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 Sword’s words held weight. Maybe because he said so very few of them. Maybe because they were blunt, curt, and to the point. Maybe because there was distinction, truth, veracity, and layers contorted between the phrases and syllables, but he meant each note, each rasp, each grumble. Sometimes they were ominous threats, caught in derision and sedition, warning signs towards those who couldn’t feel the wrath or rage building behind his ruminations. Sometimes they were quiet but no less influential. Sometimes, like now, they were promises and vows, assurances and oaths, of how he would try to muster himself onward, forward, and out of the suffocating wakes he’d mired himself within. At her words, the smile quirked again, a shake of his head only following on the smallest bit of laughter. “Thank you.” Because it did mean something; belief in him, belief in his abilities to alter, however slow.
Another grumble, another sigh, another relaxed, reposed composition layered upon his shoulders as she maneuvered around, as he listened to footsteps, as he was surrounded in pieces of places from other years and other lives. “And what are you going to do for yourself?” Because she could lecture him until the day was long, but Ru had her own worries, her own experiences, her own deviations of hell. Her own time to recover from onslaughts brought on by fools. The beast opened his eyes briefly, staring out across incense and walls, waiting for the answer.
A snort followed her insinuation about replicating them correctly, but it was only a mock offense, rumbles in his throat as he twisted his cranium upright, chin back across forearms. “This has been nice,” he admitted, a bit gruffly, as if it might be followed by a pout.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
His gratitude summons a small smile to her lips, careless of the fact that he cannot gaze upon it. He will hear it in her voice. Sense it in the atmosphere they share. They have no need for the Attuned bond to read each other in the way that matters. “You’re welcome.” There’s no need to assure him his thanks are not required, that her faith is freely given. Surely he already knows. But saying the words aloud is a comfort to both of them, and Hotaru has been on the opposite end as well; verbal support can mean everything. For all she may speak in contrast to his silence, her words are rarely do forthright and sincere as they are with him.
Though her exasperation is fond, it is no less present when he turns the mirror against her, forcing her to face that which she cannot contend with even in the late hours of the night that she spends alone. The silence drags on as she finishes his arm, hands lingering at his palm as she drags her thumbs down the lines, massaging even here. “I don’t know,” she admits quietly, a phrase she loathes saying in the first place. Him, this place, her spa...it’s all she really has right now. Directionless and forsaken.
As she releases him, Hotaru basks in the compliment. It’s hard-won, and all the sweeter for it. “I’m glad you were able to enjoy it.” Locking down the urge to gloat despite how it bubbles up within her, smug and pleased like a fat cat. Stepping away, she plucks a hand towel from the cabinet and begins methodically wiping the oil from her hands. Waiting for him to rise before she contemplates suggesting tea. He surely has other things to do, but her schedule had been devoted to him today - at least in the business sense.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Her answer wasn’t empty, even in the aspects of its uncertainty. It spoke volumes of how lives flickered and seethed here, brutalized and maimed, and only being left to pick up the pieces. She wouldn’t want his advice – not from a monolith who only knew how to either sink into the depths of his sorrows and wait to be consumed, or to pretend they didn’t exist in the first place, leaving them completely unaddressed until they choked him from the inside out. They made their opposing shelters behind a variety of walls, and while his were mountainous, high, and rampant, Hotaru’s were far more hidden, protected, veiled, and shrouded. His features were a mask, and the Valkyrie had perfected hers for sabotage, melees, trickery, and deceit. But neither were reputable or helpful in these circumstances, where people they loved and trusted maimed anyway.
Deimos regarded it simply. One erased those demons from their life. He wasn’t sure if Hotaru could, or would, even in the midst of promises. Even if she tried. Was it like a gangrenous limb, meant to be cut and hacked away? Or were the wounds just far deeper than that?
He sighed, tilting his head, pondering while she took hold of his calloused palm. He stifled a laugh at the ticklish nature suddenly adorning his skin, contemplating the best options. The best endeavors. “You have something to build again.” The spa, the hot springs, clientele, capable of exploiting her talents across Caido, rather than just tending to the hunters and defenders of Halo. “You have us.” The Sword, the Harpy, and whoever else she managed to snag into her fold. “And if you would like, we can put their faces on some targets in the barracks.” A cheeky grin followed, as if this was the best option. “I have one of Confutatis there. It is very cathartic to rip her apart.” Did he repaint it each time to look uglier? Possibly. But he’d never hid his pettiness.
