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!
Flora hasn't noticed that Neron is leading her farther away from the crowd (read: safety), which is precisely the sort of naivety that comes with aging too quickly that's bound to get a girl killed. "Oh?" She blinks. "Oh!" Neron was the first ascended the girl had really met, and though she'd recognized the teeth right away for what they were, the full ramifications hadn't sunk in. (If they had, she'd have realized how inapt her blowjob innuendos had been, or any innuendos, really). "I mean, I do like the weather." She says with an easy laugh before gazing up at the cloudless sky and full moon. "But the nighttime is pretty good too." Biting at her bottom lip (ow), Flora shoots Neron an apologetic smile.
"I just needed a change. My whole family is in the Greatwood and I just...didn't want to be always known because of them, you know?" Little did she know, someone like Neron absolutely would know. "And like, oh no, danger and all that but...there's a war coming where we're all probably going to die anyways, so what's the point in sitting around and being all safe just to die in a few months? Might as well live now and all that." Realizing she was rambling now, Flora clears her throat and itches absently at her neck with her free hand.
Flora hasn't noticed and, honestly, neither has Neron, and it's only as he hears the music begin to fade that he draws them to a halt, as if realising where his mind and body were taking them and to what potential end. "It is? Perhaps I'll have to swing by the beach, there. It's been a long time since I stepped on sand, and I have no idea how much longer the Ascended will be welcome in Torchline."
Scoffing out a laugh that absolutely says yeah, I know, Neron nods, just in case he hasn't gotten his point across. "Run as far as you can for as long as you can," he agrees. "You're right though, honestly. It doesn't matter where you end up settling either, these days. Danger is right around the corner, whether it's small time stuff or all out war. May as well enjoy yourself." Well aren't they a pair of doom mongers?
Flora can feel her cheeks flush with heat as Neron draws them to a halt. In her mind he's either gotten bored of her, is going to murder her, or perhaps most anxiety-inducing of all, is going to kiss her. "Well, you'll always be welcome in my apartment." Flora offers, trying to make the offer casual. "Besides at night most people who are out and about have other things on their minds." Murder or sex being top of the list.
Raising an eyebrow and appreciating Neron for not immediately asking who her family was, she nods. "What happens when I run out of places to run...?" Flora wonders, narrowing her eyes with playful skepticism.
"So.. how do you enjoy yourself?" She hears herself saying despite the sound of her own pulse in her ears. "You know, with danger around every corner..?"
"Oh will I?" It feels as though the innuendo is taking the leap from subtle to flashing its tits in the window, and Neron, absolutely not knowing better (and oh, if only he did know), runs with it. "And what would you have in mind if we were in your apartment, pray tell?" It's not like they can have sex, though he's sure she knows that already. Still, he's heard of people who are into Ascended that way (ahem, Sunjata).
"If you run out of places to run then you just change your name, identity or personality and start again," he tells her with the air of someone who has done just that. "Not too much, though. Old habits die hard, and most of the time they don't die at all."
Raising an eyebrow as the question is fired his way, Neron flashes her a cat-like smile for her trouble. "I run a bar in the Hollowed Grounds. I'm also a spy for the Ascended war effort." Which is all entirely true, which is why he's said it. No one ever believes a spy who tells people about it.
'Uhm, planning mischief of course.' Flora replies easily, rolling her eyes up at him gleefully. "With all of the nefarious guilds in Torchline I've always sort of wondered if you couldn't just...fly under the radar and turn the guilds against each other. " She adds, having absolutely thought no such thing until this very moment.
"Mmmm." None of this resonates with Flora who had only recently acquired this personality and was still shaking the kinks out of it. Too young to understand what habitual patterns one could fall into, she merely nods sagely up at Neron with the air of one who absolutely understands.
"Wh—" Flora begins to say—omg a bar? so hot—before the latter part of his statement steals the words right from her (slightly swollen) lips. "...." Narrowing her eyes as she searches his (gods but they were blue), Flora tries to see the tells of a lie in his face but found none. "So...you run a bar in a place where the majority of people can't get drunk or taste it...and you're a spy for the ascended who already have a way of basically knowing everything." Raising her eyebrows and doing her best Rottenborn impression, she asks: "Did I get that right?"
"Oh I see," Neron concedes with a nod, as if she has just taught him some incredibly valuable information. "That sounds like quite a lot of work though, I'll be honest," he says. "Why not just join a guild and plan mischief within it?" Like me. Casting his eyes out to the black sea and the stars shimmering upon it, he debates walking further but also doesn't want to fully embrace the lol we're sneaking off together trope.
Her eyes narrow and he bounces his eyebrows right back at her, as if to ask what? "What in Caido gave you the impression that I serve alcohol?" he inquires with a flash of teeth. "Granted, I do keep a supply of that as well, because not everyone is Ascended, but there's so much more we can offer in a place like mine."
Flora rolls her eyes again, wondering if his disagreement was genuine or if it stemmed from the fact that her offer hadn't turned out to be salacious. "Well, because what if I don't want to do what the guild does?" She says. "And what if I don't want to share? And what if I decide I have to up and run away and don't want to deal with all the strings?" Looking at Neron's profile as he gazed out towards the water, Flora swallows hard interpreting his wandering gaze as boredom.
Opening her mouth only to close it again, the skin above her nose wrinkles as she wonders what else could be served at a bar.
