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!
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
Yes, blood like his. So he puts it in terms that she might understand, the idea that the man he’d fallen over the cliff with, his father, had been a king in layman's terms. The Arbiter of Korofi, one part of a whole that had councils and authority wielded with an iron fist. “My father was the Arbiter, back in Korofi. Sort of like a king, so I was specifically held to higher standards, but all those with noble blood had limits on when and how many children they had.” They all had to have them, but only one boy and only one girl. And should the boy perish in the Trial? Well, it was supposed to be an honor.
As for the rest of it? It could be good. It could be nice. But it feels like everything is falling apart. Only when she mentions Safrin does his gaze lift, finally taking a look at her face. “Mm, well, we’ll see won’t we?” There’s no amusement there, nothing but the fact she’s made the correct assumption. There had been a reason. And now he doesn’t know if it’ll even work.
He doesn’t know if they want it to work. But he also doesn’t know what he’d do without his husband. That was the entire reason he got into this mess in the first place.
“No, they do care. You just need to be smart about it. Pick your words and vows carefully. Besides, a pretty face like yours should get along well with the Old Gods.” He shrugs, starting to fill the next bag she prepares. “The Voice on the other hand is different from the heralds. Perhaps you’ll take a liking to her too.” It doesn’t surprise him that she had never gotten a response, given the fact the heralds had been trapped in the bubble with the Voice the last 300 or so years.
Doesn’t mean she can’t try again, though.
She speaks again and he barks out a huff of unamused laughter, shaking his head. “No, I’m pretty sure I deserve it actually. All the things I’ve done are finally coming to bite me in the ass.” This is said with a clench to his jaw, his focus falling on filling up the sandbags now.
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
As he explains what he was in his past life, things click a little more. She makes a soft noise, nodding her head slowly, "I see. So if the child didn't meet the standards..." It's not a question and even if it was he wouldn't need to answer it. She understands completely what he means. They would be killed. An innocent little baby. No wonder he didn't want to have children.
Maeve hates that look in his eyes. The way it seems to scream that he's not sure if this was all for naught. If he ruined everything for nothing. She wishes she could do more to comfort him, but there isn't anything she can do. She's just Maeve. Little Maeve with no powers or special abilities or favor from the gods. What could she possibly do to help him? What could she do to help anyone? "I suppose so.." She murmurs, dropping her eyes once more.
They do care? They fucking care? Yeah, sure, they care about what you can do for them. That's what they care about. Everything Maeve has heard about them suggests it. As an accepted, she was merely a tool for them. Why would they care about her? Why would they bother if they couldn't get anything from her? It's bitterness. She knows it. She knows that perhaps her feelings are misguided, but how could she accept that the gods loved them when they ignored the calls of a child? Her stomach twists sourly and not even his half hearted compliment can change that.
"I don't want anything to do with the Voice." She snaps, tone icy and sharp as she clenches her jaw, "I don't really want much to do with any of them. Why would I? You say they care, but I haven't had a single instance where I have felt their love. What kind of god ignores a child?" Maeve looks up at him then and there is a clear hurt in her eyes at the memory. Calling out so desperately for gods that could never answer her even if they wanted to. Not that she knew then and not something she even realizes now, all these years later. Except he's looking at her like she's missing something and it makes her pause even as her throat tightens with an emotion she tries hard to ignore, but his gaze drops in time with the shrug of his shoulders.
A soft sound of indignation rises in her already tight throat and her fingers tighten on the next bag, "So what? Because you fucked up some things in life and made a few bad choices you deserve to lose everything?" There isn't really any fight in the words and she's left with a bitter taste in her mouth. "The world really is a cruel place..." She knew it before and she knows it now, but sometimes a reminder comes and knocks the air from your lungs. It leaves you flat on your back wondering what the fuck happened and why it had to happen to you.
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
“My family was lucky because there was only me and my sister. Other families? Not so much. And when I won my first trial… When I became an enforcer...” His lips twist shut as he averts his gaze. He remembers having to take the children from their parents, if one had too many boys or too many girls. He remembers what it was like to be seen as evil in their eyes. So he ignores that part, passing by it swift as he can with a shove of more sand into the bag. “I guess it doesn’t matter here so much. Old habits die hard, though.”
Specifically for someone so against children, the only reason he’d thought about it at all was because of Nate. Because his husband wanted children and Sunjata only ever wanted to make him happy. He’d warmed up to the idea, had planned something wonderful around it, to be a better father than he had growing up… And? Well, from the stance of this child’s entire existence, is he any better than Shaju?
