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!
Things are about to get messy if Ronin has his way - which of course, he doesn't. His arms tighten around Remi, enough to realise as the man in his lap grows utterly, utterly still, and already the antlers that crown Ronin's head are melting back into his skull. Remi watches the space over his shoulder with eyes that are almost black, and the Star - naturally - is watching his husband.
You got it, he all but purrs through their bond, his hands taking their time while Remi counts to slip lower on his husband's body. And on three it's like a dance that someone has just started the music to; Ronin's fingers slip beneath the alchemist's thighs and he all but falls back, the muscles in his arms bunching to easily throw the other man up and into the air.
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
Airborne instantly, he melts into feathers and hollow bones. With a whistle-like trill, Remi is up and over the peak of the roof, descending suddenly on the other side. He had smelled the vampire gourds, and though he's on them in a flash, before his talons strike them he sees a fat gourd being rolled up the roof with extreme dedication by three rather mutant-looking comrades. His talons part the gaping mouth even as it smiles and begins to blubber some inarticulate threat. The scent of pumpkin fills the air as Remi fans his wings to remain slightly aloft as his talons continue to scrap away the insides of the gourd even as it continues to try and bite him.
Meanwhile, the three 'pushers', free of their burden, now bounce over the top of the roof, bounding toward Ronin like child-sized bowling balls from hell.
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Remi is gone into a ball of feathers and sharp talons, and Ronin turns his leaning back into a roll that brings him back to his knees in time to hear the garbled death of a pumpkin. Unaware of what it looked like or what Remi did to kill it, Ronin turns instead to focus on his three new friends, none of which are likely to be nearly as good at kissing as Remi is. So it's with an annoyed sigh that three starbolts bloom to life around the Star's head, lancing silently through the air and lighting up the night briefly, before pumpkin goo showers the ground beneath them.
Our windows are open, he warns Remi, even as he rises to his feet to move towards the edge of the rooftop. We ought to go in and work things out from there - Mateo is asleep. Is he more worried about gourds attacking their son, or waking him up? You know the answer to that - Mateo would be just as dangerous to the lumbering plants as either of his fathers.
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
There is no blood or muscle to tear through, leaving Remi incredibly unsatisfied both in terms of the physical rush of myurdur and how quickly it was all over with. Covered in pulpy bits of orange, light screams across his vision (his very sensitive vision), blinding him temporarily. The midnight shower of pumpkin guts is hardly felt thanks to his feathers, but he's sure that won't be the case for anyone with the misfortune of being out for a stroll.
I wonder if we can rig something up beneath our windows, so that any trespassing gourds become pre-sliced for dinner. It's a terrible idea of course, to have blades that move back and forth beneath a window where toddlers might stick their fingers. But Mateo wasn't any ordinary toddler (whether that made him more or less vulnerable to his father's madness, Remi doesn't know).
I will check the lower floor and meet you in the kitchen. So saying, Remi dives off of the roof toward their main door on the street below.
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Oh, you think that will persuade Mateo to eat his vegetables, if we tell them they were murderous once? Ronin shouldn't laugh, but he absolutely does find it funny, prowling along the roof until he reaches their open bedroom window just beneath. His eyes aren't as good as Remi's for seeing in the darkness, even shifted, but darkness isn't really Ronin's thing anyway.
Brief thoughts of his husband and son are enough to have him dazzling, to show that there's nothing else trying to climb the side of their home. Deal - it's a date, he tells the alchemist, before swinging silently into the room. Windows are shut and lanterns are lit, and there's no sign of murderous pumpkins within the apartment - though there is a telltale vine snaking beneath one of their window sills that's quickly removed. Maybe Remi has a point about that.
Finally, Ronin looks in on Mateo, snoring obnoxiously in a star shape on his stomach, before he retreats back to the kitchen to wait. All good up here.
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
Worth a try? Was it? Or did Remi just want to make this myurdury device now that he'd thought of it?
