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!
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
That's the thing about when he meets with Remi. The madness of their time together stuffs the cracks of Finn's psyche, leaving them plugged until the Lullaby leaves. But leave he does, and Finn is once again ripped raw and open, and he walks like a ghost along the cobbles back towards the Tower. His fingers are numb, and it could be from the cold or something else entirely, and snow has settled in his curls. He can still feel it, the press of arms around him, when he closes his eyes or lets his concentration slip.
And the closer to home he gets, the closer the prospect of being alone with what happened, with everything that has happened...
His footsteps are quiet as he shoves his way into the infirmary, and he brushes off the receptionist who tries to stop him in his tracks. "Tobi?" Her name leaves his lips like a whisper, but in Finn's mind he has almost screamed it.
Mr. Rosencrantz, you can't just— The reception bleats, her eyes wide and movements flustered as she trails after Finn with a clipboard. But just Finn does, and soon he's at Tobi's mostly-open door, whispering her name into a room whose silence is broken only by the scratch of a quill on parchment.
"Mm, oh!" Turning in her chair, Tobi regards Finn with an instant and sunny smile. She nods toward the receptionist, mouthing I know and then grimacing in response to her offered indignation at having been ignored, before turning her dark gaze back to Finn.
Who looks...
Tobi's heart sinks, but she doesn't move from her chair. She doesn't rush to brush away the snow from his chair, to unwind his scarf, or to wrap him in a hug. She doesn't ask what's wrong, but instead asks, "Tea?"
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
Her sunny smile is utterly out of place in the storm that rages in Finn's eyes, and whilst he tries to emulate it, he can barely manage a twitch of his lips behind his scarf. The receptionist is an annoying sort of hum behind him, and when she leaves he barely notices. Tea, Tobi asks, and a hushed laugh heaves from Finn's chest, something that's almost a sob. "Yes please," he mumbles. He doesn't want tea. But saying yes is polite.
"Tobi, I don't know what to do," he says a moment later, reaching up hands that are chapped with cold to try and loosen the scarf, feeling suddenly as though it is strangling him. Even his clothes feel like grasping hands, and he wants to climb out of his skin, to plunge his aching bones into the sea and never come back up for air.
But he doesn't. He asks for tea. He lingers in the doorway, unaware that his chest is heaving with breath he can't catch.
'Why don't you try that blanket instead? It's softer than your clothes are. Probably warmer too.' Tobi nods toward a luxurious throw (given to her by Dorian, who else), tossed on a small loveseat. It's her way of saying, Finn your clothes are wet from the snow, and also You look freezing, without actually drawing attention to his current state of dress. It's the same reason she offered him tea, instead of immediate comfort. It was like a sort of code for: It can't be that bad if you can still drink tea, and also, I'm here. You're here, and it's okay.
And so she adds some wood to a small in-wall stove to boil water.
Reaching for an oversized sweater and tugging it on over her scrubs, Tobi plops down on the couch, very much acting as if things are just fine. If she rises to Finn's obvious distress, she'll only add to the Spyglass's heightened state of anxiety. Other than his smashed hand, she's been able to take in stride everything that's ever happened with him.
Naively, she's quite sure she'll be able to handle this as well. 'Sit with me.' She encourages, drawing up her knees to her chest. The couch is small, and long-legged as Tobi is, she nevertheless leaves plenty of room for Finn to sit comfortably on his own.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
Sit with me. It's more of a demand and less of a request, and some part of Finn is deeply and profoundly grateful for it. It's something certain in the mosaic of his mind, adrift and floating, like ice on a frozen sea. He pulls further at the scarf until it comes away from his neck, leaving it pooled next to the door. His coat is left in a similar state, but it leaves the air grasping for him instead. He feels arms wrapped around him, squeezing, feels a body pressed up against his back--
Finn sits. He perches, really, on the edge of the couch, bringing a shaking hand up to run across his unshaven cheek. The blanket he either doesn't pay attention to or doesn't remember, and he shakes his head to her. "I'm so sorry," he blurts. "I just - I came here, I didn't know where else to go. I need to - I can't be..."
Being alone doesn't work any more. Being around others doesn't work and never has. And now he's stuck, now he's lost and he doesn't know where to turn. "He found me."
