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 killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
It’s the first time he’s been to see it fully. Having been unable to pull himself together enough to see the damage, ensuring to himself that Kamaria was safe, had been safe during the time he’d been gone and Nate had been occupied. But the destruction he stumbles upon in the Slagveld only grows that bitter part of him – a part that sounds so much like the deep tones of his father in the paranoia that begins to spark.
He’s sent a letter to Aurelia, to meet him here, to go through it all – knowing it would take him some time. He’s beat up, still, injuries slowly healing along his skin and a voice rough and tight. A canteen of water strapped to his hip because he’d promised Nate he’d try to remember to drink more so his throat would heal faster.
And because he doesn’t know that Aurelia’s attuned, he keeps his hold on the bond loosened – when the Arbiter arrives, she’ll find him simmering, a quiet unhinged rage that lingers through him like a low buzz, likely at the time he’d picked up a piece of burnt rubble to inspect for a fraction of a moment before he throws it into the sand of the ruined boxing ring and rubs at his face hard enough to leave a red mark on his cheek when he pulls his hands away.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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.
'cause not everything means something, honey so say the unsayable, say the most human things
Aurelia's known Sunjata was back. As though it were something innate; an instinct, and everything on the scales seems to tip towards him as though it had all been waiting to fall upon his shoulders. Still, with all the shit that's undoubtedly been poured onto him, she's waited for him to send for her instead of reaching out first. He would when he was ready, she knew that.
Only it's a hell of a lot sooner than she thought it'd be, and when she received the letter there had been no doubt in her mind that she'd meet with him. As she makes her way towards the Slagveld, her fingers tighten against her palms and her pace quickens as she gets closer.
There's no expectation of this blowing over smoothly but, as her gaze falls across the tall shadow in the Slagveld, the tiniest sigh of relief expels from her lungs. She follows the trail of it up to his face, where she can see the flush of his skin, how bruised and worn he is. She doesn't know him any other way, really, besides in those fleeting moments between the chaos. It always catches up to him somehow.
Suddenly her stance grows rigid as she draws closer, eyes snapping open a little wider, her pupils constricting. He may not know she's Attuned now, but she doesn't know to expect this. Her fists shake with an anger that's not her own and suddenly her feet feel as if they're made of stone. "Sunjata," she's barely able to get her voice out with the way her jaw clenches.
"I'm sorry-" she blurts out almost breathlessly, "it happened the moment you were gone, and Nate was gone, too. And I..." her mouth snaps shut and then she shakes her head bitterly, nostrils flaring now with frustration that feels more and more like her own - though she can't tell.
if everything is temporary I will bear the unbearable
you killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
It’s true, he doesn’t know that she can feel his whirlwind of emotions. If he did, he’d likely have tampered them down, swallowed them whole. Instead, they’re out in the open and as soon as that piece of burnt rubble departs his hand in a furious throw and he’s rubbing his face, he hears her grit out his name. Before he looks to her, though, she’ll feel the lightest thread of relief that swells through him with her presence, the fact that she’s one of the few people he can trust anymore, and unfortunately for Aurelia he tosses it all into her basket.
But then he turns, he faces her, exhausted steel scanning her face and finding that it’s different, and his rage and despair have shifted into confusion, paranoia, while he works his jaw to debate whether this was some other vision despite how he hasn’t had them in a while. She apologizes, says that it happened while he and Nate were gone, but it still makes little to no sense for him to see her look so different yet similar. The voice is the same at least.
He blinks once, twice, a third time, before he’s inhaling sharply from his nose – not revealing anything if he can’t help it. Because what if she isn’t Aurelia and it’s some terrible elaborate trick?
It’s his father talking within him, he knows this, and yet he can’t stop.
“You look different.” He says flatly, his voice hoarse and throaty, cracking at the edge before he’s swallowing hard, trying to make it feel less dry, less tight, less painful.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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.
'cause not everything means something, honey so say the unsayable, say the most human things
The relief is like a lifeline. Aurelia sways slightly from the release of that anger that gripped her right at her core, shooting throughout her body and forcing her to react, to try and swallow it down. But it's such a familiar territory for her, that distinct kind of unfettered rage, it's difficult to master her own on top of his.
Relief is short-lived within them both, however. As soon as he turns his hard stare toward her, she's hit with a wall of mixed and muddled emotions. Most prominant is the paranoia that sends her blood coursing and her heart thudding wildly against her chest. Beneath it, there's a flicker of something else; darker and deeper and she dares not try to wade further. No, instead, she does her best to retreat from this - whatever the hell it is.
