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!
At least that's what it felt like suddenly arriving in Haulani from the Greatwood. She had travelled with her wagon to the cabin Remi had set aside for her and Jude, and now she was back to collect a few more things. But teleporting was certainly fun! To go from the Sidhe Village to the heart of Haulani in a flash was awe inducing.
But she had work to do. Anyone who visited her home would find it devoid of any of her personal items. Only a few bits and bobs remained that she could claim as her own. Even Jude's things had gone missing, though Jude had been with his father during Phoebe's planned abscence. Not that she had divulged why she was going to be away. Not yet anyways. Not until she had all her ducks lined up - and with the capitol compass working, she did.
She walked into the bare home and sighed sadly. Even in this state it made her heart ache. And the worst was yet to come. She had to speak to Harper. She had to find closure. And she had to move on once again.
Jude swings his hand in Harper’s as they walk, talking a mile a minute about his adventures at school that day. As the sun slowly sinks towards the ocean and people turn on their external lights, warmth from within spilling from the windows of houses and onto the street, Harper looks down at his son and smiles with a tenderness so deep it almost hurts. Though he has had days with the boy, already he can feel the sorrow swell as they approach his and Phoebe’s old home. Being away from Jude is hard, but Harper will bear any pain if it means Jude has a stable life shared between both his parents.
As they approach, Jude wraps up his tale, accustomed by now to the hand-off and aware his time with his father is dwindling. Harper walks them up to the door, letting Jude knock. Despite it being his other home, it’s good practice for the boy’s manners. “Mommy, I’m home!” his little voice calls, and Harper grins down at him, charmed and in love.
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
Phoebe hears the knock and her son's voice and her heart flutters. Her boy. Her perfect, perfect boy. She had left a bedspread and change of clothes for him, knowing this night would come. But by tomorrow? It would all disappear into the ether.
She opened the door and smiled brightly at the boy, ignoring for now that Harper would notice how bare the house was. "Oh Jude! Mom missed you!" she said, hugging him and kissing the side of his head. "Why don't you go get ready for bed while mom and dad talk?" she said, sending him along. Her eyes rose to Harper. There would be no quick escape. Not tonight.
He notices immediately. Too well trained to even pretend at ignorance or distraction. Jude notices too, though only after he has crossed the threshold after one last lingering hug and kiss to the top of his head from his father. Moments later enveloped in the same from Phoebe, inspiring little giggles. “Okay mom,” he assures obediently, though it’s clear by the way he hesitates that he can sense something is wrong. Changing. Children are astute like that, and Harper hates it, so he smiles reassuringly until Jude has disappeared into his room.
Reluctant to have this conversation even in the entrance where Jude may hear, Harper steps down off the stoop so Phoebe can exit and close the main door before he speaks. Tone carefully controlled and quiet, revealing nothing. “You could have told me you were wanting to move before you did,” he murmurs, and can’t conceal the sadness in his eyes that contrasts his empty tone. Regretful, wishing so many things hadn’t happened that led to this: Phoebe not being able to talk to him about much more than Jude. “Where will you be going?”
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
Phoebe ruffled Jude's hair as he scurried off, still smiling as she did so. But she followed Harper's lead, stepping out onto the stoop, the thud of the door sounding more like a lid on a coffin than the click of a latch.
She was quiet for a moment after he spoke, eyes trained on the ground. But then she looked up at him, a sadness clear in her eyes. "So you could tell me not to go? That everything is set up perfectly here just steps from the home of the woman who took you from me?" she said, lifting a hand to stop him if he tried to argue. "I know that isn't how it is, but it will never not feel that way for me. It's impossible." Tears rose in her eyes briefly, but she shoved them back down. Minutes passed. An hour or two at most, and her whole life came crumbling down.
"The Greatwood. I've set up a cabin there not far from Sidhe Village." she answered directly. "I've already spoken with Frey and am working towards gaining the ability to teleport so I can bring Jude back and forth. In the meantime, Remi has loaned me his capitol compass." she explained quickly, not wanting to incite his ire. Jude wouldn't be with her permanently. But he wouldn't be around the corner either.
"I met Maeve on accident. She told me you were getting married." she said, holding him with a hard gaze, or as hard as she could muster. She wasn't the only one keeping secrets. Last she had heard from him, he was considering staying with her still. But Maeve's words rang shrill in her ears. Married.