Then he was released, and the monolith was free to finally sit up. It took him a moment to bask in the stillness, in the repose, in the triumph of his form being completely unburdened – a liberation, a freedom, he couldn’t recall having last. Arms raised over his head in a long extension, and then his legs did the same towards the floor, enjoying, rejoicing, in the culmination of her efforts. Eventually, he rid himself of the table too, flickering down to the ground with catlike assertions, ignoring the way she seemed very content and smug. He’d permit it. Reaching behind his crown to unwind his hair back down, his gaze flickered back over to her. “Stretches?”
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
And here lies the crux of their differences; for though their hearts are both heavily guarded and soft beyond, when they are wounded and forsaken, she forgives and forsakes herself in every way to crawl back to those who hurt her - and Deimos did not. It speaks too heavily of the tiny, ugly girl she used to be. Constantly looking up to her beautiful, extroverted twin. Vying for the attention of a mother who had better things to pursue than the pitiful affections of her daughter. Constantly, eternally, endlessly searching for someone who would love her. Finding only love with conditions, terms, and boundaries. Settling for it all the same due to her ravenous hunger, her bottomless need for that which she'd never been freely afforded. And because of it she suffered in cycles, doomed to make the same mistakes, to throw herself upon the barbed wire to let others climb over here only to be left behind and forgotten with the metal still embedded in her skin, wounding her further with every step.
Hotaru blinks and is back in her body, eyelashes wet and stare sightless. Deimos' rumbling tones bring her back to center, and she turns her head halfway, face concealed by the long curtain of her released golden hair. What he offers seems so paltry in he wake of her heartbreak, but she loves him all the more for trying, for never giving up on her. At least Confutatis' name brings back a soft laugh, recalling those days of grudgery and hatred. "I'll have to make one of Midas too for old times sake." Right in between the painted visages of her lovers, if only to convince herself she is not so lovelorn and pathetic as any other heartbroken girl. "Work will keep me busy. For now...that is all I can hope to do." The spa, training with Aisha, the impending Greatwood efforts...whatever she can get her hands on to stop herself from dwelling on her own pain, lest she break anew and beg to be taken back.
As he stretches and feels the effects of her work, Hotaru smiles and watches him, happy to see already how limber and relieved he has become. His suggestion has her grinning fully, stepping around the table to join him in the empty space of the floor. "Alright, we'll start with this." So saying, she wordlessly begins to demonstrate the first move, waiting for him to follow along.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Though they were numerous, Deimos never forgot his wounds. Never forgot who placed them, how they were earned, how they were considered, and where along the lines they fell apart. Where the stitches once ran, where the lacerations threatened to tear, where every sewn particle marked and etched a line on his skin; ivory and stark, eternally there, over the play of muscle and flesh. And so he wouldn’t be capable of understanding, of comprehending, why those like Hotaru, with their wit, their power, their might, their abilities, their strength, would crawl back to fools who had carelessly, haphazardly ripped into their heart and soul. He couldn’t see why, when they’d proven to be untrustworthy, when they’d promised to alter and change and done anything but, when they opened their mouths and lies poured out. No second chances. No third times the charm. No riddle of rancorous efforts; when an individual displayed their true colors, the hues were enough to assemble his regard.
And he didn’t know how to make her reach those levels either. If it was possible. If it was something she’d want for herself. If it was an adjustment she’d be willing to attempt. Too engrained in his mind from years upon years upon years of throwing himself into fires, of reeling along in battle, of plotting and calculating over an adversary’s tactics, too often emblazoned in the embittered, bitter fringes. Work would keep her busy, certainly, but that was an age-old ritual of his too; too surrounded by everything else to ever think, to ever meander, to ever sink into their own cataclysms. And though he couldn’t see the sadness, the sorrow, the nestling barbs beginning to root themselves within, they’d known each other far too long to not have some inkling of the truth and heart of the matter. “There are far better people here.” Friends. Family. Even if they seemed hardened and worn away too, stubborn, defiant, tenacious, obstinate – blends of fervors and features the Basin had once contorted. Familiar states, individuals who hadn’t tossed her aside for one impulsive act after another. A nudge in the right direction, hopefully, when he had naught else to pin it upon.
