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!
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
The world is nothing but a partial slice of stormy ocean and a single cliff that juts precariously above. The landscape fades to a blur of stormy blue in the periphery that gives off indistinct shapes and patterns when stared at too long. On top of the cliff the alchemist sits with his feet trailing off the side, and his eyes focused on the churning waters below. There are skulls down there, beneath the waves; the bodies of his past decisions left to rot.
Hopefully he would catch Ronin before his meeting with Sunjata. If not? The sky churns like some garish intestinal cramp above, darkening and bleeding at the thought. With a mouth gone quite dry, Remi bites the inside of his lip as he sees his husband's smiling face in the white caps below.
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin has not gone to see Sunjata yet. On the contrary, after his meeting with Safrin, the Star has found some lonely part of the beach to bury himself in, and it's just him and a bottle of strong liquor until his restless mind is forced into unconsciousness. Such is the price of being able to dreamwalk but not possessing the ability of instant sleep.
"Remi...?"
The words Ronin speak sound muffled and distant, as if he is out at sea somewhere in the churning far below. And he both is and isn't. As their dreamworlds collide, lightning strikes overhead, blasting into the cliff behind where Remi sits. And the Star is suddenly there, dressed in the ragged armour of a Storm Guard, torn and ripped and bloodied as it had been the day he'd died.
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
Light bleeds through the sky, and Remi lets it.
Turning, the man lying asleep in Vai's cottage gasps loudly enough to draw attention, as the man in the dreamworld drops his jaw with a mixture of fear and love. Rising instantly—the cliff side begins to crumble even as he does this, falling away into the sea—the alchemist moves with outstretched hands towards the Star.
"..why..?" He wonders of Ronin's wardrobe. Of the fatal wounds that scour his body. Keenly Remi remembers what this moment was life, of how Safrin appeared to give them a final moment. The first time the alchemist had told the Star he loved him without a thought at all. Tears prickle the back of his eyes instantly as the waves below crash out an unsteady rhythm that is utterly at odds with Remi's pounding heart. "What has happened?"
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin's sight blurs and grows misty even as Remi turns towards him, and this time he doesn't bother to try and swipe away the tears that wet his cheeks. He tries to move towards his husband, but his legs give way before he can so much as take a step. It doesn't stop him from reaching for the alchemist, though, and grasping hands slip around Remi's waist so he might bury his face in his shirt. The panic and sorrow that roars for him is testament to the storm that boils overhead, and he shakes his head to the other man.
"I just need to feel it," he mumbles, the words half muffled. "Please, just touch me. I need to feel how you feel about us. Don't hold anything back, it's important." He wishes he could describe more about it, about the reasons why or the panic that grips him, but for now this is all the Star can manage.
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
It is one of those moments where the alchemist is somehow calm in the face of Ronin's turbulence. It's a balancing act between them that they know intuitively, not that it's always helpful. 'Hey—' Ronin's knees hit the ground and Remi feels it like a punch to his gut that winds him utterly. He doesn't stagger though, and as Ronin makes his plea, the alchemist finds himself smiling in the wake of it.
Dropping down that he might be eye to eye with the Star, there is part of him that wants to communicate his feelings with his tongue and lips as much as through his magic. Instead, the moment seeming to call for it, he takes his husband's face in his hands, pressing their foreheads together.
The emotions are like flashes of lightning in a darkened sky as the alchemist tries to form some coherent storyline of his feelings. The moment Ronin's outfit inspires rises to the top, the shaky and unstable longing and grief that the loss of the Star filled the alchemist with like some endless pit of grief. They had been nothing to one another then, not really, and yet the loss of the Star and Aoife's presence in his life had started a love that burned hot life wildfire. Waves of memories and their subsequence emotions batter from behind Remi's eyes into his fingertips as he recalls the various times the pair had failed each other in the past; intentionally and unintentionally both. Always though, behind the reasons and excuses and motivations and justifications was the unwavering need Remi felt to be with the Star. If it was a dark sort of love he felt for Ronin, a thing that would persist even if it was unhealthy, then so be it. Theirs was not picturesque or deserving of a place in Vai's storybooks, but the simple truth of it all, was that for Remi, there was no one else. Selfishness had pulled him from his husband in their combined past, and while it might have made irreparable places in their hearts, they had wings to fly over them now, and a lifespan made long by immortality to get things right.
"I love you Ronin. Not perfectly...but with all that I am."
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin can't look at his husband, not even as hands he knows better than his own come to cup his face, his eyes pressed shut behind tears that still want to streak down his cheeks. And when the first surges of feeling rock through him, it isn't the sort of thing that inspires warmth and comfort, but it's as real as it gets. It's a love that's flawed and complicated and the complete opposite of the kind of warmth and fuzziness that his goddess had painted for him. And gods if Ronin doesn't soak it all in.
