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!
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
Finn isn't used to making others laugh on purpose, and he glances across at Tobi as if wondering whether he has made some social misstep. Regardless, he thinks, he very much enjoys the sound of her laughter, and it has the smile on his face creeping into something warmer still. "Nurse Milligan would never intend to wound," he informs her. "If she were to skewer me, it would be with the intention of never seeing me darken the clinic doorway again."
Perhaps this might be too dark for most in terms of humour, but somehow he feels as though Tobi will only appreciate it more for its cutting edges. He gets into position as she instructs, oblivious to the apparent paralysis he momentarily induced in her with his clumsy wording. Instead, crossing his legs and sitting with his back straight, he nods his consent. "Ready when you are."
03-27-2021, 11:24 PM (This post was last modified: 03-27-2021, 11:25 PM by October.)
Tobi
"She is older than the earth." Tobi agrees solemnly or tries to. "So she probably didn't have to take the do no harm oath like the rest of us."
With her knees together and her feet beneath her so that she was more easily able to move and adjust as needed, Tobi nods. "Okay." She whispers, raising her hands and reaching for him. It's impossible to not think of kissing him as her fingertips slide onto his cheeks, but as she directs her gaze up to his eyes, she finds them altogether more distracting. When she'd been nestled beneath him that morning his eyes had seemed like faded denim left out in the rain. Now though they appeared a good deal darker and more stormy and in a way that made her heart race.
Clearing her throat slightly, Tobi offers Finn a small smile as her fingertips find the curve of his jaw. "There are studies that suggest that when we read and think the words in our minds, the muscles in our mouths actually move slightly. It's...one of the ways they're trying to develop mind-reading through artificial means." Tobi explains, finding comfort in random facts in a way Finn will likely understand. "And so people who read a lot tend to carry tension in the muscles of their jaws without realizing it." Her fingertips pitter-patter like rain across the muscles between his jaw and his temples, perfectly in unison with an even pressure that is at odds with her own steadily-increasing pulse.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
Finn would make further remarks about Nurse Milligan and her likely eldritch origins, but suddenly Tobi is in front of him, her hands reaching out to brush against his cheeks and his jawline. Her hands are cool and soft, the Spyglass having to resist the urge to lean into the touch and thus ruin whatever good Tobi is trying to do by keeping him steady. It's there again, this feeling of wanting to reach for her, and the phantom sensations of fingers gently caressing the length of his back are met with anticipation rather than the usual panic.
"That's fascinating," he says regarding the telepathy, and Finn really means it. He gazes down and into the doctor's warm, dark eyes, and already the stress pitter-pattering beneath her fingers starts to bleed away. "I imagine you must have a great deal of tension, then," he murmurs with a half smile, "based on all of the paperwork you did today." He reaches, then, albeit fleetingly, and his fingertips gently brush across her cheek. "Ah-- sorry."
03-27-2021, 11:43 PM (This post was last modified: 03-28-2021, 12:47 AM by Odd.)
Tobi
Tobi smiles, about to shake her head when suddenly his fingertips are there and she stops moving altogether that she might not give him reason to move them away. It's as unexpected as his kiss that morning had been, and just as fleeting. "I don't mind." Tobi says, her words whispered and a touch rushed as if they might reach out and tug his fingers back. "Blank pages, remember? Nothing to mouth."
I like when you touch me, she wants to say. Despite how obvious it should be that Finn is not averse to hearing her thoughts on things, somehow she can't bring herself to say it. All of this, whatever is happening, seems to exist only half in reality as if a cleverly worded explanation might brush it all away.
"Did you know that dimples are caused by gaps in the muscle right here...?" Her thumbs have reached up to brush softly against the places in his cheeks where his dimples occasionally appear. Properly cupping Finn's face now, her fingertips making no attempt at loosening the muscles of his jaw anymore.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
"That might be true, but I daresay that your mind is always active, even if the pages are blank," Finn murmurs, his fingers still tingling with the brush of warm skin against them. Tobi's mind is brilliant, in fact - at least that's the Spyglass's opinion - and only when her hands begin to drift towards his cheeks does he realise that her examination has moved beyond relieving tension. "Hm...?" Never has he given much thought to the fact that he even has dimples, let alone how they form, but Tobi's apparent interest is enough to bring them out.
