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!
The Feverlands certainly looked like a place where the Prince would be, dank and wet and muddy as it was (Sam wondered if they'd even be able to notice his slime, what with all the other squirmy substances around), yet they still had had no luck in their search. So far, they had had no response to their calls, not even Edy's very enthusiastic ones, and he hadn't seen anything that looked like a suitable shelter for the sensitive creature.
It was beginning to get lighter, dawn definitely breaking above the thick treeline; they'd have to resume their search in the morning. They found a stone overhang, covered in moss and branches that formed almost an entranceway at the front: at first Sam had hoped they might find the Prince inside, but no luck: just the remnants of someone's old fire and some vague scratchings on the wall that meant something once.
At least it was somewhere to stay away from the sun. While he'd probably be alright, especially with the protection of the trees above, he was less sure about Edy. Besides, he was happy to have a moment to collect his thoughts. That, and...as disappointing as their search had been, Sam found himself almost giddly happy to be spending time with Edy. She made him laugh and though she teased, it never made him feel small - just like he was in on the joke. As much as he knew she'd probably point it out, he couldn't help sometimes just looking over at her in the little shelter with a wide, warm smile in moments of quiet.
"At least we don't have to worry about food." Edy remarks loudly, but in a conversational tone. 'Not unless there's...uh...is there an opposite of an eclipse?" Turning, hands on hips, the Rapacious raises her brows expectantly at Sam as if he should know things like this in virtue of always being around books. That, and he oooozed nerd, which didn't make much sense if you weren't actually one.
Right?
"It's a good thing I don't sweat any more or I think I'd have chafed from my ass down to my toes by now." Wearing a leather catsuit hadn't been one of Edy's best ideas, but if there was a silver lining to being an ascended, it was getting away with shit like this. Sighing heavily and sinking to the ground, Edy picks up two rocks to smash together the same way someone else might silently fidget with just one of them.
"I hate having to sleep." She offers, filling the silence easily. "Before I fucking loved sleeping. Naps?" Pressing her pointer finger against her thumb, Edy makes a circle and clucks under her tongue. "I could nap just about any time. Now it's like...all these extra hours in the day, and if I do try to sleep it's just.." Falling silent, Edy listens, and waits.
"It's like that. Fuck all, and I hate it."
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
"I don't think so. Even then, I mean...I'd like to think if we tried hard enough we might be able to get the Voice's attention. Perhaps. The Accepted can call down their Gods, so..." Sam shrugged loosely, unsure if his point really held any water or not. He'd summoned the Voice before, but always after drinking from an Accepted; from things she'd said in the past he felt like she could probably see where he was - so did she choose not to come, if they tried and failed?
Well, it wasn't important anyway right now, so he tried to stop thinking about it.
He did snort at the line about chafing. "I did think it was an odd choice of outfit. Trying to seduce the Prince, are you?" Sam asked, glancing at her sideways and smiling as he leaned forward to try and pull a branch down further over the entrance for more cover. Edy went about smashing rocks, which was decidedly less productive, but he didn't say anything and simply listened to her complain about sleep (or the lack thereof).
"It's hard, when it's new. But I've gotten good at...I don't know. Because I've been doing this so long now, I can lay down and just...relax myself into a mindset where I'm not as present as I am normally. It's not quite sleep, but it's the closest we can get." Leaning back, having decided the branch just wasn't coming, he turned towards her, moving his legs over and watching her hit her rocks. "But we don't have to sleep. I hope I'm not such awful company that you think you have to just to get out of it." Another joke (though a less fun one); he was on a roll.
"Oh they can, can't they...huh." Edy purses her lips thoughtfully. "We should bite one. Y'know, keep the Voice on standby just in case." Not having the same maternal relationship with the goddess that many of the ascended did, the Rapacious was perfectly fine thinking of herself as a machine and the Voice as her mechanic insofar as channelling was concerned. "Then again, that dragon shift Neron gave me was one of the best things I've ever felt."
Grinning as she trickles her fingertips up her thighs, Edy offers her counterpart a coquettish shrug. "Maaaybe. You haven't tried it, and if he'd pining over some lost love, maybe a good fuck is all he really needs to be motivated, you know?"
Pausing in her destruction to listen, Edy cocks her head slightly to the side as if unwilling to hear the honesty in Sam's words if only because of how easily being argumentative came to her. Crinkling her nose and huffing out unhappy acceptance, Edy chucks one of her rocks at the wall, pleased with the way the sound of it echoed into the cave. "Nah, you're not so bad." She replies smoothly. "So this war...y'think you're gonna die?"