"I love you too," he mumbles, not that he even really hears himself saying the words, and he reaches out to clutch the Lullaby close against him, burying his face against the side of his neck. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I just... you have no idea how much I need you right now. I went to see Safrin and it all went..." Wrong? Right? Gods, he doesn't even know. "She painted a picture of life if I just belonged to her. And I... I wanted it, just for a second." Or two. Enough to hate not saying yes.
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
Confusion rises from Remi like steam, but he keeps his questions to himself for now as he draws Ronin near. His grip isn't soft, but hard and secure. In a dream it isn't as though he has to worry about physically harming his husband anyway, but something about the dire state Ronin is in suggests that now is not a time for caresses and feather-light touches. So, clutching him close, Remi tries to make himself as large and stable as he can in the moment, that the Star might have something unwavering to hold onto.
And he almost crumbles.
Remi can feel Ronin's guilt, but more so, he can feel his uncertainty about having made the wrong choice. The alchemist ceases to breathe, not that it matters here, holding Ronin all the tighter for the treachery of his husband's words and emotions. "Do not lie to me." Remi says softly, the words free of judgement or anger, serving merely as a reminder that whatever Ronin says, his emotions will paint in the truth of it while they're still like this.
"What...would this life look like?" Remi wonders, suddenly wishing the body he tightly held against him was real, and not just some construct half a world away.
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Remi's words cut, even if the intention isn't to cause pain, and the wounds that cover Ronin's body seem all the fresher for it. But he doesn't lie, merely holding him a little tighter as the clifftop and the sea and the storms melt away. The world turns warm and dark, the sky a galactic sprawl of colour and stars beneath which nestles a small house awash in a field of long grasses. Children's laughter fills the air, and there's a lightness to it all, carefree in a way that their lives simply never will be.
The children don't have names or even faces, but their presence is all around - a large family to fill every moment with laughter and benevolent chaos, every day a reminder of what it's all for. And gods, it had been within arm's reach. And not one bit of it had been real.
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
Remi turns his head, even though some part of him doesn't want to. He doesn't want to see what it was that Safrin had offered to make Ronin so conflicted about it all, if only because he thinks that it has to be something that he can't possibly offer. Only...what he sees makes him gasp for breath, the sound almost joyful as he narrows his eyes, trying to see what it was that he was clearly missing out on.
"But...why can't we have this?" Remi wonders. "Or..I suppose what I mean, is how can Safrin offer it to you?" He adds, blinking back his confusion as he adds to the fantasy Ronin has breathed into life around them.
Chaos was certainly part of their lives, but Remi adds to the scene a robe—the one Cian had offered Ronin for joining the Order. And who had placed Ronin there? Safrin. Why were they in Stormbreak at all instead of some meadow surrounded by woods and love? Because Safrin had called him to Stormbreak. The children who ran and played and called out to one another did sour something in the alchemist he couldn't quite name. Arguments of but you said it was alright linger on his tongue, and while he swallows back the words, he lets the emotions flow freely enough into Ronin. No lies, after all.
"Is it the life you want? Or...her?"
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"We aren't the sort of men who could live such simple lives. Not any more," he whispers, the words feeling traitorous on his tongue. Partially it's because of what they have been called to do, yes, and that is something that has previously escaped Ronin - not any longer, granted. But the family, the children? That wasn't what Remi wanted. And knowing that and knowing the reality that faces them when they next open their eyes has the long grass growing thorns, has the clear, starry skies beginning to darken with stormclouds.
"It is alright," he says, trying to shape his tangled thoughts into something that makes sense. "I was happy with the family we had made, until you made one with someone else. And I know," he tells the alchemist quickly, before either thoughts or words can jump in. "I know it's different, and it's not what you meant to happen. And it's stupid to be so jealous, but I am. I am jealous that you are having another child, and that it isn't with me. That I am forever going to have to share you with a branch of your life that I can't touch."
Scoffing out something that might be a laugh, he shakes his head to Remi. "The life," he says, though he doesn't think it needs saying. "If it was her, I wouldn't be here to tell you all of this." No lies, even if it hurts to hear. Because it's true - Safrin had been anything but coy or subtle, and if Ronin's heart didn't so completely belong to Remi, he'd have been sucked right in.
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
"Then...what makes you think you could live that life with her?" Remi wonders. "Unless...you do not want to be this man anymore?" Free of judgement or accusation, the alchemist merely shivers as the world darkens. He knows precisely what it is to wake up and hate the person that you've become. He also knows that just as Ronin has with him, Remi would work to help the Star become whoever it was he wanted to be. Even if the end result was a man unable to love the Lullaby anymore. Or perhaps, who would simply rather someone else.
