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!
02-08-2022, 07:51 PM (This post was last modified: 02-10-2022, 06:04 PM by Amun.)
full moon rising on the waters of my soul
It had taken more time than Amun had cared to admit for him to scrounge together a few people who could play musical instruments. Unfortunately, his favors didn't go as far as they used to. Eventually, though, he'd gotten everything lined up, and sent an invitation to Samuel.
Given that the Hollowed Ground was mostly Ascended, it had been easy enough to get a room at the VlamVloed. The musicians were stationed next door, their songs filtering through a mesh screen that hid them from view. The potter stood in the center of the room, which contained only a table with some refreshments.
In addition to the other preparations, he'd found some nicer clothes as well, and was dressed in all black with some silver threads hidden here and there, sparkling when they caught the light. He adjusted his collar as he waited, before forcing his hands down. Clasping them behind his back, he hummed along to the tune while the seconds ticked by.
It had been a while since the promise of the date and Sam had begun to wonder, just in the back of his mind, if Amun had thought better of it. As much as he didn't want that idea to sink in, it had it's grips on him; he was thankful when the letter came to reassure. The stress had then been replaced with the much more pleasant worry of what to wear.
He'd ended up going simple, remembering some compliment that Nate had given him years ago about how he looked good dressed down from his usual layered, formal look. A white shirt, unbuttoned just enough to show a little chest hair, and some dark blue pants. Sam felt a little conscious walking to the Vlamvoed, but thankfully the late hour and his shy steps kept him out of too many people's attention.
He had expected there to be some kind of event occurring, or maybe Amun in a backroom with only the Thought Player and two feet of space. What he had not expected was live music and a whole prepared bar. As Sam entered he looked about with an amazed smile on his face, in a scandalised (yet delighted) whisper saying only: "Amun."
Amun glanced up and smiled as Samuel entered the room. "That's my name." Walking up to the redhead, the potter gave the bookmaker a quick peck on the cheek. Taking the other man's hand, Amun brought Sam to the bar in the corner. Releasing him, the potter rubbed his hands together.
"I take it from your reaction that the delay was worth it." Amun's smile grew into a full-on grin. "Can I get you anything to drink? I raided the front room, as you might be able to tell. Don't tell Sunjata." Winking, he grabbed two glasses and held them dangling in his hands as he waited for the redhead to make his choice.
"I had no idea you were planning all of this." Sam gestured around with his free hand, happily letting the other be taken so he could walk to the bar with Amun. There had been a part of him that had worried Amun would be too sad, too broken after his experience underground to want to properly indulge in this kind of romance, but it seemed that was very much not the case.
As for what he'd drink...he tapped his bottom lip, looking at the options (and nodding with a smirk as far as not telling Sunjata went). "I mean, I've always been a fan of a nice glass of wine. Not that it matters all that much, for us, but it still feels quite nice, doesn't it?" Tucking a little hair behind his ear, Sam waited for Amun to ready the drinks and looked out over the space in the bar where they would be dancing; his chest full of butterflies.
"Do you have much dancing experience? It seems like the kind of thing you would be good at." Amun was always so smooth, both in movement and speech. Sam could already see him slinking around gracefully in his mind's eye. He just had to hope he wouldn't look like a rag flapping around in the wind in comparison.
Amun winked at Sam. "Come on. I know it's been a while, but did I ever do anything by halves?" Letting out a chuckle, the potter nodded at the bookmaker's choice of alcohol. "We still get pleasure of some kind from it," Amun agreed with a nod. Moving behind the makeshift bar, he headed towards a small cask. However, he paused midstep.
There was a small wine spider curled up around the tap. Apparently it had been left slightly open and the arachnid had been slurping up the drops. Snorting, the potter set down one of the glasses so he could gently dislodge the creature. It tightened its grip for a moment before relinquishing it and transferring to his finger instead.
Laughing, he got a shot glass out and poured some vodka in it. The spider pounced on that, happy with the latest offering. "It knows what it wants and goes after it. I can appreciate that," he informed the redhead, grinning all the while.
The path to the wine now clear, Amun filled two glasses with the red liquid. Handing one to the other man, the potter hummed along with the music for a few notes. "Formally? No, not really. I picked up a few steps here and there during my travels, but my people weren't big on choreography. We just moved as the music willed us." He swirled his wine a few times and sniffed it before taking a sip.
