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!
09-20-2021, 07:02 PM (This post was last modified: 10-01-2021, 04:04 PM by Cian.)
CIAN
the eye
'Is everything ready?'
Beneath the Temple is a crypt. Walls of jagged stone lit only by the glow of a few torches make the caverns and halls feel as ominous and full of uncertainty as one would expect. The dead do not breathe and stir, so the only sounds for the walls to produce an echo of are the spluttering of flames and the breaths of the two souls who currently find themselves in the dark. The third does not possess a soul, nor breathe, for all the noise she makes.
The hollows of Cian's face are emphasized by the fire from the torch he holds, and yet despite the warmth his eyes are still a cold blue. "The doors are locked? The passage sealed?" He wonders in a gravely voice, an eyebrow raised.
Gideon had attended to the Crypts for years now, but he'd never thought they would be used for such a purpose. When he had been asked he had immediately agreed, of course; while he would have to be sure to clean any...remnants, lest the spirits grow agitated again, this was some of the most direct action they could take.
"It is." He said with a nod, placing an old key into a heavy wooden door with an iron keyhole, pushing as it creaked open slowly, revealing a dark but dimly lit space within. Between the stone caskets and statues, there was everything they would need, laid out meticulously like a surgeon's tools. Gideon had always been neat.
Walking in first, Gideon turned to face Cian and their guest and gestured for them to enter.
In Torchline one moment, heading towards a shrine, trying not to look at the water, at the salt-laced sea –
And then in chains the next.
But she was a rippling, coursing fiend the second she woke up – snarling, hissing, as if she’d been brought up from the deep again, or perhaps deep in a forest, dwelling in eldritch eaves and tirades. Her fangs were bared, eyes flickering back and forth, from one figure to the next, in this cold, stark room with too many dastardly promises held within it. “Oh, the coward,” and she sneered, longing to lunge, to reach out, towards Gideon. If only she had her knives in her grasp.
More than once she maneuvered, making a racket amidst the chains, intending to move the chair. A singular demand slipped past her lips – even if she had no way to ensure it happened. Desperation hadn’t fully gripped into her lungs and veins yet. “Let me go.”
Let's go to war to make peace Let's be cold to create heat
Tsking softly under his breath, the Eye offers Mabel a warm smile that seems to thaw the blue of his gaze. "We will let you go, I promise you that." He offered, straightening. Clasping his hands behind his back, Cian moves to stand just out of Mabel's reach. Looking at her not as one does a grotesque and wild animal but some abstract painting to be studied and considered, he lets his eyes rove over her wild hair and pale skin.
"I have this book." He explains to her in a conversational tone that seems entirely inappropriate given their current setting. "In it I am given...hints you might say, clues, about what is to come. Sometimes I know enough to fill in the gaps that it leaves, but sometimes I do not." The Eye continues. "Now, of course you would not help willingly, which is why I have had to ask Gideon to lend his considerable talents. I know you do not feel pain the way I do, but..." He shrugs softly. "..there are ways of making you feel uncomfortable. My hope is that you will see reason, tell me what I want to know before things take too unfortunate a turn, so that we can free you from your restraints."
Opening his hands, palms facing upwards, he seems to imply that how far they go is entirely up to her.
A disdainful, quiet laugh left Gideon as she branded him a coward. Mabel really was not in the position to be throwing out insults and he would remember that later when he applied whatever force they had to.
For the moment though, he stayed stood back. Cian had the floor, was the main instigator of this mission; Gideon was only there to represent the Church and use his, as Cian put it, 'talents'. Holy Obligations, Gideon would probably call them, but he wasn't going to argue. Instead he stood a little behind Mabel, arms crossed and listening, waiting until he would be needed and hoping that by the end of this, fear would have entered her heart (or whatever was left of it) at least a little.
A long hiss threatened to snag and grate down the back of her throat again, but she was moved into silence by the piercing weight of the other man’s gaze. She stilled, almost eerily so, a snarl yearning to reveal fangs once more. But her eyes went to the book, furrowing her brows, about hints and clues, about gaps and trails, about assistance she had zero desire to implement.
Maybe she could just lie. Forge and deceive and fabricate her way out of it.
Be set free.
Get ahold of one of her knives, somehow, someway, and stab them all in the throat.
Her eyes went briefly to Gideon behind her, a subtle shift like a predator lying in the boundaries of the shadows, entirely unaware of just how far the snare had pulled and snagged. A promise, in those depths, of death and desecration the moment she had another opportunity.
Then she turned back to Cian, a chin jutting out with an air of sedition. “And just what am I supposed to tell you?”
Let's go to war to make peace Let's be cold to create heat
"Why, what the ascended have been up to, of course." Cian answers conversationally, smiling warmly. "Their progress when it comes to relics, specifically."
Straightening, the Eye clasps his hands behind his back and gives Melita an almost apologetic smile. "I don't know about you, but this is not my first time doing this. What I have learned over the years is that at first the temptation to lie or try and deceive is simply too strong. What's worse is that even if you came right out and told me the truth, I wouldn't believe it. You can understand why, can't you?"
Cian glances over his shoulder towards Gideon, and nods once.
"Now, what Gideon is going to start with are a few small spheres of sunlight. He is going to cut off your fingertips and insert them into the skin. Think of it a bit like...needles beneath the fingertips for those of us who could feel pain like that. Of course because you can't, different measures have to be employed, but you understand."
