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!
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
The whining note that creeps through unconsciousness and into his mind does just enough to prevent him from slipping back under, and stormy eyes open for a bit longer this time. "Mm...?" He's forgotten about the doctor in his bed, even if she might be a warm and fluffy weight against his legs right now, his fingers sneaking from the blankets so he can give her an affectionate scritch behind the ear.
Is he even remotely close to wakefulness? No. Does he mind? No again. If nothing else, the dreamdust has allowed Finn's body the rest it would normally be denied (and then some), and as he shifts to lay on his back and get more comfortable, the expression on his face might be the same boyish Spyglass who finds Tobi's jokes so difficult to understand.
"I'm up." He's nowhere near it; he doesn't even know where he is. But autopilot is autopilot, and he starts to fumble to draw the covers back.
Tobi groans a low note of appreciation, her head pressing against his fingers to encourage more scritches. It's much easier like this—for the both of them, probably—for her to steal more affection. Lifting her head and then skirting to the side as he lays flat, Tobi wags her tail to see a bit of colour in Finn's cheeks.
There might not be much medical backing for what Tobi does next, but she's learned to trust her instincts when it comes to most things. Edging toward his face, she lowers her nose, sniffing aggressively at his eyes, nose, and then ears. Her nose is probably quite cold, and her body appearing quite large from this angle. But he doesn't smell like infection, which is both broad, but good.
Wagging her tail again, she sits, stretching out a paw toward the water at his bedside. She'll have to shift back eventually, but other than saying good morning and asking how he feels (terrible, fine, sleepy, groggy), there's no reason for her canine charades to end so soon.
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
And honestly, the canine charades do more to lighten the weight on his shoulders than anything Finn might have come up with. He obliges the scritches, though his hand doesn't catch up when Tobi moves, so he ends up scritching between her shoulder blades and down her back too while he's trying to get up and she's trying to stop him. Tobi wins, of course, and the sudden cold nose pressing to Finn's face has him huffing out a laugh.
There's nowhere to go to get away from her affectionate checks, and Finn can barely coordinate his limbs enough to try and push her muzzle away; he's left smiling crookedly and trying to rub at his right ear where she's recently stuck her nose. He yawns widely, hiding it behind a hand that stays draped across his face for a moment - then he's finally noticing that she's pawing towards something.
"Okay. Alright. I've got it." (Do you, Finn?)
The Spyglass worms his way up the bed on his elbows, mostly, until he's squashed the pillows up enough to prop himself among them. It's upright enough for water, and he'll argue with anyone who thinks otherwise. And so Finn reaches to grab at the water, promptly dunking his fingers in it instead. "Whoops."
please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Whatever attempts Finn makes to escape her canine-examination are fully ignored, though she is pleased to see he isn't frowning at her as she eventually relents. Tobi doesn't argue with the Spyglass's posture, though perhaps she ought to have. As his fingers claw on the liquid instead of the glass, Tobi huffs under her breath in a sound that's as much of a growl as it is a breathy judgement of his coordination.
Walking to the edge of the bed and letting herself more or less fall off the side of it, Tobi straightens as she shifts. Holding onto the edge of the bed for a moment as she takes a few breaths—her joints hurt, she feels like she hasn't peed in a thousand years (it's probably just been an hour), and her head is swimming with all the sudden motion—she eventually rises and picks up the glass for Finn. "Unless you became an attuned while you were away and can now drink through your fingertips...how about you try it this way." With her ponytail askew on her head and her scrubs crumpled, Tobi somehow looks better than she did the night before: her eyes look tired but aren't rimmed-red with tears, and despite having literally slept at the foot of Finn's bed, the apples of her cheeks no longer look hollowed-in with sadness.
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
It's a habit the two of them have, for Tobi to display the tells that she isn't all that okay when Finn is in no state to recognise it. And so he's still blearily rubbing at his eyes when she shifts and rises to her feet, the Spyglass blinking up at her and raising his eyebrows. "Mm, that sounds as though it might be a decent idea." Reaching out, he carefully accepts the glass and lifts it to his lips, taking a long sip that feels as though it coats his bones. Then he's offering it out to her again, as if she might want some as well.
