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!
07-24-2021, 10:45 PM (This post was last modified: 07-28-2021, 02:40 AM by Hotaru.)
Hotaru
Our hearts we have sold For diamonds and gold
It takes a few days to make the journey. Ironically it’s not the journey itself that’s hard - no, it’s escaping the combined watchful eyes of Remi and Vai. Luckily neither are around at all hours, but Hotaru is sure when she returns there will be hell to pay. She doesn’t mind. It’s a novelty, to be so cared for, even if that concern is centered mostly around the children tied masterfully in slings around her torso.
She is surprised by how mild both infants are. Exhausted though she is by virtue of all that has happened in a few short weeks, they are neither of them the fussy kind, and for that she is selfishly grateful. It makes the days easier, and travel more so.
Deimos’ letter had broken the boulder atop her chest that had stolen all breath and replaced it only with the tight wedge of anxiety. Both he and Noah lived, and escaped at that. It gets her through the days of walking, incapable of shifting to carry her children without the aid of someone else’s hands.
Having never been to Kings End, she makes camp in the first open prairie she finds, and sets up a fire even though it is daytime. The smoke will draw his eye, she is confident in that. And so she relaxes, feeding each babe when they awaken and begin to make small noises of discontent. And then they sleep, bellies full, and Hotaru is left alone to wait, staring into the crackling flames.
But baby take a look We have it all
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
The press of morning had permitted him a stretch of wings, some decent slumber from roosting and allowing Belial to keep watch of their makeshift stance, and then a whisper of plumage brought him towards a shrine at the top of the barrows. Inlet and altar-ed, pressings of graves and wounds of old, ancient and primordial, had him glancing along the height of the venue and looking down, down, down upon the land. The spread of a world where circumstances had bled into the region, and how it reflected back. In between shifts, he sighed, head bowed, apologies rendered in silence for all the things he couldn’t do, couldn’t salvage, couldn’t save, and placed a star-rimmed mirror at its ramparts, pressed in amongst the stone and other offerings.
And from there, he flew again – to more promises and more potential, to more prowess and restless boughs, to the intertwining of smoke rising down below, to what letters had meant and signified. Twins. Safety. Friends who hadn’t fallen to pieces, but stole back something from the void.
The eagle’s eyes were strong and forbearing too, as they caught glimpses of the individuals upon his descent, one feral screech, one echoing throng: Ru, before the deliberation was on, twisting and turning, tucking and falling, until wings opened up once more and it was just the Sword and the Valkyrie and two little ones. Only when he stood before them did he open up his arms, for her to go wherever she felt, or to pass a child over, or anything else but be away any longer.
Every small dot against the sky is examined, letting hawk sharpness come to her eyes to determine whether it is the man she’s waiting for or a passing creature.
The minutes crawl.
Every second feels like a chafe against her skin. He doesn’t keep her waiting long - he never does - but by time the winds are carrying him to her she feels raw and tight with contained, restless energy. Somewhere in her mind, she knows something is wrong with her. The letter to Sunjata, the sneaking away for what has become far too many days of travel, the way she looks at the twins. She doesn’t even want to name the emotions that strangle her even as she gazes down at her sleeping infants. Ru knows how much she has gained, and yet it feels as if all has been lost. Tiny testaments to her failure that she can neither abandon nor connect with.
Deimos’ touching of her mind comes at just the right moment, yanking her head to the sky like a balloon tugged by its string. Deimos, is the proverbial hand reaching for divinity just out of reach, and the wall around her emotions trembles ominously. He dives, and she rises to meet him, her children bundled and sleeping in the slings she’d re-fashioned into beds. Stepping away from them just to be safe, the woman flings herself into the Sword’s arms as they rise towards her. Nails bite and pierce desperation into the thick of his shoulders as her arms rise up around his ribs. Clawing, pressing, feet scarcely touching grass. The wall crumbles, and behind it is a void, a sinking hole of a depression she can’t control, has never experienced so keenly. Like the flame he has always embodied, Deimos is the only light she can see, and she throws herself upon his pyre for a brief moment of warmth.