Remi bites down hard on all he wants to say in response and forces himself to listen. Exhaling into the crook of Ronin's neck, the alchemist closes his eyes tightly as his mind frantically tries to puzzle out how much he might offer any god willing to hear him, to undo what it is he'd done. "Then let's have it." Pulling back to peer into his husband's eyes, Remi offers a smile that's as naive as it is reckless. "Leave the Order. We will go somewhere else. When the war comes we will do what we have to, but until then? We will hunt monsters and raise our..." He means to say children, but there's more he needs to say about that so that it might not sound quite so flippant.
"Aoife felt like mine as much as that was possible, but she was Vanya's, first, no matter what happened. And then Seren..." It was just as complicated and painful; now with Ronin on the other side of an unexpected pregnancy, he could perhaps better understand how it had been for Remi. "..even Mateo was something I created without you, that Ludo willed to life." Tucked away in a dream, it was still hard to say the words without feeling as though the world was listening. "We did not choose together, any of them." He murmurs, his throat suddenly tight. "I think I just assumed...somehow it would always be like that. It is not that I do not want more children, but I..." Wincing despite his smile, Remi presses his lips together to keep the sob that builds at the back of his throat caged there. "..I did not want them like that."
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Because she is a goddess," Ronin says simply, and the simplicity of his statement says it all. Safrin could pull a blanket over the world like nobody else could. She could cover old wounds and hurts, could smooth out the wrinkles in Ronin's psyche and replace all of his complications with sweetness and light and she would barely even need to try. And for a man who has fought for so hard, for so long, letting someone do that is unashamedly tempting.
When Remi pulls back he will find a pair of startled blue eyes and cheeks streaked with tears, and though there's none of the sudden recklessness in Ronin's expression, this is tempting too. "And what, you'll just hop off every other evening to Halo?" he asks, not meaning to sound as bitter as he does. Because that is still the crux of it, whether they are in a cottage in a meadow or in a little shop in Stormbreak.
Talk turns to children, and Ronin nods sadly, his agreement something that fits into Remi's like a lock into a key. "I feel the same way," he whispers. "It's not as though we can just... have them." Not like I did with Vanya, or you with Hotaru.
I've said that hope I'll never find To my myself I must confide
"You are what matters most to me." Remi replies gravely. He would be a negligent father that he might be a good husband if it comes down to it, though he doesn't actually think it will need to. "War is no time to raise a child...perhaps...I have heard of Frey ageing children quite rapidly." His shoulders rise and fall, unsure if he ought to continue. Ronin's bitterness makes everything seem like an intentional obstacle that Remi isn't entirely sure the Star wants to be overcome. Or maybe just not yet.
"But maybe we could." Remi bites at the inside of his upper lip, wanting to push away everything they've made in this dream thus far and replace it with just the blue of his husband's eyes. "We have never asked. There might be a way we can." It would always be the case that the pair would owe their children to a god in some way or another, but maybe there was a way that was less invasive than it had been in the past.
"What do you want, Ronin?" Remi asks in a low voice, accompanied by an uncertain shiver of emotions, full of fear. "You do not sound like a man who wants to try and make things work, right now..." Safrin's way was easier, because of course it was. "I would choose a thousand complicated lifetimes with you, over paradise with anyone else." Much as it grated at his soul until he felt reduced to nothing but ashes, such was the truth of the moment. "But if it is not the same for you...I do not think there is anything I could say or offer that will change that." Because Remi was all the things Safrin wasn't: mortal, messy, ridiculously flawed, prone to making the wrong choices. Even the things he could offer, Safrin could as well. He always thought his love was better than hers was, but perhaps that wasn't the case.
That there's no choice outside your mind when your heart is overthrown
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
He doesn't mean to be so bleak, Ronin's hand coming up at last to press over Remi's, his eyes closing over the fall of fresh tears. He draws all the strength he can from the alchemist, all the maybe we cans, all the mights, every perhaps that slips from Remi's lips.
And he shivers at the low thrum of fear that flows between them when the Lullaby asks his question, the way it makes his blood run cold. It's slow, like ice thawing, but a smile creeps across Ronin's face, and he moves to grasp the other man's wrists, as if to help anchor himself to the present.
"I am wallowing, aren't I?" he whispers, as if it has only just occurred to him. "You. I want you - of course I want you. Gods, I am so sorry. We'll figure it out, we'll find a way. I just... fuck, I was so angry. I should have just come to you."
