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!
are you really going to talk about timing in times like these?
"I think a tree house seems very official." Remi chuckles to Ronin as he stares up into one of the larger trees that lines this portion of the sea of branches. Near enough to the water but not so near to risk flooding (in his estimation, at least). Rubbing his curls out of his forehead, Remi crosses his arms and considers.
"If we build it quite high up, maybe that will deter people from bothering us." He continues with a boyish grin, knowing that it absolutely wouldn't. If his time in Torchline had taught him anything, it was that he would be found by those who needed something from him, no matter where he was.
"Although...what do you think the chances are of Safrin giving you a shift that won't burn down the Greatwood and all of us with it?" Remi wonders, waiting for Sera to arrive.
This is a PQ to establish a government building in the GW
"Back after the blight, we dreamed of coming here and making a treehouse," Ronin murmurs with a gentle smile, his hands tucked in his pockets as he gazes up at the branches spiderwebbing overhead. Down the Stonesong, the Sea of Branches bustles and shifts and does its thing, but up river a bit? This is wild and peaceful, and Ronin can absolutely see a home here. Uh, government building. Whatever.
"We could always build a secret treehouse on top of the official one, for you to go and hide in," he reasons, nudging his husband with his elbow and flashing him a grin. "I'm not so sure, to be honest. Perhaps I could ask to become a rainbird to even out the phoenix?" he suggests, leaning across to kiss Remi's cheek. "Are we going to live here, then?"
She’s a little late this time, not nearly as late as she had been to the order meeting (oops) but she arrives nonetheless, dressed for the part with boots that sink into the lush earth and dirt beneath her. She brings her tools, flashing a brilliant grin both Remi and Ronin’s way, breezing herself in as a light of sunshine all the while.
“It’s great to see you both again!” She chimes, hands finding their place on her hips over the tool belt, her blueprints hanging from her hip as she regards both men, then looks up into the tree they’re hovering around. “Is it a treehouse you have in mind?” She asks, head cocking as she considers it but grabs her blueprints and pencil regardless, prepared to make up the model of the building to make sure they have a visual for what’s in mind.
07-09-2021, 07:31 PM (This post was last modified: 07-09-2021, 07:31 PM by Remi.)
are you really going to talk about timing in times like these?
'A rain bird? Mmmm.' Remi hums, having absolutely no idea what such a thing might be like, but seeming intrigued. "Live here? Gods no. Do you remember how awful it was to have people banging on our door all hours of the night?" The alchemist gives a decisive shake of his head. "Work-life-balance, Ronin. After all these years, we're going to try for one." He says with a crooked grin, before waving Sera over as she appears through the columns of trees.
"Mmhmm. You will learn soon enough that neither the fae nor the wood itself takes kindly to things being cut down. Given how dense the trees are, building around them is really the only option." Certainly it was the most fun of the options.
'Well, shall we?'
First tasks!
1. Seraphina to sketch out a one-room tree-house, with a wrap-around porch
2. Ronin to fly into the tree and remove all dead limbs
3. Remi to relocate any nests currently in the tree.
remi
Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Work... life... balance?" Ronin furrows his brow, pretending to be bemused by it and flashing a grin to Sera as she approaches. "Good to see you too," he chimes, before turning his attention back up to the tree. "So where are we going to live?" he wonders, though he supposes that's a question for another time. For now there's a tree to clean up.
Ronin might be heard muttering to himself as he steps back - something like don't burn anything down, please don't burn anything down - and he takes a long breath in and out before a shudder ripples through him. Crimson feathers fan out from his arms, his clothing bleeding into black leather and golden starlight stitching. No fire - yet - but as he beats down with his wings and leaps into the tree, it's phoenix flame that will sear the dead branches and create space.
Ronin transforms into sexy!leather!Ronin and uses phoenix fire to sear away the dead tree limbs.
Building around the trees? Fair enough. It’s a prospect that has her staring up at the tree, sketching it out in her blueprints until the model portion reveals a tree, cleared out of the branches that Ronin is attempting to clear out. From there, she begins to lay out the base of the tree, fitting in the support systems into the center of the tree, making sure that it’s still able to sway with the winds that slip through the Greatwood without having it come down.
From there, she begins to build up the treehouse with the wrap around porch, a roof arched steep enough that the leaves and water have so place to pool or collect, and should in theory simply slip off the edges to collect on the floor. The building itself wraps around the main trunk of the tree, but in an artful way — hidden yet not, a part of the tree yet not.
“Hows this?” She asks to both Remi and Ronin, gesturing to the model she’s created with her blueprints.
are you really going to talk about timing in times like these?
As Ronin shifts, the alchemist holds his breath for fear of fire. He continues to hold it for a very different reason. Say what you will about Safrin—and he has—but the sleek leather that now clads his husband's body like a second skin is enough to have his mouth going slightly dry. "Of course." He mumbles to himself. Because of course Safrin would wrap Ronin up in animal skins that made him look impossibly and achingly handsome.
Gods Ronin. Remi thinks as his wings carry him above where his husband is burning away the dead boughs. Giving the Huntsman an imploring look—Sera had already seen Ronin more than naked; would she really be so offended if Remi just tore into his husband here and now?—Remi swallows as he reaches out for a nest filled with small blue eggs. Distributing the nest (and two others while he's at it), Remi flies back down toward Sera to admire her sketches.
"That,' he says cheerfully. "Is exactly what I had in mind." Waiting for Ronin to join them, the alchemist shoots his husband a guiltless grin. "We can go gather some wood—" Suggestive and a euphemism both, for which he isn't sorry. "If you want to clear away the last of the debris around here?"
