold, and Ronin can't do much of anything right now, but he can at least help to warm him up.
"I finished my task for Safrin, with the flowers," he mumbles into his shirt, his ear pressed over Remi's heart so he might hear its steady beating. "She asked for more, though. She held a petal, from the flower that made me feel passion." He hopes his husband can see where this is going. "...And I told her no, Remi." And now there's something seriously wrong, and he's brought it on himself.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi's magical hold on the clothes he's made fades entirely as the Star covers him. That his clothes were magically made is likely something he'll have to explain to Ronin, but right now waking up in Finn's bed is the least of their worries.
'Mmmm.' It's a hum of encouragement for Ronin to continue as the alchemist's hands roam over his husband's back. He traces tributaries from a world of their combined imagination, the streams ever-wandering despite the things the Star says and those Remi feels.
The passion for passion.
I told her no.
Remi is both proud of his husband and terrified. Even before their agreement about extra-marital sex, Safrin had always been in a league of her own. It was a fact the alchemist hated, knowing what he did, but he also knew it wasn't the sort of thing that could be helped.
So the fact that Ronin said no?
'Gods, you're lucky to be alive."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
02-02-2021, 05:20 PM (This post was last modified: 02-02-2021, 05:21 PM by Ronin.)
arms give away your need
Ronin grumbles a note of utter contentment as Remi's hands pass over his shoulders, the Star closing his eyes as if he can't really bear to look up at his husband. To admit how stupid he's been and the consequences of it. Indeed, he visibly winces to hear it laid out so plain, Ronin nodding to the Lullaby. "Yeah, I'm starting to realise that. I was just tired of it... tired of her knowing how things were, and pushing me anyway. Trying to make things sour between us."
And yet, he feels pretty bitter about it now. "She took everything," Ronin whispers. "I couldn't summon a nimbus to fly home. I can't project, can't make stars... nothing." And yet he's still here in Stormbreak, with so many expectations on his shoulders. It's... it's nothing less than what he deserves, and he knows it. But it doesn't make it any easier to bear.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
"Do you think...does she want another child?" Ronin is absolutely the most handsome man the alchemist had ever seen, of that there is no question. He'd go so far as to say that the same holds true for many others as well. But for a goddess? Surely the Star is no more than a shiny toy to a creature like her. Bedding him might be fun...but she'd done that already.
What if there was more to it?
She took everything. Were it not for the slow sludge of clarity that Remi can feel from the man in his arms, he might have thought Ronin was simply being dramatic. Biting hard at the inside of his cheek to keep from saying something stupid, Remi's simply doubles down on his efforts to keep Ronin close. He tries to keep himself in the moment, to not lose his thoughts to the emotions that suddenly swirl bright and demanding in the back of his throat.
"Okay.." Remi breathes into Ronin's hair, briefly considering thrusting them both into a dream, before deciding against it. Ronin wouldn't be able to pull them out, should they get too deep. "Did she say for how long..?"
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin can't help the way he tenses up in Remi's arms, the prospect of another child without consenting to it, another child dropped on his doorstep whose firsts he'd missed utterly heinous to him. He shakes his head, though in truth he's unsure. "I don't think so. She will always be able to pull my strings with Seren..." She doesn't need another to put him under the thumb - he's already there. And whilst he doesn't doubt that she loves the girl as any mother does, Ronin isn't deluded enough to believe that Seren's existence wasn't a manipulation.
Remi pulls him closer and Ronin all but melts against the Lullaby, shamelessly drawing comfort from the other man in the press of his hands, the warmth of his skin, the rise and fall of his breath against his ear. "She didn't even say she had taken them," he mumbles sadly, shaking his head. "I don't know how long. Until she feels I have earned them, is my guess. Until her pride has healed."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi isn't so sure, not with the things he knows about Safin. But it isn't a point he needs to press. Not with Ronin having clearly drawn a line in the sand as he had.
The alchemist's heart thuds an unhappy rhythm until a cold realization sloshes through his belly. Ronin? He whispers silently, through a bond that is no longer there. When his husband doesn't reply, Remi clenches his teeth together and stares at the ceiling, willing himself to stay calm.