She'd had no idea Attuned were so interconnected like this. Is he even aware he's doing it?
Her gaze peers up at him as his voice cracks and dies. "I am different," she swallows hard, feeling the rise of bile within her throat, "The Wilds did this to me... changed the way I look. I'm me, but I've changed. In more ways than that. When- when I went to Safrin- she attuned me. And Sunjata, I need you to stop whatever that is. I-I can feel everything.." and she looks like she might become physically sick with it.
"Look, I'll prove it's me if you want me to, alright, just... calm down. Please."
if everything is temporary I will bear the unbearable
you killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
His stare is hard, narrowed and distrusting of her when he watches her. She says she is different and that certainly doesn’t help – but when the conversation continues on and Sunjata’s tried to give nothing else up, he does hear what she says. It’s a rush and it sounds pained, but it isn’t until she’s charging through of changed in the wilds and Safrin attuned me and stop whatever that is, Sunjata’s stilling as the predators in his skin were prone to do.
And as he stills, he cuts off his side of the Attuned bond sharply, as if it had never been there, like turning off a faucet quickly, burying it down and down and down until he has nothing else he can offer up. If it truly were Aurelia and she were truly attuned, well, at least he wouldn’t have to talk. Nate might appreciate that he’d followed his advice and refrained from speaking so much.
But there’s still a tone of distrust in his tone as his gaze narrows further and he remains just as still, dragon plates flaring from his neck down his shoulders – as if swallowing down the feelings needed some sort of out.
Prove it. His mental voice is thicker with his accent, more demanding, more intimate and personal.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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.
The way he stares at her is almost as if she's being watched by a predator sizing her up, searching for weakness. And she's lathered in them, too. Most of the time she can navigate her own emotions, but with all of his added on top of the mix, and so much fresher, so much more hurt... it's a monstrous thing to overcome.
Yet... even as there's a sudden, gaping emptiness where Sunjata's bond once had been, it's no respite at all. In fact, she finds that it feels colder without it. The heat of his anger, the passion of his emotions - all of it cut out and away.
It leaves her feeling small beneath those steely eyes, those blue plates that cover his skin, and it's beneath all of this that she sinks into the shift she already holds so close. It had wanted to step forward from the start, willing her to get back. Her trust for Sunjata had held on but, now she feels as if even that teeters on the edge, and she doesn't feel safe here.
Her ringed tail tucks down around her smaller body and she takes a few cautious paw-steps back. Particles of ash and dust swirl up into the air with the movement. It takes her a moment to realize the words in her head are actually his and actually real - and on top of that it takes her a moment to find her own voice within.
Sunjata, I know you've been through a lot, and I don't blame you for feeling this way right now. Believe me, please, her voice is unsteady as she gets accustomed to using it this way, but she pleads anyway. You said something to me about your father once, she wills him to remember, 'if you cut him, he'd bleed iron.' He put you through cruel trials at too young an age... and came back just to do it all again. But you showed him you were stronger. Her gaze lifts to look at him with a spark of something - pride, spirit, determination.
I know you, Sunjata, and you know me. This time, she takes a tentative step forward, ears flinching forward hopefully.
you killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
He demands that she prove it to him, and until she does there’s no sorrow or regret on making her shrink away. He watches, instead, still as a statue as she shrinks into a small shift, copper and black and white in comparison to his edges of black, hardened plates. He doesn’t know what it is, but it looks soft, it looks small and easy for him and his number of shifts to outrun if she answers him wrong.
She doesn’t, though. His eyes narrow on her, focusing intensely as she begins, as she takes a step or two back and the ash swirls up, the particles visible with the slight stream of light that peeks through the panes of a broken window, cracked and shattered and distorted.
If you cut him, he’d bleed iron.
There’s only two people he can recall he’s ever said such a thing to, a quote that came from Lusea herself that Sunjata had often repeated back in Korofi. And for the mention of his previous Trials and the one he’d gone through here? Well, it breaks him out of his stupor, his head shaking a fraction before he’s exhaling sharply, reaching up to rub at the scar to his cheek as he works his jaw. And that’s that.
He steps toward her, unable to remove the plates from his arms and neck, instead choosing to keep his side of the bond mostly quiet, if not for a sparking bit of relief that surges through him, kneeling and offering an arm for her to climb up on. I’m sorry, Aurelia. He says quietly, his apology pulsing with a sensation of regret among the underlying hints of his anger. What, uh, are you? He asks, chewing at the inside of his ruined cheek.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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.
