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!
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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!
"I know. It isn't your fault," Finn murmurs, and now that he's gotten over the initial shock of spooning in bed and holding Tobi's hand, he's surprisingly comfortable. In fact, it's getting more and more easy to consider drifting back to sleep, which is just about when the doctor peeps over her shoulder at him. "Hm...?" Obviously he takes it as a blanket statement, Finn blinking a couple of times and letting out a soft sigh.
"Cian is probably going to find a way to punish me for not being able to lead the expedition out to Halo," he mumbles. "Noah and Ronin left last night without speaking to anyone. I will have to wait until they return - if they return - to find out the results." Brow furrowing, he glances down at Tobi. "Was that what you meant?"
11-17-2021, 09:09 PM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2021, 09:10 PM by October.)
she sees angels in the architecture
Considering this for a moment, wrinkles stretch out across Tobi's forehead as she shakes her head. "I wouldn't be so sure. Cian is interested in results. So long as they return successfully with the relic, it would be as if you had gone with them. And since you weren't planning on fighting, it doesn't really make a difference." All of that hinged on them coming back successfully of course. "I wonder why they left so suddenly though.." Tobi wonders, more or less rhetorically; Finn quite clearly didn't know the answer either.
Neck straining from trying to give him her full attention, Tobi settles back down, her cheek against part of Finn's arm. " Yes and no. I also wanted to know if there was anything me-related from last night we needed to talk about. I...the details are a bit fuzzy." She knew why she was wearing Finn's shirt (note to self: finish the laundry). Trying not to stiffen, Tobi bites at the inside of her cheek to contain her awkward grimace. "Did...we...?" Wanting to leave it at that, to just trail off and have Finn pick up the thread, the doctor knew it wasn't fair or wise to leave the assumptive heavy-lifting to Finn. "..have sex?"
Finn doesn't know the answer, no, but part of him wants to hold Remi Taliesin to account for it even though he honestly can't say why. (And that's not entirely true either - if he delves deeply enough into the inkier parts of his mind, he'll be able to figure out why). Still, none of that is something he's willing or able to say to Tobi, so he can only nod absently at her remarks. "I hope you are right," he murmurs. "Usually when he wants to let me know that I haven't done things to his standards, he makes veiled threats towards the things I care about."
Like Tobi. Like his son.
And it's perhaps lucky that they don't continue down that thread of conversation, but at the same time, for the way it causes Finn's breath to hitch with horror in his chest, perhaps it would have been better off that way. "No," he blurts, almost automatically. "No, I would never--" Cutting himself off and fumbling as if to sit up that he might explain things properly, he suddenly feels like he's taking advantage of Tobi just by sharing the same bed.
"I said I wouldn't take advantage, and I meant it. Nothing happened, I swear it. I just put you to bed."
"You know.. if he makes veiled threats, you could always pretend you don't understand them." Tobi suggests with a smirk. "I find that usually shuts people like that up. Their intimidation comes from all the things they let you speculate about, but if you take that away and make them speak plainly?" She shrugs in his arms, suddenly very distracted by just how small and safe she feels against him.
Which her question has promptly ruined.
Finding herself rolling onto her back given how abruptly Finn had sat up, Tobi blinks up at him in surprise before pushing herself up onto her elbows. "No, Finn, I didn't mean it like that." She says with a soothing smile. His hand is gone from hers, so she stretches her fingers out on the bed between them for him to take if he wants. "I only meant..." Crinkling her nose, Tobi itches between her eyes for a moment, before letting her fingers fall away to absently adjust her ponytail. "I remember really wanting to, and...Uhm...." Blushing furiously, she looks down, noticing just now her misaligned buttons, and feeling her face grow all the hotter for it. "..sex with you is really good, and since we don't...have it all that often, I just...didn't want to have not remembered it." She manages at last, glancing up at Finn through her messy bangs and trying on a smile.
'I know you would never take advantage of me. I know that, Finn.' Tobi adds with more confidence despite her embarrassment.
