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!
He’ll find her in the spa, when he comes. Door unlocked and lights on inside, but with the sign flipped to Closed. Inside, she is sitting by the hearth, teacup in hand and steaming merrily but clearly forgotten as she stares into the flames.
Hotaru has had far too much to think about these days.
War, allegiances, children that grow up too fast for her heart to stand, love that buds and dies in the strokes of ink across pages that cross her minds eye every time she blinks.
Traveling with Talyson had forced her to face many of the things she wasn’t ready to. But now she is, and so she has returned. Instead of a letter, she’d sent one of the guards to tell Deimos of her return, and to inform him that regardless of when his duties would release him, she would be waiting.
And so she waits. Quiet, still, everything that Ru is not on any other day. Waiting for the sound of the Sword’s entrance, because Deimos knows he is always welcome, even when the door appears shut to all others.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
His brows had furrowed at the guard’s message, watching as the other soldier shrugged, uncertain in the parameters even now. Hotaru’s capricious nature often had its reasons and motivations – and he’d had a few more things to finish before hastening off towards spas and friends, pondering if the air of trepidation should’ve started spreading across his shoulders again.
The closed sign meant very little to him, so he opened the door without a knock, knowing she’d hear the swing of timber, the gust of wind from Halo’s reach spiraling in and amongst the solitude. A few steps within and her name was a rumble along his throat and amidst the silent bond, inquiry lacquered and stuck behind it. Ru? He hadn’t asked her before, and even now, it felt like stepping along a line. Choices made years and cycles in hand, turning them over like timepieces, children and leaves, the enigmas of the Greatwood instead of the ice pressed along mountains. And he’d said nothing, understood them. Didn’t tug and yank and pull her back into the threshold of citadels and dragons, of rime and determination, when they’d all so desperately clambered after it again and again.
Adjusting to the light, his gaze caught her by the hearth, brow arching rather than descending deeper into his worries and concerns. “Reopening?”
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
Icy wind kisses her nape, but it doesn’t inspire her to turn. Though her eyes flutter closed as she feels his soul reach for her own, her name a question in a voice she could recognize blind. Here, Dei. Reaching, guiding, a flicker of firelight in the darkness for him to follow. As if the space itself is not well-lit, in contrast to the quiet bubble of shadow she resides in by the fire.
He always comes when she calls, just as she would for him, and her heart aches with gratitude when she opens her eyes to find arched brows and carefully constructed features. An out, if she needs it. To pretend, to evade, to take a more lighthearted route. But Ru doesn’t need that now, not anymore, and so she extends her free hand to the chair at her side in invitation. The kettle warm on its stand between them, empty cup already set for his use if it strikes him. “I think it’s time to, yes,” she responds quietly, aware of the implications of her response and how it opens the door for honesty. “Sit with me?” As though she hadn’t already invited it with her outstretched hand. What it really means is be with me?
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
The Sword always followed the flames – drawn and ensconced within them just the same. For a time though, he watched and waited, looming in the distance, hovering in the shadows, striving to prepare his mind for what lingered upon thresholds and avoidances. They danced around subject matters in the quiet before, easier than bounding headfirst into tempests or fathoms, and his eyes remained narrowed, speculative, even as her hands maneuvered, outstretched, beckoning.
Deimos went to the kettle first, snagging at the teacup resting there, pouring the contents within the miniature vessel. A long sigh threaded through him, probably some form of eventuality breathing down their necks, though he couldn’t be certain about the whys and the reasons any longer. Maybe she could ask the same of him, bearing another title across his shoulders even though the distaste for it had always resided amidst bones and enamel. His head bowed slightly, taking his time and a sip of the concoction, before another rumble flowed. “What prompted this?”
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
She tracks him with her eyes, stillness evaporating like mist beneath sunlight now that he has arrived, almost like he’d awoken her from some kind of trance. This too is a stark reminder of all she has been missing, just as Talyson’s presence had been. Ru has few needs in life, and fewer still that are shared with the general populace, but perhaps age has softened her because it seems her tolerance for solitude has waned over the years. Nearly a year in the Greatwood and here she returns. Inexorable. Fated. Inevitable.
Reminded of her own brew, she takes a slow sip as she contemplates his question. “The choice was made for me in many ways,” she utters quietly, gaze distant. A house missing young voices - Flora and Enzo. The smell of ink on vellum - Wessex. The empty house where a friend once lived - Vai. All of them gone in one way or another. Until there is only Ru. Always, only Ru.
