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!
Remi loved his husband more than he could say on a good day, but just now as they flew home in silence, as the Huntsman suggested whiskey and a soak in their hotspring, content to let Remi feel his feelings until the Lullaby was ready to speak, he felt fit to burst with an easy and overwhelming affection for his counterpart.
With his arms stretched over the rocks and the water slowly dissolving both grime and blood from his skin, Remi sighs and pulls his eyes away from the darkened sky toward his husband. 'Sorry,' He mumbles, with a smile, unaware of just how much time had passed since they'd shed their clothes and slipped into the water. "I had a lot to process."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"You don't need to apologise." Ronin has been soaking away the barely-there-bruises in the hotspring, content to let his husband process to his heart's content. Indeed, he's bonelessly relaxed against the stones of their hotspring, his hair damp with the steam, his eyes closed and a soft smile on his face. Only now that Remi is able to speak does he blink his eyes back open, reaching back for the cold, cold glass of whiskey he's poured for himself and taking a generous sip.
"It was a bit of an anticlimax," he remarks. "With the basilisk, I mean. And I know you'd been feeling wound up about it all since we got the letter." Murderous blueballs, then, was the result. "Just let me know if this isn't cutting it, and I'll go under the water and bite your toes."
"An anticlimax is exactly what it felt like. Especially after how things went in the desert." Rather than soothed, the ease with which he and his husband learned from their mistakes made Remi feel cagey and unsatisfied. "Seeing Finn didn't help." He adds, balling up a bit of snow in his fist and forcing himself to hold it there until it was nothing more than chilly water in his palm.
Glancing over his shoulder with a grin, Remi bobs his eyebrows. "Well, you did hit me...what? 9 times today? 12?" He shrugs, having lost count after the initial barrage. "I hate to say it, but I felt...stronger than last time even. We could have stayed in there much longer despite what you and Deimos were doing."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Only you could be upset that things didn't turn into a shitshow, like in the desert," Ronin says with a breathly chuckle, already sneaking through the water so he can sidle up to sit behind his husband in the hot water leaning in to press his lips to the crook of his neck and shoulder. "I bet it didn't. It has been a long time since you saw him last, right?" he mumbles, speaking the words against Remi's skin even as his hands work to clean away dust and blood.
Still, he winces at the reminder of how much damage he'd done to his husband that evening, wrinkling his nose. "I don't hate to hear it, even if you hate saying it," he mumbles. "I hate hurting you even though I know you can take it. It's different to sparring - I'm never aiming for you." Sighing, he lets his head loll against Remi's curls and blinks up into the dark, starless sky.
10-24-2021, 08:42 PM (This post was last modified: 10-24-2021, 08:45 PM by Remi.)
i've got a river for a soul
"Listen," Remi mutters defensively, turning toward Ronin. "I just felt....wound up is all. And now I'm still.." Absently he gestures with his hands, splashing slightly in the water to indicate his unsteady state of mind. Humming a note of relief to feel his husband close, the alchemist relaxes back into the Huntsman's embrace and lets his eyes slip shut. "Mmmmmmhmm." He murmurs noncommittally. "I don't remember when I last saw him, actually." Had it been real? Or in a dream? It was hard to pin down what was reality and what wasn't, when for someone like Remi, dreams could be both.
"I know you do." Letting his hands slip beneath the water to massage the tension from Ronin's thighs. "I did not like his magic at all. It felt...slimy and dark. Deathly, which is a bit ironic, but it wasn't the sort of death I have ever felt before." It was like drowning, or sinking in quicksand.
"The relic though...if it could allow an ascended to shift, do you think it could allow anyone to?"
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Mmm, well if this soak in a hotspring doesn't do the trick, we'll see what else we can do to get you unwound," Ronin says, even if that involves his husband tearing through the LongNight sky as a manticore to seek out something to kill. For now, though, he merely relaxes and winds his arms around the Lullaby beneath the water. "Do you think going to see him would help? Or would it make it worse?" he asks. "I thought you were on better terms now." Especially with Finn's son regularly staying at the boat, and with Ever and Mateo appearing to be best friends.
His eyes slipping shut, Ronin smiles against his husband's jaw as he feels skilled fingers working against tense muscles. "Slimy magic." He wrinkles his nose. "Sounds lovely. And I'm not sure. If it's a relic for an Ascended I imagine not, but... I suppose you would need to test it with an Accepted or an Abandoned, right?" Or a demigod goes unsaid, mainly because Ronin still feels a bit silly referring to themselves by those terms.
Raising his arms that he might place his palms on top of Ronin's hands, Remi lets his head slip back against his husband's shoulder. "I think it's just one of those things." Remi replies, sounding tired. "I don't know that there is a better, so much as there's just not worse." Certainly seeing Finn under these situations hadn't helped the strange complex the alchemist had when it came to the Spyglass. "But it's fine. I'm fine. I'll just...leave it alone." And, depending on what had happened with the dreamcatcher, that might be more or less true.
"Mmmhmm." He agrees, shifting himself slightly so that the water came up to his chin. "I wonder if there is attuned blood in it. That might explain how it works for an ascended. But if that's the case, I can't see how it would work for anyone else." Unless something about the amulet itself made it possible? "I suppose it's the Order's problem, now." By which of course he meant Cian.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"It's the worst when it's one of those things," Ronin murmurs, furrowing his brow. He can't profess to understand even a small amount of what goes on between the Spyglass and his husband, but at the same time... "I didn't want to say it while we were there, but you really do look alike," he admits, not sure whether he likes that confession or not. "I think that's enough to make it weird all by itself." So maybe it's best if Remi does leave it alone.
