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!
Dreary and ominous as the location may be, Evie had hedged her bets on bones being more plentiful near the Hanging Tree as opposed to anywhere else in the Feverlands. Armed with a skull she had chosen to barter for instead of harvesting herself for the sake of time, Evie keeps her eyes keenly on their surroundings as she seeks out bones both visually and with her earth magic. Sending it out in little pulses beneath her feet, determining deposits and buried objects in hopes of finding a nest of some sort.
Clad in far less than she is now used to, Evie pulls her hair up into a topknot to relieve the heat at the nape of her neck. “I know Halo is harsh, but why anyone would want to live in a place like this instead is beyond me,” she huffs in muttered undertone to her companion. The heat is insufferable, and she envies Deimos his ability to shift into various forms that would bear such a thing far easier. Though it only makes her feel guilty a moment later for the fact that he is disinclined to due to accompanying her, who cannot do such things. “It feels like it has been ages since we’ve had time to do things like this, and its only been a season. How are you?” she asks instead, turning to the Sword with a warm, open expression. They’ve been hard at work fortifying the walls and building the skyport, but Evie won’t let that distract her from checking in on the man she cares for.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
Bones and skulls and nests of carcass dwellers hadn’t been an outing he would’ve planned, but nonetheless accompanied alongside the Evergreen, eyes studying the perplexities of the Feverlands unfurled before them. While he didn’t detest the swamps or marshes as much as the desert, his nose still wrinkled with vague distaste, stepping over portions of puddles with an elongated stride. “I know of Frey’s demigod once living here. Mildew.” But he was uncertain if she remained, anywhere, all these seasons later, eyes flickering vaguely in the direction her hut would’ve been in. The humidity still clung to his skin and he pulled the long threads of his hair upward into a makeshift bun, leaning towards his preference of the winter landscape of home all the more. Especially as Belial went careening by, indifferent to the degrees and alterations in temperature.
At her open expression and inquiry, a hundred things began to cluster around his mind – for they’d both been busy. There was more, even between log piling and ice cutting and launching of walls, and he returned her glance with one slightly reserved, uncertain where to begin. “Would you like me to start with good, bad, or…,” and here he paused, hesitating on how to categorize Darkeye’s trials and tribulations, or Talyson’s recent asinine regards. He settled eventually on one word to correspond to both, biting it down between his teeth. “The unfortunate news?”
Given her recent entanglement with Frey, Evie turns an interested ear at the mention of one of their demigods having lived in the area. “Truly? They seem to have many more demigods than the other heralds. I wonder why. Perhaps because they’re dual-natured?” Or, more likely, because they were far more accepting of individuals and easier to please.
Given the successes of their recent efforts, Evie is admittedly surprised - and then concerned - by the weight that seems to come over him at her question. Slowing, but not stopping, she frowns slightly as she looks at him note closely. “Start in that order,” she decides, rather preferring the good news first so she could focus on the harder notions after, devote more time to it.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
“That would make sense,” and he shrugged; pondering if drawing the lines within the sand, and Frey’s rather unbiased view of the world, leant and bent to more seeking out the dual-natured herald. The war could’ve ensured more sought their favor, especially for those who remained entirely ensure of their stature in the midst, even as it loomed ever closer.
But the reaction thereafter caused a slight reticence; if only because he had no intention of laying out damaging courses and making the situations worse. She had a right to know, and it was a battle of wills between his protective streak, the necessity of communication, and ensuing conundrums contorting over his brows and gaze. Nor did he want it to be like a list, with one unrelenting motion to the next, snagging and snarling at the threat of overwhelming dispositions.
At least the first notions wouldn’t be so bad, and he could release some of the tension lining his shoulders, drawing deeper into his senses as his own earth incantations sought the creature they were looking for, beneath the surface of dirt and soil. “I went to see Safrin. Got my armor, and she gave me another shift too.” A light smile followed, as if to place that before all the other nuances damned and doomed to come. “Not sure what it is yet. Have not tried it.” Just that it was massive, curled in amongst the rest of his forms; not entirely restless, but a behemoth and monolithic presence all the same.
