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!
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
Finn swallows hard, but his mouth is dry and it nearly chokes him. He doesn't know what he expects from Tobi, not from the outburst he's already regretting, and when she speaks, leave them here isn't at all what he thinks he'll hear. "Oh," he says softly, fumbling to reach into his pockets, and when he retrieves the glasses case it's with an expression of exquisite pain that he regards them.
Slowly, he sets them down onto the table, and it feels like it takes an absurd amount of time before his fingers finally leave them be. But it's done, and he returns to the door and silently holds out his hand for her again, opening the way out into the world for them both. "Alright," he mumbles. "Let's go."
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
Stay, then. Or ask me to run away with you. Tobi thinks helplessly through the attuned bond that Finn doesn't have access to. Her emotions are golden and coiled, and they melt into dark and shallow pools of dread. 'You can think of this like...an experiment.' Tobi says once Finn has overcome the gravity of setting his glasses down. "Not all compartmentalizing is bad, and it might help if you can separate who you are when you're using your glasses, to who you are when you put them down." Sliding her mittened hand against his she lets him lead her into the hallway.
Almost unable to wait until they're outside, the deep breath Tobi takes of frigid LongNight air freezes her lungs and makes her cough out puffy clouds of air. It burns, painfully, but at least she can blame the shine of tears in her eyes on it.
we don't even ask for happiness; just a little less pain
"An experiment?" Finn mumbles, as if he's never heard of such a thing before. His brows draw together, puzzled, as they make their way out of the Tower and into the deep snow and the biting cold of Longnight. "I will see if that is helpful," he decides, only then the doctor is choking on the very air and Finn finds himself drawing to a halt, giving her hand a squeeze as if to ask if she is alright.
"So," he begins quietly, before they can go any further. "If this is maybe one of the last times I can be this person, until I get back from the Oerwoud..." He almost says do you want to get married, choking it back only because he knows it comes from Everest's anxieties and not his own. "Could we get cocoa, like we did last Longnight? And could I keep holding your hand like this?"
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
"An experiment." Tobi agrees. Experiments, unlike tests, couldn't be failed. Experiments, even unsuccessful ones, merely gave information.
"—'orry—." Tobi chokes, looking up into the starless sky and blinking away both real and reflexive tears. Giving his hand a reassuring squeeze she's surprised when he doesn't immediately set off again. What he asks has her laughing with surprise, wanting to reach out and nestle herself against his chest. Its been so long—a year as he points out—since they were like this last, and in the wonderful monotony of their strange family life, she's almost forgotten what it is to think of Finn as more than just her co-parent.
"MMmmm..." She hums, smiling up at him. "Let's try something new this year. I hear the stand has salted caramel hot chocolate." Tobi adds, before glancing down between their warm coats where their hands are clasped. Nodding a touch shyly, she swallows, and when she glances back up, her cheeks are round and flushed. "Yes, please. I like when you hold my hand."
"Something new?" Finn's tone is dryer that Hak Etme, and the look in his stormy eyes suggests that this alone has been enough to jolt him out of anything he might be thinking about left on the coffee table in her apartment. "Okay," he concedes, because he'll probably enjoy it. Probably. And it's only hot chocolate. (It absolutely is not). And so they do set off again, holding hands, their feet crunching in the snow that has been tamped down by dozens of footsteps that have come before.
"I like to hold your hand," Finn says to his shoes, though there's still a soft and dimpled smile on his face. "And I like to fall asleep next to you. I can't remember the last time I had nightmares," he admits, and though he tries to stop it, a brief creeping of sadness enters his tone. He wonders whether he will sleep at all once he has left Stormbreak.
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
"Something new." Because much as she cherished the memories of Finn covering her whipped cream against the snow, of trudging with him through snowdrifts and feeling her toes go numb sitting with him on a park bench, those memories were impossibly tangled with all that came next in their lives. New memories, then, even if the beverage was going to be fairly similar.
Like two awkward teenagers rather than adults who had been living with one another for nearly a year, Tobi bites at the inside of her cheek to keep her smile from growing too large. "I was worried when you first stayed over, that maybe you would take up too much of the bed." She admits. It's quite the opposite of course, and more often than not Finn wakes up with a fuzzy muzzle in the crook of his armpit.
"Hey." Tobi whispers, tugging gently on Finn's hand as she hears the sadness creeping into his voice. Smiling, feeling strong enough to carry them both again, she beams warmly at the father of her son, whose hand in hers is enough to give her butterflies. "You'll get through this." Saying we'll get through this feels a touch forbidden, especially given what she knows Ever has recently asked Finn.
Not remotely gruntled by this prospect of new things, somehow Finn still crunches through the snow with a lighter heart than he's had in what feels like forever. Almost definitely since receiving the letter addressed to the Spyglass, anyway, and as they turn onto the well lit streets towards the Pacifist Plaza, they are not the only couple strolling and holding hands. Finn's smile grows even if he doesn't look up entirely; it isn't often that either of them can pass for normal or like everyone else, but they're managing it just now.
"You were?" he pipes up, blinking his surprise and glancing across at her. "I don't, do I? I can always sleep somewhere else, I--" Visibly stopping himself from saying anything more, Finn takes a deep breath in and lets it out again, before smiling once more. "I'm glad it wasn't the case," he concludes.
And as his hand is tugged, Finn finds himself pulled a little closer; far from objecting to it, he gazes down at the bundled up doctor beside him. "Thank you," he almost whispers. "Perhaps I will even come home this time without needing a check up."
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
'Well of course. I've never lived with anyone before, other than my parents.' Tobi says breezily, shrugging off his concern before laughing in the spaces left by his concern. "I like sleeping in the same bed with you too." She adds reassuringly, and more than meaning it. It added some extra wrinkles to the question of what they were and what they weren't, but even on their worst days, it was more than worth it to have Finn around.
