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!
"No," Ronin says with a smile, quietly stubborn and very much in love with his husband as he lets Remi nestle as close as he can. The hands pressed to his skin, the fingers brushing at black smudges on his face, they all feel not quite enough, and the Star winds his arms about his husband as if the other man could curl against his bones and around his heart. "Oh, I see," he murmurs about Hotaru and the gods and childen of her other worlds. He doesn't really care beyond spite, so he's not sure why he's asked, but Remi doesn't know regardless so he supposes it doesn't really matter.
Nate, though. Nate matters, if only because of Ronin's connection to the doctor's husband, and rather than being irritated or worried by the revelation, he merely slips his fingers through the alchemist's curls, holding him closer if possible. "That," he murmurs, "would kickstart war, and play right into the gods' hands." He hates to point it out, but it's true. "What did he do this time to make you want to kill him?"
06-20-2021, 04:18 PM (This post was last modified: 06-20-2021, 04:19 PM by Remi.)
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Remi breathes in the scent of his husband, the dreamworld allowing the alchemist’s mind to place each and every scent with pinpoint accuracy: stale beer from time spent in bars, the ocean—both this one, and one lost to another world—, the smell of sweat mixed with tree bark and blood. I love you; it’s all he wants to say, over and over and over again.
“Is he really so important?” Remi snaps into Ronin’s chest, though the flare of anger isn’t directed at Ronin, but at the world at large. “ Why can I not just hate him, apart from this war.” He knows why of course, but it feels good to be a bit petulant just the same.
“He was just...an asshole.” Not a reason for murder normally, but with Remi? Well... “He kept poking me.” Bristling in Ronin’s arms, the alchemist has to remind himself where he is, and not to let memories cause the world around them to grow any more hostile than it already was. “He would not stop. And then...I suppose he tried to call my bluff. Said that I would not kill him.” Stilling against the Star, Remi smiles a touch sadly.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Not to you and I, no," Ronin says, as if that much is obvious, his fingers stroking down the back of Remi's neck while his other arm keeps him pressed close. "But he's one of the Voice's chosen, whether we like it or not." And whilst he didn't matter to them, there would be repercussions if he were to disappear; from the Voice, and also from Sunjata on a more personal level. "Of course you can hate him apart from this war, though. You just can't kill him," he points out.
Though as Remi explains, Ronin can easily understand how his husband had been goaded into such a position. Sighing against the alchemist, he coaxes Remi to look up at him so he can press a gentle kiss against his lips. "He was a fool," he murmurs. "And you ought to be applauded for keeping yourself under control." Ronin will never encourage the Lullaby's murderous tendencies - not on a normal day, anyway - but he will certainly praise the times when he comes out the other side without a body count.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
“I can, though.” Remi counters, not intending to sound argumentative but likely failing. “So what if it starts the war? It has been brewing long enough and I am tired of sitting just talking about it. What are we waiting for, if anything?” Shh, spoilers, Remi. “I am no soldier, but surely there is something in taking out the other side’s stronger fighters before things start.” It was probably more of a compliment than Nate deserved, but so be it. “Without him, who is there? Wessex? Sam?” Remi clenches his teeth against Ronin, glaring daggers against the other man’s skin and trying to imagine what the repercussions might actually be.
Ronin’s kiss succeeds in all the ways Ronin knew it would, leaving the alchemist softening against the Star’s lips with a weary sigh. “I do not want to be applauded. I want it to stop.” He complains. “I made him apologize, for keeping this grudge going. I thought...if I heard him say it, I would be able to put it all behind us. But I know he did not mean it. No one can mean it, under threat of death.” Shaking his head, Remi selfishly leans in that he might indulge himself in another kiss. “I have never had an enemy before. And...I am not sure how to just...” He shrugs, his eyes softening even as the skin around them tightens. “Why would I let him live?”
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin is already searching for another kiss when Remi indulges himself, the Star winding his arms around his husband further that he might keep him as close as possible. He doesn't know when the rain in the dream has started pounding down onto them in earnest, but as he opens his eyes he realises that it has started to run clear, as well. With a soft smile and a third, lingering kiss against Remi's lips, he draws back to regard the other man.
"I would not want Mateo to have to deal with us striding off to war just yet," he tries, as gently as he can. "I wouldn't want him to have to deal with it at all, but especially not when he is still so young. And I do see your point - I do. But if you want to start targeting Nate," and it surprises him, how easy it is to switch to tactics and politics, "then you'd be better off using proper channels. Ludo's backing would make all the difference."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
The world is nothing at all but the warmth of the Star’s lips and the arms wrapped around Remi’s body. The rain, the clouds, the mountains crumbling into the sea—they’re all distant and colourless things now. For Remi, it’s just the blue of Ronin’s eyes and the steadfast knowledge that this is all he cares about.
