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!
In Remi's mind, he has become large as a ship, uprooting trees with his tentacles and hurling them out towards the horizon. In his mind, he has draconic claws that scar the earth as celestial fire builds in his belly only to be unleashed into the sky for its indifference to his exasperation and unease. In his mind, there is blood beneath his fingernails and marrow beneath his teeth and his muscles scream from overuse. In his mind, his stupidity is matched by sheer and senseless violence that leaves new scars on his body.
In reality, however, Remi merely paces a terse line back and forth within the village. His hands are balled into fists at his sides and there is a tenseness in his movements that absolutely suggests he is Not Okay, but for now at least he keeps his violent inclinations in check.
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin both does and doesn't have a good idea about what has happened. His confusion is infuriating, frankly, but as he disappears from Stormbreak to the Greatwood and notes just how quiet and empty the village is, his own frustrations can wait. Animals sense danger much better than their two legged counterparts, in his experience, so for even the humans and the Fae to have made themselves scarce means that the danger isn't subtle.
Then again, neither is his husband.
Spotting the Lullaby as he paces, Ronin makes his way out from between two market stalls on soft feet, the evening light drenching the woods in shades of red and gold and painting the ground as if with blood. "Remi," he says softly, holding an arm out for his husband. "Touch me." To explain what's happening, to understand his feelings, but mostly just because he craves it.
Looking not unlike a predator for whom a naive prey-animal has just walked through its path, Remi stops abruptly as Ronin appears. The shadows on his husband's face are maroon and were it not for his keen instincts he might have believed, if only for a second, that the Huntsman was covered in blood.
Blood, but not fluid.
Blinking away the illusion it's with a snarl and a small cry of relief that Remi reaches out his hand even as he bridges the gap between them. Shakily, the alchemist roughly tugs Ronin's shirt out from his pants so that he might fit the flat of his palm against his husband's skin. Emotions don't paint the reenactment of what had happened in Stormbreak with images, but rather colours. He feels the confusion, the lack of satisfaction, the terse truce and the unsteady ending to it all.
Ronin however will feel a deep and ebbing despair swirling in the shaky aftermath of having just nearly evaded death. There's relief and fury too, but now that the Huntsman is underhand, it has already begun to fade. "Did you see it?" Remi asks. "Did you see the blue in their eyes?"
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin's arms open to welcome the other man, holding him in a tight, rough embrace that one might mistake as restraint. On the contrary, though - the Huntsman is just holding his husband up as well as close. His eyes slip shut to feel Remi tugging at his shirt, and he's in the process of delivering a soft kiss to the other man's curls when the dragging sense of despair hits him.
It's almost enough to floor him, in fact, Ronin taking a second to catch his breath against it, and he nods to the Lullaby in confirmation. "I saw it, but I didn't know what it meant. I thought an upgrade that works between them or something...? It didn't seem to do anything, though." How little he understands, and if only that ignorance could remain.
A rhythm, tapped out no more strongly than that of fingertips on a thigh, echoes from Remi's mind: I can't, followed by I have to. More swiftly than ocean waters lapping against a cliff face to gradually erode it, but with the same constant gentle pressure, the words begin to consume the alchemist such that his knees threaten to buckle, his mouth goes dry, and the world begins to spin.
Clasping his free hand against the collar of Ronin's shirt, Remi murmurs a desperate sort of sound as the world loses colour. Only the blue of Ronin's eyes remain, and its into them that the alchemist feels himself begin to fall.
"It was the Voice..." He hears himself say. "I thought with the meeting being about peace, that she wouldn't...but gods with Isla, there...she..." There's a pressure in the back of his throat that makes his lips part in a gasp, only he can't tell if it's laughter or a sob.
"...she could have..." Gods but Ronin's eyes are so blue and the rest of the world is so dark.