A new page. The same story.
So she goes back to the only thing that was ever hers, the only place that has ever felt like home. If the story is to repeat on loop, at least she can bear it from the comfort of the land she loves.
“I think I always knew I’d come back, I just wasn’t sure I was ready before.” Not after the coup, the birth of the twins, the sickness, and then…the settling. Growing used to the stagnancy, even as she detested it. And then, again, the doubt. Her growing affections for Wessex, Nate’s fall in Stormbreak. But here she returns, always back to the ice and snow. Always left behind even when she entertained thoughts of waiting, of changing. So she would wait no more.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
The first response didn’t sound like the Valkyrie – she’d been the one who imposed alterations, changes, and capricious edges – not the other way around. But some modicum of understanding assembled its pathways in his mind; of children, of quiet woods, of a stagnancy that would’ve spurned some other restlessness eventually. They were alike in that way, pieced together with the need to do something, even if it was just residing on plains of ash, or staring out over an abyss of snow beckoning at their claws and scraping at their minds.
He twisted the teacup in his hands, fingers winding along the handle, listening as his head bowed towards the flames, the glimmer of the embers reflecting and twining upon the enamel. While they’d been scattered along King’s End, teeth gnashing and determination spurning them onward, Ru’s path had been impacted with other measures that she’d found along the way. The Sword didn’t begrudge her any of that. Perhaps she, like many of them, had simply needed the time, the space, and the notions to find her place again.
Deimos indulged with the trace of a smile, even in the hovering, harboring quiet. “As long as you find it in the end,” he supposed, musing aloud in a rare form of spoken machinations. He made no mention of cyclical stories, maybe he’d rather pretend it hadn’t been the same for him, lifting his skull thoughtfully, as if scattered amidst the chilling wind outside, rather than the safe and quiet hearth. “What are your plans now?”
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
No, it doesn’t sound much like her at all. But then, she hasn’t felt like herself in nearly that long as well so perhaps it makes sense. They are restless, writhing, seeking creatures, she and Deimos, and he might notice that the ache he’d felt last they’d met is gone now if he were to look for it. Purpose found once more. All it took was time.
Her eyes slowly refocus, coming back from somewhere very far away to focus anew on his smiling face. Ru’s own twitch in mirror, slow to start but calm and pleased as it shapes itself fully. There’s a temptation to ask after the change in his own story, the crown he wears after so long avoiding it, but she already can guess how he must feel about it. It’s a conversation for later. “Reopening the spa is my first step. After that, well - I suppose you’re the person to ask now when it comes to how I can be of use.” Still, she can’t help hinting at it.
Leaning back into her chair, finally in motion, the Valkyrie crosses her legs and sips at her tea. “I won’t be a soldier in the typical fashion, but you have me as always should you need me. Perhaps I can help with training?” Certain that there is no use for her in government affairs or other sectors like healing and construction. Either way, she will forge her own path regardless of whether he needs her for something specific.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
Time had a way of absolving and mending wounds, bending and winding its serpentine times; of repeating, of reverberating, of reminding before its clock had spun all the way around. Neither are them sit idle in its path, never had, and probably never would – nor easily swept along in its current. They had always found their own trails and traversings; some journeys intentionally more difficult and laborious that way, but no complaint uttered from their throats or bitten behind teeth. Not for the predators. Not for the hunters. Not for those who sought and sought and sought.
His eyes went to his cup again, and then back to Ru, head tilting vaguely, the half-smile still rounding out the carved and sculpted edges of what might’ve been nonchalance – the Valkyrie would know the difference better than most. The insinuation peeked and hovered there, but determined, his skull did not bow against the fringes of a crown’s weight – not for the instant, anyway.
He nearly laughed at the notions of soldiers – he wouldn’t give up his barracks without someone prying it out of his cold, dead hands, but another thought spiraled from it. “I have no doubt you will forge your own path again.” A steady blink into the fire, a long breath still stolen from his lungs. “I will have to discuss it with Evie, but maybe there is room for a Thief amongst us again. Or something like it.” An information gatherer. A seeker in her own right. “I could always use help with training though. I cannot get to everyone.” And Ru would know how to wile her way around most. “What about the war?”