"No," he says quietly, still smiling. "I didn't know that. I wasn't aware that there was a reason for them at all." He stands, far too comfortable in her little office in the early evening, and the urge to step closer is almost too much to resist. Glancing away, Finn unintentionally leans into her hands, and he tries to gather his thoughts. "Tobi, I... about this morning. I was... it was..." Huffing out a laugh that suggests frustration with himself, he forces stormy eyes back up to her face.
"I would quite like to spend more time with you. Like that, I mean..."
As Finn's head turns in her hands, Tobi's first instinct is to release him. Not because she wants to, but because restraining someone has to be an intentional act of will on her part. So her hands soften and then nearly drop away with how the words tumble from his mouth. It's impossible to think about any of this rationally because if she did, there would be no spike of panic. He'd come back. He was sitting here with her, having tried her ridiculous exercises. He'd even made a joke (that it might have been accidental was irrelevant). Surely he wasn't about to tell her that this morning had been a mistake.
So as he turns his head back toward her, her feet going slightly numb from sitting on them and her fingertips hesitant against his skin, his words bring such a smile to her face that she couldn't have uttered a single world for all the favours in Stormbreak. Her heart is suddenly in her throat, her palms eager against his cheeks again. But when she leans in to kiss him, it is with lips pulled tight and thin due to the smile she can't get rid of, and it isn't a kiss so much as it's teeth and taut skin pressed against him. There's nothing to do but laugh, which is exactly what she does as she pulls back a fraction, the sound of her jubilation filling the spaces she intended her lips to.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
Tobi leans in and Finn isn't sure what to expect given the smile on her face. It's absolutely not the same sort of kiss as the one they shared that morning, and the Spyglass finds himself following suit with her laughter, his dimples deepening as the doctor draws back. "I wasn't aware it was so funny," he remarks, his hand reaching up to ghost across the back of her fingers, still pressed to his cheeks.
"Should I take that as a good sign?" he wonders, turning his head a little so his lips brush across her wrist as he speaks. "I suppose you didn't push me away, and they do say that a sense of humour is important when trying to connect with another person." Whoever they were. Falke, probably. That sounds like the sort of thing he would say.
'No, it's not.' Tobi is quick to correct with another puff of laughter. "Or...well I'm laughing at myself. Who smiles so hard that they can't kiss someone?" She wonders, but of course that only causes her to smile more.
Apparently, the cure for Tobi's condition is Finn's lips against her wrist, because as he softly presses them there, all laughter disappears from her face, replaced instead by surprise and poorly-disguised need. "I never would." She murmurs softly, of pushing him away. {sa}"Finn," His name is punctuated by her palm against his cheek, tilting his face back towards hers. I'd like to try again, she might have said if any part of her at all was willing to be patient and let humour stall the feeling of her lips against his again.
This time Tobi doesn't start as slowly as she had this morning. Being gentle is in her nature so there's nothing forceful about her kiss, though her lips do part almost instantly, her tongue seeking his out as her fingers plunge backward into his curls.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
"You do," Finn points out helpfully, and there's definitely something intentional, even playful, about his literal response. He doesn't believe her, of course, when she says she would never push him away, because Finn is nothing if not a logical creature. Luckily, they are spared yet another battle of semantics, because Tobi is leaning in again and the Spyglass welcomes her with gentle lips and a soft inhale of breath.
He hums a note of encouragement to feel her fingers in his hair, Finn slipping an arm around her slender waist to draw her forward and conveniently into his lap. Given his experience (however questionable the origin), Finn is gentle and careful with the woman in his arms, his tongue dancing against hers with passion, certainly, but not with haste. Only when they part for a sip of air does the Spyglass lean back enough to look at her, to take her in properly. "To be clear - this isn't a part of my treatment, is it?"
It's probably fair to say that no one has properly realized how strong Finn has become. His frequent walks and attempts not to remain so shut-in have done wonders, and though Tobi has been carried by the Spyglass, delirious though she was, she is pleasantly surprised by the strength of the arm suddenly around her. Not wanting to remain balanced on her knees, she accepts the pull of him, her long legs easily sliding around him, fitting herself all too easily into his lap.