He looks back at her when she snaps, a slight flinch overcoming his face, his gaze. And he’s silent for a long moment as he tries to work out his thoughts. “Alright.” He doesn’t know what to say. “I’d just suggest to not cut them out entirely. The heralds specifically have only been out and about again since the barrier fell…” In case that had any indication as to why she hadn’t been responded to. He doesn’t know. “And all I know is, despite the stupid things I do, Safrin’s always been there for me.” He pauses to reach up and rub at the tattoo to his neck, the compass, while he takes a small break from shoveling the sand. “She attuned me. A few seasons after I arrived. I was accepted once.” He shrugs as if it makes all the difference.
He doesn’t know if it does, though.
Her voice grows quieter though, and Sunjata finds himself focusing on her face again, his own in a mix of sadness and uncertainty. “I haven’t done just a few bad things, Maeve. I’m not a good person.” Even despite his best intentions. He overflows and overwhelms, leaving destruction in his wake. He floods, and it’s everyone else left picking up the pieces.
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Enforcer. He doesn't explain further, but she knows. That word along sends a chill down her spine and she ignores it to the best of her ability. "No... We don't have anything like that." Maeve murmurs, swallowing thickly as she looks back down at the sand settling in the bag she's holding.
As soon as he meets her gaze she regrets snapping. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him when he's already hurting plenty. Just because she has hang ups with the gods doesn't mean he deserves to feel her frustrations. She takes a breath, dropping her eyes, "Sorry... It's just-" Maeve cuts herself off when he shares something that has been missing from her mind for years. A very important piece of information that would have made a world of difference to a child who had no one but the gods to ask for love. Gods who weren't able to give that to her because they'd been trapped.
Embarrassment washes over her and her cheeks go red as something akin to shame settles heavy in her stomach. "I just don't know why they'd want to be there for me." It's partially true. She doesn't know why they would want her. Why they would love her. It's hard to wrap her head around. The idea of being worth something.
Her eyes lift to his again and she clearly sees the sadness in that beautiful steel of his gaze. Maeve licks her lips, jaw working as she seems to chew on whatever words she's about to give him. "I don't know that, Jata... I don't know that you're a bad person. I have no reason to even believe it. I-" She takes another breath, "Maybe it makes me a bad person too for not caring, but I don't. Not when it seems like you're trying to be better now. You are trying to be better... Aren't you?" When did she move closer to him? She's not sure, but her knees press into the dirt as she looks up at him with green eyes, brows drawn together.
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
Her embarrassment is lost on him, Sunjata too swallowed up in his own emotions, in his markings of Safrin and the idea of children and how much he wants to prove to his husband that he had only meant to do it with love for him. But it hadn’t come across, the deal might even be void now, and the one thing he wants most? To hold his husband and comfort where he can?
Well, he can’t do that either.
And so it’s a long painful pine of Sunjata to try and show he wants to fix it by being here, helping prepare the clinic from the monsoons with Maeve’s help. An act of love in an attempt to right his wrongs. “Safrin has been there for me, without asking anything but spreading her name. I was the one that wanted more. I asked for all of this.” He rumbles, shaking his head lightly. She didn’t have to be something to them and they would show her affection. That he has no doubt.
But he gestures to his starry tattoos on his arm, to the center of his chest where through the way his shirt clings to him with sweat she might be able to spy the constellation freshly marked on his chest.
But when he looks back at her, she’s kneeling there with the bag of sand, peering up at him with sad emerald eyes, and he sets the shovel down back in the sand from the wheelbarrow, moving to take the bag from her to tie it off — gently, of course — but to at least do something with his hands. “Because you don’t know about the things I’ve done and who I am.” He shrugs those tattooed shoulders. “Of course I’m always trying. I just do a pretty shit job at it. Good intentions, they might be, but that’s all they are. Intentions.” He half mutters, tying off the bag.
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Except she doesn't think he did ask for all of it. For everything that she's one to him. Why would he ask for this hurt? It just doesn't make sense. Maeve's fingers twist in the bag for a moment, fidgeting nervously because she has nothing else to do. Her eyes trace over his tattoos and her lips press together into a thin line. She wants to believe him. That Safrin or any of the others would love her. Maybe she should try. She's worth it, right? She's worthy of their love, isn't she? Even if she hasn't wanted it until now. They must still love her. She hasn't done anything wrong, has she? Her thoughts knot together and bog her down, making it hard to focus on him. On the things he's telling her.
Maeve doesn't have a response to his declaration and she lets it go. Instead focusing on the way he's looking at her. Like he's sorry she thinks that way about him. His hands gently pry the sandbag away from her and she's left with nothing to do but place her hands into her lap. Maeve doesn't dare touch him. That brazenness from the night they first met nowhere to be found today. "But I could... If you told me. If- If you wanted to." She's not sure he does, but she presses on anyway, "But you're trying. That means something. People who chose to hate you are going to hate you no matter what you do, but you're trying to be good." She drops her eyes, chewing on her bottom lip, "I just think you should give yourself more credit. Guess it doesn't really matter what I think, though. Like you said... We don't even know each other."