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
It's like swimming through a mire, trying to understand the slick black of Remi's emotions, the dragging sensation of being swallowed whole, the weight of digging one's own grave. "Are you...?" It's a false start, his grip around the alchemist growing a little tighter as he strives to find meaning in his expression. There are words, luckily, to accompany the onslaught of feeling, but if anything, understanding makes it worse.
It creeps up on Ronin slowly, the scale of the misstep Remi made by coming to the meeting in Stormbreak. His fingers feel cold and tingling, as if he's been out in Deepfrost in Halo, and something heavy drops low in the pit of his stomach. "She was... she could have..." He shakes his head, because no, that's stupid. They march around and brush with death so often that it's like a hobby to them. The Real Deal is just a ghost story they tell each other at bedtime.
"You could have died," Ronin whispers at last, his face pale and his throat burning. He's holding onto Remi too tightly and he knows it, but gods, he can't stop. "Like... forever died. She could have killed you for good."
The Real Deal was indeed just a story. Something they talked about without actually talking about. Something they gestured at without really having the words for. Not even being caught in the suddenness of a riptide was an appropriate analogy, not with the vast permanence of what had nearly just happened. Instead, it was more like going for a stroll when the weather was perfect and you had not a single care in the world, only for the sky to swallow you up without any pomp or circumstance.
Gone, without parting words.
Gone without last kisses.
Gone for good.
..forever dead." Remi agrees, and with that understanding comes the paradigm shift he had been actively avoiding. The one he thought he could bully away.
"..I have to forget her, Ronin." The alchemist whispers. The realization feels like a window that has been shattered but hasn't yet fallen. You can practically feel the fractures, knowing that a gentle breeze will be enough to cause it to shatter out of place into a thousand unremarkable and sharp shards. "..Anywhere I go, she could be there. Anywhere that is not here, and I could die."
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Dragon wings burst out from Ronin's shoulders with enough force that they take most of the material of his shirt with them. A guttural and instinctive response, the appendages fold around Remi like he can hide the alchemist from the world, from Isla, from even Mort if he tries to come to take him. It's the wrong season for sympathy towards what he considers to be a rival in his affections, but at the same time, the magnitude of Remi's words is not wasted on him.
"I can't lose you," he whispers, because no part of him can consider saying don't do this, not when it's down to the wire and real, sudden death has just looked them in the eye and winked.
"Would you be able to just forget the... feelings? Does it have to be everything?" Because like it or not, forgetting all about the Remedy could be just as dangerous in some ways. Not Real Deal death dangerous, but still.
For years now the pair of them had looked at death and laughed. They'd charged ahead like the immortal beings they were, planning picnics amidst dragons and discussing the rules for what might happen if either should be temporarily pulled away. But this...this made Remi's role as a demigod feel laughable, as if the rug had been tugged out from under his feet and the wings which were meant to help catch him turned out to be made only of paper.
"I thought of that..but.." Shrugging his shoulders not in a gesture but merely to feel the press of Ronin's wings against him, Remi shakes his head. "..it would be too easy to love her all over again." He says slowly. "And unlike with you...it is my history with her that makes me feel the way I do." The implication of course being that Remi would fall in love with Ronin in a thousand different lifetimes no matter the circumstances.
But with Isla? That love was born of nuance and happenstance. A strange chemistry that relied heavily on having quite literally been a part of one another.
"It has to be everything." Remi's lower lip trembles even as his eyebrows furrow forward to shield against the tears prickling at the back of his eyes. There were so few in this world that the alchemist loved that it stole the air from his lungs just to think about, over and above the fact that he'd also be losing his best friend. "But gods, I have to..I have to.."
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Remi presses against Ronin's wings and they fold more tightly against him in turn, the Huntsman resisting the urge to sag down to the ground like he so badly wants to. It has been so long since he's been hungover or sick that nausea is a strange and unwelcome sensation; swallowing hard, he reaches out to cup Remi's cheeks, as if to catch his tears before they fall.