Her hand rises to stop the argument, but it’s not the one Harper would have instituted. His eyes are sad as he waits for her to take a breath, and shakes his head slightly. “No, I wouldn’t have told you not to. I expected you to want to leave eventually. I knew it would be hard staying here.” And he didn’t want that for her. There was no real villain in this story, just the tragedy of twisted fate and bad luck, and that is the hardest part sometimes. Harder even than seeing her eyes water and knowing he can’t comfort her the same way anymore.
Though his eyes widen and his shoulders stiffen a little at the mention of the Greatwood, Phoebe doesn’t give time for those fears to settle in and take root. He’s grateful for it. The idea of Jude being so far away otherwise makes his chest cramp with terror otherwise. “It’s summer now, but what should we do about his schooling?” he asks softly. A tutor, maybe? A private teacher? He asks this instead of anything else - trying to show her that he is grateful for the preemptive solution, and that he won’t stand in the way of whatever she needs to do to heal.
The words aren’t worded as an accusation, but he can hear it regardless. Inhaling slowly, he nods. “It was something we’d both assumed but hadn’t discussed. After you came back, she asked. I didn’t have a chance to tell you first.” Hadn’t known how. He had told her he couldn’t make promises, that he didn’t want to leave her waiting and hoping when the odds were so slim, but it was inevitable someone got hurt in the middle of all of this.
He hates it.
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
She is surprised he did not argue or try to persuade her into staying. This set up was most convenient for him after all. She'd had no reason to assume he would be alright with it. "It is hard. Everything reminds me of you and I just...I can't be a good mother with my emotions this raw." she said with a shaky breath.
"There are teachers in the Village." Phoebe said. Not many called the Greatwood home, but the Sidhe Village had always been a vibrant place of life. And if the teachers weren't satisfactory then she would find a private one somewhere.
But his final words hit hard, and her expression became detached, despondent. A look he would have seen once before when she sat on the bridge in the Hollowed Grounds, willing herself to jump. It was a deadness in her brown eyes that came as the last few of her heartstrings pulled taught and snapped. "Then why would you tell me you'd still consider staying with me if it was assumed? Why wouldn't you tell me to change my name back?" Why would you lie to me? The question went unspoken but hung in the air like smog.
What can he say to that? There is no comfort he can give her, and it hurts. Ever since they’d met, he has tried to heal the old wounds her soul holds. There for her in every dark moment, every wrong turn, and still he could do nothing to change fate’s insidious plans. So he merely takes each word quietly, hoping the act of saying them would help if nothing else.
“I’ll see if his teacher here can coordinated with the Sidhe one so he isn’t overloaded,” he agrees softly. It would be far from ideal, attending two different schools on an alternating basis, but their boy is sweet and strong. Harper hates to ask it of such a young boy, but he hopes his son will be brave and - most of all - patient with his parents, who all love him enough to put aside all other grievances.
Her detachment can’t be overcome this time, not like he’d done before. It is a bitter, painful reality. “Assumed in the sense that we were in a committed relationship, one we didn’t intend to be temporary. Marriage…it’s an assumed eventuality.” Sighing, Harper drags his hands through his hair, gripping it right at the base of his neck until the pain is all he can think about. Not the sitting of his own eyes, or the hollowness of hers. “I had just seen you come back from seemingly nowhere. And my feelings for you never went away, even in your absence. I wasn’t careful enough with my words; I tried not to lead you on or give you hope, but I can never bear to hurt you either Phoebe.” Never intentionally.
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
His silence is validating in a way, as is his acceptance. She would move away. They would work something out with Jude's schooling. And she would mend, in time. Time she had thought would never come again, her heart having finally found safe hands to rest it. But heartache enveloped her like an old, unwelcome friend, one she would have to sit with until it faded to naught but another scar on her heart.
How many scars could one heart carry before truly splitting she wondered?
His words sit in her stomach like boulders, heels sinking into the ground from their weight. "You hurt me everytime I see our son. His hair, his nose, his smile, his kind heart. I will never truly escape you." she said shakily. This was the reality of having children - they were a shared creation. Even if she left him at Harper's door, she would still see Harper every time she looked at her perfect boy.
"It would be so much easier if I could hate you." she said, crossing her arms and looking away. But how could she? This was misfortune not adultry. She couldn't write him off like she had Sunjata. "But I don't. I can't. Yet I don't have the words to describe how much more painful it is that you are still the man I fell in love with even now." Even as he let her go. Even as he loved another woman enough to marry her.