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
A slight curl in the corner of her mouth is answer to the unspoken reassurance his own expression provides. He is not faltering beneath the weight of the crown, and Ru prays he never will. That his soul will wipe clean and reset the tarnish that seems to seep from its gold into those who wear it, infecting them until they too are rusted through and brittle. If anyone could resist such a taint, it would be Deimos. Even if he were to falter, Hotaru would be there at his back - a shadow behind the throne, confidant and cutlass alike, ready to protect and support in equal measures.
Hotaru has never been content to be led, but if she must, she’ll choose Deimos every time.
Something very old and buried rises and shines within her eyes, pupils slitting in subtle, unintentional shift to better see him. As if instinctively searching for any hint of mockery or untruth. Hope like she hasn’t felt since she was a young woman - perhaps even a girl - snakes through her ribs. “Truly?” she scarcely breathes it, and though her body never so much as shivers her insides quake with the sudden, fierce desire to see it actualized. There is no flippant disguise she can utilize to hide her interest. Phrases like ‘I’d enjoy nothing more’ pale in comparison to her true feelings, and attempting to downplay it is a laughable notion. Even without their history, she’d never be able to sell it. Not with this.
It’s hard to focus on anything but the potential he offers, but Ru struggles to tighten the reins for his sake. Distracting herself with a sip from her tea, lingering with her lips on the rim to deeply breathe in the smell of the blend to force herself to refocus. “I suspect you and the demigods will be occupied with each other, and if that is the case then I will stay to help defend Halo.” She is arrogant in all the correct ways, but in this it is merely a truth. Ru’s presence will undoubtedly help shift the odds in Halo’s favor, and so she will throw away her own guaranteed safety to assure that.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
The Sword wouldn’t say he’d never falter – the absolute in a segment alone called and caused error – but he strived towards a balance of boundaries and expectations. He could no longer drive himself into the brink of the ice. He could no longer drown himself in misery and woe. He could no longer scrape away at everyone else’s trials and forget his own. It’d be difficult; for he was the type to flicker and rally within an instant to anyone’s behest – treading lightly, carefully, so not to be daunted by the weight of his self-worth. Crowns were heavy, and he’d easily toss it aside for nothing at all but a blade in his hand and the power within his soul – but he’d take his friends, his allies, and his companions in a heartbeat too.
Maybe the same could be said for Ru though, as he watched primordial plumes begin their varnish. It caused a grin, neither boyish nor juvenile, but a genuine article, to unfurl along his mouth, dimpling portions of his cheeks not covered in beard. “It might be possible,” with an air of enigmatic prowess and a little teasing, merely to drag out the proportions – but her hidden elation was enough. Deimos didn’t need to say especially with the war; unsaid precipices already looming –
And then there was the matter at hand, causing the smile to dissipate for his residual, stern look and silence. Eyes went back towards his tea, lifting it slowly to his mouth, taking and biding his time. “Safrin told me I would be going to the Draig,” which coincided with a mixture of feelings and upheavals: that he couldn’t stay here, defending home and hearth and everyone else nestled in between, that he’d be worried for them while constantly battling other demons along mountains, and that, in the end, there could be more cataclysms waiting for them. The notions of his own potential demise hung there too, so he merely tilted his head, saying none of this. The Valkyrie would understand it, even in the midst of hushed emotions. “I will feel immensely better with you defending Halo.”
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
The genuineness of his smile soothes the raw edges of her hope, long dead and soldered shut inside her. A piece of herself she’d come to accept would never find use in a place like Caido, where traditions of battle for respect, material possessions, and more did not exist. If there was no place for that, there was certainly no place for a Thief. But Deimos would not give her hope that had no basis or potential, and her return smile is wobbly with emotion. Gratitude most of all, that he had never forgotten who she was, what would make her happiest. She can’t even summon words to combat his teasing, too filled with riotous joy that beats back the shadows of her grief.
It is tempered swiftly by his revelation, and the Valkyrie goes grim and quiet. There’s no use wasting words and breath on pointing out just how dangerous that land is. Deimos already knows, and Ru knows just as well that he intends to go regardless of the risk. The inclination of his head is not a goodbye - they never say goodbyes, and they never will - but it makes her incline her own in turn. This is who they are. Fear has never worn away foundations made strong by duty and fealty. It would not find a foothold now. “I will keep her as safe as I can in your absence.” A vow, because Ru can’t ask of him a promise he can’t keep: to come home at the end of it all. “Who else will award me that rank after all?” Teasing lilt returning to tone and lips alike, unwilling to linger too long on what-ifs. They have a little more time. Hotaru won’t waste a single grain of sand in the hourglass on fear before it’s due.
