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!
He frowns to hear the things she doesn't say - the things she doesn't need to say. Things have been fairly terrible, then. Finn hasn't had the courage to look himself over properly, but that was true even before he decided to withdraw from the drugs that have been coursing through his system; he doesn't want to look too closely to what Torchline has done to him. So he merely nods in acceptance at her filling him in on what he might have missed in his fevered state, letting out a slow sigh.
"I think I am quite tired of doing the things that I have to," he says, chewing at his cheese and lettuce. "When this is over I'd like to do something I want to do." He isn't sure what that might be yet, but as he glances across at Tobi, bathed in the LongHeat sun through the windows, he might have some kind of an idea. "If you're hungry, do you want to cook something together?"
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
Rather vengefully said, it makes Tobi smile to herself nonetheless. Rarely, does Finn do things just for himself. His music perhaps, but October thinks that even his meticulous organizing of the world around him is done to quiet the voices in his head rather than because it's pleasing. When this is over we'll have a baby and neither of us will do the things we want, goes unsaid, and instead Tobi just meets Finn's gaze with a warm nod.
Fluttering her lashes slightly, Tobi's head tilts to the side in a rather puppy-like gesture of surprise. "If you feel well enough for it." Taking a step toward him, she pauses abruptly with one hand going to her belly. Pulling in a sharp breath she pinches her eyes closed as her toes curl against the floor. Holding the air in her lungs until stars form behind her eyelids, Tobi gasps out the breath. "I'm fine," She moans quickly, her fingers grasping the countertop tightly. "I'm fine. I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine."
Funnily enough, Finn has that exact thing in mind when it comes to what he wants to do, and it's with a soft smile that he tries to imagine a world where he can peacefully raise a child with Tobi, where he doesn't have to worry about being sequestered away to Torchline, or to be anything other than who and what he is. For Tobi, for their son and for himself. And he finds himself smiling despite everything, straighening up from the counter--
Just as Tobi groans and presses a hand to her belly. "You do not seem fine," he says, trying and failing to hide the panic in his voice. "What is it? What's happened?" Unsure whether this is just part of pregnancy or the end of it and all of the dawning realisations that come along with it, Finn is torn between believing Tobi and not. "Is there anything I can do?"
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
"No, no—" She manages between small sips of air. It feels as though there are spiderwebs knotted all along the outside of her belly, and that with each pulse of her heart they are being tugged down. Pressure builds and it's with every ounce of self control that she has, that Tobi is able to unclench her jaw and force herself to take a proper breath. 'It's..." Another wave of pressure and pain washes over her and sweat beads out on her forehead anew.
Then, as if nothing at all had happened, the pain ends.
"It's called false-labour." Tobi manages, breathless, but smiling as she peels her eyes open. "Just the body's way of preparing. I'm okay, really." Releasing the counter as if to prove she can stand on her own, she lets her smile grow as her shoulders sag with relief. "Sorry, I should have mentioned that this would happen." With a fluttery laugh, Tobi re-ties her ponytail on top of her head.
Finn swallows hard, as if unsure what to do, and he dithers between trying to do anything at all and listening to Tobi, sure that she knows what's going on. And before he has a chance to decide, it's completely over (or it is, more or less), and the Spyglass is left reeling. "False... labour?" he repeats, considerably paler now - and he wasn't looking great to begin with. "I... you mean to say that just happens at random...? How do you know when it isn't... false?"
Oh, but then Tobi is mentioning cooking and Finn isn't looking well at all, the back of his hand fluttering to his lips. "Sorry, excuse me--" He just about manages to get the words out before it's either run to the bathroom or vomit cheesy lettuce all over the kitchen floor, and Finn doesn't want that at all. Tobi might see the towel strewn across the living room on his flight to get to where he needs to be - so if she wants to check on him, of course he'll be stark naked now.
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
Colour returns to Tobi's face, blooming from the apples of her cheeks as she tries to laugh the whole thing off. 'It doesn't feel real.' She replies with a soft shrug. "It's like...my mind knows that it isn't. There's no panic or fear, and from everything I've heard, it doesn't hurt the way it will when it's real." This, she laughs about too. Though when it is real, she certainly won't find it amusing.