Her breath heaves, a sharp keening noise burning her throat as she inhales, his shirt twisting and bunching beneath grasping hands. “Deimos,” she chokes. No other words will come. Heat stabs behind her eyes. Every muscle is cooked and yet shakes as if she’s seizing. Only just managing to refrain from begging him for help - unsure what it is she even needs. He’s here and that should be enough. If she’d lost him…the darkness yawns, fangs bared, skimming across raw nerves with the same terror she’d felt for days before his letter had arrived.
But baby take a look We have it all
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
But it wasn't just the Valkyrie, Sword, and two little ones.
Preoccupied for the nights as he had been with Ronin, it took very little time indeed for Remi to realize that Hotaru was gone when he'd gone to check on her. Predatory as he was in the majority of his shifts, picking up Hotaru's trail was quite easy. Picking up the trail of his twins was easier still.
With his heart hammering in his throat and dark thoughts planting seeds his imagination was all too keen to fertilize as he flew, the manticore tracks and follows, burning from the inside out. Nevermind that the trip would have taken her at least a week and he'd have absolutely caught up before this xD.
Eventually what he sees below—Deimos with his arms outstretched toward Hotaru and the twins—has the manticore's teeth grinding together. What Remi feels isn't jealousy of course, but an insatiable need to protect and keep safe the lives he'd played a part in creating. Lives that, when Deimos and Hotaru were together, seemed always in jeopardy. Landing with wings flared and ears pinned into his halo of wind-swept mane, the manticore fixes seething and hurt-filled eyes upon Valkyrie and Sword as he positions himself between the two of them and where Hotaru has bundled the twins away to sleep.
The alchemist doesn't bother to temper the hot wind of confusion, anger, and distress that he feels, letting it gust toward the reunited friends as his fanning wings hides his children from view. A coup staged in Halo while you were pregnant. A flight over the mountains that lead to early labour. And now this. Remi's words are thickly accented as his mental speech normally makes them, but they're tempered somewhat by the bewilderment he feels that Hotaru could be so consistently reckless.
get out of my waters
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
There were waves of bewilderment; why she’d brought the babies all the way out here, and then measures of relief. Safe and sound, for the most part, if they continued to ignore the emotional scars and the patterns he’d yet to name, yet to truly see. The Sword didn’t bend to anything else, permitting her his strong shoulders and might for another moment, a fixture in time, before everything else collided and careened. His eyes ghosted over the forms of the sleeping children while she seemed to crumble; picking her up, bringing her along, back towards the infants –
More might’ve been said, might’ve been extended, might’ve been upheld or asked, had another not immediately descended.
A strange complexity stole over his brows as the manticore appeared; as if working out the machinations in his head, as if pondering more reasons, more multitudes, until some modicum of understanding must’ve passed through. A release, and he backed away from all of them, nothing coating his features now, save for an arch of a brow in Hotaru’s direction. As if several sudden, overwhelming clarities came to light, all bombarding into senses and minds.
Remi, by introduction, a cool and calm contrast, a sigh on the brim of anger, confusion, and distress intermingling through bonds and attuned adornments.
If she feels his confusion, it’s swallowed by the tar inside her, thick and black and drowning. Her feet are pulled from the ground in an easy measured stride, and for a moment she’s weightless - and she thinks maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe she can do this. Then she feels the downdraft of another winged form at her back.
It feels like ripping glue off her skin to turn her head from Deimos’ chest, but when she has she gazes blankly at the wing that hides her children from her. Inside the cat snarls, but the human simply…stares. The words that batter at her don’t encourage much more of a reaction.
Remi’s emotions, however, won’t be ignored. But from her side of the bond there is only that thick, clinging tar. A void of nothingness, with only the faintest terror and confusion beyond. Would you rather I had not flown? A strangely accented murmur, almost detached. She could have died, then. Free of this horrible pit she can’t remember falling into and can’t find a way out of.
