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 never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
Melita didn’t like goodbyes, and in her young life, there’d been a colossal, painful, string of them. And this one seemed doomed to be more arduous than the last.
Very tentatively, very hesitantly, she picked her way through Haulani. The incensed outrage from the latest encounter from Sunjata had faded off while she wandered through city streets and market squares, so by the time she got to the building, all the embers had turned to cinders, ash, and dust. Her breaths were no longer fumes, no longer unfurled by smoke, no longer contorted into some feral monstrosity. Dimmed and smothered, barely smoldering, under the plausible weight that this encounter could yield.
So, she lifted her hand, let it hover over the door for a moment. Fangorn rumbled something incoherent, and she frowned, gazed down at the ground, before knocking along the frame. The sound resounded, echoed, crashed within her ears. “Nate?” She called – maybe hoping he wasn’t there.
The only question, despite the agonizing amount spiraling through her mind (how do you keep enduring him? and what were you thinking crossing into the web and refrains).
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
There is thankfully not much to actually go about fixing in the Wren Society. Not that it is going to stand as anything more than an empty reminder of more hopeful times, in a place he can no longer call home, but it still feels wrong to leave it broken, defiled. Besides, it’s not hard, he’s only been here an hour and the window is already nearly replaced, Nate hammering in nails when he hears the creak of the front door and sighs.
He’s meant to put up a sign. Had the thought, forgotten the supplies, and then decided it would probably be fine. Who would be coming by anyway? Then the voice drifts through the building, lingering like a haunting spirit, and Nate snaps up, all of his attention on the door.
“Mel?” A newly shorn head peeks out from one of the back rooms, bright blue eyes widening as Nate drops whatever he’d been holding with a thunk and rushing into the front room, his arms opening for a hug as he comes closer, and then... stops. Close enough that the scar spanning his head is visible, that the uncertainty is clear in his face.
Hands close into loose fists, then fall to his side while Nate works his jaw, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry.” He settles on after a breath, his gaze dropping to the ground. “I should’ve... should be... I missed you.”
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
I never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
She waited for the echoes of silence, for it to creep around her heart and nestle there into the unknown. A delay, maybe. Procrastination of the inevitable. It meant there wouldn’t be any more broken things lined in her wake, and she could forge onward for one more day, one more hour, one more moment, without splinters and fractures careening beside her.
But then the voice coiled out of the back rooms – and her head lifted from the opening door, and she had to look him in the face, in the flesh. For half a second she wasn’t the dimmed youth; curiosity and confusion taking over her features as her gilded eyes took in the alterations: shorn head, large scar over the top of his cranium, and she blinked, stupidly, at his appearance. “What happened to you?” It came out in a rush, without the masks and pretenses, without much thought, carrying multiple meanings and gestures. Her hands nearly went to the marks, lifting partway, before sliding down to her sides. Like the stopped hug; each meeting one another halfway and not knowing which direction to maneuver towards.
“I don’t know what you’re apologizing for,” and she shook her head, the long crimson locks flickering out like flames. Her fists balled together again, clenching, unclenching, but eyes spiraling back to him. “I’m sorry for staying away. But I couldn’t-,” deal with his shit might have occupied the empty space.
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
It’s amazing how quickly he forgets something that had been so big, confusion knitting his brows together when she asks what happened. “Nothing, I do- oh.” Nate’s hand lifts to brush against the short scruff on his head, a sheepish smile tugging at his mouth. “I uh... I helped out Isla with a... with a hypothesis. It’s fine.” He turns the force of his smile into his niece, something desperate and forced in it. “I’m fine.” Dropping into a crouch, Nate tips his head, scar and all, towards her. “Y’can touch if you want. It’s soft.”
But she’s not here for jokes, not here for softness, and the grin drops away from Nate like a stone in the water. “I just...” He starts, eyes focusing on Melita only when she looks away from him, and locked on the ground again when she turns to him. “You don’t have to be sorry Mel. I... I get it. I do. I fuckin’...” A paradoxically breathless laugh huffs out of him, his hands coming up to rub at his face, to hide him away even more. “I’d be mad too.”
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
I never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
“For what?” Her hands didn’t roam, inspect, or comb through, but her eyes wandered over the scar, not understanding, not comprehending, what felt like anything at this point. If he was fine then she probably should’ve left it there – not prying any further, not piercing herself into any more cracks and fissures. That seemed to be how she kept losing everyone. Maybe. It was difficult to tell anymore.
