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!
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
Turning points and focal views; what he likely should’ve done ages and ages before, when not so mired, when not so pulled in different directions. Tangled, curled, and coiled, with naught more than frustrations and the knowing onslaught closing in, the General threaded his way through crowds, towards Citadels and their shrines. Too many frustrations rooted their way into his soul, and it was gnarled, emboldened, ignorant, and knotted with the bridging of gaps and the closing of ties. In the way that he’d known, perhaps in some proportions, that this was coming sooner or later.
And so he bowed his head, could feel the stakes bunching and colliding through his shoulders, and still stood before the precipice, Zuriel there at his side. Much as he’d always done, he lifted his bag, and bestowed gifts upon the mantle, created by his own hands and incantations: a necklace with matching earrings, embroidered, embedded, and detailed as though it’d been infused with stars, and a lantern meant to signify galaxies and constellations; outlined in figments of the goddess herself.
Then he inhaled sharply, piercing eyes fixed on the gifts, the wall, anything and everything without truly taking anything in – senses heightened, looming, waiting. “Safrin, I seek your infinite wisdom and guidance.” And he’d have to admit it – that he’d followed after those ruminations and speculations, those portals of time and space and history, when she’d been the first to answer his call. For strength. For abilities he would’ve never had otherwise. And maybe it was finally time to repay the favor.
The apprehension stirred and he persisted, rankling over the edges; nerves upon nerves with a thundering, mighty, stalwart heart. “How can I aid you in the fight against the Voice?”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
"It's so cold here." Her voice is a playful complaint, her lips a perfect frown of colour.
She appears in a thin white dress that hugs the curves of her body. If indeed gods could feel the chill of the air one would expect the goddess to have frozen as a result of her choice of garment. With hair plaited long down the open back of her dress, she bends to inspect the lantern first. "And you are always so serious." Safrin adds, looking at him over her shoulder as her fingers map out the exquisite craftsmanship that went into the creation of the offerings placed upon the shrine.
"Why is that?" She wonders, seating herself upon the cold stone floor. Peering up at him, her dark eyes enigmatic beneath the flutter of her long lashes, Safrin tilts her head slightly to the side.
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
An appearance and then a mild complaint; and he inhaled sharply again, loosening on a slow breath, muffling a snort. Within a matter of moments, his incantations produced a shawl, starlit orchestrated, one hand offering it in some form of apology or generosity.
Otherwise he remained quite still, waiting and waiting and waiting while she inspected wares, head bowed until another comment circulated, and he lifted his eyes to meet hers. One brow arched, and the stoic, reticent features cracked, half a smile curling in the corner of his mouth. “Not always.” True, when he was comfortable, content, and surrounded by sentiments of security. Then there was mischief and bemusements, joviality and juvenile charm.
The temptation to furrow his brows at her question was only just resisted – and instead he followed suit – placing himself upon the floor, several feet away. While Zuriel rooted her head on his shoulder, making them less rigid and taut, the Sword permitted one semblance, an echo, of a laugh, coiled within his chest. “You are intimidating. In beauty and power.” And not much terrified him - save for vulnerability, and those that could extinguish his life within an instant, no matter how much might rested in his own existence. “It is a way to protect myself.” A guard, a rampart, a wall.
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
Accepting the created garment with a sly wink, Safrin sweeps it around her shoulders. "How does it look?" She wonders, her head falling coquettishly toward one shoulder as she peers up at him.
'Well, too often.' Safrin laughs in response. Watching him sit, noting how he did not deign to sit next to her, but across, the goddess listens to his explanation with a soft roll of her eyes. "Well of course I am." She titters, though the mention of protection has her lips drawing into a fine line as all amusement washes away.
"And how well has that worked out for you? This stoic armour?"
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
“Perfect,” he snorted once more, but meant it, shaking his head with gruff amusement at the antics, one born from an individual not used to sharing any lightheartedness amongst deities. Cautious and hesitant, in all things until he could fathom and understand them – and he wasn’t sure if he’d ever comprehend Safrin, regardless. Too mortal, too human, too steeled and forged. “Perhaps. I will try to be less,” came on the crook of that small smile.