Hotaru slowly releases Deimos, but her hands lay limp at her sides as she stares at where the twins are hidden by one tawny wing. I don’t… Ru shudders, and she blinks glassy eyes quickly. I don’t feel right. I should want to kill you for what you’re doing. They’d spoken of death so many times, it’s almost a requirement for their reunions. But I don’t. And there it is, the heart opening up - she wants to loathe the twins, but she loves them beyond all reason at the same time. Leaving them with Vai or Remi hadn’t been a possibility to her, because surely only she could keep them safe. But had the thought that perhaps they all might perish had appealed to her in the dark moments where they slumbered against her chest?
Yes. Oh, it had.
I needed to see he was okay. The rest…is fuzzy. Only the incessant terror that every moment wasted she may lose him.
Finally looking into Remi’s lion face, Hotaru’s fingers spread slowly in a gesture of helpless defeat. Would she have asked him for help, if she’d even had the wherewithal to know there was something wrong with her brain currently? After all he’d done, all she now owes him? Her armor - her worth - has been stripped like rotted bark, and she won’t look down to see what’s revealed.
Maybe that’s why she’d come, instead of writing back asking Deimos to come to her. He is her touchstone. Surely he would know if something was wrong with her?
But baby take a look We have it all
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
For the moment, too tangled in his own anger and confusion, Remi ignores Deimos' greeting altogether.
I would rather you have not put yourself in needless danger. And why? Because Safrin wanted control over Halo? He snarls, wings still fanned and stretched wide. Your decisions have consequences that put our children in danger. So while no, flying over the mountains was all she could do, he would have preferred she didn't set coups and invasions into motion while pregnant. That it was because of one of Safrin's whims only made it worse.
Hotaru's mention of wanting to kill him has the manticore narrowing his pale stare. Father to the twins though he is, Remi understands the feral instincts not necessarily of a mother, but of one who needs to protect. Even so, his tense muscles do not ease. I do not care. He snarls. Deimos could have been here dying and still I would not care. Remi had always put his family first, in some cases to a fault.
You swore to me you would do what was best for them. That you would put them first and keep them safe. He adds, his mental voice growing more musical and hard to understand as his anger turns brassy and hot.
get out of my waters
Coding base by Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
He stood, still and silent, as the rage circled and ensued; back and forth, and for another few moments he only wanted to be a wall. Remi’s rage was understandable, Ru’s responses confusing, everything rattling and clustering into coiled, incendiary fragments that shouldn’t have happened at all. Deimos had the same argument about the pregnancy and coup before – not that she’d listened to it.
The Sword was likely treading on dangerous grounds, but the fault was not entirely on Ru for this instance. Honestly, and still maintaining his calm, he pinpointed his response through the Attuned measures. I asked her to meet me here, though I was not aware the twins would be coming along. Which apparently had not been the smoothest or wisest course; but he’d own his mistakes with forthright candor. I did not believe I would be welcome in the Greatwood, given the circumstances. Like sedition and invasions and defeats, refugee or rebel status, depending on perspectives. Politics, for the most part.
His anger is hot and metallic, and yet she presses closer to it mentally. It burns something clearer in her head, melting away the clinging threads of darkness. Deimos’ voice is a rumble of safety and security, but Ru moves towards Remi instead, only to jolt as she realizes her hand had gone back to clutch Deimos’ shirt and tethered her. She doesn’t remember reaching.
I did promise, she says vaguely, feeling detached and vague. Standing there for a moment she takes a shuddering breath. But I hate them. Why do I hate them? I don’t want to, I love them so much. What’s wrong with me? Hotaru doesn’t break into noisy tears. Instead her shoulders curl inward, heat trailing down her cheeks as she stares at Remi’s paws vacantly. I thought Deimos would know what was me. Because I don’t.And neither would you, goes unspoken. Hotaru was his friend, yes, but Remi was here for the children, not her - she hadn’t had faith he would know what was truly the Valkyrie, and what was some sort of…illness? Curse? Surely it had to be, because she never would feel this way, about any child - and certainly not her own.