He was not expecting to be called on so quickly, but Gideon would not hesitate in his work. Cian was not who he considered to be his leader, but their goals aligned in this endeavour and he was happy to be the man's tool for now. Going to the table, he picked up a matte black bowl filled with small marbles, and a knife.
Kneeling before Mabel, he looked her in the eyes once then busied himself with her hands. No hesitation in the way the knife slid up her fingertips, slicing and revealing the clear fluid and flesh the Voice created out of once-living people. The sight disgusted him far more than his own actions might have and without remorse, he went to lift the marbles out of the bowl. They shone like the sun; painless in his own hand, simply warm and reminiscent of a Longheat day. In Mabel's hand, though....
He pressed one hard against an exposed fingertip, then another. Another, and another, until she would speak. Each marble would hiss and sizzle as it made contact, burning the connections and flesh within her hands as fluid dripped to the floor.
A snarl rippled through her again, and she fought her tethers once more. A series of thrashing endeavors began, even if they were all for naught – fighting her bindings, the methods yearning to be utilized, the cruelty in the wicked fallacies beginning to reach a point. She couldn’t even look as her fingertips were ceased and taken; no pain, no agony, not yet. But she’d hiss and sneer, and would make it no easier for any of the other participants in this hellish game. “Bastards! Pieces of shit!” You'll pay. All of you will.
And only when the torment came over her did her entire body seize, and then simultaneously ripple, shudder, and contort. This was torture in the worst way – because she’d been the one to give away her senses, her notions of what aches were. It seemed to burn her from the inside out, and she shrieked, screeched, screamed, and wailed, vicious and unrelenting. “Stop! I didn’t do anything! We don’t have anything!”
Let's go to war to make peace Let's be cold to create heat
Watching with a completely neutral expression, Cian's brow only furrows when Mabel shrieks at the end. Twitching his lips as he pulls in a breath, the Eye reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a cigarette and ornate lighter. He doesn't offer Gideon one, not with the work the other man will have to do, but he will later.
"I wish for us both that I could believe you and put an end to all of this. But I know you're so much stronger that you seem, and I know your hate runs deep. It will fuel you right up until the very end." He replies, offering the ascended a rather helpless shrug as if he had no choice in this.
"Tell me what the ascended know of the relics so far. Where you have been looking." So saying, he nods toward Gideon, his eyes flicking toward a blade, faintly glimmering in the light. "Gideon is going to make small cuts on your ankles that your fluid might slowly begin to drain from you." Holding out his cigarette, he chuckles. "It is why I'm smoking now, you understand. Soon, things will be far too flammable for that."
Mabel's screams reached Gideon's ears but not his heart; had she been anyone else, anything else, he would have felt sympathy, but all he heard now was the failings of a machine made to replicate what could never be recreated. Taking the stones away as his next instruction came from Cian, he nodded and stood to find the right blade from the few he had laid out on the table.
For a moment, he glanced back and wondered if it would be prudent to collect the fluid, but she would have plenty after she was deactivated. They could let some go to waste. He just hoped the spirits wouldn't be offended by the drips her ankles would make. He'd have to mop up afterwards.
Idle thoughts of cleaning aside, he took the knife and once again, without looking at Mabel's face, knelt to do his work diligently. He cut where the major vein in the ankle was, where he assumed the Voice pushed her fluid through her children. "That will flow nicely." Gideon commented, once he had made both cuts, and stood up to go and wipe his hands clean of the mess.
“Stop it!” She hollered and howled from the top of her lungs; pitches high and eldritch, and she wished she was half the abomination some of her siblings were; just so she could rip them apart with her bare hands. So she could tear them from limb to limb. So she could riddle and rankle them with bludgeoned holes and nothing, nothing, nothing left; not even their bones.
Mabel flailed some more, as if that would help, as if she could do anything but growl and hiss and be consumed by the wretched pain flaring and flickering over her senses. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She hadn’t done anything.
The tears springing down her features were unbidden, couldn’t be helped. “Get the fuck away from me!” she growled and fumed to Gideon again, intermingling it with what remained of her fingers clenching tightly, where muscles wound and sunlight struck. “We don’t have any of your fucking relic shit! I’ve only been to the Peepholes!” And there’d been no success there. So why were they bothering? What did it matter?
Let's go to war to make peace Let's be cold to create heat
Cian's smile and gaze remained warm, especially when it was directed toward Gideon who received an approving nod from the Eye. The Priest was well versed in this and quite clever. He might even make a fine Eye one day should his inclinations to the gods ever waiver enough that he could accept another duty.
But ah, that's off-topic.
"That I do believe." Cian says with a nod. "I think if you had found any of the relics, this little book of mine would tell me." This is said with all the warmth of some paternal figure consoling a hurt child. But of course like Gideon, Cian saw Mabel as anything but a creature capable of hurt or life. She was circuits wired together to mimic human qualities, and as convincing as the charade was, again like Gideon, he was not bothered by it.
"The Peepholes though...why ever would you venture there?"
Gideon wiped his hands off with a small towel, facing away from the interrogator and prisoner for a moment as he looked over his tools, wondered which he might be asked to use next. There were some that would end the questioning rather too soon, but he also thought they may be running out of smaller measures. Hopefully they'd get some good information from her soon.
Like Cian, his interest was taken with the mention of the Peepholes. Gideon turned and watched Mabel carefully, a light frown on his brow as Cian asked the question on his own mind.