The semblance about Midas caused him to snort, shake his head again as he maneuvered limber muscles, walked along the floor. “I still cannot believe he had the gall to die in the Basin.” Which started another small eruption of laughter, something warm and bright despite the subject matter. “Please do. It would give us all a chance to relive what could have been.” Notching an arrow right in between the golden man’s eyes would be nothing short of amusing and delightful.
And then onto more things – distractions and deterrents – following, coordinating his movements to mimic hers.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
It is ironic, that they cannot see the other's point of view. That Hotaru could not comprehend his selflessness, and he her crippling need for love. Perhaps that is why fate had seen fit to draw them together in the way it had. Two pieces of a puzzle far grander than them, with no real other pieces to cling to, nothing more permanent than a temporary estimation of seams. They cling to each other for more reasons than that of course, but Hotaru is grateful all the same for the fact that she has him. Even when he cannot fully comprehend her actions and choices.
"It is merely a flaw of mine to wish for a different kind of love to be included amongst them," she whispers, feeling incredibly vulnerable even with how regularly she reveals her inner workings to him. It is as close as she can come to explaining her feelings of inadequacy to him. Unwilling to tell him - or truly any other living soul - the story of her childhood and how it had shattered something eternally inside her. It was a burden for her and her alone. But this at least would be a pitiful admission, worthy of his derision and exasperation for the shallowness of it alone. For the desperation. Even Hotaru was aware of how pathetic it was.
But there is still enough of her left to scrounge up amusement and interaction. She is not wholly hollowed and barren. Laughter still manages to rumble up her throat at old memories and foes. "I could not walk past that spot without shaking my head for seasons," sputters free between her laughing breaths, recalling her distaste over his discarded body that had ended up on the equivalent of their doorstep. "Consider it done. I will have to practice my artistic skills, though he does not require much of it." A smirk gathering on her lips, happy to deride and mock even a dead man's looks. As she transitions into demonstrating the next stretch, she is grateful for the distraction of her own body being forced into motion. It helps her forget that soon she will be waving at Deimos' retreating back, and will be left to another night alone in her bed, sleepless and haunted.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Deimos clung to other things: violence, vehemence, vengeance, and a steadfast amount of armor that guarded him so well that he couldn’t even fathom the filaments that bounded off of it. The moments lost because of the walls. Perceptions skewed and altered because he’d been drowned and immersed in loss too many times, and was so tired of trying to pick himself out of the rubble. Far easier to sink, rather than beg and plead for something else. Far easier to be tossed aside, rather than reach out and say what he needed. Disastrous in his own way – a deficiency scourging and consuming over the remains of adversaries and enemies, and forgoing anything else he required. Because some days he’d convinced himself that it was fine to survive on the fringes of a battlefield, as if he was always fighting, always bleeding, always dying, than admit what else had been broken along the folds and seams, amidst the bones and flesh. A path he struggled not to traverse down – trying to see the other roots and vestiges, forging onward, to new, foreign trails.
But her whisper lingered in the midst, and his eyes narrowed, unaware of what lines he was treading within now. Frustration for her, and her unfortunate circumstances with soul after soul, moron after moron, dunce after dunce, cornered around him, squared his shoulders, and a sigh filtered through. “I do not think it is a flaw to want to be loved.” His head tilted, inclined back in her direction, stare lingering somewhere along the ceiling, before resting on hers – shaking his cranium again in brotherly affection. “I just do not understand why you pick the ones that hurt you.” When she knew, deep down or even on the surface, what fools they were.
But then again, he rarely gave himself over to anyone – and look where it’d gotten him.
Onto better, more amusing things, while he pierced back into motion, following steps and stretches, repeating them throughout movements, intending to labor them into muscle memory. The shape of his smile returned, followed by a snort, at the notions of where Midas had fallen, all the blame ricocheting upon them for the golden man’s idiocies, and the way the Falls had been conquered in one fell swoop. “A mere doodle would satisfy, I think.” The Cheshire grin rallied, imagining the portrait with a stupefied, bewildering look. “Missing teeth. Big nose.”
