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!
It isn't often that something knocks Isla hard enough to rattle her resolve. She's no damsel in distress and she's seen the horrors of war, both here and in another life. But gods if the hits don't keep on coming lately. There are a few folded scraps of paper on the beside table where she's attempted to make banal decorations for her next letter to Remi, abandoned in lieu of hiding under the covers.
Indeed, there's little more than an Isla shaped lump in the middle of the bed, the Remedy curled up into a stubborn little ball as if she might hide from everything coming to pass. Sam, Bastien, Adam, seemingly one after another. The stakes get higher and they just keep losing. When would it end? When they were all dead at last?
This entire thing has become a shitshow and Varus? Well, he’s never been prepared for the whole flashiness of it. His job had always been stealth, the quiet nights of slipping in undetected and sowing chaos just to slip back into the night. He’s never quite known what to do when it comes to showing the whole hand right at the start.
So he’s been pacing, since he heard what happened, the majority of their strongest players gone which left him there to try and ensure protecting the Grounds. But gods if it wasn’t stressful. They’d already lost so much. So he isn’t surprised when he makes his way back into the bedroom, to find that Isla shaped lump in the middle of the covers, and far less confidence in himself in making her feel better.
But that doesn’t mean he can’t try. The bed sinks from where he sits, nudging himself into the space, a cool metal arm and his regular, fleshy arm loop around her to drag her into his lap, to press her head against his chest as his arms wrap protectively around her. “Do you want to talk about it?” He asks quietly, no judgement either way if she did or didn’t.
He’d be fine sitting in silence for however long she needed.
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
A soft protest leaves her lips as he moves her, though Isla is never going to resist him, not really. Blankets and all, her ruffled hair and pout appear as Varus scoops her into his lap, though she quickly buries her face into his chest and tugs the blankets closer. "No," she mumbles, sounding miserable and defeated, and were it any other situation it might have been sort of funny.
But this isn't any other situation, and even as Isla relaxes into his embrace, a shiver runs through her that suggests there is only the barest comfort to be found. "I'm scared, Cal," Isla whispers, the admission spoken mostly into the fabric of his shirt. "I don't think we can win this. Or even survive this. I don't really want to win - I just want to be here at the end of it."
She can protest all she wants but it doesn’t stop Varus from placing her in his lap, wrapping a metal and flesh arm around her, nestling her in close against his chest. He presses his cheek against the crown of beautiful golden hair, one hand rising to brush along the edges of the blanket she draws up against her as he stares straight ahead at the opposite side of the bedroom.
He’s silent to her ’no’, trying to soothe the trembles where he can feel them. His head tilts, a soft draw of breath in that he doesn’t need, pressing his cool lips to her temple. “I want to be here too.” He agrees softly, his head sinking into hers ever so slightly, trying to gain that much more closeness. “Their fear shouldn’t justify their willingness to destroy an entire race of people. It shouldn’t justify them trying to kill a god.” There’s some venom in the voice that leaves him, a quiet rumble of upset and frustration. “We just have to be smarter. Use what we can. Try to stay three steps ahead.” He withdraws from her a fraction, letting his arms drop around her middle now, squeezing her in a bit closer. “We have the book now.”
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
Sniffling a bit, Isla still can't help but smile as she feels the press of his kiss against her skin, however muted it might be with their dulled senses. "I don't think many of them view us as a race any more," she admits. "Or even as people. It's easy to condemn us as other." She's frowning, too, as Cal continues, as he sits back a bit and Isla can peep up at him.
"The smartest thing we can do is stay put and stay safe," she mutters, "and no one seems very good at doing that. Sam, Adam, Bastien... and now whatever Edy and the others are doing." I don't even know if Isla is aware of that, actually. Still, she knows Cal has a point.
"We'll need to make this place into a fortress," she mutters. "People aren't going to stop coming after us. We need to make it more difficult for them."
