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!
10-01-2021, 05:52 PM (This post was last modified: 10-01-2021, 05:53 PM by Remi.)
REMI
They're weird, these stairs.
With his arms folded across his chest and his body bundled up with scarves and cable-knit sweaters (thanks Vai), Remi looks like some strange wanderer as he stands at the base of the stairs, looking up with a frown. Experimentally he taps the bottom stair with the toe of his boot as if expecting the entire thing to shudder. It doesn't, holding completely fast despite the complete lack of structural reliability, which just makes Remi frown even harder.
Casting no shadow despite the bright light of the moon, the alchemist eventually gives up (or in), and sits down on the bottom stair despite his unease. With a stick between his fingers, he begins to wittle it using his thumbnail which had grown sharp and hooked while waiting for Isla to (hopefully) arrive.
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Isla has received the note, of course, and for a while she's not sure whether it's from Remi or from someone who's seen them wander out into King's End. It doesn't stop her from going, of course, when the moon is high and bouncing off the snow. She arrives bundled in a coat and scarf and gloves, despite not really needing them, bathed in ethereal light as she comes upon the man who casts no shadow.
"Well thank goodness it was you," she gushes, her smile audible even if it's hidden behind her scarf. "I was worried I was being lured out here to my doom, for a bit." Perhaps it's strange that she doesn't feel that way with Remi, but here we are. "It's really good to see you." And here the Remedy seems to soften considerably, and she holds out her arms either for a hug or whatever other greeting the alchemist feels comfortable giving.
The staccato crunch of snow beneath Isla's feet heralds her arrival before the moonlight catches on her, making her seem strangely ethereal in how it highlites her blue eyes, pale skin, and golden hair. "Of course it was." He says with a grin, rising and stretching out his hands for her. "Who else sends you notes you have to decipher if not me?" Varus was the obvious answer, but given that they lived together, such letters probably didn't need to be delivered.
"You too." He agrees, his arms comfortably sliding around her as they had so often in the past so that he might draw her tightly against him. Leaning his cheek against the top of her head and sighing his contentment, Remi smiles to himself. He couldn't feel her warmth because of what she was, but then, he couldn't feel much of anything at all through the layers of clothing that separated them, and perhaps that was for the best.
"Thanks for coming. If ever you can't..if ever you didn't show up, I would understand." Whether for personal or political reasons, there would come a time when she was unable to appear simply because he'd scrawled some charcoal on paper and sent it her way.
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Well, you never know. All this talk of war and relics," Isla says breezily, likely because it is not a breezy topic at all. She melts into his arms, giving him a warm squeeze that hopefully carries everything that her temperature won't. "It feels like forever since we last saw each other. We'll have to try and keep it to more than once a season," she decides, which is a much more eloquent way of saying I have really missed you.
Peering up at him as if she might be able to see how he is from gazing into his eyes and nothing more, Isla shakes her head and smiles. "I will always try to make these meetings. Rest assured, if ever I can't come for a reason that isn't accidental, I will let you know." Looking past him now, Isla can't help but seem curious. "Have you ever been here before?"
'You would think that being neighbours it would be easier.' He says, nodding against her and not needing to explain the sad reasons why that wasn't true. Remi would be perfectly content to simply stand with Isla in his arms, swaying her slightly in his grip and not saying anything at all, but for all the ways in which the Lullaby and Remedy were similar, Remi's romantic streak and sentimentality was not something they necessarily shared. Isla was far too practical for that, which was one of the reasons he loved her so much.
"No, I haven't." He replies, gazing down at her. In the back of his mind he realized he didn't remember what it felt like to kiss her and was temporarily distracted by wondering if that was a good or bad thing. "I had heard about it. A staircase that led nowhere. It seemed like an easy enough landmark to pick out." Remi adds with a soft shrug, letting Isla go and nodding his head at the stairs to suggest they sit. "Have you?"
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"You would, wouldn't you," she mumbles in agreement, letting out a long sigh and forcing herself to relax against the tension that wants to stiffen her muscles when she thinks of all the reasons they can't just jump across the border to have tea together. "Maybe we can see each other again, when this is all over." Because it will be over one day, though either they are both going to come out of the other side of it remains to be seen.
Releasing him, however hesitantly it might be, Isla peers over Remi's shoulder and up at the Last Step, her brow furrowing as she considers it. "No, I haven't either. I was here in King's End recently, but I didn't know about this place..." She tilts her head, moving alongside the Lullaby and considering, for a moment, climbing the steps to see what happens, before she sinks down beside him.
Remi's smile is quick and lacking in optimism. They were just speaking words to one another now, filling the silence with sounds that to anyone else would have seemed perfectly normal, but to Remi's ears just sounded like sad nostalgia for a time when they might have been true.