Nor could he grasp the following question, and his own grin faded, wondering why they were encroaching here, on these notions and motions. The march of trepidation beat in his chest, and his hand reached for Zuriel’s muzzle, scratching it lightly, to ease some of the apprehension coiled within. His eyes fell on the stone floor for a moment, contemplating how to respond. “It depends.” Not well would probably have been a better truth – and though he’d done better, he’d tried to not be such a damned wall, there were still moments, much like these, where he wanted that guard up. Then his gaze lifted back to hers, a tilt of his own head following. “I still manage to get hurt.”
But he didn’t think it would matter – not to this goddess, not to any deity at all. “Why do you ask?”
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
'Aww, there it is.' She chuckles, her eyes narrowed playfully as she points a finger at the half smile cresting across his lips. It hardly lasts, not with Deimos retreating back into the depths of his cavernous mind.
"It doesn't depend." Safrin corrects with a simple shake of her head. "You mortals are made to love, and hurt, and weep, and then die. No amount of stone-faced expressions or carefully chosen words will ever change that. Rising from where she's seated, she strolls toward him, before lowering herself to the ground that her legs might press against his own as she tucks her feet beneath herself. 'What are you worried about?" She wonders, reaching forward her hands to cup his face and draw his stare upon her. "Laugh lines?"
Chuckling coquettishly at that, she keeps her hands where they are, her palms almost not able to cover his cheeks so large is he in comparison. "I ask because you are currently a waste of potential. You toiled in the Grounds, and now you train bird-farmers and other nobodies in this place." She looks around with a sniff. 'You offer to complete noble tasks for Ludo that not even the dead care about. Doesn't it make you angry, Deimos?" Safrin wonders, leaning forward. "All your hard work, all your strength, all that pain you've had to endure, and you know where its gotten you?"
She's just a breath away now, her eyes pinpoint of starlight while her skin smells of sweet water. "Nowhere."
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
The Sword swallowed down something in the wake of her correction, in the shake of her head. There was no argument to be made for her lines – he’d done it before, wept and bled and loved and cherished and perished. Damned to do it again too, for what it was worth. Then she was closing in and the Sword didn’t dare move – away or towards, while she cupped his face (not going for his throat; not like before), and he was forced to follow the dominion of her hold.
Jaw tilted, piercing stare upon hers, Deimos did allow one more chuckle at the thought of laugh lines. But his head shook as much as it could. “I did not want to let anyone in.” And then he had anyway; the notion punctured with the half-smile once more, with not much else to show for it. Most of those individuals were gone and out of his life, and the others he grasped onto with mischief and grief intermingled, intertwined.
But thereafter were the other words, and his features faltered – the grin gone, the tones and everything else sinking in. They were weighted, but not entirely harsh, not ruthless and unrelenting; he’d known them in the back of his mind already. For all the dominion and might, for all the efforts he’d put in, for all the trial after trial, tribulation after tribulation, where had he gone? What had he become? What had he done? Suffered for? Generous and forgiving, tolerant and reticent, putting forth his abilities for the sake of others, so they could rise and strengthen, be protected, be healed –
Nowhere pulsed on her breath, and his brows furrowed with it. The coils and curls of suppressed, diminished rage infused with his veins and he could feel those wretched notions making their home again inside his chest. Primordial, ancient, arcane; incapable of ever being rid of those contemptuous layers. “Yes,” came on a muffled hiss, force between clenched jaws and behind teeth. “That is why I am here.” With a gaze contorted amidst desperation and misery, striving to find something to maneuver onwards. “That is why I am asking you what needs to be done.”
Because he’d come to Halo on lines of death and sickness, and been mended as best he’d allow, repaid his debts – and for once, he might be able to become more than just the mountains.
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
'Stop that.' Safrin whispers, one of the hands on his cheek rising and falling again in a slap that would certainly cause him no pain, but would communicate her meaning just the same. "No more clenched teeth. No more walls and barricades and half emotions."
Sitting back slightly to regard him, the goddess's eyes narrow. 'When was the last time you did something for yourself? Not because you were told to or because you thought it was the right thing. What convictions do you even have, anymore? " Her gaze is steady, but not cruel. Not intentionally so, anyway. "Who are you?"
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
He waited for the pain that didn’t come, but the words were enough. An immediate response was to try and retreat, slide into the primordial abyss of nothingness – where they couldn’t reach, where they couldn’t pierce. But that was what he’d always done. And it still hurt. It still ached. It simply resided where no one could see, where he could wither and fall apart and no one would be the wiser.