"I—" His smile has her wondering if he kept jars of blood or something, but didn't want to ask. "I guess that makes sense." Flora adds, trying to settle back into a rhythm that Neron might find interesting. "Being able to just..try everything the way the ascended can..." She bites at her lower lip (ow, Flora seriously, stop). "...all those shifts and any magic.." It was a naive question to be sure, but knowing that most did like talking about themselves, she hazarded asking it anyway.
"What's your favourite ability you've used from someone else..?"
"Wouldn't turning the guilds against one another involve a lot of doing what all the guilds do? You'd have to build trust before you could influence them either way," Neron points out with a sly smile. "And you might not like what any of them do. But then again, if Torchline is as colourful as you say, I imagine it wouldn't be all that bad." Whatever she decides to get up to in her apartment, alone or otherwise.
Not realising where her mind has gone, Neron is oblivious to the jar of dirt blood scenario playing out. And given that he has no reason not to think Flora knows what he means, it will likely stay that way. "Mm? Oh, well I can make my own magic. So I think my favourite abilities have been from Attuned or others. I was a manticore once," he says, oblivious to the box of frogs he might have unintentionally opened.
"Not necessarily." Flora says with an airy shrug. "If I was ever under suspicion, I could always just shift the focus towards one of the guilds with a well-placed word or two." Given her looks Flora thought she could get away with it a few times too, before having to change her tactics.
Filled with a bright surge of adrenaline that accompanies the pulse of her instincts tell her to be careful around someone as powerful as Neron clearly was, the feeling stuttered and died, corrupted by what the Launceleyn said next.
"A manticore?" She repeated, her tone suddenly flat. "Eww, like, from Remi?" Flora wonders, her lips twisted into a shape of disgust. There wasn't much she knew of the ascended, but you'd have to live under a rock to be unaware of what their bites did. And if the manticore shift came from her father, then that meant...
Neron can absolutely appreciate the lies and manipulation that comes with what Flora's describing, and the nod he gives her is almost one of approval. "You'd be everyone's favourite contact, but also the worst person for them to cross," he agrees with a smirk. "Let me know if you go ahead with it. I might have a guild for you to join in earnest." It's for spies and it doesn't technically exist any more, but Neron is trying to change that.
Unfortunately, the flow of their conversation drops flatter than Flora's tone as she mentions the Lullaby, and Neron tilts his head at her, amused. "Not a fan of Ludo's demigod? I can't say I blame you," he drawls. "But yes, as it happens. It was a trade, though I'm not sure it was worth it even now. Granted, if I hadn't agreed to at least get something out of it, I imagine he'd have taken what he wanted from me whether I liked it or not. Not really one for consent, is Remi Taliesin."
'Oh. Okay.' Flora hums, trying for cool and casual at his offer but likely coming across as more girlish and thrilled than anything else. What had started out as a bold and beautiful lie was turning into an actual plan, and you know what? Having an actual aim for her time spent in Torchline would likely do Flora good. Amazing that she would have Neron Launceleyn to thank for that.
Looking appropriately disgusted and scarred were it not for how objectively handsome Neron was, Flora might have taken a dramatic step backwards. "But when you bite someone...don't you...don't you both...?" The butterflies were now dying off in droves, falling into the pit of her stomach and sloshing around. "If you were that strong, would you ever let someone tell you no?" Flora wonders and the question transforms her nauseated expression into one of genuine interest.
"I mean...if I couldn't die and if I could just...make everyone do what I wanted...? I mean, I guess you have to be okay with the fact that lots of people will hate you.." Which, she wouldn't. But then, she'd be a lot more clever about things than her father.
Neron, too, would be thrilled to know that his own lazy musings have resulted in someone else taking action; it means he doesn't have to do any heavy lifting himself, naturally. Unfortunately fluffing his own ego (flaccid dick notwithstanding) is playing second fiddle to the disgust that he's apparently invoked in his new acquaintance, and adorable though it might be, the Hailstorm can't help his amusement. "Well yes, that is how it works," he says, as if confirming some big secret about the Ascended.
As for the rest, though, he can only roll his shoulder in a shrug. "I don't suppose I would, but I'd at least give the illusion of choice," he says. "Shoving people away makes life very difficult, and I'm not a big fan of that. Then again, perhaps some solitude would do him some good." Personally, Neron believes that if Remi spent any meaningful length of time with himself, he'd die of boredom. But there we go.
"Eww, so did you two...?" It was weird prying into her father's sex life (open and constantly on display as it was), but this was different. Because under absolutely no circumstances could Flora put her...! Nope. She wasn't even going to think about it. nope nope nope. Having thus far only inherited her parents inclinatiosn for being sexual but not their imaginations or scope for it, the resulting imagery of Neron and Remi touching in any way shape or form had unease pulling her lips into a frown.
"Have you met him? At no point has being a loner bothered him." Flora huffs, and though her opinion of Remi is clearly coloured by her own experiences, there are more than a handful of others who would likely agree.
"What, fuck?" Neron scoffs. "Absolutely not, he hates my guts as far as I know - and there's no equipment for it in Halo anyway. He bit me and left. Why, is the idea of my naked body so appalling?" Feigning being offended, Neron tilts his head towards the sky and slumps his shoulders.
As for being a loner not bothering Remi, the Hailstorm barks out a laugh and shakes his head. "Funny how you say that about people who always seem to be around others, right? Doesn't mind being alone, but they're always around. I don't buy it. People used to say it about me, and it was a fucking lie. I hated it."