It can’t be easy, knowing there is worse to share and choosing to inform her regardless. Though Evie is adamant and unflinching in her support of him, as both a Warden and a man, she knows well the desire to withhold and conceal out of a misplaced desire to protect someone. Which is why she is patient as he contemplates and constructs responses. Allowing him to share this variety of news in the manner best befitting his goals for this conversation.
The good news was the best place to start, and though she’s never met Safrin, the Goddess has always uplifted and sheltered the loved ones in her life which makes her a bright spot in the otherwise dim, uncertain fealty Evie has for the gods. She’s happy for him, and it shows plainly in the arch of her brows, the bright and toothy smile on her face. “That’s wonderful! Though I don’t know how you’ve managed to postpone shifting, I would be too terribly curious to wait so long.” Likely would have shifted moments after the Goddess departed, if it was her. “Perhaps after we find the Penolaeth you might consider it?” It’s a playful wheedle, curious on his behalf - and her own, of course - and hoping it might uplift them at the end of their journey depending on the severity of the bad news. Speaking of - “What is worse, the bad or unfortunate news?” Synonyms as they are, Evie’s uncertain which is more dire in his mind.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
These were the easier moments, and perhaps he should’ve clung harder to those, rather than build up the residual apprehension in his chest. Studying her reaction gave him enough regards and persistence to continue, with the ease of his dimpled smile along the corners, bemused for a tender moment. “Busy. Patient.” And though his curiosity was often insatiable too, other foundations worked their way through his mind, and whatever lurked within had the same measures of fortitude, endurance, and stoicism. “But I wanted to wait and show you too.” In the middle of reforming Citadel walls or shoving blocks of ice across plains of snow hadn’t seemed the best times either. The reality of leadership meant everything else had come first.
So he nodded at the suggestion thereafter; something to look forward to after the inevitable was dredged up.
It was unfortunate that they couldn’t linger on those happier constituents and possibilities, but he unfurled a breath, weighing out the options and finding neither better or worse by comparison; just different fault lines and consternations drawn in parallel statures. They could run alongside for all he contemplated, both outlined and defined by the way his shoulders straightened, spine taut, rigid, and unyielding. “Depends,” came on a lower rumble, the grin vanishing quickly as veracity formed along his tongue and behind his teeth. “Safrin told me Noah and I would be going to the Draig for the war.”
10-05-2022, 09:53 PM (This post was last modified: 10-05-2022, 09:57 PM by Evie.)
Evie
A warm glow rises between the arches of her ribs as handwaved reasonings give way to something more tender. Perhaps it’s because she’s a Natural, and holds more reverence for the shapes Attuned take being reflections of their very soul, but Deimos waiting so that his own discovery of his new form would coincide with Evie witnessing it? It feels like liquid gold in her veins. “Thank you,” she whispers through a smile that is so tender it hurts, instead of a beaming grin.
It’s a warmth doomed to die a swift death, however. As it freezes in her veins her entire body seems to follow suit, stuttering to a horrified pause as her eyes seek his in some desperate bid to find he is merely pulling a cruel joke on her. But he never would, no matter how she prays for it to be the answer, and instead Evie is forced to confront the news that Deimos will be battling for their side of this war in a place more deadly than Evie can even conceptualize. “No,” she objects weakly, voice tremulous. She is horrified to find her eyes burning traitorously, like a young girl’s. “No, you - but why? Why do they need you?” Why you? Again, the childish urges; to deem it unfair, to beg for an alternative, to refuse him the choice to obey. All bitten back by the strength of a lifetime of unfairly losing too many people already. Her lips tremble, but she has the fortitude - somehow, someway - to maintain the rest of her composure. Not for herself, but for him, so that he might not feel guilt for the wave of grief that seems to drown her though they stand inexorably on dry earth. “That’s what they have their demigods for, that’s what all their planning was for right? So why-?” Horrifyingly, her voice cracks, and she subsided into shameful silence, unwilling to continue trying lest she lose what little composure she has in her grasp. Please, just not him, she begs in the silence where nobody can judge her, knowing it’s a prayer that will never be heard; the Gods have never deemed to listen to her tearful pleading before. Why would they now?