“They don’t.” Varus replies swiftly, that hint of venom still dripping from his voice. She sits back just enough to peer up at him and he casts his oceanic gaze down toward her, a small frown tugging on his lips. “We’re monsters to them.” Stories to tell their children to try and keep them from sneaking out into the night, just another average boogeyman.
She makes a valid point and the Ascended nods, one hand lifting to pull back the blanket just enough to run his fingers through the crown of gold hair. “Keeping the Order out is a good step.” But it doesn’t help those that are affiliated with them but not a part of it. “It’s… A difficult line to ride, Isla. To protect ourselves but not suffocate us at the same time.” He hums thoughtfully. “If there was a way to perhaps funnel everyone that arrives to approve their residence then… Maybe that wouldn’t be so bad.” But stifling still.
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
Isla has never considered herself a monster to anyone, and although she knows in her medic's logical mind that it's true, that everything Varus is saying is true, her heart doesn't want to believe it. "I wonder if we'll ever get a break," she murmurs. For every suggestion and outcome, for every life imagined behind the barrier of the Hollowed Grounds, it's all just existing until they're either eradicated completely (likely) or they somehow come through this (doubtful).
"I love you, Varus," she says suddenly - blurts, rather, and it's not as warm or romantic or well planned as she would have liked it to be, but that doesn't make it any less true. Only once it's out in the open, she finds herself suddenly stumbling over any further words, unable to take it back or correct herself or... anything. Even to say it again.
“I’m not sure.” He frowns, the uncertainty eating at him from the inside out, unable to actually figure out a way to get around it. This time around, though, it feels far more hopeless, and despite the attempts he wishes to give out, so far for every step forward they took, it felt like they were taking five steps backward. “Perhaps we need to have a meeting to see what everyone else would like to do? Not today, though, just… Sometime soon, yeah?” He muses, arms wrapping around her a bit more tight, thankful for Isla’s ascension and how she likely wouldn’t feel the bite of cold of his arm from through the blanket.
But it isn’t the conversation over the war that stills him, it’s the admission – one that literally freezes the Captain as his mind blanks briefly before it starts to catch up. His arms tighten, his face presses down to bury his cheek against the crown of gold, moving only to press a kiss to her head, hoping she can feel the smile through it. “I love you too, Isla.”
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
"Sometime soon," Isla agrees through a whisper. What she doesn't say is that she doesn't think holding meetings has done them any good so far. She doesn't say that it feels worse every time they get together, and worse still whenever they lose another of their dwindling numbers. They'll all meet again sometime soon. And they can go from there.
It's a lucky thing that Varus's response is enough to cause her heart to rise into her throat, to banish away the darkness even if it's only for a short space of time. Isla holds him back tightly, smiling into his shirt, leaning into the strong security of his embrace. "Gods, I don't know why I needed to hear that so badly," she mumbles, kissing the side of his neck.
"After the war..." And she says it slowly, because they both know how unlikely it is that they'll be around after that, "what do you think you'd like to do?"
She holds him back tightly as Varus is pent up with a strange mixture of relief, awe, dread, and sorrow. Luckily for him, the relief and love expressed outweighs the weight of the loss they’ve suffered recently, his head tilting as she smiles into his chest, as her lips find his neck to press a soft kiss. “I’ve wanted to say it for a while I just… Didn’t know whether you felt the same.” He murmurs, giving her a light squeeze.
He perks up a fraction, though, when she questions about life after the war. What would he like to do? He’s only ever done this, a life surrounded by war, what was one to do after? The things he wanted to do? Would he even know what that was? He’s silent for a lot longer than he thinks he is, and when he speaks it’s slow as if he’s uncertain. “I think… I’d want to build things. Houses maybe.” His brows pinch before he pulls back slightly to look down at her. “Or maybe I’ll take up an instrument and make you all suffer with my terrible voice?”
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
"Of course I feel the same," Isla mumbles with another kiss to his throat. "It just never feels like the right time to confess your love when war could break out at any moment, right?" Smiling up at Varus, she leans in to brush her lips against the corner of his mouth, relaxing further in his lap despite the fact that everything is still going to hell.