"As for whether I'm good? Well, only one way to find out." Waggling his eyebrows, he set his cup down and held out one hand to Sam.
"That's true. I suppose I should have expected the whole town serving drinks and Frey themselves providing the entertainment." He said with a laugh, taking the glass of offered wine and watching the spider with a careful expression. Sam had never been fond of the scuttling little creatures, but as long as they kept their distance, he did the same. Amun's assessment of them as 'going for what they wanted' did make him hum with a faint smile. "I suppose so. I've never really known what I've wanted. A little depressing to think I've been outdone by a spider."
Sipping the wine, moving it around his tongue before swallowing to get all the taste he could on his limited palette (it was nice and tart, a little shot of sensation that he missed), he was a little hesitant to put it down. But of all the people he could have to dance in front of, Amun was one of the ones he felt safest with - even after all the time apart, this felt like slipping back into a comfy pair of shoes.
"I'm sure you'll be better than me." Taking the hand, he let his fingers easily wrap around Amun's, then, as the music started, began to move. He'd never had any training either, never really learnt any dances, but he knew what romantic dancing was meant to look like. Mostly spinning and stepping around, right?
"I asked, but they told me I didn't need their help," Amun informed Sam with a wink. Letting out a little chuckle, the potter gestured at the room, taking in the bottles and the direction the musicians were hidden in. "Well, there was more innuendo involved, but I lightly edited their response, since I'm in polite company and all." He grinned.
Topping off the shot glass for the spider, he rested his arms on the bar counter and peered at the redhead past the arachnid. "Well that's not quite true. You've always struck me as someone who was firm in his beliefs. Not liking conflict isn't the same as not knowing what you want. In fact, avoiding conflict is very rational in my mind." The spider wiggled its legs in the air as if in agreement with Amun's words, though it was likely just responding to the sounds and the vodka.
As the bookmaker started to sway, the potter shook his head at the other man's words even as Amun took a step closer. His hand slipped onto Sam's waist as the potter did his best to match the redhead's movements. "Why say that before we've even begun?" Amun released the bookmaker's hip long enough to guide the other man's hand to the potter's shoulder. "You might surprise yourself. Now, who do you want to lead?"
"Oh, I see. Maybe you could tell me what was said later." A line about how he might not be such polite company then passed through Sam's mind, but he left it unsaid. Right now, the evening was clean and quiet, soft and slow. He didn't want to rush anything, and after Amun's time away, he was sure the potter didn't want to either.
Sam nearly laughed at being told he seemed firm in his beliefs. The way that his mind twisted and turned, making him worry and doubt at every point, felt anything but firm. "That's a very nice take on it." He finally settled on saying, thinking about how many people he knew would say the same thing by calling him a coward.
They began to dance and thankfully Amun seemed to know what to do a little better than himself. The hand on his waist made him take in a breath, straighten out and give a shy smile as his own hand was guided to Amun's shoulder. "I just...I can't help it. Sorry. But you're right." He had to stop putting himself down, as much of an instinct as it was. "I believe you're leading, if your hand is on my waist. That's how it works, isn't it? And I'm happy with that." Expectantly, he squeezed Amun's hand and waited to move together.
Arching an eyebrow at Sam, Amun grinned at the redhead. "Why Sam, if I didn't know any better, I'd say you were propositioning me." The potter gasped, tutted his tongue, and shook his head, but made sure to wink at the bookmaker as well.
Smiling, Amun slid the shot glass with the spider wrapped around it into a corner of the bar, where it would be disturbed. Resting his palms on the counter, he nodded at the other man. "I wouldn't say it if I didn't think it was true," the potter informed Sam.
As they swayed, Amun tilted his head to one side. "But why? I mean, we don't have to talk about it if you're uncomfortable, but you never give yourself the credit you deserve." Nodding in agreement, he squeezed the redhead's hand right back.
Next, the potter shifted his weight and his balance and put a bit more pressure on the bookmaker's hip. "Then let's see if I'm any good at this." The song shifted into the strains of a waltz. Listening to the notes for a moment, Amun waited a few measures before sliding his left foot forward on the first beat. He'd follow that by sliding his right foot out on the second beat, before ending by sliding his left foot back to his right so his feet were together once more.
"I might be." Sam allowed himself a little bit of a flirt, his eyes sparkling with some mischief as he looked Amun first in the eyes, then wandered his gaze a little lower.