But then Finn is gone, moving faster than he has in days. Were this her first trimester, she'd certainly have vomited as well had she heard the sounds Finn was making. Now it does nothing other than making her frown sadly. Instead of following him into the bathroom, Tobi instead picks up the towel from the hall and goes into her room. Returning from her closet with a blue maxi dress, she waits until it sounds as though the remainder of the lettuce has left Finn's body, before appearing at the door holding the dress out to him. She's no man-sized anything for him to wear, but the dress is loose-fitting enough that if he doesn't want to go back to bed naked, it will be better than nothing. Not that she particularly minds one way or another. Neither of them is in much of a position to worry about what the other looks like naked, Tobi least of all.
"You could have just said you didn't feel like cooking anymore." She points out with a small smile as she turns on the tap and offers Finn a cold cloth to wipe his mouth with.
There isn't much to come up, and yet Finn's body still tries to expel nothing for a while afterwards. He's just about finished hugging the toilet bowl, shivery and clammy and sheet white, when Tobi is suddenly there and a cold cloth is being passed down to him. Flushing, he accepts the cloth and wipes at his mouth, shifting back onto his knees and releasing a fluttery sort of sigh. "Thanks," he mumbles, before risking a glance up at her - and seeing the dress.
"Are you sure that is my colour?" Perhaps it's the horrific state of him or just his natural sense of humour that makes the remark come out dry as a bone, but Finn has evidently amused himself, because he lets out a soft laugh and tries to clamber to his feet. "I would rather not ruin your dress, if it is all the same to you." She has seen him naked numerous times, enough to know that he has no qualms about showing his body, so he gestures for the bedroom as if to ask if she'd like to go first.
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
Strange, how seeing someone with vomit on their lips, naked and covered in a sheen of sweat that likely still boasts quite a high chemical concentration, can nonetheless still make Tobi feel slightly twitterpated. "You don't think so?" She asks with a frown, looking at the dress. "I thought it would bring out the blue in your eyes."
Nodding easily enough, Tobi tosses the dress casually over her shoulder and leads him back into the bedroom. Going to the window she presses it open that they might get a bit of a draft (to ward off their combined smells as much as for the breeze), before looking down at her still-towering stack of unread books. "mmmhmm." Evidentally having decided on one, she climbs into bed.
Adjusting the wall of pillows between them (built up over the hours, a new one added each time Finn's fits got worse, to protect her belly from his windmilling limbs), Tobi painstakingly adjusts her position before letting her gaze lazily swim back toward Finn. "You're going to make it." She whispers softly.
"My eyes aren't blue." Finn is wiping at his lips again, so she likely won't see the smirk behind them, but there's perhaps the tiniest twinkle in his eyes (which are definitely blue) that the utterly deadpan nature of his joke might be carried through. but then they are up and away again, Finn washing out his mouth before following after Tobi on wobbly feet. She looks to her pile of books and the Spyglass slips back beneath the blankets with chattering teeth and a sudden bout of shivers, curling up close to the wall of pillows that separates them.
He hears her whispered words like a balm on his cracked edges, Finn peeping up at her and giving a soft nod that believes her even if he doesn't agree just yet. "Do you think you could read to me for a while, please?" he asks, tension already rippling back through his muscles and clawing up the back of his throat. Ghastly pale again now and sticky with sweat, he nonetheless nuzzles into the blankets, trembling and small.
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
Tobi looks at Finn and narrows her eyes, the corners of her lips twitching as she flicks through all the ways she might answer. "True. But your irises are." She decides eventually, beaming. "Besides, who looks at your eyes more—you, or me?"
Gazing down at him, wanting to wrap him up in her arms and soothe him with her words, Tobi merely nods. Where he curls in on himself, shivering and clutching at the blankets, Tobi sits up, large as a beach ball, having kicked the blankets off of her legs. "Absolutely. This one—" Holding up a handwritten volume with beautifully detailed illustrations so that Finn might see, Tobi settles in. "—is about an Outlander world called Earth."