“How long do you think we have? A few months? A year?” The alchemist tilts his head. Could that amount of time really make a difference? “I have Ludo’s backing. It wants the ascended dead. Nate is an ascended.” Remi raises a brow; voila. It wasn’t that easy and they both knew it, but the words still felt good spat out as they were. “If I go to Ludo..I worry that it will demand the same treatment of all ascended.” Of Isla. Feathering his jaw, Remi lets his head fall against Ronin’s shoulder for a moment. “Do you think they will...give us any sort of clarity? Anything more than just: wAr Is ComInG?”
Because if left up to them, the alchemist was a powder keg unable to bear much more heat or pressure than he already had been subjected too. There would come a day when he was pushed just that much too far, when passions and irrationality would win out.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I want to say a few months, at least," Ronin says quietly, his brows furrowing. Ludo was a mysterious sort, but Safrin tended to at least offer a bit more clarity when she was able. And Ronin hadn't gotten the idea that war was imminent from her, not just yet anyway. Raising a brow right back at his husband, it's with gentle acceptance that he takes the anger and the sharpness in Remi's words, kissing his curls and letting his hands wander further down his shoulders and back, trying to tease the tension out of him.
"You know it will ask you to treat them all the same when war comes regardless," he says, not that the words are easy to conjure up. "I wonder if they are waiting for something to start it all off..." I wonder if they are waiting for you, is what he doesn't say and what he doesn't need to, and at the mere thought of it the surge of protectiveness for his husband rears its head again.
"Do you want me to deal with it?" he asks softly, suddenly. One word from Remi and Ronin would make sure the problem disappeared, whatever the cost.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
The alchemist offers a non-commit all noise in response, soaking up the touches on offer. A few months. “Mateo will still just be a boy.” He murmurs softly. Whatever restraint Remi might be able to show, their son would still be an innocent in all of this, unable to defend himself or properly understand what was happening. Whether that was a reason to prolong things as much as possible, or permission to simply go ahead, even Remi couldn’t decide.
Pulling back, but only so that he might be able to properly regard Ronin, Remi gives the Star a long and curious stare. “Do...do you really think it will be me?” There’s no anger or accusation in the question. Who, if not Ronin, could make such a prediction about what Remi might do? Once upon a time it would have been a ludicrous thing to suggest that Remi would ever be capable of inciting a war. Now though? Gods, it would be so easy. Things with Isla could do it. With Varus. With Sam. With Nate. With any of them, if they found the right buttons to push. And these days, Remi’s wore his buttons on his sleeve more than he wore his heart.
“With Safrin, you mean?”
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Yeah, he will," Ronin says sadly, his voice little more than a whisper. He would still just be a boy regardless of whether it was now or if it was in months. And when Remi looks up at him and asks his question, the light that shines out of the Star is neither the beaming love or splintering anger that so often appears. This is soft and sorrowful, and he leans in to kiss Remi's forehead. "I think they've set you up for it," he admits through a whisper.
"Ludo has always been gunning for the Ascended, and you're its chosen. You've got plenty of complicated relationships with Ascended, and with your empathy magic, your dream magic and all the horror you've been subjected to..." He shakes his head. "What a perfect way to throw a spark on some kindling without actually having to do the dirty work yourself." There would be no grand gesture on the part of the Old Gods. No, just the work of a man reaching the end of his tether.
As for his dealing with it, though? Ronin's smile is sharper, then, and he scoffs and shakes his head. "No, not with Safrin," he says. With his bare hands, if that was what it took. "Though she would certainly help deal with it, if I were to ask."
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
It would make sense for Remi to suddenly feel dizzy with the realization. To feel cold or hot. To burn and tremble and want to lash out. If the dreamscape around them was doused in fire or eroded by a black wind, it would make sense. Instead, the alchemist feels nothing at all. He simply gazes at the line of his husband's jaw, noting how many more laugh lines there are around his eyes; how many more wrinkles on his forehead. "If I were not here to start the war...would it still come about then?" Raising his eyes, seaglass and strangely innocent despite the context, Remi smiles. It's sad and sweet in its realization. Isn't this what it has always come down to? That one person, on either side, couldn't be worth a war?
"What do you mean, then?" Genuinely confused now, Remi gives Ronin a perplexed look that the Star might explain. With the war? With Nate? With Mateo, or Isla, or Hotaru?
With him?