Quietly charmed by his response, Isla sits up enough so she can look at Varus properly, as if trying to imagine him with a hammer and overalls. "I can see it," she says with a chuckle. "Why not both? Builder by day, musician by night. Though I bet your voice is wonderful." And she's definitely going to make him sing, just for that.
"Do you think you'd stay in the Grounds?" she asks, happy to indulge in what ifs. "There's so much of Caido out there... and so many things in it. I still can' believe that deity was found out in the desert."
He hums a soft sound, the dulled sensation of her lips on his throat more than enough to relieve any tension he might harbor in his shoulders and mind. His hands rise, threading through her golden hair, smoothing down her back in soft, massaging motions as he angles his head to steal a kiss before she draws away completely. “Maybe it’s the right time.” He flashes her a wink, a fanged grin, and a soft huff of laughter.
But when she sits up to look at him more fully, there’s a goofy boyish smile on his face as she adds onto his thoughts. “Sure. Build people’s homes and serenade them while I’m at it.” He drawls, before he barks a laugh, sits up more fully and raises his brows toward her. “You haven’t even heard me sing. You can’t say that.” What if he was a horrible singer and she was just giving him faux confidence to get laughed out of the bar?
The embarrassment.
He softens a fraction, though, when she asks if he’d stay in the Grounds. It isn’t really something he’d thought of too much, but he does tilt his head a little as he thinks on it. “Hmm. The Grounds are kind of all I’ve known for a long time. The only other place I could think of is maybe Halo?” Torchline an obvious no given their Ascension and if he’s being honest, despite how much he enjoys beach games, he isn’t particularly too interested in spending day after day there. “What about you?” He asks, before his lips purse at the mention of a deity, humming a soft laugh. “And what, all this time he’s just needed… Water?”
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
Smiling against his kiss and letting her arms loop around his neck and shoulders, Isla lets herself sink into whatever sensation she can grab from the feel of his fingers in her hair and his hands pressing down her back. "You know, I think you might be right," she agrees, stealing a final, chaste kiss from his lips before sitting back.
Cal's smiles are contagious, goofy and boyish or otherwise, and Isla reaches out to playfully pinch his cheek. "You're right, I haven't heard you sing. You haven't heard me sing, either, and you never will. I have a terrible voice," she informs him. "I'll have to lurk outside the shower to see if you sing in there, maybe."
Already feeling much more at ease, despite the fact that the world is still hell and things are still going to shit, Isla busies herself weaving a loose braid into the back of his hair with her fingertips. "You know, I have only been to Halo once, when I first came back," she murmurs. "But if you have never been anywhere else, we'll just have to go. I think you would like King's End," she says.
As for Ghilio? Smiling to herself, the medic nods. "Just like a little thirsty plant. I'd suggest we go, but it's the desert. Unless we went at night and were very careful, I'd not want to risk it." Risk him.
“Thank you.” He huffs, as if he’s won some sort of intense battle – despite having done nothing close to it. She reaches out to pinch his cheek and Varus’ brows pinch together before he rumbles another chuckle, batting her hand away. “Oh, so I need to preface it with saying I have a terrible voice so that you don’t want to hear me sing?” He says before a gasp leaves him at her audacity. “Well now I’m self-conscious about showering. Maybe I’ll just use the Barracks showers instead.” He tilts his chin up as if he’s preparing to pout, before he huffs a laugh.
He considers her a moment, his head tilting as he regards her and pulls her closer into his lap, so that he can wrap his arms around her waist. “I have been plenty of places. And King’s End, as beautiful as it is, it’s where I slept for a couple hundred years. I’d like to avoid Queen’s Gambit if you want to visit.” He flashes her a wink before he noses himself up to press a kiss to her chin, to her neck. “What else are parasol’s good for, mm?”
and you ease my troubles with your hands, like the night puts a calm on the valley