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
"And who do you have in mind?" He asked with a laugh, trying to mentally go through the list of Accepted he knew and find one that wasn't clearly aligned against the Voice. Hearing Edrei mention she'd been a dragon...well, he hadn't seen it, but he could certainly see why she'd enjoy it. "I've gotten to fly a few times, mostly from Remi before he..." He gestured around vaguely in front of himself, trying to communicate 'got all weird and tied up with the Old Gods' wordlessly. "What did you do, as a dragon?"
Sam's eyes watched her fingertips trail up the leather for a moment before flicking away, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck as he suddenly became very interested in what was happening outside of their shelter. "Maybe, but I think even you might struggle to find it in you to do it. I'm sure you have some standards." As much as Sam was kind to the Prince in person, it couldn't really be denied that the creature was pretty disgusting.
Another rock thrown at the wall; he smiled and pushed his hair back as she admitted he wasn't all that bad. The question took that smile right away, though his answer was more pragmatic than despairing: "I'm not planning on it, but...I mean. I'm well aware I'm not the strongest or fastest. But I've lived so far, and I've been in a lot of danger in the last few years. So who knows? What do you think? About yourself, I mean?" Would the bold and courageous Edy show any fear?
"Won't any of 'em do?" Edy wonders, not at all worried about the political landscape the way Sam was. "I mean, the stronger ones first obviously, but..." Her boney shoulders rise and fall. Crinkling her nose at the mention of ReMi, Edy's gaze suddenly seems to darken as she grins. "Can't he turn into some really cool shit now? What if..." Bobbing her eyebrows, the Rapacious' voice suddenly lowers conspiratorily. "..you invited him over for a...I dunno, the thing ex-lovers do when they want to bitch and moan and then maybe fuck again. And I can be hiding in the corner, and then BAM. We both jump him, take a bite, and get to be cool monsters."
Twisting a bit of hair around her finger, Edy's lisp purse for a moment. "Fucked around in Halo. It was with Team Take-Back-Morgans-Throne. I ruined an entire town." She trills proudly, grinning. Having not seen the Prince up close, Edy just makes a chhtt sound with her tongue, declining to speak about her standards and how low they could go.
"Oh fuck off Sam," Edy mumbles kindly. "You're like...actually one of the strongest of us, aside from Wessex." Which was both a compliment for Sam, and a what the fuck is wrong with you to everyone else. "mnmmm..." Growing bored of rock-throwing, Edy pushes away from the wall and moves to utterly collapse by Sam the way a tired child might. "Technically I've already died once. Wessex killed me last LongNight with some weird magic blast." She mumbles, sounding a touch sulky.
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
"You think you can convince any given Accepted to let you bite them? With how things are right now?" Sam asked in disbelief, not allowing that one to slide. Edy liked to present herself as apart from the world's problems, but surely she had to be more aware of them than that.
Talk of Remi pulled him away from his train of thought though and he nodded at the question about his exe's shifts. He didn't know all that Remi could do nowadays, but Sam knew he was powerful. A small smile began to rest on his lips at her suggestion, the thought amusing, though he shook his head. "I'm pretty sure I've used up all the seductive power I have over Remi. And I don't think even both of us together could take him in a fight."
The smile grew larger, Sam quite amused by the idea of an Edy dragon going around smashing buildings (he didn't ask and chose to simply hope that they had not been occupied). "I'm surprised you ever turned yourself back into a human again." Of all the people Sam could imagine choosing to stay a dragon for life, Edy was top of the list.
He was surprised by her reaction to his answer about his chances in the war. Edy wasn't wrong, but it still felt odd to acknowledge his own strength when so much of his life had been spent being weak. Sam looked down at his hands, one gloved and one not, and flexed his fingers in and out a few times. "I guess. Doesn't feel like it, though. I'm still down a lot of upgrades from when I left the Voice and she took them away." It would be hard to tell if there was regret in his voice, because Sam himself wasn't sure.
Watching Edy collapse next to him, Sam turned towards her, leaning against the cave wall with the top of his shoulders and neck, legs in fancy formal pants stretched out on the dirty floor. "Yeah I...heard. I suppose I don't need to ask if you um, have any hard feelings about that?"
Interlacing her fingers so that they cracked deliciously when she bridged them, the Rapacious flashes the bookmaker a brilliantly white smile. "Convince them? Yeah. I think I could." It just wouldn't be with her words that she did the convincing. "It wouldn't have to be a fight really. Once we get our teeth in him, it'd be game over. He'd get all weak-kneed and boner-brained." Edy might not have seen Remi in years, but she was pretty sure she was nimble enough to get her teeth into him. Especially with Sam as a distraction.