But then that was where they ended up; back at this broken bridge and ridge and like she had no foundation to stand on. That she had the right to be angry, furious, with the lot of them, but it was still mostly centered around Sunjata. Should she have been contemptuous and loathing towards Nate too? For always being some epitome and paragon of forgiveness? She just knew that wasn’t her. “I already talked to him.” If there was some bitterness and rancor in her tone, the youth didn’t bother hiding it. “He didn’t tell me where you were all moving to.” And that hurt, smarted, right in between the plains of her ribs. “Just that you were going to be gone.” Everything else nestled, immersed within, had found its way to pain and anguish.
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
Melita doesn't reach out for him, so Nate lifts a hand himself, brushing back and forth over the short hair on his head. "It was uh... she needed to know something about brains, and I uh... wanted to help." His hand slows, brushing just a little too close to the scarring on his head before he drags it back down to his side and refocuses on his niece.
"Oh?" His tone is cautiously optimistic, Nate perking up for a moment before hardening again, his brows knitting together in a single unhappy line. "The Boondocks, in King's End. Someplace... quiet. Quieter than here." There had been no peace in what felt like months, and while some of it was self-inflicted, mistakes and poor choices biting them in the ass, some measure of pain always seemed to simply be waiting. "I can't imagine you'll want to come with us, but.... you'll always have a place, if you need it."
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
I never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
She stared, still momentarily confused, at the prospects of researching, of carving into skulls and staring at brains. “Oh,” was a stupefied, unmeasured response, blinking steadily, once or twice, before narrowing her eyes in the same modified bewilderment. “Did she…find what she wanted?”
Lighter tones for lighter conversations perhaps, giving way to the footfalls of heavier boundaries and steps. Nate was far more willing to give the necessary information – not that Melita would do anything with it, save keep it for herself. “It’s quite beautiful there,” wistfully, airily, in some course of agreement over peace, over quiet. She wasn’t certain Sunjata knew what either of those things were. Nor Nate, nowadays. “Thanks for letting me know. Do you…” and she stared at the ground then, suddenly feeling very unwelcome with the whole thing. “Do you think anyone would mind if I visit?” If she somehow pulled herself together, without the rage, without the fury, aimed at one individual in particular?
But as far as her going, staying, the fiery youth shook her head. “I have things to do here.” Something choked in the back of her throat, and she had to look away. “But I’ll keep the house in order.” The one they were leaving behind. Maybe she’d fill it with more animals so it wouldn’t seem so empty, so vast, without the reeling of life and forces parading through it at all hours.
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
“She put me back together, so I think so.” Another joke that feels like it falls flat, though Nate manages to laugh at this one, a thin little helpless giggle leaving him. But the conversation only darkens, stormy seas swallowing them up and quieting Nate’s mirth. “It is beautiful.” He agrees readily, hoping the backdrop of the Boondocks is what they need to settle into people again, instead of alarms and blades.
Nate’s heart all but curdles in his chest at the uncertainty in Melita’s voice, guilt that he doesn’t know how to assuage beginning to fill his lungs. “Of course not.” The words come out quietly at first, before Nate is clearing his throat, all but demanding her full attention. “You can visit whenever you want. I mean it, we’ll always have a place for you.” Even if it sits unused, even if she never comes.
“I know you do.” The words are soft, strangled by a quiet sorrow, but Nate doesn’t look away. He owes that much at least. “I appreciate that, ‘Lita.” He tries to force a smile to his face, and when it crumbles under its own hopeful weight he reaches out instead, tugging Melita into a firm hug. “We’ll be back now and then too. Sunjata... more than me, with the way things are going, but... I’ll visit.” The promise is whispered into her wild, fiery halo, Nate pressing as much sincerity as he can into each word.
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
I never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
She had nothing to add about minds and the opening of skulls, managed to curl her fingers together, hands folding in front of her for want of something else to do; fidgeting, restless. But what Nate said thereafter nearly made her eyes tear up – holding back a score of them with some rapid blinking, dashing away any escapees across her cheek. “Okay. Thank you.” Because any notion of family was soon to be gone from this place – even the ones she didn’t think she’d ever wanted or craved, and that spurned her heart too.
It’d been a long time since she was alone.
And maybe she couldn’t think of it that way. Not when she had Fangorn, the Ark crew, and an assembly of friends along the beach. She didn’t give it, didn’t allow it, further weight, because then Nate swept her up in a hug, and her arms reached out to encircle him as best she could, clutching, clinging, her face hidden somewhere along his chest – trying desperately to keep it all together. “I’m sorry you have to go.” That he suddenly wasn’t welcome here, or that Sunjata’s antics, or perhaps a combination there every other fucking thing, had made the world seem so deplorable. “Do you need anything?” Words muffled, strangled, choked out of her, like reality spun on its axis.