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Yes, of course it would," Ronin whispers with a smile that's more an apology than anything else. "If not you then it would be someone else - somewhere else. The Voice might even be working on it herself, from her side." With Wessex. With Nate. With Isla, even. There was so much that they simply didn't know, that they couldn't foresee, and that his husband seems to be the eye of at least one of those storms makes Ronin's mouth grow dry and his hands cold.
Suddenly the wide, vast field around them fritters away like dust in the wind. In its place is a warm and crackling fire, the two men sat before a hearth scattered with thick furs and blankets. It's cozy and smaller than it ought to be, given that Ronin has placed them back in the main room of the old Monster Hunter's guild. But here there is no all seeing sky, no judgement from the rain, and he absently draws one of the furs around the man in his lap.
When it comes to what he means, though, the Star leans in to brush his nose against Remi's. "If you are worried that all of this is getting too much, with Nate, then I'll deal with it," he says softly. "Whatever that looks like. It won't start a war, though - I can promise that much." Ronin has become much more Safrin's man in his time as her chosen than he cares to look at too closely. Whilst his husband is a ruthless killing machine should the situation call for it, the Star can work his own manipulations.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
Swallowing hard, Remi can't argue with what his husband has to say despite very much wanting to. If it all centred around him, the solution would be obvious. Even now, perhaps it still was obvious: if Remi was already a lit match and the Voice was still working on gathering her kindling, then without him, perhaps things could be prolonged.
Glancing around as their surroundings changed, Remi's smile grows, falters, then blooms. "It was just over there that I proposed to you." He says, glancing toward a doorway that led into a kitchen. "And there—" Turning to look at the front door, Remi chuckles under his breath. "Is where you came back from the dead. Naked, I might add. I was ready to kill you for ... well, pretending to be yourself." The guildhall had burned down, and though there were plenty of ghosts that lingered even now—Roana professing love and asking for death—it held some of their sweetest times, too.
Turning back to Ronin with tears in his eyes, Remi almost guiltily nods as his eyes close. "It's too much." He whispers, the admission offered as if it were some blasphemous thing. Trembling slightly now, even on the heels of recalling such good times—or perhaps precisely because of it—Remi shakes his head again as his fingers search for contact against Ronin's skin. "I can't." Tears trickle down his cheeks, not black, but an ink-stained purple. "Nate..Hotaru..Isla.." Unable to do more than form their names before grief and fury close his throat, Remi helplessly shakes his head again.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Remi's smile is enough to have everything in the guild almost lighting up; the fire grows brighter, colours seem deeper, and Ronin can barely stop himself from smiling in return. "And out in the kitchen is where we had our first kiss," he says, following his gaze over to the doorway, "and right here is where I cleaned you up, after what Arduinna did." Sweetness and horror rule this place as surely as they do any of the others they have been in. But this was where it began, and this is why Ronin has brought them here. Back to comfort and nostalgia, away from the fresh hell the world is throwing at them.
And it's hell that he sees reflected in Remi's eyes as he gazes at the alchemist, Ronin reaching out to wipe at the violet tears that stain his cheeks. "I know," he whispers, and as Remi's hands search for contact he'll find the Star conveniently without a shirt, Ronin shifting so they might both be covered by the fur. "I know, Remi. Come here." It's a difficult thing, to get closer than they already are, but Ronin somehow manages it as his arms wrap around the Lullaby. "I'll deal with Nate. And we will deal with the Hotaru situation. You don't need to carry it all." He can't do much about Isla, but if he needs to, he'll take that on as well.
right now everything you want is wrong & right now all your dreams are waking up
"I had nearly forgotten about that." Raising his fingertips to his eyes, once scarred and made milky-white for defying the lady of the woods in some misguided attempt towards heroism, Remi chuckles at himself as he shakes his head. "I remember how bright you were, when I was blind." Remi murmurs with a crooked smile, as he places his hand over a particularly glowing part of the Star's chest. "And then you went and started glowing all on your own."
Just when Remi is convinced that there is little more to be done or said that might make any difference, he's swaddled in furs and a love so strong that it has thus far defied every odd stacked against it. I was doing so well, Remi wants to whine. Only Ronin's caution against wallowing stills the words behind his lips, as Remi just indulges himself in the skin that's suddenly beneath his fingertips. "Thank you." He opts for instead, kissing Ronin's collar bone and letting his fingers roam over the various scars that tell wordless stories of all the things Ronin has done for him in the past.
"I'm sorry for what I have become. None of this is easy for you either, and yet here you are, still fighting off monsters that I have brought to our door." Just like on the last longnight that they'd spent in his guild, where Remi had demanded that every knock should be answered, and that no lock would be closed.
The Lullaby
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