Then they were dancing, or something close, the music comfortably carrying them from side to side as they spoke. Sam nibbled at his lip for a moment, frowning, trying to diagnose himself: why, exactly, did he always habitually put himself down? He'd been doing it so long that it was simply second nature. "I suppose it's just what I grew up hearing from my parents. I was used to it." Hearing those words out loud, it struck him that since his parents were now dead, he could cut himself free from their expectations and criticisms.
It wouldn't be that easy, but maybe he could start to try.
Amun held his hip a little more confidently, Sam leaned closer into his partner, and they began to step. He watched Amun's feet closely, following where they went - a step forwards, another, then back, moving slowly and in sync. A few more times of that, and he tilted his head back up, confident he knew the rhythm now and wouldn't crush Amun's toes. "Well, it seems like we're dancing."
As Sam's eyes swept across Amun's body, he did a quick shoulder shimmy followed by a hip thrust. Waggling his eyebrows, he leaned towards the bookmaker. "How do I change a might to a definitely?" Letting out a chuckle, the potter grinned.
Studying the other man's features, Amun nodded at the redhead's explanation. Squeezing Sam's hand again, the potter met the bookmaker's gaze squarely. "Well it's just you and me here. Well, and a wine spider. Still, I'd rather hear what you think, not what absent parents believed once upon a never knowing the real you."
Leading the redhead in the basic box step, Amun started to rotate them once it seemed the other man had mastered the step. "Seems so." Releasing Sam's hand for a moment, the potter reached out to tilt the bookmaker's chin upward so Amun could stare into the redhead's eyes.
"Oh, you are doing. A huge amount of progress was made with the candles and music and the entire bar for us." Sam replied with a smile that began wry, flirtatious...but very quickly became genuine and flushed; he was too thrilled with the date to act cool for too long.
It was just them there (he didn't much care what the wine spider might hear). Responding to the tight grip with one of his own, Sam considered Amun's words and hummed. "I hardly know what I think. I'm still working it out. But...I'll let you know, when I do." His self confidence had definitely grown over the last years, along with everything else, but there was still the darkness there in his mind, that told him Amun was only taking pity, that he was pathetic and snivelling, that the Voice had to wish she had never taken him on...
There was no time or place for that kind of thinking right now though. Not as Amun guided him into spinning, the step now a little faster. Just as he was beginning to get the hand of it, about to start some other conversation, all words left Sam by something as simple as the touch on his chin, which brought him very close to Amun's face - he couldn't help it; for a second his eyes flicked down to glance at his lips, though he quickly pulled them back up. "We don't...have to do this fast, if you don't want to." He said quietly, not moving his face away from Amun's at all as his feet carried on the dance.
"Well, not the entire bar. Just a few back rooms and the good alcohol from the secret stash." Amun winked at Sam. Still, the potter couldn't stop the grin from spreading across his lips. "Good to know I haven't entirely lost my touch, though." He took a sip from his wine.
As the redhead promised to talk to Amun when the bookmaker had worked out his thoughts, the potter stroked the other man's knuckles with a thumb. "You can always work through your thoughts with me too. I promise not to bite." Waggling his eyebrows, he added, "Unless you want me to, of course." He smirked at that particular comment.
Following Sam's gaze downward, Amun's own gaze snagged on the redhead's lips. Reaching up with one hand, the potter brushed a strand of hair that had fallen across the bookmaker's forehead as they danced. "I want to. Just trying to be respectful and not scare you away."" With that, Amun hesitated for just a moment more. Then he leaned forward just a hair and brushed his lips against the other man's.
Reminded that the wine existed (it was easy to forget, with Amun being so charming), Sam also leaned over to the bar to grab his glass and take a sip of the wine, trying to not be disappointed by the very mild sensation of taste he could grasp from it.
"Really, there isn't that much to say and I've said it all a million times. I think I'm more interested in moving on and finding myself again." He sighed happily at the feeling of Amun's thumb sliding over his fingers, unable to remember the last time he'd felt such a simple, but caring gesture. The last years had seem Sam grow much more open to physical affection, but it never came with anything beyond the promise of a good night. This...it felt like more, and that both terrified and excited him.
He was about to laugh and say nothing Amun could do was about to scare him away from this, possibly one of the nicest evenings of his life - but then he was kissed and the words floated out of his mind in an instant. With a soft hum he lifted a hand to cup Amun's jaw, stopping their dance to close his eyes and press his lips back against the potters.