The guard is dropped, at least somewhat. The plating of armor remains on his neck and shoulders, unmoved by her words, but perhaps there is nothing that can help that. But he moves toward her and offers out his arm. The pulse of his regret is felt and it softens her heart.
Before she can try to be human about everything, the red panda's instinct to climb something just so tall overcomes that. Before she knows it, she's weaving up his arm. Her forepaws press their strength around his shoulder and she perches there, nestling in against the space between his chest and shoulder. Her ears lean back and her eyes squeeze shut into the material of his shirt.
Aurelia's soothed worry is a steady stream across the bond. She's not used to controlling that herself, now that he'd be able to actually feel it. But waiting for his return had been nerve-wracking, she'd felt lost and as though she were useless without him here to tell her what should be done, what needed to be done. Now that he's here, now that he knows it's her, she feels a lot more comforted than she thought she would.
I'm... a panda, she clarifies, tilting her head to glance up at him, some special type of it, I guess. A red panda. Wasn't really what I was expecting buuut, it's grown on me, faint amusement bubbles up from her side, though it's soon clouded by the haunting notion of: The shift helped me get out...
There's a bleak pause after that, where she stirs with unease at the memory of almost dying. Suddenly, she clambers away, hopping from his arm and onto a nearby surface. It's only singed, really, so she turns around to face him again and sits down on her haunches.
What happened to you? Where did you go? You smell, Her muzzle wrinkles a bit in emphasis, and she can't quite help the honesty. Getting used to the strong senses of an animal takes time. She also can't help her curiosity, a mixture of her own and the panda's.
For now, the Slagveld shitstorm could wait a moment. She has a feeling he knows all about it, anyway... if her guess is right, and he's already talked to Jack, Nate.
you killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
She clamors up, darting up to his shoulders, over the plates of armor, hidden halfway in his shirt and Sunjata idly wonders if that’s what it feels like when he’s pretending to be a scarf in his snake form. But she’s answering his question soon after, her soothed worry smoothing out the rough edges of his mentality. It’s surprising to him how much he leans into it, finding some relief in people being happy he was back, happy that he might start to take the reins of what the fuck happened here and turn it around.
Huh. He replies quickly, head tilting toward her, feeling the softness of her fur against his neck as the plates meld away wherever she sits. But she pauses, grows uncomfortable, Sunjata shifting his stance a bit to help her onto the ledge beside them, some pulse of understanding coursing through the bond. He turns to face her a bit more fully, hand rising through his hair, heaving a heavy sigh that’s both physical as it is mental.
Sam wanted help with some…one? Called the Prince in the Grounds. We uh, failed to get him. He was kind of… Oozy, expelled toxic gas, had tentacles that appeared like arms aside from his own? I was the only non Ascended and breathed in a lot of the gas. A small frown crosses his face before he shrugs. I’m okay though. Nate’s looked out for me. I just needed some time to heal. There’s a pulse of relief when it comes to his husband being there, helping him, given that his lungs were a constant form of worry from when they’d met.
Jack, uh, told us… About what happened. He offers her his arm again for her to crawl up on so that he might head toward the remains of the advocates. Sounds like my guild was the main target.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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 the armor plates slip away beneath her pelt, she allows herself the chance to feel reassured, curled against the crook of his neck. Beneath the tough mask, behind all of the fight, she's just as scared as anyone. That paranoia Sunjata hurled at her? She knows it well, felt it painfully not too long ago either - when she thought that any creeping shadow could be her invisible assailant.
For a moment, however, she lets that fall away to focus on him again. This time, for something different. Why he'd been gone, what had been so important to pull him away. He heaves a sigh and she puffs out a heavy one with him, empathetic.
The mention of Sam and a 'someone called the Prince' rings some kind of dull, broken bell in her mind. The panda's stare is blank as she looks across at him, though she is listening and soaking up the information. The gas explains why his voice is so weak. Talking must hurt, then, she murmurs across to him mentally, understanding. She nods her nose a few times, I'm glad you're okay. She shuffles back onto all fours and peers up at him with a happy swish of her tail. Even if her emotions are on display for him to feel, her body betrays her too.
When Sunjata mentions Jack, Aurelia is grateful he's brought it up first. However, that gratitude is merely the side dish to an entrée of anger and confusion. Sucking it up, she moves to slink up onto the top of his shoulders. Short claws dig into the shirt around him to have a better grip.
Guild? She tries to hide her own keen interest, but the inclination of her head to look at the side of his face is telltale. I didn't know you had one here... that explains a lot.