Down below there are telltale signs all about. Teeth marks have chipped away at the corner of their door, and on the exterior portion of the window sill are small seeds that look vaguely threatening. Frowning, the alchemist does something unbecoming yet practical. You know what's coming. He pees in an arc around their doorway. Whatever simple minds these gourds had, he was predator enought that he hoped this would deter them from gnawing on any more of his things. And should they be stupid enough to enter? Well. We all know how that ends for them.
Adjusting his pants as he opens the door, all is well in his shop. Trudging softly up the spiral stairs that lead to the kitchen, Remi ruffles a hand through his curls as he reaches the top. "All good/" He whispers softly, leaving the hallway to properly enter the kitchen.
"What had you up so..." late? early? "What had you up?"
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
07-01-2021, 09:48 PM (This post was last modified: 07-01-2021, 09:49 PM by Ronin.)
RONIN
Unaware of whatever the fucking fuck madness is going on downstairs, Ronin has already opened a jar of marmalade and is dunking a hunk of bread into it by the time his husband appears. Standing in the kitchen, visibly sleepy and yet still ever-so-awake, his blue eyes flash up to the other man even as he's licking the sticky sweet jam from his fingers. Good to know, he says of the results of his search.
Putting the bread and the jar away, Ronin's shoulders slump and he cracks his neck, shifting against the counter where he's leaning. "My bones are restless," he says, knowing it doesn't make sense and equally knowing that his husband will get it. "I thought it would be easier this time because we aren't in the Greatwood, but it isn't." He still wants to run, and headbutt the butcher's apprentic when he smiles and waves at Remi on the way past in the morning.
"I woke up too warm and I just started thinking about everything, I guess. I couldn't fall back asleep, and I didn't know if you were..." His vague handwave suggests in a meeting, but one that takes place in dreamland. "So I thought I'd amuse myself until you woke up."
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
'You know I can help with that.' Remi mutters wickedly, and though there's the obvious offer of sex coating the words, there's an offer of so much more too. Running, screaming, training, exploding in dreams, or eating themselves sick, Remi would be game for all of it. Moving across the kitchen to stand next to Ronin, Remi leans against the counter as well and covers one of Ronin's feet with his for no discernable reason other than wanting to be close any way he could.
"I wasn't, though I do have a message to deliver to Hotaru." He says with a sigh that folds his shoulders inwards and has his gaze falling to the floor. "I went to talk to Jata, and..." Remi's lips part and form around words that he hesitates to say, out of respect for Ronin and Sunjata both. "...he took me to where he grew up, in Korofi. Said something about how he couldn't control things there...how there were...enforcers? people who were homeless?" Glancing over his shoulder at Ronin with the same confused look he'd given Jata, the alchemist can only shrug.
"It all went fairly unresolved, though I am to pass along a message to Hotaru as amends for taking her from jail."
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Mm, I know." And it isn't that he doesn't want the help - it's more that he feels like he shouldn't need it. Which, y'know - completely failed by leaving a note and staying up all night. Still, as Remi's foot comes to cover his, the Star can't help but smile, and he shifts to subtly lean against his husband. "Oh...?" He raises an eyebrow at that, equally as puzzled as Remi explains about the meeting with Sunjata.
"I have been to Korofi, in one of those dreams," he murmurs. "They had guns." He knows what that word is now and he's pretty proud of it. "I wonder why he chose to show you that, though? It's nothing to do with what's happening now..."
It's unintentional, the way his arm has started to move around Remi, and the Star wishes he had any way to control it right now. "What was the message?" he asks.
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
"And a..." Narrowing his eyes to try and pluck the word from what he recalled, Remi eventually comes up with: "Motorsikles?" Shaking his head the alchemist sighs again. "I don't know. He talked about where he lived...how different things were...I said he couldn't keep leaning on his past to justify how he was acting now. He said he wasn't, but..." Remi lets the silence that follows speak for what he thought of that.
Not minding at all this season of predatory need from his husband, Remi leans into the Star all the more. "Oh, just that she is banned from Torchline." He replies, perhaps a touch flippantly, both agreeing and disagreeing with Sunjata's treatment of the whole thing. "He's..." Wanting to chose his words carefully if only because of how close the Star and Flood were, Remi fails utterly to put delicately the question on his lips. "...quite sulky, isn't he? Was he always this way?"