And then with a sunny, boyish sort of smile, he looks over Tobi and pats the bed beside him. "You still look a bit sleepy," he remarks - it's rich, coming from Finn right now. "Want to sit for a bit? I don't know if I remember how to walk." Or where he is or why, or anything remotely important.
please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Tobi chuckles wearily at that, accepting the cup back but not drinking from it herself. (Do they share drinks now? Does it matter? Why does it feel like that matters?)
'Walking is overrated.' She agrees, sinking down next to him, but staying seated. The doctor in her isn't surprised that Finn is groggy and sweetly docile, but the girl in her is a touch charmed his sunny smile, drug-induced though it might be. Tobi doesn't ask how he feels; he slept like the dead, and with a regular dose of dreamdust in his system, this is probably the best he's going to feel for a long, long time. Why ruin it with questions?
Covering a yawn with the back of her hand, Tobi gazes down at Finn and tries not to overthink things. "Do you think you might have an extra shirt I could borrow? And...I don't know, some sweatpants or shorts?" Finn is certainly larger than she is, but given her penchant for oversized clothing and the fact that the Spyglass hadn't really looked at her once since the night before, she wasn't too worried about how things would fit.
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
Tobi sits and Finn relaxes back into his pillows again. With heavy blue eyes, he tries to keep focus on the doctor, but the lure of napping is quite strong, and he ends up listening to her rather than really watching her, eyes falling shut so he can stare at the fireworks behind them. "There are clothes in the trunk and the closet," he remarks softly, his fingers twitching towards them both.
Within, the doctor will find clothes that Finn would truly believe belonged to someone else. Shirts, blazers, pants, sweatpants (no shorts to be seen though, have you met Finn), sweaters and other assorted clothing, and if nothing else the layers might do Tobi a favour.
"I'm really back at home, aren't I?" he says eventually, not wanting to open his eyes again lest he see silk, not wanting to breathe lest he smell the ocean on the air.
please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
"Thanks." Rising, Tobi opens the trunk and begins to see what's on offer. It feels strange to be going through Finn's clothes like this, when he's not 10ft away and yet feeling like he might as well be across the world given the secret that she feels lingering between them. Hastily grabbing a button-up shirt, sweater, and a pair of sweatpants, Tobi heads to the bathroom only to find that the button-up shirt is too small. Or at least, she risks popping all of the buttons off of it if she tries to do it up over her belly. So, doing up the buttons near the collar and then tugging the sweater on overtop, Tobi tugs on the sweatpants and emerges just in time to hear Finn's question.
"You are, yes." As she walks back toward the bed, Tobi can smell Finn all around her thanks to the clothes, and knowing what she does, it's hard for her not to feel like she's masquerading as Finn's girlfriend in a world where everything is alright. Sitting back down on the edge of the bed, Tobi takes advantage of Finn's closed eyes to look him over. She'd said she would be his friend, but it's hard to ignore her doctorly-impulses.
"You're back in Stormbreak, where it isn't raining, where no one will touch you, and where if you ever need me to, I'll bite Cian on your behalf."
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
He can hear her moving around, and it causes very little anxiety - a rarity, for the Spyglass. Indeed, as her weight sinks down onto the edge of the bed, as he remembers it's Tobi and no one else, Finn relaxes a little more into the pillows. Tobi had never crossed a boundary with him (not physically, anyway) or made him feel anything but safe in her presence, and so with the dreamdust lingering in his system, he's practically comfortable with her here.
"Bite him?" he repeats, a smile flickering over his face as he raises his eyebrows. "Do you think that is necessary?" It hadn't been a no. Letting out a long sigh, finally Finn opens his eyes once more, seeming a fraction more put together. "Would you like something to drink?" he asks. "I am not sure if I can get up yet, but when I do, I will make us coffee, or whatever you like. Or... oh, wait. Never mind." His cupboards will all be empty, what with his being gone.
please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
Tobi's lips twitch, because as much as she wants to say that yes, Cian absolutely deserves to be bitten—more than once, probably—she can't in good conscience actually agree to it. Sighing and looking down into her lap, she gives her head a shake. "No, but...well. Maybe I could growl at him?" Hazarding a smile toward Finn as he seems to finally be tugging himself out of sleep, Tobi shifts to face him more properly.
