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!
He snapped at her and that made Saartjie's eyebrows raise and her head tilt slightly. He had actually snapped at her and all that did was make it worse. "Don't start on what? The truth?" She took note of the frown, of the way he clenched and unclencheed his jaw and she knew that she had struck a nerve. When he told that she couldn't give a better answer, she couldn't help herself. "Baklei terug, verdomp!" She shouted, but he continued on, claiming that he knew the unnamed demigod would stop because he was his best friend. "Best friend that you essentially betrayed by betraying Safrin. Do you think he would have betrayed her by allowing you to live had she told him to kill you?"
The water bubble fell into the sand between them and then he was stepping toward her and, though she wanted nothing more than to hug her brother and comfort him even after yelling at him and calling him stupid, she stepped back, shaking her head as he said it could have been worse but it wasn't. "Not this time." Saar replied, "But what about next time?" Because there was always a next time.
The humorless laugh was one that cut her to her core because she knew just how much their exchange had worn on him. The last thing she expected was to stand there and argue with him after he had saved her, again, but she couldn't stand listening to him call himself weak when he was the strongest person she knew. It was as it, somewhere along the way, he had lost his faith and confidence in himself. Her gaze followed his as he looked toward the woods.
When he spoke again she looked toward him, the scowl leaving her face completely. Saartjie sighed heavily. "Why would you want to change yourself?" she asked genuinely confused. "That version of you fought for justice. For everyone to have the freedom they deserved. You're a good, honest man, Sunjata." Her voice trailed for a moment as she thought about what she wanted to say next. "This version that you're trying to be ... this version is what's weak."
angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free
He shakes his head in exasperation at the comment of the truth, of the way she so stubbornly tells him to fight back as if it were that easy. But it wasn’t – it never was – and how many people had he gotten killed in the process? The blood that soaked his hands was plenty deep – deeper now with the body that lays in the sand behind them. He frowns deeper, gaze narrowing on her. “No, probably not.” He tears a hand through his hair, clearly at a loss of what to do, what to say – because it wasn’t ever going to come out right.
Somewhere their father’s gravelly voice cuts through his mind and causes him to flinch slightly. ’Be good and shut your mouth.’ Perhaps he should have learned.
“Maybe next time I’ll be stronger. I don’t know.” He tries to reiterate the point that this is going nowhere, it’s going in circles, and she can tell him just how stupid he is again and again and it likely just won’t stick. Because he makes the same mistakes over and over again and she should learn early on that there’s little hope for him.
A role model growing up he might have been, but now? He was furthest from it.
He glares at the woods as if it holds all the answers he seeks. “Am I?” He asks her, sharply, his accent thicker now than it has been all day. “This version is what I am, Saartjie. I only fucking fought because it was our lives on the line. I never wanted to do it. I never wanted this.”
every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
even if i could go back, i don't belong there anymore
All he needed to do was really talk to her, to tell her everything that was on his mind, everything he was feeling so that she would fully understand, but Sunjata had never really been good at expressing himself. It was part of the reason she had learned to read his expressions and his body language, but it was different this time. She was exhausted and angry and he was injured and, she supposed, angry with her. Rather than say anything when he agreed that the demigod that had been his best friend likely wouldm't have left him alive had Safrin ordered his death, she remained silent and took the opportunity to calm down and watch him, she saw him flinch, as slight as it was.
His reply about the next time also failed to draw any kind of reply from Saartjie. Their argument was going no where and, truth be told, she had always hated fighting and arguing with Sunjata, especially when they were younger. All they'd had was each other. but now? Now Jata had Nate and Kamaria ... and all she had was him in a world that she really didn't understand.
The only thing that made her finally respond was his question of Am I? when she had said he was a good man. "Yes." Saartjie answered and she would go to her deathbed believing that he was a good man. Before she could say anything else he was responding to the rest of what she had said, claiming that the version she saw in front of her was what he was. Then why are you struggling so much to be this version? she wanted to ask, but remained silent because anything she said would just draw the both of them into another argument. Lives are still on the line, but again she remained silent.
Saar could hear and feel the emotion in his voice and it tugged at her heart because, given the choice, she didn't think either of them would have chosen the paths their lives had taken. It drew her forward. As she stepped closer she placed her hand on his arm then stood on her toes so she could wrap her arms around his neck rather than his middle because of his broken ribs, and pull him into a tight hug. "I'm sorry." She murmured.
angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free
The fervor in which she tells him he’s a good man should say everything – but he’s never thought he is. He’s never been the one that people turn to when they need someone good. He’s the one they turn to when they need things done that are less than palatable. Sure, he can try to rationalize it all he wants to help him sleep at night, but very rarely does the Flood even get a good night’s sleep these days. So he tells it to her like it is, like how he sees it.
He isn’t good. He’s a killer. A murderer. Drowning in so much blood he can’t even tell which is his own anymore.