"Huh...I wonder if any of the dragons in Halo are ascended." Because like Sam had assumed, Edy had actively considered just fucking off to raise permanent hell around Halo. "I could actually feel things again, you know? Fuck. Maybe I should have just stayed." Frowning now, Edy huffs under her breath despite the lack of need for oxygen.
Glancing at Sam the Rapacious considers. "Do you ever think we should like...share upgrades? Like...if we can take them out, why not swap them around when we need them?" They had their barracks after all, but it wasn't as if the weapons made out of steel were better than the ones crafted inside of their bodies.
Clucking under her tongue, Edy snarls for a moment as if silently holding a conversation with herself that her mouth was helpless to keep still about. "She killed me, then gave me some boohoo bullshit and since then the only thing she's said to me is, u HelPin Out In THe WaR?." Petulantly, Edy throws a rock across the cave. "Bitch."
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
"Oh yes, I'm sure that would really help the Ascended reputation as blood sucking monsters." Sam said dryly, looking across at Edy with a jokingly flat face. "Anyway, I don't think you could get close enough. He....he's very powerful, nowadays. I'm certain I wouldn't survive an encounter with him and if I'm as strong as you say, neither will you." His voice became serious towards the end, almost a warning or caution; he could just see Edy running confidently up to Remi and being crushed like a bug in an instant.
The dragons in Halo being Ascended was an interesting idea, but Sam quickly decided not to go too deep into it - with the Longnight Monsters having been confirmed to be once-Ascended, did they really need another problem for people caused by the Voice? Still, something Edy said did catch his attention. "Feel things? Like...like in the room at the Grounds? Or...what do you mean?"
His gloved hand turned as Edy spoke about sharing upgrades and after a moment's consideration, Sam shook his head. "Not most of them. They're pretty far embedded in us, I think. It would be too much of a hassle and too risky to remove every time. I think the Accepted are better at things they can remove, like this-" Sam pulled on the middle finger of the glove until it loosened and came off, revealing his missing three fingers, the joints ending in pale white stumps. "-Deimos made this glove for me."
And speaking of people he had a complicated past with, apparently Wessex was a touchy enough subject for Edy to start throwing rocks again. Not that Sam didn't get it. With a slight smile, he picked up a rock and threw it too, trying to aim for the same spot. "Mmm. Sometimes. I can never work her out. Sometimes I'm her brother and she wants to help, and sometimes...she stabs me."
"Look, I'm totally on board with your whole...negotiating for peace thing, but honestly? I don't think folk's opinions of the ascended are going to change, so.." So..fuck it, basically. "You know, that whole saying about wolves not caring about the opinions of sheep, or whatever." Twitching her lips from side to side, because yes she absolutely was thinking of rushing at Remi, the Rapacious just shrugs noncommittally.
"No like...hunger. And I could smell things again and sense them." Edy clarifies with a wistful sort of sigh. "If not Remi, maybe we could each take a chomp outta' Sunjata and go dragon around sometime. Wanna?" Bright eyed, Edy waggles her eyebrows in Sam's direction.
'What's risky? We aren't gonna bleed out or anything. And if Isla helped...I dunno. It might be useful." More interested in Sam's missing fingers than making her point, Edy immediately leans across to swipe at the place the bookmaker's missing digits should have been. "How the fuck did you manage to lose those?"
Listening to the clatter of the stone only to find herself suddenly delighted as another joined it, Edy nodded her head in fervent agreement. "Right? When I was queen she gave me a gift for it and I think we almost had sex once. And now it's like none of that even happened and she has cool new friends and I'm just nothing."
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
"And you're so confident that we're the wolves in that analogy?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow. Maybe he was suffering from a bad case of sad-little-nerd syndrome, but it was hard to see his family as anything but plucky underdogs at best, doomed delusional idiots at worst.
Anyway, being able to smell and sense hunger again did sound fascinating; it had been so long since Sam had experienced those things - he couldn't really bring to mind what hunger felt like. The idea of 'chomping' Sunjata though...it was so ridiculous that Sam couldn't help but laugh, fondly rolling his eyes towards Edy. "You know what? Alright. It's a plan, once we're done here. I'm sure Nate will just love it."