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
The smile returned at the modest tease; anything to pull themselves out of the encroaching darkness laden amongst eyes, memories, and the past. The potential haunted and loomed too, at an ever-increasing pace, but one they’d expected, known, and understood. War was at least an experience neither of them took lightly, but comprehended deep within bones and marrow, where it rested amidst flesh and sinew until erupting and partaking all over again. Not an all-consuming damnation, but a cluster of unraveled corruptions, with just the shapes of adversaries changing. “Thank you,” was a whisper against the enamel of his cup as he snagged at another sip, and already feeling the dregs of emotion tugging this way and that, he sought to immerse in something not as restless, but perhaps as juvenile.
“What else has been going on?” With her, specifically – the lack of word or letter always prompted the contortions of enigmas with Ru. She knew exactly how to disappear into wisps of thin air; like vestiges and rumors, like plumes and nothingness, leaving behind the wraiths, ghosts, and phantoms, with hardly any explanation. And though the Sword wouldn’t be one to pry too deeply, surface level tension was enough. “The spa has been looking poor in your absence,” with a wrinkle to his nose, indicating a few areas nearby that clearly needed some maintenance.
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
It will be hard, to be separated from him during this. Like a missing, phantom limb. So many times she has approached the front lines with him at her side, fought with her back to his, and now she will not be there to aid him in the Draig. It makes her somber and silent in a way little else can. His thanks is quiet, barely audible beneath the crackle of the hearth, but Ru will always hear him. Her own mouth quirks just slightly as she sips her tea; Of course, Deimos. Allowing the bond to open just enough for the words and their accompanying fealty and sisterly affections to be felt before slowly closing once more. He does not need to feel the depths of her grief that lie beneath that, not with what already sits on his shoulders.
His inquiry and subsequent analysis makes her hum with pointed discontent, setting her cup down. “I was rather disgruntled to realize that myself. The manager I had employed while I was in the Greatwood has been fired, to say the least. I’ll be handling the spa for now until I find a more sufficient replacement.” And if she’d used her cunning to already begin seeding doubt in the woman’s abilities to any other future employers, well, could she be blamed? The spa was her baby after all.
Fingers tracing the edge of the fine porcelain of her teacup, she stares into the small remaining amount of liquid and sighs softly. “Everything else is rather…sorrowful in terms of news. I’ve made my choice, all I can do is work to make it the best one.” Anything else will hinge entirely on the outcome of the war. Not just whose side wins, but who survives. Herself included. Turning heterochromatic eyes his way, she smiles, and is glad it does not feel too heavy on her face. “What of you? I’d like a spot of good news, if you have any.”
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
The image of Ru firing the unfortunate keeper of the spa – whomever it had been – nearly inspired a modest form of laughter from the Sword. Instead, it was a reserved, if slightly muffled chuckle, resounding from deep in his chest, a muted but gallant roar nonetheless. “Unfortunate. But perhaps it thrives best under your guidance,” and so he shrugged his shoulders, feeding the prosperous ego that existed within her frame, eyes lifting along, studying the framework, and listening all the while.
His gaze returned, resting on her again, as she seemed to narrowly avoid; enough said without the parameters of truth drawn along cups or tangibility. Reluctance was understood in a variety of ways – for they’d had enough in their lives to wonder what would change and alter the breadth of their realities within an instant. “The children are all right?” He figured he would have heard if either of the twins had met a cruel fate – but if all they’d done was grow, and prosper, then perhaps that was the terms of sorrow.
As for his own good news, it was his turn to hesitate. In the past, the last circumstances had eventually fallen apart, leaving all that contentment, all that wonder, to splinter away into hurt, confusion, and devastation. He mulled and mused, fingers twisting and turning over the empty cup, contemplating whether or not to say anything at all. But, despite everything threatening to implode and hovering over his head, he was happy, and maybe the rarity alone could’ve been shared. “Evie and I are dating,” in between rounds of constant work. Perhaps in the darkness, Ru wouldn’t see his cheeks flush or the way his stare immediately went into the cup.
you're all bronze and bite all venom and fistfight