No more feathered jaws and suppressed emotions. No more ramparts. No more walls upon walls upon walls.
“I will try,” he offered; because the difficulty just now, in these small, infinite moments, was almost too much. And maybe that was false and forced too, because he’d said he wouldn’t, couldn’t, hide to her once before, and there he was, and there he’d been, doing the same. It stung and shredded though, and Deimos turned his eyes downward, stared at the stone floor.
Only to lift them at her next set of inquiries, the torment evident now in his features – in the furrowing of his brow, in the sorrow burrowed and buried in his gaze. Her words were remarkably similar to Rexanna, from his dreams, begging for him to take instead of give.
And he hadn’t.
Eerie, in comparison to Hotaru, who asked him to rest.
Which he still had yet to do.
Because his motives in life seemed comprised and composed for the sake of others. To guard. To shelter. To preserve. He’d done it every time there’d been monsters to slay. When there had been sicknesses embedded in their thresholds. When his friends needed him. There and there and there; consistent and constant, a monolith they could rely upon.
And it took him far longer to answer, as his mind tracked over seasons upon seasons. Several came to mind, and they’d been on the tip of his tongue, and then he’d recall they were truly for another – so his jaw unhinged and closed a couple times over. Eventually, when he’d dug back over years, he could respond. “When I asked to be Attuned,” by her, and the words seemed to simmer amidst shame. “All I ever wanted to do was keep those I loved safe.” Sometimes it worked. Sometimes it didn’t, and he bore the brunt of those efforts over his shoulders too. And maybe that simply wasn’t enough anymore.
But he did know who he was – and could gaze at her with the slightest of convictions there. “A protector. A defender. A weapon.” A Sword. A Reaper.
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
Safrin taps her fingers animatedly and audibly as the Sword retreats once again into his own thoughts. She's counting down the seconds before she reaches out and shakes his shoulders to snap him out of it, when eventually he speaks. Though the answer he gives is far from satisfying.
"No." She says, shaking her head. "What little boy looks around his house, sees the big stick that his father keeps above the door frame and goes, Yeah you know what? I'd rather like to be that when I grow up. Because if that's true, then I'll snap my fingers right now and make you into a great big stick that can be used to protect and defend if that's all you want your life to amount to."
Leaning back, the goddess narrows her eyes. "Riddle me this. If you work so hard to keep everyone out, who are you protecting and defending? How could you possibly care to serve as a weapon when you don't seem to give one single fuck about anything."
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
A sigh bounded and leapt from his chest, because he didn’t like to talk about how he’d been carved and sculpted out of war. Out of battles. Out of skirmishes. Out of trial after trial, tribulation after tribulation. Pain and torment and agony had consumed him until he was a numbed, nonchalant vessel and shell. It was easier. It was simpler. No need to look inward. No need to notice what he hadn’t become or what he’d never accomplished. No need to see all the things and people he’d lost along the way.
The ghosts stayed with him anyway, and haunted him now, as he fought the notion to stare down at the floor and become every bit a part of it. So he shook his head, and looked her in the eyes once more – the self-loathing evident, the animosity for his own soul apparent. “It was not always that way. But I went to war, watched my friends die, and I could never reach them in time. And it happened over and over and over.” His parents. Huyana. The World’s Edge. The Aurora Basin. Rexanna. Amalia. Kiada. Hotaru. “I believed if I could grow stronger, I could save them. I tried to defend children from being abducted. I tried to slay those who wanted to take from our lands. I was consumed by it.” And it’d been every waking moment of his life – surrounded and mired in the power of damnation and death. That was how he’d lived. That was how he’d died. “That is what I know how to do.” Gain fortitude. Become powerful. Destroy. And try not to ache along the way.
The Sword narrowed his eyes in return, hands balling into fists down by his sides, before releasing the tension through his shoulders, through his spine, the piercing depths of his gaze unwavering and absolute. “I do care. I care about the people I protect. I care about those I consider my friends and family.” The ones who managed to bombard and climb over those walls; even though he couldn’t fathom why they bothered.
And then the notion hit him, in the furrowing of his brows and the realization pressing over his lungs. He released the fleeting edges like he’d only just now considered them. “I do not care about myself.”