1. Seraphina to clear debris!
2. Remi and Ronin to get wood.
remi
Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Yes, husband? Ronin nearly purrs in response to Remi's voice in his head, busy scorching away dead branches and making sure the ashes and cinders don't cause any damage to the forest floor. Once he's done and sure that there is no further debris to clear, he flutters down where Sera and Remi are peering over the sketch. He leaves his partial shift in place, though some of the longest flight feathers do morph back into his hands.
"I love it," he agrees, all sunny smiles and ridiculously tight leather, before he's raising his eyebrows at the Lullaby by his side. "Yeah," he agrees. "Wood." And of course from there, he's already heading off into the woods, cloaked in crimson feathers and darkness and starlight. "How much wood will we need?" he wonders, already eyeing up some fallen logs.
Remi’s cheerful response has Sera grinning, setting her blueprints aside on a rock that protrudes so that she can be of more use. The suggestion of the two boys going to get wood has Sera raising a brow, a smirk of mischief growing across her face as she averts her gaze to the task of the debris. “I’ve got it.” She calls back to them, offering a cheeky wave, before she’s stepping toward the last of the debris.
She clears away the branches into a pile, grabbing a makeshift rake of sorts to pull away the larger rocks so she doesn’t have to pick up each one individually, then moves onto the leaves to make sure that the ground is clear in order to keep any difficulties out of the way for when the building begins. And if she has any time left over she inspects the wood for the best place to add the supports.
Sera clears the debris and if she has any time left over (cough whatever the boys do while gathering wood cough) she inspects the tree for where to better place the supports.
are you really going to talk about timing in times like these?
How much wood? Well. "Always better to have too much than too little." Remi growls under his breath, unable to rid himself of the scent of adrenaline and mulch or the taste of leather, tangy on his tongue. So it is that if Remi comes back with a few twigs in his curls, one might be inclined to assume he had been very diligent in his wood gathering duties. And, he had been.
Humming under his breath with an ungodly amount of what are basically trees beneath his arms, Remi deposits his hoard where Sera has cleared a space. 'I do not often miss the things I could do before, but moving things with my mind was quite handy.' He says with a slow sigh and then a shrug.
Duplicating himself à la Ronin, another alchemist sporting a pair of wings appears. Both Remi and his duplicate pick up a log and fly into the air, before shooting an inquisitive stare down towards Sera. "Like this?" He calls down, unable to read her blueprints from in the tree, and so needing to rely on her directions.
1. Sera is the boss.
2. Remi and Ronin put the wood where she tells them.
remi
Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
There is no leather on Ronin when he returns from wood collecting, and his wings are safely tucked away beneath his skin again. And if there's a flush to his cheeks and leaves poking out of his shirt collar, well... it is what it is, right? He has his own hoard of trees, though it's a little smaller than Remi's (but then again he had extra wood to begin with, right? Right), and he deposits the stash near his husband's.
"Show off," he calls up to Remi, offering Sera a small smile and also creating a duplicate, though he needs his nimbus to get the first log up into the air. And it's a bit awkward, two Ronins on a cloud and a lot of wood between them (har har har) but he does his best. "Just say where you want it!" he calls.
Ronin flies up with his duplicate on his nimbus, ready to follow Sera's orders.
A chime and a snicker leave Sera with Ronin and Remi’s return, though she does offer a gasp of surprise and delight as Remi replicates himself just as she knows that Ronin can. Still, there’s a suspicious glimmer in his gaze as he looks back at the two of them, but Ronin also becomes two of himself and Sera grabs her blueprints, squinting through the trees to help guide them.
“Little to the left Remi and you’re set!” She calls up, marking the space on her blueprints, turning it slightly so she can line Ronin up too. “Ronin, just a little bit higher and you’ll place yours in between the branches there!” And it goes like this, small minor fiddling, but she manages to guide them the best she can, beaming up at them in excitement as it starts to unfold.
are you really going to talk about timing in times like these?
With two tongues sticking out of two pairs of lips, the alchemists do as Sera tells them (though it does take him a moment to realize that "to the left" applies only to one of himself, and not both).
So it goes that with Sera's guidance, the foundation is quickly and easily attached. The floors come in easily enough, leaving just the roof and finishing touches. "If you trust Ronin and I not to make a mess of it, we can finish off the roof while you build the stairs and place the door?" With four pairs of hands and at least two brains between them, Remi is quite sure he and Ronin can map out how the roof is supposed to go. And if not, even with her mind distracted by her own tasks, he's sure Sera will notice and tell them if they've gone awry.
'You know, with all the rain this is bound to catch, I wonder if we couldn't put barrels below to catch it. I know there is plenty of water around, but..." Well, the first thing he thinks of is a water feature, because such is his mind. The second thing though is: "Or perhaps we could route it and use it for a garden."
1. Sera to build the stairs and place the door!
2. Ronin and Remi to build the roof.
remi
Styling stolen from Sky (obviously)
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
And so it goes indeed; it's the sort of work that leaves Ronin with burning muscles and sweat trickling down the back of his neck, which is saying something given that only sex with Remi really causes that amount of fatigue for him these days. Still, he helps to arrange the foundation and the floors, and he and his duplicate are hovering where the roof ought to be going as Remi speaks.
"A garden? Thats sounds pretty nice," he admits - Ronin had missed a garden in Stormbreak, even though the alchemy shop had pretty much covered it, not to mention the florist next door. Still, as he hauls another sheath of wood up into the treeline, he's already thinking of the best way to get it done. "We'd need to have it slope, and maybe a water catcher to route it downwards," he suggests, already manoeuvring the logs to see if he can make it work. "Maybe some branches for thatch, to keep it insulated."
Scoffing suddenly, he bounces his eyebrows at Remi. "How many government buildings have we made together now?"