"Well, and even if you don't..." Tobi glances up at him, her eyes dark in the unnatural light falling around them. "..you live with a doctor now, which is quite convenient." It's hard almost, to hold his gaze, given how piercingly blue his eyes could be and how rarely they actually held each other's eye contact. So, looking away with a fluttery feeling in her chest, Tobi rearranges her fingers in her mittens and in Finn's hand. "Mmmm. Do you smell that?" She asks, picking up on the tang of salt and the heavy sweetness of caramel in the air.
"Really? I didn't realise," Finn says, then immediately feels like a fool for it. A year in each other's company and they'd barely had a deep conversation between them. With points of colour high on his cheeks at his faux pas, however late to the party it might be, he awkwardly clears his throat and gives her fingers a gentle squeeze rather than any verbal agreement, though that more than says it in itself.
"Doctor Hart, are you suggesting that you will be putting me through unnecessary medical procedures because we happen to live together?" he wants to know, and the stormy side eye he gives her is the most obvious evidence of the attempt at humour. But then they're onto the smell of salted caramel, and Finn lifts his head as if it will help.
"Not really," he admits - but then he has a canine strolling at his side. "But I do see the stall. Shall we?"
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
"I was always in school, and then working, and then.." Tobi shrugs. She'd been busy and alone and had liked it that way. If not for a handsome man and what was almost a one-night stand, things would have stayed that way and Tobi wouldn't have minded. Now, the thought of losing Finn, whether as a friend, a parent, or the whatever else they skirted the line of, terrified her.
Rolling her eyes up at him, Tobi scrunched her nose defiantly. "What I am suggesting Mr Rosencrantz, is that regardless of if you need a doctor, you have one at your beck and call." Beaming without effort, Tobi nods vigorously, and is all too happy to give Finn's hand a playful tug as if she means to drag him toward the stall.
Stepping up to the counter, the merchant eyes Finn before asking Tobi if he'd like his usual. 'Nope!' She answers brightly, ordering them instead two fully-loaded salted caramel hot chocolates. Rather than Finn's neat and contained usual, what Tobi hands him is a garish cup nearly overflowing with whipped cream that has been bejewelled with chunks of sea salt. "Here." She encourages, holding the drink out that she might dive into hers. "My mouth is watering already." Whether from the prospect of her drink of the twang of salt on her tongue hardly matters. Slorping at the whipped cream with pursed lips so that she needn't tilt the drink, Tobi comes away with a mouth and nose-tip made white, which she laughingly begins to lick away.
Finn isn't sure how he feels about being called Mr Rosencrantz, but before he can say very much about it all, the tug on his hand has him hopping over a small mound of memory snow and following after Tobi. Lit up by a variety of coloured lanterns and bustling with people, the Pacifist Plaza is practically the definition of merry tonight, and the merchant with his stall is no different. Tobi beats him to it (drat) and so instead of his perfectly enjoyable usual, the Spyglass is handed some towering concoction of whipped cream and sea salt.
Indeed, rather than instantly tucking into it, he's pleading with the merchant for a spoon and some napkins and, when he has obtained both, he turns back to the doctor. "Oh, you've got..." Without thinking, he reaches out to swipe the dot of cream from her nose with his fingertip, offering her one of his spoons just in case. "This is something," he remarks, trying a measured spoonful of cream specifically from the side of the cup, where it is already starting to melt.
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
While it might seem nearly romcom adorable that Finn has relieved Tobi's nose of its white spot, such has been part of their strange domestic life now for months: catching a tower of towels Tobi is folding before it collapses, removing smeared baby food from one of Tobi's sleeves, reaching out that her hair didn't inadvertently burn on the stove while her hands were full. "Thanks." She says with a grin, but already she's made her mouth into a vacuum to take in more of the cream, dotting her nose again seemingly without concern.
"Sitting down, maybe?" The doctor suggests as she accepts the spoon, nodding toward one of the benches that another couple has conveniently just left. Clearing off her nose using one of her mittens, Tobi softly sinks down. "I think it was that bench, over there." She mumbles in a sweet but quiet voice. "Last year. I think we sat on that one."
Smiling and wiping away the cream on one of his napkins, Finn won't admit it but the cream atop the hot chocolate is delicious, and he carefully scoops more of it away as he follows in Tobi's wake. "That sounds like a good idea," he agrees, sinking down onto the bench beside her and purposely breathing the tension out from his shoulders, his jaw and the rest of his upper body so he can enjoy the dance of lights and the glow of the snow.
"Hm? Was it?" Finn asks, but of course he remembers as well as he follows her gaze. "It was snowing," he remarks, trying for a sip of his chocolate once he's cleared enough of the cream away. And he's shocked by the heat of it; not scalding, but warm enough to fill his whole chest, it feels. "This was a good idea," he admits, as if he's doing so begrudgingly. "Though perhaps we can look at the other stalls as well? We are early enough."
when the night falls on you & you don't know what to do
"Mmmmhmm." Tobi agrees, glancing up into the pitch black sky and imagining the flurry of snow that had fallen on them that night. It would be wrong to say she's just as unsure about her relationship with Finn as she had been back then, but it would be equally wrong to say she had a good handle on things now.
Beaming at Finn over a mound of cream and sparkly salt, Tobi doesn't try to hide her delight that the hot chocolate isn't nearly so bad as they both knew Finn assumed it would be. "Sure, if you like. But first, I just wanted to say..." Tobi's cheeks round as she takes a moment to fight her lips that isn't bashful and amused. "Ever told me what the two of you talked about the other day." She begins, and then hurries on before Finn's stomach can slosh down to his ankles. "I think you handled it really well."