He tilted his head side to side on the risk of sharing upgrades; maybe he was just being paranoid. Any comment he had about it was lost when Edy reached over to touch where his fingers had once been and Sam automatically held his hand out towards her so she could looks closer. "...I gave them to Deimos. For a door...that..." He sighed, looking out of the cave at the light going through leaves. "...Killed Rexanna." Obviously, with how everything had panned out, he wouldn't do it again, but his fingers were gone and that was that.
Blinking a couple of times as he processed the various things Edy said about Wessex, Sam found another rock to throw, trying now to hit one of the old ones to skip it forward. "Wow. Um. When you say almost had sex...?"
"Well, there's no sense thinking we're the fucking sheep now is there." Edy counters, with a shrug. Such was the Launceleyn way of thinking.
It made her grin to hear Sam laugh, and if Edy had the sort of mind that noticed such things, she'd realize just what a rare thing it was as of late. "Nate can suck my dick if he has a problem with it." She says casually, meaning every word of it. "Besides he owes me. He shoved me into the ocean once just to get some pussy."
Pinching where Sam's fingers should have been and of course feeling nothing at all, Edy huffs thoughtfully. "You have that...what's it called, phantom limb thing?" She asks, waggling her own fingers in between the spaces left by Sam's mistakes. He mentions how it had happened, and rather than chastising or judging him for it, the Rapacious merely nods understandingly. If anyone knew what it was to try and do the right thing only to have it horribly backfire, it was Edy. "Shitty deal."
Making an ooh, almost hissing sound under her breath as Sam's rock nearly misses one of the old ones, Edy nods. "I mean...y'know, flirted, basically said we would. I was just an abandoned at the time so it wasn't like I needed the room, but..." Biting the inside of her lip, unable to decide if she was glad or disappointed that she'd never fucked Wessex, she picks up a rock and hurls it at the wall, hard enough for it to split. "But I've never really been close with anyone since coming here." Edy admits in a low voice, her cheeks taking on a silvery sheen. "How about you?"
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
Sam wished he could have the easy confidence Edrei embodied, but all he could do for now was smirk as he admired it from afar. The expression did falter as the conversation took a turn into Nate for some reason shoving Edy in the ocean for sex; he wasn't sure if he wanted to know that story or not.
"Isn't that where you can feel them after they're gone?" He asked, holding out a hand to take his glove back when she was done inspecting it and slipping it back over his missing parts, wiggling all his fingers together once he'd clipped it back into place. The magic really was amazing; when he had the glove on, he couldn't tell he had three fingers fake unless he really focused. Deimos' magic still held up and as odd as it felt to be using technology from someone that was one of their enemies, he didn't want to have to ask the Voice for more fingers.
Edrei's story trailed off, punctuated only by the sharp crack of the rock breaking against the wall. Sam tossed another towards hers, managing this time to skim the top of one of her previously thrown rocks and knock them both away, drawing skitterish white lines on the ground. "Wait, what? You haven't...I mean, I...don't be offended, but I got the impression you were always having sex. With a lot of people." His eyes glided up and down her outfit as if it were proof.
But as for him...Sam sighed and held his arms. "Well. I always say I only want to with someone I love. Or at least, I used to. Then I had several poorly thought out relationships in a row. Remi, Loren, Nate...I've slept with Nate recently, too. He um...we have an odd relationship now." With a shy laugh, he pushed a hand through his hair and looked to Edy. "It's a little awkward now anyway, since...well, people aren't expecting the body under my clothes. Though...I suppose you understand that better than most."
"Yep." She confirms, giving his gloved-hand one last look before shrugging. There are times when Edy's face can look soft and almost beautiful, and times where it's terrifying and murderous. And then there are times, like now, where it just looks angular and oddly young and old at the same time. "Yeah but sex isn't being close." Edy says after a moment, holding a rock between her fingers but not throwing it. Her expression turns sombre as she regards the rock, before hurling it at the wall.
Rolling her eyes at Remi's name, nodding in latent remembrance that Loren and Sam had been a thing, and then grinning her approval at Nate, Edy turns toward Sam. "Odd usually means real in my experience." She says with a half-smile. Whether that real thing was good or bad, she wouldn't be the one to judge.
"Nah, I mean...most folks can usually see right away that I have a dick now. Or I find some way to tell them." Edy remarks, gesturing to the flaccid bulge between her legs where her intentionally-tight leather pants happily gathered. She had noticed Sam's body, the day in the Oasis, but it had never really occurred to her to remark on it. "People expect too much." Edy decides eventually. "They needed to broaden their fucking horizons."
"Go fuck yourself." "Fuck me yourself, you coward."