He’s stock still as she crosses the difference and she touches his forearm before wrapping her arms around his neck, tugging him closer. She’ll find him trembling, find that the closer they are that his breaths come in short bursts, that he’s panicking and he knows they shouldn’t be because she was just lost for gods knew how long and hurt and he was supposed to protect her.
Eventually, though, she cuts through his harder exterior and he wraps his arms around her too, sinking into her and blinking away the burning in his gaze, burying his face into her blonde hair as he takes another quiet, shaky breath. “I’m sorry too.” For not being enough, for being too different from the Korofi version of himself that he’ll never manage to meet her expectations.
every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
even if i could go back, i don't belong there anymore
If only Saartjie could read Sunjata's mind and really know the way that he viewed himself. That he thought he was someone people turned to when they needed less than savory things and people taken care of. If only she knew that he thought himself a killer and felt that he was drowning in the blood of those he had killed. She'd have told him that if he wasn't good then neither was she. He wasn't the only one with blood on his hands. She was responsible for the deaths of noblemen and their sons who had decided to take part in the rebellion. She was responsible for deaths of countless enforcers because she'd been the one reporting their movements to the rebellion. She had killed her own husbad and had ended a life before it even had a chance to begin.
But she didn't know, because he didn't tell her. He stayed silent even as she crossed the distance she had put between them. When her arms wrapped around him she could feel his trembling, hear the way that he was breathing and knew immediately that he was panicking. He had done the same thing when he had come back from his trial. She had tried to comfort him then, only to be scolded by their father because "he's a man now and should be proud of the fact that he's the one that survived." The difference was that this time it was her fault and the guilt weighed on her as she tried to comfort and calm her brother down.
So she held him tighter and her fingers ran through his hair as she began to quietly hum a tune their mother used to sing to them to calm them after Shaju had terrorized them.
Saartjie felt his arms wrap around her, felt him lean into her, bury his face in her hair, and was relieved that it, along with her apology she supposed, seemed to have worked. Jata spoke his own apology and she sighed softly in response. Belatedly, she realized that she must have sounded a lot like their father with her disapproval, with yelling at him, and demanding things from him that he couldn't give her. He was dead and gone, but he was still very much alive in her and it made her stomach turn.
She didn't know how long she held him for, beating herself up over the way she had treated him before she finally let go and sank back down to her regular height. When Sunjata did finally release her Saar reached up, cupped his face in both of her hands and pulled his head down so she could press a kiss against his forehead like their mother used to. "What can I do to help you?"
angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free
He bends just for her, letting the apologies fill the air, lets her do whatever she needs to calm down – not trying to distract or detract from what she’s going through, but needing her to understand that it wasn’t easy. That none of this was easy for him. That he constantly did what he thought was best, only to be told he’d made the wrong choice again and again, when all he was striving for was his right choice. He’s fragile, he always has been, and he seeks validation from sources that can’t give them to him.
It makes him feel weak and shallow. But he doesn’t know how to be any different. So he clings to her, bends into her, pressing his face into her blonde hair as he tries to calm his racing heart and the panic attack that threatens to start, until she’s humming a song from their past and it makes him tense even more – having not heard the song in what feels like decades when it hadn’t even been six years by now.
So much had happened, though, and when she pulls away he isn’t trembling as badly, but he does keep his arms around her shoulders lightly, hands trailing down them to her arms as he gives into the light kiss to his forehead and he desperately tries to get his breathing under control. “You don’t have to do anything. Just… Come home with me? See your nephews and your niece…?” He asks, wanting nothing more than just a full house to distract from all the other bullshit.
"I'll give you a ride if you want." He murmurs as a peace offering.
every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
even if i could go back, i don't belong there anymore
He wasn't trembling as badly as he had been at first, but Saartjie knew that there was still something very wrong. The weight of her guilt continued to increase as he continued to try to calm his breathing down. After having gone so long without seeing him the last thing she should have done was yell at him, especially after he had saved her life. As always he was there when she'd needed him most, keeping the promise that he had made to protect her. Now she just needed to keep the promise she'd made to her mother to look out for him and take care of him if and when he needed it.
"Of course." Saar answered when her brother's only request was that she go home with him. It was when he mentioned nephews that her eyebrows rose. When had that happened. She knew about Kamaria, but ... "Nephews?" She finally asked. "You didn't have more babies with gods, did you?" It was said in a joking manner, but there was the slightest hint of seriousness only because she knew a little bit of his history with Safrin.
Saartjie turned and looked at the tree line as Sunjata offered to give her a ride back home. It felt like forever ago that he'd promised her that he would take her flying and she was tempted to take him up on her offer, but his ribs. She turned to him, her gaze falling to where the bandages were wrapped around him before lifting to his face. "Nah." She said, instead linking her arm with Sunjata's. He'd done enough shifting she thought, and it had to hurt considering his ribs were broken. "Lets just walk for a bit." It had been too long since she'd been able to just spend time with him anyway, and maybe a walk would do the both of them some good when it calm to calming frayed nerves.
angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free
She agrees and it soothes that inner part of him that wars with himself, but it still doesn’t quite nip the trembling and the way he tries to control his breathing. To anyone else it would be like he was normal, but she was his sister, and she’d see through anything he’d try to give her. Honestly, he isn’t sure the reason he does try to hide things aside from not wanting to frighten her away from it, but that’s the whole point of being that protective older brother, is it not?