It isn't a sip of air that Tobi takes but a gasp. Even so it doesn't come close to filling her lungs which utterly seem to have forgotten how to breathe. "Well, do you feel more relaxed?" October wonders, as one of her hands slips from his curls to rest on his shoulder. Hopefully, Tobi will learn more of Finn's 'sense of humour' in the days, weeks, months? to come. But as it is now, he's wildly good at making the doctor second guess his lips on hers and the tug of her into his lap, thanks to a wit that's dryer than the desert he'd recently rescued her from.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
She's right when she says no one, because not even Finn realises how he might look to others now; he certainly doesn't realise how he looks to Tobi. And he doesn't really care, honestly, as her legs wrap around him and she fits so effortlessly in his lap. Now he's gasping as well, one of his hands splayed across her lower back, the other teasing up the length of her spine so he can carefully take her hair out of its ponytail.
"In some ways yes," he admits, a wry smile creeping across his lips, lips that still brush gently against hers when he speaks. "In other ways not so much." Tobi isn't stupid. And she's a doctor. So he doesn't expect that either of them have to imagine what way that might be, and he shifts a little on the floor. Touch starved as Finn is, his body doesn't care about his insecurities, and it definitely likes Tobi.
Has Tobi imagined what a scenario like this might be like? Yes, of course, she has. She has a crush on Finn, after all. While it's true that her imaginings of this vacillate wildly between awkward Spyglass who doesn't know where to put his hands and it's Tobi who takes the lead, to sexual-savant given all his time at Molly's, in reality, the simple feeling of his hand against her lower back and the fingers that release her hair has her shivering in his arms in a way none of her fantasies could have predicted.
'Okay well, I feel obligated to tell you that-" Her lips press against his again with less thought and more instinct now. "-that this isn't recommended treatment-" Because she is still a doctor, and much as she wants to lose herself in this as she did that morning, Finn is often far too literal for her to assume that he'll know when she's kidding.
Swallowing hard, this having been so much more effortless in her dreams, Tobi parts from him with a nervous smile. Pulling her hands from around him, she instead reaches for the bottom of her oversized top, slowly pulling it over her head. With just a bra and a camisole underneath, though it's not overly revealing at all, still it's more skin than Tobi ever shows. Then again, Finn had found her nearly naked in a hole she'd dug herself. Still, this feels more revealing, somehow. Letting the shirt fall to the floor it's with a hesitant smile that she meets his gaze again, her arms seeking to slip around his neck once more.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
blessed are the curious, for they shall have adventures
"This is better than recommended treatment," Finn informs her, though the words are mumbled without much thought against her lips. He melts into the kiss, letting the hair tie fall carelessly to the rug so he can twine his fingers through her locks instead. But before he can fully sink into the feeling Tobi is drawing away again, leaving the Spyglass looking confused right up until she reaches to remove her shirt. He looks at her the same way one might look at an exquisite and rare piece of artwork, his fingers just barely whispering across her camisole.
Then, as if realising he's still fully clothed, his cheeks flush and he reaches up to unbutton his own shirt, leaning in for another kiss as he does so. "Oh... do you...?" He pauses, glancing down at himself, shirt still half buttoned. It would be a lie to say that the words don't come from his time at Molly's; some liked to undress him and others enjoyed the show.
'The wheel is very effective.' Tobi argues in return, her back arching against his hand as she tries to simultaneously press herself against him at every point that they touch.
For two competent adults, the fact that they've both now looked at each other with confusion as they undress is laughable. But as Finn pauses, his question not quite articulated, Tobi can only tilt her head slightly, smiling at him with an obvious lack of understanding. "Do I..what?" Looking down at herself, wondering if she perhaps overstepped somehow, she shrugs slightly, seeming to shrink in his arms. "I just wanted to be closer to you. You don't have to.." Tobi tries to explain, her eyes rising slowly from the buttons of his shirt, to his lips again, and finally to his stormy blue eyes.
Don't make it bad take a sad song and make it b e t t e r