It's hard when the thing you want to do is precisely the thing you shouldn't do. Were Tobi in this situation, she'd want blankets and heating pads and arms wrapped tightly around her. But perhaps most important to this friendship of hers with Finn, she recognizes the differences between them, and doesn't blindly overlay her own needs and comforts onto him as one normally is inclined to do.
So she watches his bird-like movements, the way he trembles. She sees the ghosts alighting his bones and make him jump and dance when all he likely wants is to be still and silent. He rambles and says nothing at all. Tobi lets him of course, sitting still and silent. "You can always come here." She reminds him softly, speaking the words as less of a suggestion and more like it really was some fact he'd just forgotten.
Tobi's brows flinch in slight confusion beneath her thick bangs as she reaches for the ignored blanket. 'Who?' Unfurling it in an easy motion, she drapes it over her legs, leaving the bulk of it between them for Finn to grab, or fidget with, as he sees fit. "Cian?"
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
"No," he mumbles. "Remi." His stormy eyes are focused hard on the ground before him now, shoulders hunched, tense as stone, and he clasps his hands tightly together, like they might hold the seams of him in. Tobi's space for him lets him wrangle his mind, though that is hardly the same as feeling better. "He can travel through dreams--" And here Finn laughs at himself, like he knows it sounds crazy. And maybe he is crazy - maybe all of this has finally pushed him over that fragile cliff and onto the rocks below.
"And he woke up with me, and now I--" Huffing out a short breath, Finn grimaces and pinches at the bridge of his nose. "Now I can't feel safe anywhere. I don't know what is happening, but I can feel it all over me, Tobi, and I just can't get it off--" The Spylass has reached up to pull at the collar of his shirt, and one of the buttons goes pinging off across the floor.
02-02-2021, 09:40 PM (This post was last modified: 02-02-2021, 09:41 PM by October.)
Tobi
Remi. The man from the volcano. The husband of the charming demigod. The one who had been in Finn's nightmare's when he'd (been forced to) overdose. Tobi listens with growing horror as the Spyglass explains. Broken bones she can deal with. Physical trauma she can tackle. But this sort of magical invasion is unlike anything she's ever prepared herself for, and her sharp inhale says as much though she tries to hide it.
"He woke up with you?" Tobi's voice is more concerned than she intended to be, and quickly she bites the inside of her cheek and reminds herself to keep calm for Finn's sake. "Did he—okay. okay." Whatever her question might be she swallows down in favour of comforting words as Finn quite literally starts coming apart.
"Finn, look at me." This is said gently, but sternly. Though it might take him a moment to do so, you'll wait. "For right now at least, he isn't here. You're with me, and you're safe. Should he try and appear he will find a very sharp set of teeth right between his legs."
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
Finn's smile does not belong, but it's there anyway, as if hearing her react in a way that's not fine is something he's been waiting for. Sanctuaries don't exist for Finn, and even the ones he's built for himself are nothing but hollow echoes of the things that normal people have. His hand is still there, bunched in the fabric of his shirt, but he feels like there are others swarming his body, working beneath his skin and dragging at his bones.
The shudder that runs through him coincides with Tobi's command, his head snapping up to look at her on autopilot, eyes fighting not to lower away from her face. Her joke (or not a joke) is something he tries to appreciate, but in the end it just makes his eyes sting. "Please," he says suddenly, the hand not wrapped in his shirt skittering out and fidgeting along the blanket. "It's driving me mad, Tobi. I don't know how to--"
I don't know how to stop feeling like this. I don't know how to tolerate what I need. I don't know how to ask you to take my hand.
Tobi might have vowed to do no harm to her patients, but Remi was certainly not that, and should he appear in her little office, he wouldn't enjoy it. She might have said teeth in the threat she voiced to Finn, but she was so angry that anyone who put her friend into such a state, that she'd forgo her secret and safety, and skewer the Lullaby with her horn should he appear now.
Tobi sees Finn's hand on the fray of the blanket, twisting and impatient against the softness. 'How to what?' She wonders softly. On the stove, the kettle begins to warble and dance, indicating that it is going to whistle any second. Still though Tobi stays, dark eyes unobtrusive and gentle as they drink Finn in without expectation or motive.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
Gods how he hoped she'd just understand, and the breath Finn takes is more like a hiccup, the Spyglass letting his gaze dance away. His hand goes with it, curling back around himself, and he shakes his head. "It doesn't matter," he mumbles, his stormy blues flicking from place to place in her office, his body flinching at the warble of the kettle. He glances towards it, swearing he can see the aura printed on the handle, where Tobi has gripped it time and time again.