Some part of Finn's subconscious thinks that Tobi's point is a very good one, and hopefully it manages to pack that information away for him to refer to at a later date. For now, though, the Spyglass is feeling ruffled and flustered, and with bedhead and flushed cheeks and morning wood that is rapidly fleeing the scene, he can barely look at Tobi, let alone take her hand.
"I... Oh," he mumbles lamely once she's aired everything out in the open, resisting the way his body wants to crawl out of the bed and his mind wants to insist that he stay in a different room from now on (or get bunk beds, those would work, right?)
"I just... I..." Rubbing at his forehead, it's quite apparent that the Spyglass is stuck and glitching here. A muscle feathers in his jaw and he can't decide whether he wants to reach for the doctor or flee the bedroom entirely. "I'm sorry. This is... It is not a conversation I have ever had with anyone before."
Realizing just what a tailspin she'd put him into, Tobi sits up probably and blinks herself into focus. Crossing her legs and folding her hands into her lap, the doctor gives her head a tiny shake as she lowers her forehead as if Finn's gaze was hidden away beneath something she had to duck under. "You don't have anything to apologize for. It's healthy to talk about these things so that we're on the same page."
So saying, it was time to put her money where her mouth was and talk about them.
"I know you would never take advantage of me. That's not a doubt I have at all." Tobi begins, wanting to make that incredibly clear. "Like I said, the only reason I was even worried about it...not that worried is the right word I suppose, is because...well, I'd feel silly and a bit disappointed in myself, if I didn't remember." Realizing that the words she was saying weren't at all capturing what she meant, the doctor exhales her frustration, laughing under her breath at herself and shaking her head.
"Sorry, I'm not very good at this either." She admits with a shy smile.
If there were enough pillows, Finn would have probably attempted to build a wall between them not unlike when he had been coming through withdrawal, but there's nowhere to hide and nothing to hear apart from Tobi's explanations and his own pulse hammering in his ears. So Finn forces himself to breathe through it, having crammed a pillow onto his lap over the blankets as if to crush any biological urge that is still trying to make its hopeful presence known.
"What page do you want to be on?" he asks once he feels as if he's able to unstick his tongue from the roof of his mouth. It's with tense shoulders and a churning in his stomach that makes him feel as though he's the one who's hungover that he hesitantly lifts his gaze to her face. "I would want you to remember," he murmurs after a few seconds more. "I know what it's like... not to know what you did. So I... I don't think I could ever, not if you weren't..." Not sober, exactly. But not a whole bottle of wine tipsy.
"I think you are doing very well, compared to me," he says with a tentative smile.
Finn looks unfairly adorable with his head in his hands, his hair and untidy mess from sleep, and a pillow over his lap for protection. Wanting desperately to shift and force herself into his arms that she might nibble at this chin, Tobi instead gives Finn all the time he might need to feel his feelings and think his thoughts.
"The same one, preferably." Tobi answers with an easy laugh. "Even if it's near the beginning of the book." Which was to say, taking it slow, or whatever. Realizing suddenly that maybe this was much more about him than she'd realized, Tobi nods silently and sits up slightly straighter. "I'm sure you do. And I appreciate that about you, a lot. You're so much more considerate about these things than most people are." She was going to say most men, but that wasn't true at all.
'Well, it all balances out then.' Tobi says with a small shrug and a crooked smile. Looking down into her hands the doctor reminds herself that one of them has to be the adultier-adult here, and so it's with an intentional smile that she looks back up. "And I know last time was good, but...if we need to take things more slowly, we can. I know that having good sex one time doesn't just erase your entire history." It didn't erase the past year either. Tobi had meant it, when she'd decided to love Finn, and just as she'd known it then, loving Finn wasn't always a straight forward path.
The same one is as much reassurance as Finn can hope for, and while there's still heat in his cheeks and a pillow shoved across his lap, his smile becomes a little more earnest. "You don't have to compliment me," he says softly, his shoulders relaxing somewhat as it all balances out, as Tobi puts it. Letting out a full breath for what feels like the first time in the past few minutes, Finn sags against the headboard and closes his eyes, rubbing a hand across his face.