And that’s how he’d become a weapon before, and how he lived as one now. It was easier to throw himself in front of sea panthers or monsters, easier to hasten a shield, easier to take down a burning building and stand in front of flames, than give one ounce about himself. Or to watch those he cherished suffer, mired in their wounds. And maybe that hadn’t really been living at all. The beast managed a small, hollow laugh thereafter, though it edged into sadness, into sorrow, on the ends. "Perhaps that needs to change."
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
'So maybe stop going to war. It doesn't sound as if you were ever any good at it.' Safrin says with a dismissive shrug. "Is that what you know how to do? Or was it a roll you were placed into, and now it's just a thing you've experienced? Because from what I see in your mind—" She taps his forehead lightly. "—are failed plans. Invasions, grand notions of tents and wolves, peace offered that no one was interested in. Just because no one around you had any better ideas, does not make yours good by default."
Harsh words perhaps, but there was enormous amounts of scar tissue to cut through before the goddess could find anything workable beneath.
"There it is." She whispers as his realization finally is able to make its way to the surface. "Your marriage crumbled because you were loathe to put yourself before Amalia. Your friends died and you carried them around like ghosts as a punishment. They are all gone, and do their memory no favours by being a slave to your grief." Sitting up, Safrin folds her hands into her lap.
"I think you force yourself to care so much about others so that you never have to face the fact that they might not care about you in the same way. You don't even care about you, in the same way."
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
03-26-2021, 10:49 PM (This post was last modified: 03-28-2021, 12:14 PM by Deimos.)
DEIMOS
ache first, but then let the cuts close spit out the blood
At her first statement, he snorted, a pinch forming between his brows, either in anger or frustration, and a shake of his head, perhaps one of the first denials and defenses he could muster over his own character. “War is not won by a single person. I did my part. I fought my battles. I survived.” And he had been good at his proportions – slaying, brutalizing, cutting through where he needed to. He simply couldn’t reach everyone. He simply couldn’t do everything. “I chose to be a soldier. I know how to fight, and I know how to endure. I want to protect others.” On the other notion though, his brows furrowed further, as if struck by a realization that his friends had likely tried to place into his head more than a hundred times. His gaze swept back up to hers, notched and lined with some aspect of confusion or bewilderment. "Am I striving to redeem myself for something I could not control?"
And she could tap his forehead all she wanted, and see within, but there were so many other factors, so many other sieges, so many other moments besides tents and wolves. The Reaper and Mirage had been the ones to fortify peace, after his own Queen had fallen, had ceased, had desisted, had been naught but pieces of her anarchy. He’d led command of a world that struck back at those daring to come upon, after, them. “They were plans of our kingdom.” Not solely his. “That is what occurred, and I cannot change the past.”
The statement unfurled from his own mouth and he blinked – as if the facets hadn’t ever embedded in his brain before, hadn’t come to fruition until now - over and over again, a numbness lifting. “But I can change.” Somehow. In some way. He just didn’t know where to start or where it began.
But then everything tumbled thereafter, and the seething weight of his own self-hatred pierced and punctured and hurt; and the Sword’s stare went back to the floor. “Then what do I do with it?” This grief and these walls and companions who didn’t care?
watch your body pull itself back together then let your soul do the same
sweet dreams till sunbeams find you, sweet dreams that leave all worries behind you
"If it isn't won by a single person, it isn't lost by one, either. So why is it you take every failure in your life personally?" He echoes the question back to her, and all the goddess can do is raise her brows silently to say, yes, you idiot.
"If you can't change it, why do you continue to carry it around with you?" Defeats, deaths, plans that didn't turn out the way he'd intended or desired. Boo hoo. He'd said the words himself; it was in the past. And there he needed to leave it.
'Well, getting out of your own head would help. I can see the wheels turning in your mind. You think a mountain's worth and then offer up pebbles. How is anyone supposed to know what you think or feel about them when you keep it all inside? Handsome as that face is—" And here she reaches out softly to cup his cheek. "—it isn't as expression as you think it is. A twitch of your lips, a half frown, a blink of your eyes...humans are stupid. Getting out of your own head is the first step in getting out of your own way."
Safrin has given Deimos a quest.
He must find 5 characters who have the 'wrong' idea of him (or have misinterpreted something he's done/said/etc) OR who he's never fully expressed his feelings about, and either clarify (as in the first case), or elaborate (as in the second).
but in your dreams whatever they be, dream a little dream of me