"Oh?" Raising a brow at her, inviting her to continue if it was the sort of subject they could talk about (and knowing it was entirely possible that it wasn't), he crinkles the skin above his nose as her eyes sweep up the stairs, not needing his empathy magic to know what she was thinking. "I don't like it." He mumbles of the strange architecture.
Trying not to make things awkward and simply letting their legs and hips touch where comfortable, Remi laces his fingers between his knees and shrugs. "I suppose not bad. The Greatwood has been...busy as of late. Before Ronin and I moved in hardly anyone ventured that way, and now suddenly it seems everyone wants to come and visit." With Isla, Remi doesn't bother trying to curb the disdain from his voice or his body language. "But other than that things are alright. I have told all the other lands that we will not be their allies so far as all their conflicts are concerned, so as far as leadership is concerned, things are relatively light."
Pressing his fingertips together, he glances across his shoulder at Isla, her complexion like porcelain, especially in the wintery chill of midnight. "How about you?"
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"You don't? I think it's interesting," Isla murmurs, though Remi undoubtedly has already gotten that impression. She's also not keen to make things awkward, allowing herself to lean comfortably against the Lullaby given their proximity, though she's gazing out across the snowy expanse of King's End as if it might hold the answer to their questions (the ones spoken and not).
She blinks herself out of it when he starts to speak of the Greatwood, not bothering to hide the way her eyes crinkle with her smile to hear him so grumpy about the visitors. "What a burden it must be to be popular," she says, giving him a wry nudge of her elbow for his trouble. As for how she has been, the Remedy furrows her brow a bit and shrugs her shoulders.
"We're still working on that mechanism for the Spire. Varus got turned to stone by a big snake in the Oerwoud, but it wasn't a permanent thing. Other than that excitement, things are... how they always are, I suppose. The Grounds seem lonely now though, if you know what I mean?"
"Things can be interesting and be unlikable." Remi counters slyly, simply being a shit for the sake of it. "Though really I don't like it because...I think once it probably did lead somewhere. Or lead up from somewhere. I don't think it's just a staircase." It was a gut feeling and nothing more, made perhaps more believable given the legends about this place.
Grumbling dramatically as he's nudged, Remi spreads his legs so that he might nudge her knee with his own. "Maybe I just never noticed it before. But now anytime someone steps into the Wood who doesn't live there...I take it personally." That was a characteristic both the beasts inside of Remi and the container that held them had in common.
"Ahh right. How is that going? He—what?" Turning sharply toward Isla now, Remi frowns. "Is he alright?" Pulling in a breath the alchemist keeps his shoulders turned toward Isla, nodding. "I do, yes. Ronin and I were just talking about something we had built out of memory snow the other day...outside of my shop, or where my shop used to be, in the Grounds. We were wondering if it was still there, until we realized neither of us was really in a position to come back and check." With a sort of angelic sadness, Remi smiles, before an idea strikes him.
'Do...do you think we could ever designate somewhere as being properly neutral? Even somewhere in the Wilds? Where we would all as leaders agree that we would...I don't know, protect it, or jointly punish anyone who committed certain acts there?"Is Remi, the least likely character, trying to establish the UN, you ask?
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Things and people," Isla counters with a shit-eating smile that suggests she's absolutely not talking about anyone in particular, absolutely not. Were it not for the snow, she'd lean back on her elbows on the steps, but as it is she contents herself with nudging Remi's knee back with her own, like they're in some sort of thumb war but for legs. "I don't think it is either. And I'd be really interested to know what it actually is, or what it used to be..."
Not really a conversation for now, though. "I'd be surprised if you didn't take it personally. You get quite attached to places," she remarks, before jumping a bit to hear him so suddenly worried about Varus (and maybe she's a bit happy about it? she's not sure). "I wasn't there when it happened but he seems fine," she says with a reassuring nod. "He's even got a new upgrade. Finger lasers, he's calling them." Isla chuckles.
She hasn't seen any random sculptures made of memory snow around the old guildhouses, but the medic does consider taking a closer look. "What was it?" she wonders, already half knowing the answer. "I could check."
But more interesting than snowdicks is the idea of neutral grounds, and Isla brightens with the idea, not having expected it from Remi but absolutely seeming on board with it. "Like Meadowreach? It's the last place I remember everyone coming together..."
That's exactly what it feels like, and whether or not it's cheating, Remi finds himself trying to hook one of his ankles over Isla's to prevent her leg from moving, all while looking completely innocent. "Well, you've got that fancy library beneath the Grounds, haven't you?" He says of Safrin's library, tilting his head and grinning. "Now if only there was a week of utter nothing coming up where you could let yourself be whisked away by a good book..."