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
He takes the bag from her and ties it off, listening while she speaks, and he has nothing else to truly do with his hands for the moment, so they idly settle on the bag as he casts a glance up at her, then back to the bag, then to the watery light that filters through cloudy skies. “It isn’t that, Maeve.” He finally manages, huffing out a sigh that puffs up his cheeks, his frustration evident in how he doesn’t know what to do with himself, with his hands, with anything.
“I don’t tell people things about myself because it always gets spun around and used against me.” Before she can interject, he continues on. “But I don’t want to be a burden either. I don’t want to have this… Pity that people look at me with. Like how you’re looking at me.” His gaze finally lifts to her face, while he tries to be as honest as he can be. He moves to stand again, to grab the sandbag and begin to pile it up against the wall of the clinic.
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
A sound of frustration rises in her throat and she looks up at him from her spot on the ground where she's already holding open another sandbag for him. "It's not pity. I don't pity you, Jata. I don't feel sorry for you. Even though there is plenty to feel sorry for. I just care." Her voice raises slightly and she's feeling ridiculous again, but she presses forward. "I get it. You don't share because you don't want your words getting twisted. You don't want people to pity you. Your trust is limited and I fucking get it. I do." Because while her life isn't like his, she still knows what pity looks like. It's the same look people give her when they hear what she does for a living. No, her problems aren't like his. She's not at risk of losing a family or love or anything like that. She doesn't have anything to lose because she never had anything to begin with.
Maeve takes a breath, shaking her head as she looks down at her hands where they curl at the opening of the bag. She feels small and insignificant. Like her words hold no weight and she's not sure they do. "I know it's probably stupid to care. That you don't need me to care and probably don't even want me to. I can't even really tell you why I do. I just do. Maybe because you're the first person I've been really honest with in a long time. I don't know." She's rambling. She knows it. Except she can't make the words stop coming. Maeve swallows thickly, hating how stupidly vulnerable she feels, "At this point I think I'd just appreciate if you told me to fuck off or not... At least then I'd know what to do."
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
But why, why does she care? That’s the part that confuses him. He’s Torchline’s governor. That’s all. Life would move on with or without him, that much was certain. But she had latched on and Sunjata doesn’t know what to do with it, doesn’t know whether or not to let her in or leave her out. It’s probably best to leave her out, given the turmoil of his life, better to stop dragging people down alongside him.
Better to drown by himself, after all.
She pulls out another bag and Sunjata moves to grab the shovel again, moves to put more of the sand into it, muscles tensing with how much of the sand he hoists with the shovelhead, and when he’s done pouring it in, when her final words hit him, he points the shovel end against the street, leans against the handle as he peers down at her again. “I don’t even know what to do Maeve.” He says with a clench to his jaw, pausing as he works it again, the scar twisting. “I fucked up my marriage and I can’t even begin to fix it. I can’t touch my husband without hurting him for some reason. And all I want? All I want is to curl up and disappear. But I can’t.” He spins the shovel a bit before he tears his gaze away to look at the sky, to watch the clouds darken with the threat of rain.
“I love him so much that I can’t bear the thought of losing him and we’re on opposite sides. I made a deal with my goddess and he got in deeper with his, and we’re fucked.” He reaches up to rub at the bridge of his nose, as if it might keep him together. “There’s no happy endings.”
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
There's no happy endings. It hurts to hear him say. What is life without hope for a happy ending? What's the point of anything if you're going to end up miserable and alone? Maeve sighs heavily, letting his words wash over her like freezing ocean waves that steal the breath from your lungs. She slowly ties off the sandbag, letting them sit in that crushing silence before she carefully stands, wiping off her hands on her pants. Maeve takes a measured step towards him, licking her lips as she reaches up to touch his arm. It's light and barely there. Meant to be reassuring. "What you do is try. I get that it isn't the best answer or the most helpful. I also understand that it doesn't seem fucking possible."
Her voice is soft between them, a seriousness in her tone that's never been there before. "But Jata... You have a child on the way. A baby who is going to need their father. You have to try for them. You have to be better for them. You can't curl up and disappear. You already know that. Everything with Nate and your wife... I don't have answers for that." She doesn't have answers because she hasn't been through any of it, but she did know life without parents who cared. His child doesn't deserve the same fate.