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"A what?" Ronin tilts his head, not having had the occasion to see one of those in Sunjata's dream. "Sounds like a cool sword." Remi leans in closer and Ronin all but melts around him, smelling of pumpkin and marmalade and wine. Closing his eyes for a moment, he leans a cheek against the soft mess of Remi's curls, breathing him in and letting it ground him further. He should have just done this when he woke up, he realises. But here they are.
Humming out something non-commital to hear that Hotaru is no longer welcome in Torchline, he blinks open his eyes again to tilt his head at Remi, offering him a gentle smile. "No, he wasn't." He shrugs. "When you carry enough weight on your shoulders, it changes you. Were we always this way?" he asks, knowing well what the answer is. They are not the men they once were. Neither is Sunjata.
"Maybe it's a Governor trend, though. Tell me again why Loren was banned from Torchline while you were in charge?" He nudges him playfully.
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
"No it was this...metal thing on wheels. It vibrated and smelled terrible. He made me ride it with him." Stretching out an arm and curling it around Ronin, Remi is happy to ignore the way the counter digs into the small of his back if it means there is more of Ronin pressed against him.
"I more mean...I told him I would accept whatever punishment he offered for taking Hotaru. But then he just threw it back in my face, saying WhAt CoUld HE EvEn MaKe Me Do." Remi says with a small roll of his eyes. "I know what I am now. I know I cannot be forced into anything. That is why I said I would do it willingly."
As for Loren? Remi snarls, not hiding at all the cold flush of fire that still smoulders in some dark place within. "Because I did not want to ever see his face again. And I stand by it." That was the difference. Remi at least stood by the things he did, or at least he thought he did. But Sunjata? Perhaps that was why the men couldn't even seem to find common ground. There just wasn't that much between them.
'But I suppose it is sorted now anyway. How did your talk with him go?'
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"He what?" Why does that sound suggestive? Is it the mention of things vibrating? Either way Ronin's frown is puzzled, maybe even a touch unhappy, until he reminds himself that a) it was a dream and b) Remi absolutely wouldn't be fucking Sunjata. So instead the Star settles in to listen to his husband, nosing at his curls and letting a small smile flicker across his face. Nibbling at the inside of his cheek, he tries to think of a way to phrase it that might help Remi understand.
"In this world, right now," he says eventually, "you are a blueblood. You've got it all. And almost everyone else is a commoner in comparison, living in their one room houses with their cheap white bread. So even though you said you'd do it willingly, is it really much of a surprise if someone has a bit of a sulk because ultimately, you still have all the power here?"
Of course, whatever wisdom he may or may not be giving goes completely out of the window at the sound of his husband's snarl. Already fuelled by far too much testosterone, Ronin instantly tenses and glances around for the danger, having dragged Remi pretty much up against his chest. "Oh... oh shit, sorry," he mumbles when he realises, smiling and loosening his grip. "It was a good talk. He agreed that he's going to tell Nate to maybe not pick fights he can't win."
soft spoken with a broken jaw we step outside, but not to brawl
Instantly he wants to stride away from Ronin, sulky and childish as that might be. He doesn't of course, preferring the Star's warmth to his own cold flash-flood, but for a moment Remi is too blinded by his need to defend himself to even begin to parse whether there's any truth to his husband's words. The arm around Ronin's side tenses for a moment as Remi glares at the wall ahead of them, unable to think coherently amidst thoughts of how fucking dare you, and you're wrong.
"It is not as simple as that." Remi manages at last. "It can't be."
Numb as he's drawn against the Star, Remi can only nod distantly. "I will just...keep avoiding him, I suppose." He doesn't think it will work, not given the degrees of separation that dwindle down to almost nothing. But Remi is still too caught up in what Ronin said earlier to argue the point.
Who are you? They ask. Death? Sometimes... I say. But not today
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