'She can't do this.' He says at last, relaxing the muscles in his legs and stomach. It's only the relieved sigh of his body that tells him just how long he must have been tense for, but it's hardly more than a tickle in the back of his mind. 'There is a war we're meant to be preparing for, and.." If Remi thought the loss of the attuned bond was something to cry over, what his mind had just stumbled on was enough to devastate him completely.
"...Ronin, you can die."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Oblivious as he is and shut out of the Attuned bond, Ronin is unaware that Remi is even calling to him. But he can sense that his husband is tense, sense that something is wrong, and his fingers strum down the side of the Lullaby's ribs, trying to ease away that soreness. She can't do this, he says, and though he agrees, though he knows there's a war on the horizon, it doesn't stop the obvious fact that she has done it. Turning to press a warm kiss to Remi's chest, he finally peers up at the other man with blue eyes only marginally used to the darkness of their blanket nest.
"Mm... war is more dangerous than ever before now," he agrees, though of course he isn't nearly as horrified by the prospect as his husband is. That doesn't mean he's so dense as to not realise why Remi is panicking. "I will be careful," he promises him, leaning up now to deliver a gentle kiss to his lips. "I don't plan to leave the city, or to rock any boats, or take any risks. I'll be safer than I was when I could die, last."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Ronin's reassurances do nothing, and so far away are the alchemist's thoughts, that even the Star's lips against his chest do hardly more than draw a low "..mmm..." from the alchemist.
Ronin can die.
Ronin can die.
Ronin can die
It thunders through his ears and across the plains of every existence that the pair have known together. Being careful hardly seems relevant: how can carefulness be a defense against a world as violent as this one? Ronin had been able to live a life free from the fear of death (mostly), and now, with no abilities and a vindictive goddess, he was going to be careful.
"Ronin," Remi begins. It's a plea, though a plea for what even he doesn't know. Difficult as it is to meet Ronin's gaze in the dark of the blankets, the alchemist's head tilts as a wince parts his lips. But then, blissfully, denial sets in, and the alchemist seems to brighten considerably. "We'll fix this. There has to be a way."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin can no longer read his husband so easily, can no longer feel out his emotions and share in the bond that has united them for over a year now. But he still knows him, and the silence is a warning that the Star heeds well. When Remi finally meets his gaze, Ronin tugs down the blankets a bit so he can lean himself up on one elbow. He still looks terrible, for more reasons than mere lack of sleep, and the sudden cheeriness is more worrying than the panic.
"Well... I... yes," he says with a quiet laugh. "Yes of course we will fix this. I'll just have to spend... a lot of time making amends." Huffing out a sigh that blows his unruly mop of hair away from his forehead, the Star rubs at his eyes. "And I don't know how long it will take. I just... I'm sorry, Remi. I can't seem to do right by you whatever I try."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi's jaw feathers despite the smile on his lips. Ronin might make ammends, but the alchemist? Remi has other plans.
Reaching out to softly push Ronin's hair back where it more or less ought to be, Remi lets his fingers curl against his husband's head before settling on his shoulder. Barking out a laugh that seems so loud given their whispered words, Remi shakes his head instantly, curling himself forward to plant a hasty kiss on the Star's forehead before settling back against the pillow. "Right by me? Ronin, I just woke up naked next to another man." He says, chuckling at the ridiculousness of it. "Every day you wake up and love me, you're doing right by me. "
Reaching to tuck the blankets around them (Remi is still naked, and the room is cold, likely thanks to Sugar's mere presence), the alchemist huffs out a bemused sigh as he shakes his head. "Do you remember the other day, when I had us leave the Silk Houses, because of Finn? It must have stayed with me longer than I thought. I must have dreamed of him. But instead of just waking up with hazy memories like most people, I woke up next to him." Sweeping a hand over his eyes and then offering his husband an apologetic and boyish smile, the alchemist shrugs. "It...did not go over well."
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