Remi raises his brows and is forced to nod; what didn't Remi get attached to? But then they're on the subject of Varus which has the alchemist narrowing his eyes slightly as if to try and read between the lines of Isla's smile. "He was turned to stone...and got a new upgrade from it?"
Running his tongue along his teeth to try and diffuse his smile, Remi pulls in a considerate breath before casually saying: "a penis" and then letting Isla's ankle go as it seemed she'd won this point. 'Sure. Why not. We would all have to agree about it I think so that there's a way to enforce it, but...I mean...' Remi shrugs against the Remedy. "Why don't you ask the ascended? You've the most to lose or be worried about I think."
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Now it's Isla's turn to grumble dramatically, and she fights against Remi hooking her ankle with a frown that can barely be called grumpy, let along close to annoyed. "I don't think that Safrin's Library will be particularly welcoming to Ascended," she points out. "So I will probably have to stick to the regular old Atheneum, not that I expect there to be much information." Smiling triumphantly even though it's painfully apparent that Remi has let her 'win', she giggles at the look on his face.
"No, the two things aren't connected I don't think. He's just discovered it recently though, so he's excited." And he had asked if Varus was alright, so... yeah.
"I knew it," Isla says of the penis, snorting under her breath. "I can't promise I'll go looking for it on purpose, but I'll definitely keep an eye out." And as for the neutral grounds? Her expression is as hopeful as it is worried, and she tilts her head to let it rest against Remi's shoulder. "I'll ask them. I think it's a great idea, but I know a lot of them will be frightened that it's a way for the Old Gods to herd them somewhere to get rid of them. I suppose we'll need a few brave souls to make an example."
'I think Wessex has been down there before, hasn't she?" Vaguely Remi remembers something about...Jigano and Deimos and books that had sent them out before portals had been opened? Still, he gives his head a shake uncertainly. "Is something funny?" The alchemists asks of the Remedy's giggles, ignoring the way the sound of it made his stomach flop.
"Strange..." It was probably better that there wasn't a correlation, honestly. "I came across a gargoyle the other week. It was quite the thing." Biting at his lip, Remi looks into his hands as one of his feet tapped nervously against the base of the stair. "It...had to do with a relic." He admits after a moment in a low voice that sounds a touch guilty. "It was no joke, Isla." Turning his gaze back toward her, forcing his fingers against one another to still them against the things they wanted to do, Remi's jaw tenses for a moment before he continues. "Sunjata nearly died. His companion did die. I was alright, but.." Remi being alright was hardly a good litmus test of danger. "If your snake was guarding one as well..." Gods but this wasn't the sort of thing they should be talking about, given who and what they were, but concern for Isla's safety overrode even basic tactical decision making when it came to Remi. "...just don't underestimate it. Not ever, okay?"
The crisp air should have helped clear Remi's mind, but it didn't, nor did it cool the unhappy warmth spreading throughout his limbs. Leaning his cheek against the side of Isla's head, he nods stiffly and closes his eyes. "I didn't think of that. To make matters worse, it's possible that the gods do use it for that, even if it was my idea to begin with." Biting the inside of his cheek again, the movement of which Isla will likely feel against the top of her head, Remi sighs. "It was Remi's idea. Remi the demigod of the herald who wants the ascended dead." He says in a mocking voice.
honest feelings and bad timing make the most painful combination.
Code taken from Sky who is utter perfection
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Oh, she has? I'll have to speak to her about it in that case," Isla says, rallied a bit by the idea that perhaps they can use the knowledge at their fingertips after all. As for what's funny, she can only shrug against Remi, still grinning to herself. "The image of being turned to stone and coming out of it with a new superpower isn't funny to you?" she asks, before relaxing against him again. "Then again I suppose the amount of abilities you discover at random, it's not unheard of."
Talk of relics, gargoyles, danger and death is the perfect recipe to throw ice water on Isla's amusement, and she shifts just as uncomfortably as the man beside her. They shouldn't be having these conversations - not one bit. And yet, here they are. "I patched Sunjata up when I saw him in the Grounds. He mentioned, about Haai. I didn't want to bring it up unless you did - I don't want you to think that I'm snooping for information... But I don't want you to think I don't care, either. I'm glad you got out of it okay, Remi. And I'll be careful, I promise."
It's not the sort of promise that, even if she keeps it, will guarantee her safety, but it's the most she can do for now. Closing her eyes as well, Isla can feel the way Remi winds up like a spring coiling and tightening, and she reaches out to take his hand between both of her own without thinking. "I'd never let anyone think that, even if it did happen. Maybe it's something we need the gods' approval for, though. If we have the backing of them on this, there's less likelihood that something will go wrong, right?"