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
The regret immediately sunk into the points of his ribs and the columns of his chest. Were it anyone else, save for fellow Halo citizens, he wouldn’t have even mustered the notions. The sentiments could’ve remained locked away and corded off; another furtive semblance contorted in the Sword’s existence, amongst the infinite number already stored. His mouth parted for an instance, on a breath or air of explanation, but was lost in her horrified expression, until his eyes eventually pointed downward, along swamp and bog. There’d be no salvation of deliverance there either, and somehow the words made him feel worse – carving a niche down the breadth of his spine and leaving it there, open and lacerated. “Strength and power, probably.” A dominion over elements, a relic in his hands, all of those probably amounted to something, even if he had refused the call of demigod prowess and prestige.
The guilt and shame was already there, even if Evie tried to hold everything else back – for not being in Halo when war called, for not being able to protect everything he cared about, for being heralded off where his demise may not mean anything either. His jaw clenched, muscles feathering and working through a thousand leagues of pent-up emotion. It might’ve been easier in Talyson’s utter indifference, Ru’s acceptance, or Sah’s bravado. Standing there, speaking about the inevitable, made him want to curl and coil back into reticence and nothingness.
Or reassure, when he wasn’t certain what he uttered would even be the truth. “You know I would rather be in Halo. So I will just keep preparing all of you, and, - “ he cut himself off, swallowed down whatever yearned to crawl and flicker him apart, shrugging his shoulders to release the broad tension and weight shifting down upon them again. “It will be all right. I just wanted to make sure you knew.” And if he said it enough times, maybe those words would hold true.
Just as she cannot hide how her heart is splintering, nor can he hide - from her, at least - the regret he feels at having caused it. But he hasn’t, and she cannot bear to let him think that. To comfort him or herself, she isn’t sure, but she reaches for his hand as if it could pull them both from this reality with the strength of her grip alone. If she just holds him close enough, maybe, maybe, maybe -
Because how is it fair that so many will be safe in the refuge? That so few will stay to fight, and fewer still called to the very forefront of the battlefield? And how is it fair that the gods themselves - who have spited and spurned Evie enough in her life, haven’t they? - choose to take him? Him, who she -
Who she loves.
Small though the seed may be in its infancy, it is there. Hidden away from sight, nurtured slow and steady, not yet ready to spread its roots. But there, and all the more painful because of it.
Her sight of him begins to blur, and Evie blinks helplessly in an effort to see him clearer. To put his own emotions before her own, as she has always tried to do, because so often his needs and desires have been pushed aside by people too selfish to tend to him. She doesn’t want to be that person ever, much less right now. “I’m supposed to be the one telling you that,” she croaks, and tries for some small undertone of a laugh that comes out so many shades of broken. Don’t comfort me, she wants to command him with a strength she can’t find, not when it’s you who has to go. In his hand, her own trembles, clammy with fear for him.
“I don’t want you to go,” she confesses shamefully in a rush of words, mouth shaking, pursed at the corners in a vain attempt to withhold very real tears. “And I know I can’t say don’t, and I’d never - not really - I know you must, and likely would even if they didn’t tell you to - and of course I trust you! Your skill, and -” her warbling worsens as she rushes to try and explain, to be honest without making him feel guilty, gods forbid, as if he has any true guilt to bear no matter what she knows his mind must be telling him. Traitorously, a tear escapes, streaking so fast down her cheek from being pent up that it falls right off her chin then and there. It wobbles seconds later. “I’ll protect Halo, I don’t want you to worry about anything but yourself. I just - I just -” the air seems so very thin, and far too scarce.
She feels even sicker with guilt for her own emotions, for not being strong enough to take this news with grace and poise as others close to him might display. But the fear she already felt - for him in general, for their people, for what fate the war may bring - it is so much sharper and more present now with this news. And Evie, for all her strength and resilience in all other ways, is not strong here. In her heart. It breaks before the reality of losing him.