Reading on, Tobi outlines the 7 wonders of the world, according to Eathlings. Occasionally she'd say something like, I wonder if the waterfalls in the Cordillera are larger than this? when reading up on Victoria Falls, or laughing at how spectacular the earthlings thought their reef system was. "This looks just like..." Torchline, but Tobi cuts off that thought, not wanting to remind Finn of his previous adventures. "The highest point on the Earth. I suppose that isn't much of a natural wonder though. There necessarily is a highest point." She mumbles to herself, frowning, but reads on about the mountain just the same.
"I believe only one of us is really able to answer that question," Finn remarks, but his wit is soon too blunted by discomfort for him to offer her anything more than requests for distraction. He peeks up at the volume she shows him, an eyebrow raising (his eyes are almost all that are showing at this point) at the illustrations, before he settles in to listen to her read. Her voice is soothing in a way that he imagines is due to her profession, but even if that is true, it seems especially attuned for Finn right now.
Her breakaway comments, too, are a melody that he happily follows, even as his body rails against the lack of chemicals in his system, even as his stomach churns and his muscles cramp and his jaw creaks with how tightly he's been clenching at it. Eventually, though, he can't help but peer up at her again, letting out a shivery laugh. "October," he mumbles, "at the risk of offending you, I am afraid you are beginning to sound like me."
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
"Mhmm. Me. So hush, blue-eyes." Tobi snaps back with a wide and bright-white smile.
Lost in thought about highest points and at what height they stop being interesting, Tobi glances over her side at Finn, interpreting the use of her full name as heralding some complaint or other about his condition. Pressing her tongue against her cheek as she tries to decide whether or not to meet this observation with agreement or horror, Tobi decides instead on amusement. "I sound nothing at all like you, Finn." She points out. "My voice is much higher, for one thing. I don't think there's anyone in the world who would confuse the way you sound with the way I do." Because she's been around him long enough that if Finn is going to accuse her of being like him, she knows enough to really push things.
'Are you sure your hearing is alright?' Because that's precisely the sort of thing she thinks he would ask her, were their situations reversed.
Well, she's got him there, and Finn's eyes crinkle at the corners as he watches her explain; despite his currently miserable state, Tobi still shines like the sun overhead, warming his bones and smoothing out the shadows from his skin. "A deaf person would confuse it quite easily," he remarks; it's a poor attempt and they both likely know it, but it's all Finn's got right now. And so it's no surprise that he responds to her question with a succinct, "Perhaps not," and hides his smile beneath the sheets.
It's a shame that their light banter can't last, but then Tobi had warned him that he was in for another rough ride before this was through, and it's with a sudden and sharp inhale that his fingers clutch against the pillow he's buried his head into. "Gods, not again," he mutters, sweat beading on his forehead as pain rocks through his body. "Tobi--" He doesn't really have anything to ask of her, because there's nothing she can do, and so the request cuts short on his lips.
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
Tobi takes her victory with a bright grin, her joy bubbling up in the back of her throat such that her cheeks puff up and her eyes sparkle. It's the type of moment that if the situation was not what it was, she might have snuggled down next to him and claimed his lips as her trophy. But it doesn't happen that way, nor any way at all, given how pain rubs out the sheen of amusement in Finn's gaze, making the blue of his eyes rough and haggard.
"I know, I know." She soothes softly. "Roll onto your side." In case you vomit, goes without saying. No amount of physical consolation is going to get Finn through this. It is up to the stamina of his mind now to run this last mile of the race.
"Mount Everest—" Tobi reads, loudly, that Finn's mind might have something else to latch onto other than the pain, "—is also called Sagarmatha, which means Head in the Great Blue Sky." She doesn't bother to comment on the fact that the book seems to indicate that there are different languages on earth, which of course strikes her as strange. "It is 8848.86 meters tall." Not that either of them know what a meter is. "And is almost completely covered in snow. Apparently, it's very hard to breathe at the top."
It's hard to read and sound as if things are fine with Finn convulsing next to her. So it is that after a moment Tobi lays her head down on the pillow next to his, with the utmost care. A horn has spiralled from her forehead, and though the tip is now long enough away that Finn is in no danger of stabbing himself, he might still hit his head on it if Tobi isn't careful. "You're okay Finn. You can do this." She murmurs, gently placing part of her horn against his forehead and letting her light bleed into him. It won't hurry the withdrawal, but she can at least soothe the physical symptoms and release some of the tension from his muscles for the time being.