"I can sit here and say that Nate will come around. That your wife will forgive you. I can feed you sugar sweet lies and reassurances, but I'm not going to. If Nate truly wants children with you... If you love him as much as you say you do... Then I have hope that it will work out. I don't live in a world with happy endings either, Jata. Not ones that last longer than a minute." Her lips twist into a sad smile as she shakes her head, looking out at the horizon before back at him, "But we have to hold on to something. To some kind of hope because anything else would ruin us."
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
“I can try all I want but it doesn’t do any good if I don’t know where to even start.” His accented words tumble from his voice in a half mutter, stilling when her hand reaches out for him, featherlight and gentle, and Sunjata’s so incredibly vulnerable that the cobra shift within him starts to armor him up. Beneath her fingers and up his arms and neck, black and bronze scales flit through, closing off the sensitivity of her touch as if he might burn her too when she touches him.
His gaze is flat, his heart thunders in his chest, and he finally manages to unclench his jaw when he focuses on her face. Perhaps she should know how terrible he was. “I bargained a life for a life.” He says quietly, as if it explains everything, as if it explains why his marriage was tense. Nate was trying and for that Sunjata is eternally grateful. But it changes everything, everything. “I bargained mine and Safrin’s childs life for Nate’s. So aside from being a father and caring for that child, in doing so if the Voice falls during the war, Safrin would save Nate.” As if that explained how deep the care and love for his husband went, that he couldn’t part with him.
As if it explained why he was crumbling in on himself having thrown a wedge in between them that distanced them and he knew it killed the both of them inside.
“I never get to hope. I can’t.” It gets taken away, a strike through as if it hadn’t ever mattered in the first place. He was the type to try and prepare for the worst and be surprised when it wasn’t — only Sunjata is consistently woefully unaware of just how much worse the worst was.
His lashes shudder with the blink that follows as he shakes his head. “I survive, that’s the best I can do.”
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
And just like that he's shut her down. That light in her eyes disappears and her expression shifts into something blank. Her hand falls from his arm as soon as the scales appear and she takes a step back. "Okay." She says softly, drawing back into herself as she returns her attention to the sandbags that are piled haphazardly at her feet. All still empty and waiting to be filled. Maeve doesn't have it in her to push anymore. He doesn't want to listen. He doesn't care to. Even still, the Madame has only a few words left for him, "I would have too... If I had someone to love like that." As it is, she doesn't and she honestly doesn't know that she ever will.
Maeve turns away from him, pouring her attention into the already filled bags, hefting them up and dragging them to where they need to be stacked. It doesn't matter that this is a difficult task for her. One that he would be better suited for him, but she doesn't know what else to do. Too worried about encroaching on his space. Too worried she's making things worse than they already are. So she gives him space and lets silence fill in instead, putting distance between her and him. It's all she can think to do.
feeling alive while you fight for your life as you swim back to the beaches
It’s a different sort of spiral that overcomes the Flood. A different one with no way out, no way to cope, no way to relieve it other than to spiral hard until he burns out. And when she offers her quiet statement, when she withdraws and turns away from him, he wonders if he’s lashed out too far. She begins to move the sandbags and he watches her for a long moment, before he swallows hard and moves to begin putting more of the bags away.
He’s cracking inside, but at least the storm within him has calmed down, at least he’s gotten it off his chest even if she didn’t deserve to have her shoulders weigh with them. So the scales begin to melt away and he moves to drop a sandbag up to hoist it there, before he’s turning to her, reaching out to touch her shoulder, a ghosting brush of a hand to try and get her attention. “I’m sorry Maeve. I didn’t mean to.” His voice is deeper, lingering with his exhaustion, reflected in his gaze. He hadn’t meant it, but wasn’t that his common theme this season?
don't be scared of the tide, just prepare for the ride as you float, you float, you float
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
If it wasn't for the sounds of exertion behind her she would have thought that he left with the quiet that surrounds them. Nothing but the sound of sand filling bags and waves crashing in the distance to keep them company. Her thoughts are a jumbled mess and she's lost in them. Maeve wipes the sweat from her brow, straightening up and rubbing at the small of her back where an ache is already starting to from from the heavy lifting. She doesn't even realize he's moved until his fingers are suddenly brushing over her shoulder. Maeve turns quickly to face him, eyes wide in surprise, but her expression softens instantly at his apology. She catches his hand before he can pull away, giving it a squeeze as her head tilts back to look up at him. "I know... You're hurting."
It's an understatement and they both know it, but it's true. He's lashing out like a cornered beast and she was the one who caught the brunt of it this time. "You can yell at me if you want... Wouldn't be the worst thing that someone has done to me." It's a poor joke. One that likely won't help, but she makes it in an attempt to lighten to heavy air between them. Still, she offers him a small smile, trying to let him know that it really is okay. That she isn't upset. That he didn't hurt her.
