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!
They take Sam’s body to the Oasis, where he is gently washed, the fluid creating a thin sheen on the surface of the pool. Wessex hasn’t always thought the most kindly about Sam, but you’d never know that he wasn’t a beloved brother in the way that she wipes the dirt and blood away and removes his clothing, to tidy up the wounds.
Eventually, though, she unsheathes a knife and begins to cut, murmuring an apology, but telling Sam that this is for the good of their family and that he’ll live on, literally in others. First is the eye, and then she turns him over and delicately searches along his spine for where the other, more integrated upgrades might be placed. Once she’s found his invisibility and his force-shield, she fetches a needle and thread and begins to sew the cuts up again, though it’s very shoddy wor - the kind of stitches made to hold shit in until you can get to a surgeon.
And then he’s dressed and the upgrades pocketed, and she’s carrying him through he streets to the Evergreen’s door, as if he's as light as a feather and weighs nothing at all.
The Wraith
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
News has begun to spread of her return, but it has only been a few days since she strode down the middle of the street and opened her apothecary as if it had never been closed. Though she isn’t hiding, part of Evie is reticent to seek out her brother’s bookstore. As the sun sets most days she finds her eyes intrinsically drawn to the apothecary’s windows, in the direction of Wordsworth Books. Considering. And every time she shakes her head and escapes to the back room and the small bed within, ignoring the persistent call. She doesn’t want to have to explain why she departed so suddenly. Doesn’t want to face Sam’s concern, tentative and undeserved as it is. She is a coward. And it will haunt her.
Evie is tucked in the corner trying to encourage a particularly stubborn plant to bloom when the door opens. “I’ll be right with -” she begins to call out as she turns, only for her eyes to find Wessex’s grim expression. Her eyes fall lower, to the unmistakable figure of her brother in the Wraith’s arms, and she stands so swiftly that her hip slams into the table, sending the plant careening and the clay pot shattering at her feet. “No,” a breath. A whimper. A prayer, which is a mockery because people like Evie don’t get their prayers answered.
Her feet carry her to the door, though she isn’t sure how. Soil-stained hands come to cradle Sam’s lifeless face, a tortured moan escaping her as she bows her head over him until their foreheads touch. He is still cold from the waters of the Oasis. And it’s a terrible burden, to have been born and raised in the Grounds, because this is a pain so familiar it both burns and numbs. Tears escape, tracing from her cheeks to her twin’s in hot trails. Lifting her head she stares up at Wessex, expression shattered but shoulders cruelly firm against all odds or pretense of fairness. Eyes bloodshot and cheeks ruddy with grief, yes, but with hands that do not shake. “What happened?”
It’s the No that gets her. That breathy sound. It cuts her to her core, because there is no rebuttal. There is only the body in her hands and Evie, there, and she is an unwitting spy on the woman’s grief. It’s different than when Rex and Clem died. Oh, she might have tried to repurpose Rex’s upgrades if Bastien hadn’t been there, but this… vulnerability, this proximity to it is inherently different. And it’s Sam. Her mixed feelings on him probably aren’t helping the roiling mass of something going on inside her.
“I’m sorry, Evie,” she whispers back, head dropping ever so slightly. “Let me… put him somewhere, Gods that sounds insensitive.” Of course, she isn’t meaning to be, and Sam isn’t nearly heavy enough to cause her any kind of discomfort, it just feels… wrong to have her standing outside the door with a body. “He was murdered. I’ll tell you inside.”
And there it is, the start of her own confession of laxity. Every Ascended death is a chip at her heart, a scar carved into her soul, and oh, is she counting.
The Wraith
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
Wessex’s voice is muddled through the buzzing in her ears. He doesn’t smell right, her mind cries nonsensically where she is bowed over Sam’s lax face. He smells like ink and vellum, not like this. Washed clean until there is simply nothing. Just as there is nothing now within the body Wessex holds in her arms. Evie manages to sway backwards into her shop, tears streaking silently down her cheeks as she lifts a trembling hand to direct Wessex to the back room where her cot stands empty. Her voice refuses to surface from behind the blockage suddenly in her throat, so instead the Evergreen focuses on the menial; closing the door, locking the handle, each step that’s counted from doorway to bedside as if the world has been shrunk to the smallest minutia of moments.
Murdered. Gods. The word hangs with her, a weight around her neck as she silently directs Wessex to lay Sam on the sheets. She’ll never be able to sleep there again, but he deserves better than the cold, wooden expanse of her work table.
And then the Evergreen folds helplessly to kneel beside him, laying her hand overtop the bookseller’s because she can’t bear to feel how stiff his fingers would be if she laced her own between them. Without taking her eyes off his face, she speaks, and the words come hollow and strange. “Tell me what happened.”
As wraith-like as she can be, Wessex follows the silent, shaking directions. She likes Evie, but the two of them had never been close, and some tiny, vicious part of her will likely always hold a tiny, vicious grudge against the Evergreen for abandoning the Grounds. But this has nothing to do with that. This is about Sam. This is about family - both flesh and fluid.
She places the body down as gently as she can, placing his hands in what seems like a dignified position and smoothing out his clothing. Tucking a strand of hair behind his ear, Wessex sighs needlessly, and steps back, finding something to lean against while giving Evie the space and time to continue to mourn in whatever way she needs to.