"May I have some medicine?" he asks, further folding back into himself. Just enough to fall asleep. Enough maybe not to dream. But he isn't sure that would even matter. Can Remi get at him if he's not dreaming? Or will he awaken again to the Lullaby in his bed?
She doesn't understand. And even later, were it all spelled out for her, she'd do it the same. Consent is everything for Finn, and Tobi will never be the one to guess and get it wrong with him.
Smiling sweetly, Tobi nods and rises. Instead of going toward a locked cabinet that holds all manner of medical elixers, she instead reaches for two mugs. They are mismatched and one is slightly chipped, but they are fondly held and lovingly filled. No magic or medicine is added. Just clover honey and a sprig of cinnamon bark.
Returning to Finn, Tobi doesn't plop down as bonelessly as she had done before lest she spill the tea. Instead, she reaches out with a foot to drag a small table closer so that she might set the mugs on it. Leaning back, her shoulder against the couch to regard Finn, the doctor takes a breath. "I'd like to know what happened. All of it. From Apopo, to the dreams in between when Ronin had to wake you up, up until today." Reaching for the blanket, upturned slightly from where she'd moved it aside to get the tea, Tobi now settles it back around herself, before holding up the corner closest to Finn. Sit back, and talk to me? the gesture indicates, as does the curve of her brows beneath her bangs.
She wasn't Falke, listening just to diagnose. Not Cian, nor other members of the Order who might wonder if Finn could be trusted to do his job. She wasn't anyone other than Tobi; if only that might be enough.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
Finn watches her go, rigid and hunched at the edge of the couch, and he rubs at his forehead as she potters about with the mugs. Usually he'd have reached out instinctively to help draw the table closer, his manners overriding any personal feelings, but his mind is too crowded currently to think about it. And so Tobi balances and struggles and eventually gets the tea on the table, Finn watching the steam rise from it. "I don't really want to tell you," he admits, though that doesn't really mean much in the end.
He sits back like he's made of glass, closing his eyes and pretending against all else that there's not the feeling of things pulling at him. "I wish I were still sick. Things made sense, then," he mutters. And it isn't a story with an easy beginning, a middle and an end. And so when Finn starts to speak it's as disjointed as the occasions when it happened - the trip up Apopo and wanting to fly and to fall. Blood and feathers.
His dreams come next - nightmares that Finn has often, hanging from the Falling and watching a broken body below. But these are the dreams he's had with Remi, and so Tobi gets that version instead, switching places, driving the knife in, drowning and drowning...
Then there's the overdose. "I think perhaps I did do it," he mutters, his voice hoarse, though he doesn't reach for the tea. "I don't remember, but it makes sense, doesn't it? I dreamed I was back at Judgement's Needle, receiving my lashes. But the Star must have changed things... I was behind a waterfall. Something was ripping me to pieces. Remi saved me, but I don't think that's how the dream would have ended if Ronin hadn't appeared."
"It's less about telling me and more...letting yourself say it out loud." Tobi says gently, her dark eyes kind. If Finn looks, though likely he won't, he'll see the puppy-dog glimmer of unfettered adoration there. And not that he'd recognize it for what it is, but a deep healing wellspring from her unicorn-side as well.
It's with a sweet and tender silence that Tobi listens, despite the horrors of what Finn explains. There's a thread of tension that runs through all of the encounters, some menacing thing that lives behind the eyes and lips of both men. But what Tobi can't tell is whether or not they're running away from whatever it is that plagues them, or whether they're running to it. The balance and role-reversal she hears Finn mention is as poetic as it is troubling and grotesque. And Tobi, innocent and sweet as she is, cannot understand what it is to be drawn to such darkness. Even so, she listens and accepts all Finn has to say without judgement.
Looking down at the blanket as Finn admits perhaps he did overdose on his own, Tobi pulls in a slow breath. "May I sit closer?" She asks, and will only do so if Finn agrees. His mind is like a kite in a gale, and all she wants is to act like a tether to reality, even if his string slices her hands in the process.
But only if he agrees.
"Finn, you aren't crazy." She says after a moment. "I just...I want you to know that just because this has happened in your head, doesn't mean that it's all in your head." Her phrasing was clumsy, but was made slightly smoother by her genuine and gentle nature.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