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
“Not all are as good of men as you Deimos,” she reaches for those previous teasing tones, unwilling to taint and tarnish the relatively good mood they’d attained for the day. Hotaru is not the type to dwell, and she doesn’t like the feeling, even if it’s easier to do with the hurt so fresh and her thoughts still so tangled. As for a more proper explanation; “I don’t have an easy kind of love. Those who seem capable of returning what I give are simply also the types to hurt me when things go wrong.” Hotaru loves with an intensity that few seem willing to meet head on. Those who prove themselves up to the challenge simply...change their minds later on. And admittedly the Valkyrie is willing to overlook other flaws in pursuit of that burn-together kind of love. It’s also an unfortunate reality that Hotaru has always been cursed with an inability to convince people to stay. Regardless of what sort of relationship they had.
A sudden bubble of laughter pops brightly in her mouth, a lightbulb flaring in her mind that spurs an immediate wave of amusement. “Would it be blasphemous to use my lightning on his caricature you think?” The same thing that had killed the man deader than a doornail on their icy threshold. It’s a hilarious notion, and her form wavers as her laughter shakes her entire body.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
He rolled his eyes at the insinuation, at the tone, allowing the tease to root itself along his chest and shoulders, instead of openly defying it. They both knew there’d been many moments where he hadn’t been good at all; contemptuous, abhorrent, giving into grudges and hatred, plunging straight into heresy, nefarious measures, and the swing of a blade without a second thought. The warnings given, the preambles struck, the etching and writing on the wall – a shadowy, belligerent figure waiting in the wings for his opportunity to strike.
But he could see what she was doing, and no, he didn’t want to end the day in residual sorrows either. So the Sword sighed once more, eyes lifting along the walls of what she’d created, what she’d strived for, and where she’d grow from all this mess. “Then you find someone better.” His smile softened, not rounded into complete mischief just yet. “And in the meantime, heal, and become better yourself.” A simplistic venture maybe, as if it hadn’t taken him well over a year to process from his own heartbreak – forge onward and ahead. But if she could give him advice, he could do the same in return.
Besides, the notions of the mentioned blasphemy set the juvenile grin alight – boyish and devilry encompassed in all accord across his features. “Sounds like perfection.” Deimos imagined it then, the electrical fragments binding and blinding the caricature, frying him in the midst of the training grounds. The only thing that would make it better would be hauling it across mountains and watching it fall down the summit. Then he laughed too, his own waves of approval, incapable of controlling the exuberance flickering through his chest, wiping a stray tear from his eye.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
Rolled eyes do not dissuade her playfully quirked lips. She is intimately aware of his flaws, and yet loves him despite them. Or perhaps despite is not the correct word. She loves all his flaws, his mistakes, his falterings. They are not obstacles to be overcome or barriers that test her adoration for him. Ironic then that what she seeks she has found so readily, if only draped in the wrong shades - familial instead of romantic.
“That’s the plan,” she agrees, countenance soft and full of a burgeoning, tentative hope. Healing is an inevitability; Hotaru is never so lost to her heartbreak and grief as to deem it an impossibility. She has lost far more than this before. But she is similarly just as aware that it will take time. “Their loss, hm?” And so saying she lets her hands open, freeing the pair of them from such talk, leaving them free to indulge in their unexpected roiling laughter instead. It is a far better feeling, and Hotaru stumbles as her form breaks, catching herself on the table as laughter brings wetness to her own eyes. The imagery is simply too perfect.
“Oh Gods - Deimos, no. A dummy. We need to make full dummies out of them, it will be so worth it.” Scarcely able to speak through her laughter. Imagining something greater than a painted scrap held to a target. Something they can ragdoll around, pummel and plummet. A pair of old foes turned into burlap and sand, ready to be abused anew.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
“Exactly.” Losses for the fools, and gains for those discarded. A harmful edge at first; to be cast, to be shattered, to be tossed so blatantly aside – but then all the better for it, eventually, eventually, eventually, when the mending was done and the healing complete, when they could raise their heads in more than just defiance and sedition. In time, in measures, in tending to what they needed and required, instead of all the other proportions and people who’d drained their souls. No more, no more, no more; and it was a promise in the back of his mind as much for him as it was for her. None of these mired, wounding tethers any longer; casting the shadows, the doubts, aloft and away.