I didn’t mean to, whispers through, almost a whimper. There’s more horror than pleading. It’s like half-awakening from sleep. Surrounded by their emotions, Ru feels a little clearer, and she feels abruptly sick. Turning away, she gags, manfully keeping down what is surely only bile with how little she’d eaten since leaving the Greatwood. Part of her is horrified and wants to tell Remi to take them, far away from her and whatever is fucked up in her head. The other part screams at the mere notion. I’m - I’m so sorry, it’s a little hysterical, and unclear who Hotaru is apologizing to. All of them, really.
But baby take a look We have it all
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
This scar I can't reverse, when the more it heals the worse it hurts
Turning narrowed green eyes toward the Sword, the words tumble as if on warm thermals in Remi's mind and out toward the hunter's. So you thought it a good idea to ask a woman who had just given birth, to travel across the continent? He demands, his fury unflinching. Unable to properly roll his eyes in this form, Remi instead coils his tail into a tight loop over his back. You had just been in the Greatwood. The alchemist counters. Juniper said as much. Did she tell you that you were not welcome? Did it not occur to you to write and see, or are you so selfish that you thought you deserved a reprieve away from the mess you had made. Gods but it would be so much easier to just kill everyone who made his life more difficult.
What Hotaru says, or doesn't say more aptly, calms Remi considerably if only because it makes what needs to happen in his mind absolutely clear. He too, hates and loves these children. Unlike their mother though, he'd never place them in danger. He'd fended off a dragon for them, and crossed the continent to make sure they were safe.
How dare you. He whispers now, shifting back into himself. Peering at Hotaru with eyes that matched her own in colour but not emotion, Remi gives his head a stern shake. "Your apology is not good enough." He replies, his tone matter-of-fact. 'And were you to give one—' Remi says, now looking to Deimos, "—it would not be good enough either. Destroy bars and guilds all you like. Poke bears and then run when they come from you. Destroy your own lives all you want, as is your right. But how dare you put their lives at risk."
The Lullaby's lip curls up in a snarl as wings press outward from his back. Whatever mental break the Valkyrie was suffering, whatever poor judgement the Sword might wield as an excuse, Remi had absolutely no time for. "The twins will be in the Greatwood should you care to see them. They will not be the first children raised on the milk of cows and sheep and they will not be the last." The underlying implication of course being that they were staying with Remi.
Reaching out for the two bundles of cloth that held Enzo and Flora, Remi would begin to sling them against his body. Gods help Deimos and Hotaru should they try and stop him.
REMI
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
07-28-2021, 09:30 AM (This post was last modified: 07-29-2021, 09:42 AM by Deimos.)
Whoa, you let your feet run wild
Time has come as we all go down
Remi could turn the stare on him all he wanted. The Sword remained steadfast and calm. “I gave you my reason. But I have taken no reprieve.” As much as he might’ve wanted to. This certainly wasn’t. Plans had been made and were in the waiting stages; actions deliberated, even if he had craved to recede into nothing. He knew the mess. Wove his way straight into it. And he was so god damn tired of it all.
He couldn’t say anything in regards to Juniper, since he’d never outrightly asked and the thread hasn’t finished yet, save for if he was disturbing the place. Given that timelines were seemingly irrelevant and arguments were not correlating together – by not venturing forth and muddling in other political components, he believed he’d been handling it accordingly. No one maimed, no one shackled, tethered, or tied to stupefying measures. Remi had simply taken it upon himself to make wild assumptions. Understandable, given all of these bizarre situations, but grossly mishandled. What Deimos believed perfectly reasonable seemed to unfurl into ridiculous amounts and degrees.
Or that Ru wanted her children dead? Was she using this moment as an excuse? Why would she want them maimed or gone, when Basin days had been all about cherishing her offspring? His confusion towards her was befuddling, bewildering, exchanged over the bonds. What is going on?