She splutters, the entire barrage of words earning no more than a single ragged breath between sentences as she strives to get it all out at once. Until there’s nothing but the core of what she hadn’t wanted to say, lest the sincerity of it make him feel even worse for telling her, when she wouldn’t have wanted it concealed from her anyway. “I just don’t want to l-lose you,” she manages, and the tears begin to fall.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
There were times when that was all he’d ever amounted to be: a shield and a weapon, a barrage of power and demolition against adversaries and enemies, the taste of acrimony on his tongue and the contempt flowing through his veins. It’d could’ve been easy to sink into all of that again – to grow reticent and indifferent, to turn an apathetic gaze upon the world, to wield nothing more than armaments as words as they crashed and sang through the air. And now, after years of striving to change and alter, to have and hold, to snag and grasp something for himself, for others, the jagged pieces of primordial destruction recalled Reaper tendencies, hummed and haunted in interloping, serrated boundaries.
And he’d commit to it – as he always did.
Because his strides sinking into the Draig, alongside friends and demigods, would mean that others wouldn’t have to do the same. Would mean they’d have a chance against the Voice. Would mean more opportunities. More chances. Of either death or victory.
He’d never been one to wonder why he was sent to the battlefield. He didn’t care about fairness. Deimos knew who he was, inside and out, understood the nature of his being. Crusades and campaigns were the simpler proportions. All of this, with people caring, with vulnerability curling, with walls down, might’ve been harder to bear. His fingers contorted over hers, and with his free hand, a thumb aimed to brush away tears, gentle, sighing as the words pervaded. “I will always worry,” and he found half a smile, wayward and strained, along the corners of his mouth. All this pain and agony clustered together between the pair of them stifle, and he didn’t like it, tried to find a way to wade through the aches. “You do not have to take that on yourself either. Halo is strong. That is how everyone has survived for so long.” And gods, they wouldn’t let something like a war break them apart.
If they said it enough times, if they uttered those confidences, those reassurances –
Those last words punctured a bit more severely though, and his piercing eyes flickered back over her, brows furrowing, throat swallowing and catching down another range of emotions. Plenty had lost him before and not cared at all. He looked away briefly, to snag at something tangible, to ground himself in the wake of all these musterings, before the depths of his stare returned to the Evergreen, a long breath unfurling. For all those she’d seen simply wilt and perish before her. “You will not,” meant as a comfort, as calloused fingers slowly wound their way over more tears.
The strength of his hand around hers should settle her heart and her nerves. In its grasp she should note the callouses from years of work, the scars from battles won, and take heart in all he has proven to overcome. Instead, all she feels is the way his fingers fit with hers perfectly, a man instead of a weapon, and she isn’t sure she can let go when the time comes.
Her face contorts with pain as he gently thumbs away her tears, leaning her cheek selfishly into his touch. He should not have to comfort her, and she loathes herself for not being strong enough to have prevented it from happening. “Then why must you take it upon yourself? Haven’t you given enough? Why can’t you stay and - and be safe?” Or at least just marginally safer than the Draig?
His comfort is not hollow for how it encompasses her, but it is hollow at its heart. A promise that cannot truly be kept. Still she clings to it, because what else will there be to cling to once he is gone? She spends a moment, eyes closed, trying to slow the tears he gently brushed away. Until she reluctantly retrieves her hand - and the throwing daggers he gave her so many years ago, which have never left her waist - and shears a lock of hair the length of her palm with the blade. “My magic and salves can’t work on you even if I sent them with you,” her voice wobbles, but she tries very hard to steady it as she holds her own vibrant lock between their two bodies like a concealed gift. “But - but take me anyway? So I can be there with you?” He can use his magic to do what he likes with it, but she can’t bear to imagine not being with him even if just in spirit. Worse, Evie can’t imagine him dying alone on the Draig without a piece of her to carry with him into the beyond, to hold and remember her until the time she could reunite with him once more.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
Her protests were understandable nuances of a time they no longer had. Deimos was the one who offered safety. Sanctuary and shelter for himself was a rarity – only in minute stretches of moments like these, which he still found a way to blemish. He marched into too many semblances and embarked into too many altercations with sedition in his lungs; Refuge was with her, and other cherished ones, where he could simply be. The Sword shook his head, the smile still etched in the corner of his mouth, unwilling to falter along inscrutable lines, or pierce himself into pieces in front of her. A quiet rumble followed the outset, systems of comprehension and nuances of the world they lived within. “Then who goes? Another to take my place?” Someone not as capable or strong, sent to be slaughtered? A sharpening glance to the gallows? A kicking and screaming martyr? You know better than that curled into his mind, but remained unspoken.