"Then make sure Ludo keeps them, in case we can ever get them back for you," he whispers, leaning in to kiss Remi's forehead, blinking quickly not just for the loss that his husband will feel but not remember, but also the cold needle of fear in the base of his spine at knowing how close things had been.
"Why didn't she?" he wonders softly. "Wessex said something as she left, that we owe Isla your life. Did she do something...?"
"And if the ascended manage to find a way to get them?" Remi wonders, his voice coming out more like a whine than he means for it to, even as his eyes search Ronin's for some amount of hope.
Stilling clutching Ronin's collar so hard that the feeling had gone out of his fingers, Remi blinks at the lack of sensation and relaxes his grip. "Before, when I said I snuck into the Grounds, it was using your duplicate. The Voice took Isla over and...scanned me, I suppose, before leaving. Maybe Isla had time to tell her to stop, or maybe it was just a display." Only then does what Ronin said really sink into his mind, and it's with a look of annoyed confusion that he straightens slightly. "Wessex said what?" He asks, frowning. "Well if not killing someone deserves a thank-you, I would say Wessex owes us about a thousand." Good as the petty words felt, the satisfaction was short lived such that Remi just sighed dismally in their wake.
'I am so sorry, Ronin. I...I truly did not think I was putting myself in danger. All the times I have bumped into Isla...in the Wilds, or at festivals...I only used your duplicate in the Grounds because I was not supposed to be there, and..' The words rush out, stopping only by a sloppy kiss made moiste by tears. I will forget her, for you. He vows, no matter how it hurts.
Nothing is worth the risk of not ever waking up to you.
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Then they will have managed to get past Ludo, and we will all probably be dead anyway," Ronin says, his voice somehow both rough and soft at the same time. Whether it's to placate his husband or an actual suggestion is beyond even his knowing - at the moment it feels as though he's speaking merely to fill the air with something, rather than the silence of a life almost taken.
Scoffing at the Lullaby's snark, it's unfortunately not enough by a long shot to lighten the mood for more than a moment. "You don't have to apologise," he whispers, silenced briefly by the kiss pressed against his lips. "If you had been killed it might be another matter, but... fuck..." It creeps up on him again, just how close things were, and his wings relax from around Remi for no other reason than so Ronin can clasp him close using his arms instead.
I wish you didn't have to, he whispers into the other man's mind. And I wish I was a good enough person to say that she's worth the risk of keeping them. But Ronin is selfish, and Isla isn't worth the risk.
Though a few of the fae had begun to relight candles and poke their heads out of windows to see if the danger had passed, Remi was hardly aware of anything save for the spots of colour on his husband's cheeks and the way the press of Ronin's hands felt a thousand miles away. "Gods," Remi laughs, humourlessly, tilting his chin up and giving the few stars that had begun peeping through the sky an appraising look.
"Of all the things I thought this war would cost...I never imagined this." That it would strain his friendship with Isla was one thing. That he might have to go weeks or months without seeing or speaking to one another...that he had prepared for. "Nothing is worth the risk of losing you." Remi says sharply, more sharply than he means, as he lowers his eyes back. "Nothing in this world or any other. I just..." The sea-glass shade of his eyes grows all the more ocean-like as tears pool and then fall.
"...I suppose I did not expect to have to make good on that promise." He whispers, lips trying for a smile that dies almost instantly. "Not like this."
i collect scars because I want proof I've paid for the sins I've committed
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Ronin shouldn't find the sharp edges of Remi's words so comforting, and yet here they are. As lamplights begin to twinkle around them and the sunset darkens to night, the Huntsman's wings fold away and his grip becomes something less desperate and more devoted. "I love you," he whispers, kissing the alchemist's tear-streaked cheeks. "I love you," he repeats, stealing a kiss from his lips this time.
"I love you now and I'll love you when it's done. I will make sure you never go a day thinking that you're missing anything." Another kiss, his arms winding around the other man as if to guide him away into the woods, out from the Fae's watchful eyes. "I can send her a letter... Or do you think you could see her, to say goodbye?"