"Oh... I... no, that's not it. I mean, I..." The blush is more intense, but Finn forces himself through the words that want to close his throat. "I wanted to as well, last night. But I knew it wouldn't be the right time," Letting his hand drop, he lets out a laugh that seems suddenly boyish and relieved. "I trust you, Tobi. And I know that talking only does so much. Slow is good, but we don't have to stop doing what we are doing... you know?" If you want to goes hand in hand with that, naturally.
'I know I don't.' Tobi agrees sweetly, still fighting the urge to brush away both the sleep and the upset from Finn's face with a dozen kisses or more. Instead she just sits and watches as Finn Finns, falling all the more under his quant spell without him even knowing it.
"Oh." The doctor hums, a touch pleased and surprised such that her lips twist as if she's just tasted something sour as her cheeks round with delight. "Okay, well...I guess...that's that." She chuckles as cheerfully as she can, wondering how many more times they'll go through the Yes, I do want to keep having sex with you checklist before it sinks in for both of them.
"Haaaave you ever had breakfast in bed?" Tobi asks suddenly, rolling forward onto her hands and knees and flashing Finn a mischievous smile which is made all the more girlish given that she's still wearing his oversized shirt.
That's that is usually associated with something unavoidable and unpleasant, but as Tobi states it so simply, Finn finds himself smiling. That's that, then. They can continue from here without feeling awkward, without either one of them wondering if they have mis-stepped, and the Spyglass's shoulders relax as he sags further against the headboard. He's about to ask if she wants to get up (or nap, or have sex) when Tobi is suddenly rolling onto her hands and knees.
"Uh," says Finn, torn between answering literally (of course he has had breakfast in bed - every time he's in the infirmary overnight he has it) and realising what she's actually asking. "Not... in the conventional sense," he settles on, offering her a boyish tilt of his head as if he's trying to figure out the why behind her question.
Grinning, Tobi rolls over Finn's side of the bed (and had he not been sitting up already, she'd likely have steamrolled right over him as well). "That's probably for the best. I think you'd hate it." She chuckles, flashing the Spyglass a knowing smile as she stands. "It's really impractical." Finn would absolutely hate it. The ergonomics were all wrong, and not to mention the mess.
"Since I have so rudely woken us up...would you like to go have breakfast with me somewhere?" Her fingers trail to the misaligned button of Finn's shirt where she begins to undo it. Initially, she means to fix it—its been bothering her since she noticed now—but if they're going out, she'll have to change anyway she supposes.
Finn is left blinking at Tobi as she rolls over and out of the bed, sleepily watching her straighten up. And he's blushing in response to her knowing smile, because she's absolutely right of course. Finn would hate it, and he would likely suffer through it if it was something that she enjoyed, too. "So I have heard. I do not mind coffee in bed, though." Even if bringing caffeine into a place that was meant to promote sleep makes little sense to him.
Catching himself watching her fingers tease at the mis-matched buttons, Finn clears his throat and shifts at last to climb out of bed. "I would like that," he says of going out for breakfast, nodding and offering her a small smile. "I will let you get ready first?" He doesn't mind waiting for his brain to wake up properly from the quiet tranquility of the living room.
It feels daring in a way that it shouldn't, but Tobi can't deny that her heart pounds a touch faster like some disobedient metronome. "You don't have to. It isn't like there's anything new to see." She says, as casually as she can. They've lived a tandem life of domestic routine for over a year now and while sometimes the things they did happened at the same time, it would be wrong to say they did them together.
With a shaky smile, Tobi goes to the closet to pull out a pair of pants and a long-sleeve shirt. Placing them on the dresser, she turns as her fingers begin to slowly pull the buttons of Finn's shirt from the holes. He's seen all of her before in both her good moments and bad, and besides, "-it's more efficient this way, right?" Tobi asks as her fingers loosen the last of the buttons.