Besides, he would much rather envision dummies of Midas and the whole motley crew of adversaries they’d once gathered. “It would,” he agreed, taking on the aspects of more mischief, more devilry, not to be confined, outdone, or out-measured. He continued, striving as best he could, with the exercises, making them routine while he laughed, while it echoed and rumbled, resounded and reverberated. A favored sound, rather than all their quiet angst and melancholy. “And when they are completely pummeled, we can throw them off the Citadel wall.” Had he dreamed of doing that to some poor, stupid, idiotic soul? Yes; and perhaps it’d be even better with the effigies of morons instead, so they could laugh and chuckle and dream of better years and moments, as the image of their enemies were hurtled downward into nothingness.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
Though her smile may not be as brilliant or full of vixen intent as it normally is, it is not entirely gone. Not broken or scrubbed from existence, just...resting. Recovering. There will be time for healing, both physical and mental for the both of them. Today is merely their first venture onto better pathways after the slow breaking apart they’d experienced together in the barracks. Neither can expect to be whole and hale so soon after that.
But even broken spirits can still light up with laughter and effervescent joy, sharing in mirth that paints itself in loud rumbles and trilling giggles alike. A discordant chorus of delight. A gasp of delight at the prospect of hurling the dummies over the wall brightens her entire face into a devilish curl of excitement. Oh how clear it is that they have both missed such degrading tactics against their enemies from their ruling days. “Yes. What a perfect way to ring in the new season!” Because they are an odd pair, the two of them. Celebrations underscored by re-enactments of killing old foes. “Though I do think we should spend at least one day on the beach this summer, I grew quite spoiled while I lived there.” A roundabout way of saying that she is scared to go alone, with both real and imagined demons so close at hand.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Was it a bit nefarious to miss the archaic, sinister tactics of old? To be the monster in the shadows? To be the fabled Reaper, stalking the pathways of darkness, intimidating the world with his hostility, tenacity, and silence? Were there moments where he wished he could return to those figments and segments, all lost, all shattered, along the way? It would be a lie to say sometimes he yearned and craved the vehemence and violence, the austere, blunt, curt means of achieving their goals, for letting other worlds fall apart, down around them, while they remained tall, strong, and determined. And perhaps some proportions would always be there, a permanent fixture in their bones, but gods sometimes all he wanted to do was render enemies apart; split them bone by bone, ash by ash, cinder by cinder.
Even if they were just stupid effigies; it could be moments where not everything was lost.
His smile was all demonic entities and juvenile tactics; devilry barely contained. “I suppose we could take a beach day.” And wreak havoc in the meantime, without ever approaching Sunjata and Nate’s corridors.
Or setting it ablaze – a suggestion he didn’t offer, despite all the angles of temptation.
And then on a sigh, probably for both of them, he uttered with a sage nod, a genuine smile. “It will be okay.” For what and for who and for why, it didn’t really matter.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
05-10-2021, 10:42 PM (This post was last modified: 05-10-2021, 10:43 PM by Hotaru.)
Hotaru
nothing's fair in love and war
He’s clearly not the only one to miss the more primordial life they used to lead. Hotaru still aches for her hurricanes at times, vying for old power that will not come. Wishing someone would test and tempt her to unleash her blade against them in a manner more befitting barbarism. Alas, instead the people of Caido are prone to half-assed manipulations that make her roll her eyes, wondering why they nip and scurry away before they can face retribution for their pitiful aims. Admittedly life was simpler with challenges and murder as daily occurrences.
“Best clear a few days, I intend to make the most of it. You’ll have to carry me back at least one night or it won’t be worth it.” Her grin is all teasing devilry. Hotaru scarcely drinks past a buzz and they both know it, but there are exceptions to every rule, especially when planned ahead of time.
As he grows more somber and sincere, Hotaru sways the short distance to his side, pressing up against him until they are hip to hip in camaraderie. Her golden head tilts to lean against his bicep, inhaling the lingering scent of oil and incense around them. Something a little like peace settles in her breast. “It will be.” Together they would be alright. After a lingering moment she places a chaste kiss on his bicep and peels away from him, angling towards the fire. “Now come on, we have a little more time and I have some thoughts about the springs. I’ll make us some tea, what kind?” No more wallowing for now. They have some healing to do.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