Crinkling her nose as he stumbles upon the obvious, she pauses to consider. "Well...we could, yes, if you feel up to that. Or we could go downstairs to my apartment, or I could just bring you something back?" As a doctor she could segue what she wants to say next easily. But as Finn's friend? Tobi's cheeks darken with a blush that is far less happy than the type he normally brings out in her. "I do have today's does of snapdragon with me. That...should help with remembering how to walk." She offers with a smile that aims to be light, but is dampened by the worry in her eyes.
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
"I would like to see that," Finn admits before he can help himself, readily able to imagine Tobi growling at Cian. Except she's growling from afar, just to make sure that the Eye doesn't actually realise that it's directed at him. Smiling still, he considers the options with a sleepy tilt of his head. "I think... I would like to go out," he admits. "To remind myself where I am properly. To see Stormbreak." It might make things feel a little more normal, even though things will never be normal again, really.
He's just considering wiggling his toes when Tobi makes her remark about the snapdragon, and Finn peers up at her with a hot mix of guilt and knowing in his expression. He gives a gentle nod. "Go ahead," he murmurs. "Do you need me to get up, or...?" Or anything?
please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
"Okay. Well...It probably isn't as warm as Torchline, but it is Longheat now." Which was a ridiculous thing to say given that she'd just put on a shirt, a sweater, and sweatpants. Gazing down at him, Tobi tries to reconcile the man who'd lean down to so sweetly kiss her on her couch, with the man who'd had the forethought to shave before bed, and now, to the man who was in need of drugs to function.
'Just roll up your sleeve, and sit up if you can?' If not, she could make it work. But Finn wouldn't be receiving any more ruby drops beneath his tongue. Rising and walking over toward her scrubs that she'd laid by the bathroom after changing, Tobi pulls out a small vial and syringe, before padding back toward the bed.
"We're lowering the dosage slowly but...your body will notice almost right away that it isn't the normal amount." She says softly as she reaches for his arm, presses the needle against his skin, and watches the dazzling liquid disappear.
you are a terribly real thing in a terribly false world
"I think I will be wearing a lot more here than I was in Torchline." Finn doesn't mean to make it sound as bad as it does - he's merely talking about his actual clothes rather than the silks that Thomas wore. But... well. As a whore he rarely even wore those. "Perhaps we could get some breakfast from the Pacifist Plaza, and bring it back to eat," he suggests. His feet will remember the way, even if he's not aware of it.
Nodding, Finn does his best to comply as Tobi leaves to get the snapdragon dose. He's only wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants to bed (and that's more than usual, and it's only because of the company), so mainly his efforts go into properly sitting himself up. He's just about managed it by the time she returns, and he wrinkles his nose to hear that she's lowering the dosage. It's the right thing to do, and he needs to do it, but... he knows it won't be great.
"Are there any side effects I should watch out for? he asks, glancing away as she injects him. It's almost instantaneous, given the method of the dosage, and Finn shivers a little. When he glances back to Tobi, his stormy eyes are dilated, but he seems nonetheless more focused.
"Alright," he says. "Well, I definitely feel better. I suppose that is to be expected, though."
please don't ever become a stranger whose laugh I could recognize anywhere
What Finn intends and what Tobi hears are two drastically different things, and the doctor shifts her gaze to the floorboards as if even her gaze might count as unwanted contact for the Spyglass. Though she wants to ask about his bruises, she realizes that what she actually wants his for him to tell her that he's okay. But he isn't, and so she keeps the question balled in the back of her throat as she nods. "That sounds like a good idea."
"Not yet. You'll know when you want more of it, and when you do..we'll just keep you distracted and hydrated as much as we can." There will likely come a day where Tobi is forced to lay on Finn's stomach and growl at him as a Berner to keep him from getting out of bed to search for another hit, but for the first few days, he'd likely be able to endure it easily enough.
The man who looks up at her has a much darker gaze now, and already Tobi is missing the drowsy, sleepy man from moments ago. Neither had really been Finn though, she has to remind herself, and it's with that mentality that she stands. "You get changed. Now that you've mentioned food, I'm suddenly starving."