“We’re not… sure, actually. But you know Sam, he’s hardly one to strike first. Even when told to. I can’t imagine that he’d provoke a fight against someone who’s got such… vicious things to say about us. I mean maybe?” But even then, Wessex sounds incredulous. Sure, Sam had gotten surprisingly strong for being so puny. His nature, however… that’s what stuck in her head. That’s what convinced her it was a murder. “Amun found him first, near the very edge of the Grounds. Him and a priest from the Order named Gideon. They were both dead. We don’t know if Sam did it or if the barrier against the Order did it’s job.”
Her hands find each other, crossing in front of her legs. “Amun, Edy… they want revenge. Sam was loved.”
The Wraith
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
Evie notes, distantly, the small touches Wessex allows herself. She is grateful in a similarly distant way that Sam had not been alone even after Evie had left. She had never suspected he would be, but now…now he’s dead, gone, without ever having known why she’d done it. Without hearing all the things she’d discovered about herself. It’s worse than being robbed of a proper goodbye.
There are names and explanations, all the things she’d asked for, and yet when they’re delivered they don’t penetrate the cotton that seems to enshroud her entire being. Her hand feels clammy where it lies over Sam’s, but the rest of her body is too warm.
Loved. He was loved. It’s a sentiment that means more than Wessex likely intends, but it spears through the numbness like a lance. Tears slowly spill over the Evergreen’s lashes, streaking down her cheeks quietly. “That was all he ever wanted,” she whispers, a strangled quality to her voice. Her brow draws tight, pain in the lines of her face, curling forward towards the bed as if she is the one wounded. Everything in her chest burns. She remains that way until she can finally force a breath in, lightheaded with how she can’t seem to manage one as she bites back the noises her grief tries to form into. Almost panting, Evie tries to get herself under some semblance of control, some half-buried conditioning chiding her for being such a mess in front of an acquaintance. “How many more do we have to lose?” she grits out, cheeks ruddy with a rising temper that she’d never outgrown.
Even if she rarely agreed with Sam, she could easily acknowledge that being liked - nay, loved - had always been a cornerstone of his personality. “I know,” she murmurs in return. And even if she often thought the bookmaker was often more of a liability than an asset to their family, there’s no denying the genuine sadness she feels at this loss. “And I hope he felt that, before he -”
They’ll never know, though, will they?
Folding her hands tightly in front of her, Wessex has no real answer for the question Evie asks. Pursing her lips, she answers tightly, “I don’t know. But I’d be lying if I were to say I’m optimistic about our chances. I -” cutting herself off abruptly, she looks away from the last Wordsworth for a minute. “There’s a proper time for this discussion, in the future. But if you’re back, we could use all the help we can get.” And then she tries to offer an understanding expression, something kind in the eyes, as her voice grows quieter. “But if you don’t want to stick around, I understand that too.”
It’s not like there’s anything keeping her there anymore. No family, not really. And Wessex cannot make such a claim on the Evergreen, because it occurs to her, quite belatedly, that perhaps she means Grounders, the Naturals. And again, Wessex wouldn’t have an answer for her, because they’re really the only of the core group left.
Soon, there may be none.
The Wraith
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
They’ll never know. At least Evie won’t. Wessex, maybe, if the two ever meet in the Ascended-only afterlife. And doesn’t that hurt, too? That Evie can’t even see the only member of their family they truly cared about beyond the surface level of blood ties, all because of the separation of these deities that cannot seem to share space.
Is this the final straw? It feels like the metaphor itself. The broken strand that symbolized her remaining will. Ludo’s cruel words, the eternal absence from the Gods, and now this? Her brother’s life, stolen and sequestered away forever, all because a priest decided he followed the wrong God?
“My healing magic won’t work on you as it is, but the rest is yours,” her voice is dark and cold in contrast to the warmth in her cheeks. Lifting her gaze to Wessex, her hand folds tighter over Sam’s rigid one. “You have me, Wessex. I have nothing more I can lose.” And that makes her dangerous, doesn’t it?
Looking back down at Sam’s face, Evie’s eyes burn in true for the first time. I wish my support of you could have been something more than a furtive thing, she thinks, and hopes somewhere he hears it. I wish I’d never left you to this place when I know how quickly it takes. I wish we’d never been born the way we were - both unwanted and trying to find our places. Things she can’t say because of the company she shares, but which overrun her head all the same. Except - “Gods, Sam, I hope you’re at peace where you are.” It’s barely more than a whisper as she leans to press her lips to his brow, and tries to ignore how wrong he feels beneath that touch.
But that’s not true, is it? Evie has much to lose - including her own life - even if she doesn’t see it yet. Still, the now-General and once-Queen is thankful for the pledge even as the responsibility for another potential death weighs heavy on her shoulders.
Her fingers rub methodically and idly against each other as she tries to find a decent time to take her leave. Not too soon, lest it seem like she doesn’t care. Not too long so it doesn’t feel like she’s encroaching on time meant to be saying goodbye. Because she’d gotten that already. “I think he is,” she tries to offer as some kind of condolence. “The Voice has said she has a wonderful place for us - and there he’ll meet all the Ascended who came and went before him. He’ll probably be in dork paradise with all the lost knowledge they’ve got.”
Wessex will see him again too, eventually. Evie, on the other hand… well, the Wraith realizes a little too late what her explanation of the Voice’s place for them will leave out. She looks down, suddenly flooded by a wave of guilt, and takes that as her cue. “I’ll come back tomorrow, if you want to burn him then. Or the next day. Whenever is best for you.”
Reaching out touch Evie’s shoulder gently, Wessex exits the Worsworth house as quietly as she came.
{FIN}
The Wraith
Code blatantly stolen from the fantastical, wonderful Odd