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
A flicker crosses Nates face that he doesn’t bother trying to hide, the tears in his nieces eyes making his chest ache with pain too great to paper over. “We... chose a spot near the coast. Jack knows where, so... you can visit while you’re sailing.” Sure, the goal was some isolation, but not everyone needed to be locked out. He already saw precious little of Melita, there was no need to drive that amount down to nothing.
“I’m sorry too.” Nate murmurs, his hand lifting to cradle the back of Melita’s head while he presses his cheek to her crown. If he had any right to, he would demand she come too, would insist on having every member of his family within arms reach, but that is line he doesn’t want to cross, the cost of it too great still. Instead he steals the time he can now. “I don’t think I need anything, unless there’s anything you wanna let me take with us.” A not so subtle suggestion, just tongue in cheek enough that it properly came off like a joke.
He does follow it up with a sincere question though, a mirror of her own. “Is there anything you want left behind? We’re not taking everything, so... if there’s anything specific.”
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
I never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
Something about the words – about Jack knowing well before her – churned a vile semblance of bitterness in her throat. She swallowed it down, not wanting to ruin anything, but it was still acrid and biting, saying so much more about her place in the world, in theirs than she’d realized. The ache didn’t solidify, but rested and pulsed, like a proportion to rip apart later.
But with nothing needed, with her not required, the youth had little else to give. Her spirit and mettle could only go so far. Her drive and willpower couldn’t streak across through veins and vestiges. Nor could her vehemence. “What about my bat? Then you can have two Barts again,” muffled and mumbled within the fabric of his shirt, meant to be a joke, to be something funny and akin to amusements, rather than these broken, stranded things. “Or a couple of nice rocks.” Mementos and keepsakes of her ramblings and journeys.
Nate’s sincerity wasn’t lost on her either, but for a moment her mind drew blank. The space would be so empty without the constant, unfurling noise, without the cacophony of chaos. It’d be completely different – obscure. Just the sound of the waves rushing against rocks outside. “I can’t think of anything now – but you can surprise me.”
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
It takes everything Nate has to not give voice to the sound that wants to instinctually claw from him at the mention of Melita’s bat, a high pitched bark of laughter leaving him instead. “I don’t know your bat will cope with the snow in the Boondocks.” He points out as delicately as he can, rubbing her back in the smallest gesture of comfort he can summon. “Rocks would be nice. I’d need some nice ones for the windowsill in the kitchen, and some for the garden.”
“I will.” He promises, all but making it a challenge. “I will surprise you.” his mind drifts to scavengers hunts, surprises hidden in cupboards, waiting to be found long after they’re gone. It might be quiet, might be emptier, but the house will have their fingerprints on it forever, Nate will make sure of it.
There’s something wet in Nate’s chest when he clears his throat, something fragile in his voice when he speaks. “You’re gonna come visit me, right?”
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
I never had a chance to be soft I was always bloody knuckles
The bark of his laughter sounded far better than anything else that could have ricocheted or reflected in turn; allowing for a smile to bloom along her mouth, pressing inwards, striving for it to reach the sanction of her ribs. “Okay. Any colors you had in mind?” Stones she could always do – diving headlong into the reaches and stretches of the world for vivid hues and dazzling colors. An occupation of her mind when everything else seemed so readily available to distort and deceive.
The challenge, the promise, laden within should’ve inspired a series of conspiracies and revolutions in her head – but she could only half-heartedly laugh. Eager for it to be true and real, instead of all these fault lines and despairing pieces of hope. Tucked within his wall of arms and chest and assurances were other notions and sentiments: fears she wouldn’t give voice to, a rise in panic and chaos barbing down the length of her throat. It wasn’t the time. It wasn’t the place. Melita wasn’t certain there’d be one.
But the fragility to come wasn’t lost on her, and her brows furrowed, eyes rising upwards to stare at him. “Would I lie to you?” Uncertain if she was hurt by the remark or simply traipsing into other emotions, the youth tried desperately not to harden into a piece of ember or coal, burning from the inside out. “I can send a letter before I come, if that makes things easier.” Instead of showing up unannounced (a very Melita thing to do).
and shards of glass I wanted people to be afraid of hurting me
Nate doesn’t even need to think before he’s answering. “Red. Any warm colours, but red is my favourite.” It’s a specific request, enough to occupy her, to force her to think about him for a little bit longer after he leaves. He doesn’t want to be forgotten so easily, just because he isn’t actually around.
“You don’t have to send a letter Mel.” The words are soft, and his eyes are as watery as the smile that spans his face. “You treat it like home, because it’s home. You got that?” Nate cups her cheek gently. “I’m gonna make sure you have a room, a place to stay whenever you need it.” A sanctuary, as much as he could provide it. A home.
I would never call him enemy He's the bad god I need