So you know then... what I did, she retracts her muzzle from his face and lowers herself down along his shoulders, a flush of uncertainty hanging in her emotions. How would Sunjata take it? Given that Hotaru was once so close to him, Atlas too undoubtedly, Aurelia can't be sure.
you killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
It does. Sunjata agrees swiftly, some sort of hint of a thankfulness that crosses the bond toward her before he begins his next statement. I’m lucky you’re Attuned now and I can talk like this. There’s a brief ghosting of a smile that curls one corner of his lip, before it disappears and he’s inhaling a soft sigh, waiting until she climbs up onto his shoulders, so that his hand might lift to run through her red and black pelt. I’m glad too. He murmurs a bit offhandedly, before he dives completely into everything.
Her curiosity isn’t gone unnoticed, Sunjata acutely feeling and watching from his peripheral at the way her head tilts, despite how the Flood begins to walk, heading toward the stairs that led to his office, with a door at the back that no longer existed and stairs that carved upwards from there. It was a secret guild. Called the Devil's Advocates. He comments, as if it explains why she hadn’t known – not for her lack of finding out, but because it had been intentionally kept quiet.
As for what she did? He nods, lifting a piece of broken wood to inspect the stairs, trying to see if it’s sturdy enough to handle their weight to see what the damage is. It is, despite the way it groans, and Sunjata tries to keep to the sturdiest spaces. I do. He offers quietly, keeping a hand up on her for support as is comfort. I can’t… Presume to understand, but I know that you did what you thought was best. He can’t understand it, but his rage and sense betrayal over what Hotaru and Deimos did outweigh the loss of a companion.
Casualties of war, he supposes.
I don’t understand why they did it. Hotaru and I parted on good terms. We promised that despite everything we’d show up if either of us needed one another. And… To turn around and do this? There’s a sense of broken sorrow that overcomes him – of yet another time where he thinks he’s done everything right only to have it go wrong. Again.
But it’s nothing compared to the glint of silver among the rubble, through the room on the side that had been used during a time where Sunjata and Nate didn’t have a home. It had become their temporary space, just as it had been their temporary space back in the Grounds when they’d first hitched up more consistently.
The glint of silver, though?
It’s a lantern. But not just any lantern. It’s Lusea’s lantern, broken and destroyed, burnt and warped, and despite how he tries to tamper it down on the bond, there’s a sudden sharp horror and sadness that coats it like oil, a burning sensation that pricks at his eyes that he tries to desperately to blink away, turning his head away from where Aurelia’s perched despite it all as he picks up the remains.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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 things weren't so hard for them now, she might've rumbled out something akin to a purr and tried to cheer him up using the allure of her shift. At least that's one positive; it's undeniably cute. But the weight is heavy, even with his gratitude and the feeling of his hand stroking through her fur. Still, she leans into the touch and lets them both find some comfort in it while they can.
Her gaze swivels across to the empty space where it would appear a door once was, cleverly hidden in his office. She'd been in it before, when they'd first met and she'd felt so lost. It's a shell of its former glory, blackened and scarred. A pang of sadness shivers across the bond at the sight of it, having not dared to check it before now. She watches carefully as he tests out the staircase, hairs along her nape prickling with unease.
But his words to her are met with a steely, regretful silence. And he goes on to describe why he doesn't understand the meaning of all of this. Even after finding out it was Hotaru, all she could think... The fact she would do something like this... just to hurt you. There is no reason, Sunjata... she looks at him again, ears lowering, I did what I thought would hurt her the most. I was angry, even without knowing who it was. And now that I know, I still...
The glint of silver catches their attention, however, and Aurelia lets her words trail off into the rubble. She can feel the sudden emotion pour out from his side of the bond and, while she's expecting it, it's not over something she thinks it would be. It's a lantern, and paired with Sunjata's wave of agony, she thinks she knows what it must have been for. It's a piece of him, she can feel that, could see it even without the bond.
She does give him several moments of silence, because this clearly deserves it.
Sunjata... she tightens the grip of her paws around his shoulder, but if he doesn't want to look at her she won't push for it. We're gonna make things right. We're gonna fix this. I'll help you every step of the way. Support and reassurance are compelled across their attuned connection, trying to overwhelm his own emotions if such a thing were possible, to console and hold him up through all of this.
you killed a man there, and i cried but the rain masked the hurt behind your face
She stabbed me… When I told her and Nate what I’d done. She chose to leave. He says with some hint of fierceness within the bond, something sharp edged and burning, before it’s tampered down by Aurelia’s admission, his hand still running through her fur, comforting and understanding all the same. I know. I don’t blame you. I would have too. He sends over as he spies the glint of metal.