Her movements left him confused for half a moment, piercing eyes watching her hand slide to the familiar daggers, complexities and perplexities bursting on his brows. Only after she had quickly shorn a lock of red did he tilt his head in slight bewilderment, watching as the crimson strands were placed between them – that this was supposed to be a sentiment of her existence still with his. Pathways of memories and tangibility.
The words left him stunned, until hands contorted and permitted vibrant, gilded incantations to encircle over the tresses, a little glass container to keep them together, rather than apart. “Of course,” and he’d parse it right next to the bauble Safrin had given him – one for truth and one for assurance. “Thank you.” It’d be enough; resting next to his heart as they embarked further into devastation and ruin.
But then another idea sparked, and soon he was rustling through his bag, snagging at an item long since instilled towards the bottom. The ear cuffs, made of bone, elongated and meant to curl along the folds of the shells – meant, once, to be some communication device for Halo. But then Morgan had dissipated into her allegiances elsewhere, and they’d been committed to coups and banishments. “These are made to communicate across any distance,” and he held out for the pair for her to inspect. “We can wear one each.”
His logic is damning, and it makes her flush with shame that she doesn’t let contort her actual expression. She’d never sacrifice someone else in his place, certainly not anyone who wouldn’t willingly go, but why must the place be filled at all? “The demigods who were already chosen,” she mutters, voice still thick with emotion but eyes sliding away, aware it’s an argument more hollow than the fear in her gut.
But Evie has long known that fear - especially helpless, aimless fear, the kind that cannot be resolved - can only be fought with sentiments like love and hope. Both exist in the curled locks that sit in the palm of her hand, a talisman stronger than anything her magic can accomplish. She watches as glass encases the freely given strands, and she manages a timid smile. There is no fix to this situation. While her tears may show her care and concern, they are no Phoenix tears, capable of mending and restoring. Shedding them has no bearing on where Deimos’ future will take him.
The Evergreen isn’t expecting a gift of any kind in return, much less something magical and so potent in its abilities. Blinking red-rimmed eyes owlishly, Evie carefully takes one of the ear cuffs, examining it closely before trustingly clipping it around the cartilage of her ear immediately. Their capabilities bring a wave of relief and comfort so unexpected it nearly bowls her over, and she sways nearer, placing a steadying hand on the flat front of Deimos’ shoulder. “Thank you,” she repeats back to him, voice soft and full of a depth of emotion she can’t put to better words. Regardless of their respective fates, even in the worst case scenario they would both have an opportunity for warnings, updates - goodbyes, even. “How do they activate?” Focusing on things that help her turn her attention away from her own emotions in the hopes that they might settle.
a golden cage, for all its worth and beauty is still just a cage
He didn’t press the subject further; no sense in it, understanding the inquiries launched on emotion, rather than logical factions. Instead, he lowered his head to press his brow against hers, breathing in solidarity, rather than the adverse. The need to comfort and assuage remained, maybe for both of them, because he didn’t know how to make anything else better – and perhaps it was another learning curve. Nothing to mend. Nothing to heal. Nothing to salve and stitch back together; save for opportunity and time and a looming precipice driving in the back of minds and hearts. Fear, apprehension, and trepidation for everyone else, and not himself, carved its way into the breadth of his lungs, but launching back into those damning rituals wouldn’t benefit either of them.
So Deimos latched onto the items instead, the slow smile lingering back upon his mouth, tilting his head a fraction so they remained close. The instant clipping of it along her ear permitted a light laugh, closing his fingers over the remaining bone in his hand. “Conversations open and close by reciting the partner’s full name.” Following her lead, he placed the cuff along his right ear. It would be like the attuned bond in some fashion – save for the breadth of instilled sentiments and feelings would still have to be aired, rather than felt and segmented across souls.