"Well," he says of the relic, "if it's meant to be some ridiculously powerful bullshit, I suppose anything that normally makes sense can just be disregarded. And besides, you're right - it's the Order's problem now." He also means Cian, despite being a part of that very same Order. "Gods, I love you." The declaration comes riding out on a sigh, Ronin blinking his eyes open. "So what's it going to be? Sleep off your itchy bones, or try to work that energy out?"
Silently, Remi nods and even though his eyes are already closed, he feels as if he's closed them again in agreement. "His eyes are blue." The alchemist interjects as if this difference matters. 'Mmmm. If we didn't look so much alike, I'm not sure we would ever have known each other over and above the Order." He continues, honestly not knowing if he'd have preferred that future. He should have preferred it, and yet..
'Well said.' Chuckling and turning in his husband's arms, Remi links his arms around Ronin's neck. "Did you ever think about keeping it?" He wonders, letting himself drift forward such that his lips against Ronin's were almost accidental.
"I still feel far too drained to go wreak havoc in the Woods, I think." Remi admits with a weary smile. "I think unless there was the perfect prey to chase after I would just find myself more unsatisfied."
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Are they? I couldn't tell, in the dark," Ronin says softly, though there's no part of him that doesn't believe Remi in this. "Well... he and his blue eyes are safely sequestered away in Stormbreak for now, at least. And me and mine are right here with you." Turning his head, he playfully nibbles at the shell of Remi's ear as if to try and shake some joviality back into their conversation.
His eyes open in time for Remi to slip his arms around his neck, and the Huntsman lets his hands ghost down the length of the other man's back, drifting beneath the water with ease. "Hm...? No, strangely. Not even for a second - it's going to sound really weird, but it... It didn't feel like it was for me," he says with a soft chuckle.
As for the woods and prey, he smirks against Remi's lips. "I could always be your perfect prey," he offers. "But maybe tomorrow? For now I'm happy to carry you home and tuck you into bed."
Indeed Remi might have remained gloomy and in a state of Finn-depression had it not been for Ronin. Grinning despite himself, Remi leans forward to kiss his husband more properly, while at the same time reaching for one of the icecubes in his whiskey glass that he might press it against the Huntsman's neck.
Accepting whatever retaliation he'd earned himself, the alchemist will tuck his legs around Ronin's to anchor his body there. "Oh no? Rock snake not you?" Despite his skeptical stare, the alchemist did very much understand what Ronin had meant. No part of Remi had thought of asking for the item either, and now that it was safe with Finn the Order, he probably wouldn't think about it again.
'Maybe tomorrow.' Remi agrees, not bothering to add that were it tonight, he'd absolutely be inclined to kill something. "So...a new Vi demigod, huh." He murmurs, stalling that he might cook in the water a little longer.
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"You are always such a twat with icecubes," Ronin hisses, helpless where Remi is draped in his lap, though he still tries to wiggle to the side and away from the cold flash against his neck. Said retaliation comes in the form of soft, relentless kisses and obnoxious pulses of sweet joy and relief that Remi is alright, as if the Huntsman's aim is to bamboozle him with his love.
"Not like that," he says through a laugh regarding the snake. "I mean literally. It felt like it was for someone else. This one wasn't for me, you know? The same way you didn't think you could let the rapier go, I didn't think I could keep the amulet." He shakes his head, giving up on explaining it more than that; his head already hurts.
Happy for Remi to stall for as long as he likes, Ronin settles deeper in the water and lets his fingers trace slow and gentle patterns against the alchemist's lower back. "Mm, a new Vi demigod. Do you think that means Amalia is..." He doesn't really know how to phrase it. AWOL? Giving up? Not part of the war? "...Either way, we should probably help out Noah where we can. That kind of responsibility is rough."
'I have no idea what you mean.' Remi says with a smile, though the boyish flush of emotion that ripples out from his fingertips seems to cast doubt on this attempt at innocence.
"Oh so you think there's something out there for you, then?" Though Remi's lips pull into a thoughtful frown, the light from the ice-balls they've made reveals the shit-eating sparkle that glints in his eyes. "Maybe next we'll find a golden plate with neverending food. Maybe a set of fuzzy golden handcuffs?"
Trying to trick his mind into drifting as easily as his body currently was, Remi sighs heavily as his fingers cease their trickery and instead move to Ronin's neck. Kneading the Huntsman's shoulders, the alchemist nods his head a few times. "Well. There are no duplicates of us so far. Though at one point Rae did have a set of twins, didn't they?" Maybe that was a poor example, given that Rae was twins themselves. "When Amalia came back last time...she didn't seem...I mean..." Frowning, Remi lets his gaze refocus on Ronin's. "Did she seem herself to you?"
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Maybe," Ronin echoes, though his thoughtful tone turns just as mischievous as Remi lists his examples. "Maybe," he repeats, grinning and giving the alchemist's hips a playful squeeze. "If those handcuffs were a relic, I bet they'd even be able to hold you. Then I could really have some fun." His words are wicked but his hands are never any less slow or gentle; he knows better than to rile Remi up in his current frame of mind.
It's absolutely involuntary, the way he relaxes so bonelessly into the Lullaby's touch, his tense muscles forced into submission by hands that by all rights could snap his neck with little more than a flick of the wrist. "Mm... duplicates is a strange way of thinking of it. Would you think you weren't doing a good enough job, if Ludo chose someone else?" Forcing himself to concentrate, Ronin furrows his brow.
"No," he admits. "But I couldn't get her to talk about it. I can only think that something happened which led to her disappearing in the first place, but I..." He shrugs. "I don't know what she could be doing from here."