The question of nephews, though, and the question of whether he’d had kids with anymore gods has him snorting through his inner turmoil, using that as a distraction to soothe his woes. “Gods no.” He breathes, shaking his head. “No, Nate and I rescued them from an attack. We… Adopted them.” He casts his steel gaze over her to see how she takes the information – because back in Korofi, there were orphanages, but there were also the poor children born as a duplicate gender, sent to the edge of Dorobo to lose any automatic claim to anything.
He offers her a ride, though, and she links her arm in his and suggests walking, and Sunjata nods – his hand coming up to rest against hers like they’d often do when they took walks in their mother’s garden back when they were teenagers, putting on a show of being the good children when their father had ambassadors over. “Walking it is.” He murmurs softly, starting to guide them along the beach further and further toward home.
every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
01-09-2022, 05:45 AM (This post was last modified: 01-09-2022, 06:54 AM by Saartjie.)
even if i could go back, i don't belong there anymore
There was a sense of relief when Sunjata said that her new nephews weren't from the gods. What came as a surprise to her was that they were orphans that he and Nate rescued and adopted. Saartjie's mind drifted back to Korofi and the laws that were put in place for the noble families had to abide by. She remembered one incident in particular where a baby was taken away from his family because the parents had already had a son. She could remember the mother pleading and begging to keep her son and the enforcers taking the baby anyway. She'd asked her mother what was happening and why they were taking a baby from his parents. All her mother had said was that she would understand when she was older.
Saar also remembered the orphanages in Korofi, and the poor children that was so desperate to be adopted that they would resort to begging strangers just so they could have a family. Most of those kids were kicked out of the orphanages with little more than the clothes on their backs when they became adults and ended up living in the slums. She imagined most of the kids that aged out of the orphanage ended up becoming part of the rebellion. A frown pulled the corners of her mouth down as she thought about it and thought about how the nobles could have done something about it if they had wanted to. If they had been interested in more than maintaining their power.
"Good." Saar finally said, looking up at her brother. "Every child deserves a family. A good family." And there was no doubt that the boys had that with Sunjata and Nate. She looked away again as Jata agreed to walking. Having her arm linked through his reminded her a lot of Korofi and would walk through their mother's garden pretending to be good children, when they were really quietly talking about what life would be like away from Shaju. Away from Korofi, the oppressive laws, and the constant surveillance they were under from their father and his enforcers.
She walked in silence for a few minutes before looking up at her brother. "Jata?" She waited for him to respond before she started to speak again. "...you know I love you, right? I wasn't trying to hurt you or upset you ... and I'm sorry that I did." She just ... she wasn't used to seeing him like he was because he'd always seemed so confident and sure of himself even when the odds were stacked against him. "If there's something wrong ... or bothering you I'm here. All you have to do is talk to me. I promise to listen." Without judgement and to offer whatever advice I can.
angel loves to keep me spinning, much too high to see that all these chains have started thinning & hell is breaking free
A lot of that harbors a lot of Sunjata’s trauma as well – the fact he’d been forced to be one of those that takes the children from their parents – to drop them off at the orphanage without so much of an explanation other than the quiet little duplicate that was uttered in reference to them. Adopting Romeo and Amadeus almost felt like an apology, in a way, that the two children that look to he and Nate for survival and love and family almost rights the wrongs he’d done in the past.
He doesn’t know if it counts or not, and luckily she distracts him from the way his thoughts lean into the dark a bit more. “I agree.” Sunjata murmurs gently – because if nothing else, having Kamaria has made him realize he wasn’t his father – that his snapping wasn’t Shaju sneaking out. That he could never become his father the second he’d seen her face. The twins, despite not being his blood, get the same reaction. That dragon within him is protective of all things he considers his – his treasures, his horde.
Not jewels, despite how much jewelry he wears (which is a lot, given the four earrings in his ears, the bracelet on his wrist, the necklace that settles around his neck. “Hm?” He asks when she says his nickname, casting a sidelong glance toward her as the waves crash along the beach at their side and they keep moving forward. His gaze slips from her the second she begins to speak, though, still in capable of letting himself be seen when his emotions flicker across his face. All she’d be able to see is the blank blinks, the swallow, the way his cheek feathers. “I know, Saar. I love you too.” He says softly, giving her arm a light squeeze, tugging her closer to his side. “I’m just a little sensitive right now and everyone always has a piece of mind to tell me how I’m fucking up.” He admits this part a bit quieter.
It was like a long running nightmare of people who thought they knew better giving him their two cents.
He does turn his gaze to look at her, though, working his jaw before he loosens it and the tension in his shoulders he forces out. “I missed you so much. I’m sorry I didn’t realize you were gone.”
every choice, every lie, demons that he kept inside angel now that i've stopped spinning, could you come clean?
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