The Lullaby’s words echoed again, and Deimos stifled the sigh warring its way through his chest. Poked bears or followed a goddess’s orders? Run or escape imprisonment? A twist and turn of everything they’d managed to do simply so it could attribute to Remi’s own manifestations and appeals. Would it have been better for them to have been caught? Tortured? Tormented? “It had not been my intention.” But no matter what he did, the actions seemed to befuddle and conjure into shambles, disarray, a tangle, a jumble, a web. And he kept stepping in them – no matter how innocent the gesture. Everything mislaid, misplayed. “I have not endangered your children.” Hadn’t asked them to be brought here. Hadn’t touched them. Had tried to ensure Ru didn’t participate in any coup while pregnant (she hadn’t listened). And he certainly wasn’t going to stop a father from protecting his own.
Something that clearly the parents needed to resolve amongst themselves. "I will be over there," pointing in the direction of several barrows, and then walking away, granting and giving opportunities on motions without his presence.
Frankly Hotaru is too scattered to focus on whatever the two men are saying to one another. She doesn’t care about much anything at all, so she doesn’t react until Deimos’ bewilderment reaches her. Turning she stared up at him, tortured. I don’t know. I don’t know, so I needed to see you. It’s not…me. And surely he can feel the terror that radiates from her at the idea. She may not be able to control the emotions themselves, but Hotaru can tell they aren’t right.
Remi’s shift back to a man pulls her attention, and Hotaru respects him enough not to wince at the lash of his words. It is nothing she doesn’t deserve, doesn’t wholeheartedly agree with. Still, she stares after him, lost. The urge to take her children back is an empty void in her breast. It’s like fumbling in the dark for the light switch, hands feeling along empty walls, memory failing but certain it should be there beneath your palm.
His anger over the individual actions breezes past her. They’d talked of each event before, perhaps not at length but enough. They are failings she can own. This one? She doesn’t even know where to start.
“I want to see them, of course I do,” her voice trembles as she speaks in mind, foregoing to Attuned link. “But I want to be better first. This…this isn’t the sort of mother I am.” The kind she was was the one he’d seen, crying tears of joy on Vai’s bed, pressing kisses to small foreheads.
There’s the urge to apologize again, to ask him to keep them safe. But even as he spits and glowers, Hotaru is firm in the belief that they cannot be safer than with Remi. It lends a strange gratitude that flows outwards from her to the two men. The primal part of her purrs with satisfaction - she has chosen a good mate, one who would go to any lengths to protect their young. Even from their own mother. Her voice clogs on the desire to thank him. It would be well received, at least not in this moment. Later, she tells herself. Clinging to wavering certainty that there will be a later. That this can be fixed.
She can’t entertain the idea that it can’t be.
But baby take a look We have it all
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
This scar I can't reverse, when the more it heals the worse it hurts
Well you certainly seem far away from the destruction you've caused. The alchemist counters. Far from Halo. Far from Torchline. Nearly as far away as one could get. If hiding away in the Wilds wasn't a reprieve, then perhaps Deimos was just a coward.
Not a mind reader by any stretch, as the Sword fails to answer Remi's WiLd AsSumPtIonS, it leaves him looking all the guiltier and indifferent to the pain he'd caused. Intentions hardly matter. There is a bright chord of hatred now that sings outward; a coiling dislike and distrust for a man who could stand there and simply shrug his shoulders and say it hadn't been his intention as if that meant a gods damned thing.
You have though. Everything around you seems to burn and come out wrong. Just being around you endangers them, as it has endangered everyone else. Only Remi didn't care about everyone else. Only Enzo and Flora. You will keep your distance from them.
Remi has to cage the reply of are you sure? behind his teeth as he sets his eyes upon Hotaru. All her children were dead; how sure was the Valkyrie that this wasn't exactly the sort of mother she was? With no capacity or context for what it was Hotaru was going through, the alchemist can only interpret her actions as he was seeing them play out. Snarling to himself as anger blurs his vision, Remi's grasp on his twins is nonetheless delicate and intentionally gentle. "Alright my young ones." He whispers to them once they're secured against his sides. "Time to go home."
With his hands over their small heads to brace them against the wind of flight, Remi raises into the air and departs back toward the Greatwood without a glance back.
~FIN
REMI
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