And then it begins to fall apart, one thing after another, a collision within him of anger and sorrow and despair. He picks up the pieces of the lantern, the warped metal warming in his hands from the chill that had been there before, and he blinks back the tears that burn in his eyes, the way he works his jaw and clenches it hard enough for his teeth to creak, before he’s turning away from the rest of the rubble up here. It can be looked at later. Perhaps the office is a good place to start instead. It’s easier.
And perhaps he can have Nate there to go through it with him, to tether him – not that Aurelia isn’t a good tether, she is. She’s tethering him right now. But there’s certain things he still can’t bring himself to open up over in front of someone that isn’t Nate.
The only other one who knew and he felt like he could, had caused this in the first place.
Her support and reassurances do help, it cuts through the wall of grief he feels like a noose around his neck, and he’s finally forced to take a shuddering breath, turning away from the rest of the Advocates to head back into the office, to set the lantern on the desk, before he braces his hands on it – ashen and sooty and a mess. Thank you, Aurelia. He says quietly, his voice surprisingly tight through the mental bond for not having a throat to speak it through.
Did… Did you follow up on anything? He asks, desperately searching for a different strain of conversation to latch onto, to pretend that he can regain composure while she speaks, even as he reaches up with the back of his hand to rub at his eyes, hoping she doesn’t comment on it.
by the way, dear, we're alive and it hurts 'cause we survived it
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.
'cause not everything means something, honey so say the unsayable, say the most human things
As he brings them back up to the office, crumbling apart as it is, she feels a sigh of relief. Something about being back here is strangely comforting and jarring all at the same time. The last time they'd been in this room together, it had been to ask for his guidance, new to this world as she was. It had been the beginning of a beautiful friendship, it had given her the determination to make something of her time here. However long that might be.
As she gently jumps down from his shoulder and shifts back to herself, she longs for that moment again. At least there was hope. They stand here together still but, they're in no better state than this room is now.
She nibbles on her lip thoughtfully, gazing at the wall across from them, past Sunjata, not quite looking at him. She tries to take it all in, the fact that Hotaru had stabbed him, chose to leave. She knew the last part, knew from when Sunjata had been in shambles because her and Nate were both gone. She'd felt the betrayal for him then, and she feels for him now too.
His thanks is met with understanding silence, though he won't feel it as vividly now. She rests a hand on his shoulder as if the connection might survive through it. Her gaze turns back to him gently, unafraid of his tears or his clenched jaw or his visible sorrow. "I'm sorry, I really am," she whispers. Her words are all the more haunted by the deathly stillness of the room.
"Yes... of course I did," she says with quiet earnest, "I did everything that I thought I could, short of... hunting Hotaru down myself. I'm... not strong enough for that, even if I wanted to," her voice dips with the regret in her admittance. She wishes she was. Maybe things could've been a lot different, then.
At this, she pulls in a deeper breath and lets her hand fall away so that she might go into detail about everything that she'd done in the aftermath. From talking to Jack, and the fact that she'd no longer be apart of the smugglers - at least not so closely or directly. There's a hint that they might be able to work together for one another's benefit, but she's not even sure of that at this point.
Then there's the investigative parts, the argument with Seren that led to her eventual admittance of Maeve knowing who the Unicorn belonged to - and attempting to protect Hotaru by trying to make her swear to secrecy. She raggedly explains how Maeve had been a bit of a dead end, with no new information gained aside from the potential for a more personal connection going on between her and Hotaru.
She also doesn't forget to mention Adam, how he'd been left with nothing and would probably appreciate talking to Sunjata. To her understanding, they're friends.
With all of that said, she adds that once she had put the pieces together, she sent a letter informing Morgan of everything as well - and her suspicions of Hotaru. "I'm sure she'll be expecting you," because there's not a doubt in Aurelia's mind that Sunjata will see this through, "I can stay here when you go, continue to keep an eye on things. Or... wherever you need me. I am hoping to repair the jail and make it operational again." There's a hint in her tone that indicates it's because of all this.
"I've been trying to keep things together, doing every little thing I can think of. I've even recruited some citizens and traders, who will be ready to help rebuild the Slagveld or supply materials whenever you're ready for them," she hopes that will ease some of the load, at least.
Sighing, she swallows down hard and lets it all sink in for him, awaiting his words.
if everything is temporary I will bear the unbearable