He knows her too well to take her words in darker, more insidious shades. Though Jude may resemble him in many ways, and though it may hurt Phoebe, Harper knows she loves their son more than anything in this world. It is another chip in his broken heart to know that even in some small way it is tainted, but it’s yet another thing he cannot change.
Harper’s own eyes burn, one hand remaining at the nape of his neck, knuckles white with the force it takes to keep his knuckles knotted in his hair. Even this pain is not enough to drown out what’s going on inside his chest. He gives up, letting his hands drop loose to his thighs, empty and unable to patch her pieces as he’d done so many times before. “It’s just as hard for me,” his voice creaks like straining wood. Not as an argument for whose pain is worse, but in commiseration. “I don’t regret any moment I spent with you, spent loving you. I’ll love you until I die, Phoebe. And I hate that I can’t do it the right way, as I should have been able to.” Because she’d taught him how to move on and love again, and it had only foreshadowed the beginning of the end for them.
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
She turned her head to look at him, surprised by his words. He had Maeve. He was getting married. It hadn't occurred to her that this was hard for him beyond some self-imposed guilt that he was so predisposed to placing on himself. But as he explained more, she felt tears rise in her eyes again. He still loved her. And she still loved him.
"I suppose love isn't always enough, is it?"
The words spring from her lips before she could think - but they were true nontheless. Phoebe had proven unstable, unreliable, too affected by the natural and supernatural whims of Caido. Maeve had been steady and constant - and that was what he wanted. Maeve would marry him when she had been hesitant. Maeve had been there when she had been sucked away. They were star-crossed, the valley between them becoming too wide to reach across.
"Maeve told me how upset you were." she said softly. "And I...it may not mean much, and is easier said than done, but I don't want you to torture yourself over this, Harper." she said softly, wiping quickly at her eyes. "No one did anything wrong. You're a brilliant father and I know you'll be a brilliant husband. You deserve happiness and I want nothing more than for you to be happy, even if it isn't with me." Her last words come out choked and she turned away, tears suddenly streaming down her face. Truer words she had never spoken, but they sliced between her ribs like a knife.
Thoughtless though they may be, truer words could not be spoken. His own eyes burn with tears, blinked away forcefully and returning between each temporary banishment. It’s true. Nothing can make it less true. But it hurts. “No, I suppose not,” is his hoarse response. Standing like a fool before her, empty-handed and surrounded by promises not quite broken, but withered all the same. He knows her like nobody else, just as she knows him, and yet she feels like a stranger to him now.
Comfort is the last thing he expects from her, and it twists the knife in his heart, spilling forth tears that drip silent and unbroken down his cheeks. As she turns away he reaches for her, and the knife slides deeper as he hugs her gently from behind, as if shoved deeper by her back pressed against his front. He buries his face in her golden hair, one last moment of sentimentality. “You made me believe in love again Phoebe. I can never thank you for the change you brought into my life. I will always love you, always care for you, no matter the context. And I pray - gods, Phoebe, I pray - that you find someone even better than I hoped to be.” Because he still cherishes her, and as painful as it will be for him in just desserts to see her move on, he will thank the gods the day it happens because she deserves it and more. “I know distance is what you need. I know we can’t be how we were. But I am always here.” Ready to put the pain aside, ready to extend a hand, to compromise. Not in the same ways as before, but eternally at her side all the same.
He releases her then, afraid to have overstepped his boundaries, and wipes roughly at his face. He’d never choose to forget her, to turn back the clock and never meet her, but he wishes there was a cure for the withering decay inside his chest at seeing her walk away for good.
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
The hug broke her. She wrapped her arms around his, tilting her head back against him and wept. Sobs wracked her chest but no sound emerged from her lips. Even with the door closed she dared not accidentally alert Jude to the emotional scene unfolding outside. And for Jude she could and would do anything.
His words only add to the ache in her chest, as hers had stabbed him. "I think I'll only ever find a love like this once." she said softly, tears breaking her voice. No one could replace what Harper was to her. Had been to her. Nothing and no one could ever replace that. It was the one comfort she could not provide him.
He released her and she turned, face splotched with red from tears shed. "Friends then? In time I mean...friends?" she asked, hoped, wished. Perhaps it was the one small solace they could take, that someday, when the pain subsided, they could be just friends again.
They weep together, standing outside the house they’d once made into a home together, stifling their sorrow for the benefit of their son. It is a pain unlike anything he’s ever known. At least she is whole and alive in his arms, not so great a loss as what could have been borne. It is a small, but deeply meaningful mercy. She may not stay at his side, but she will live on.
He nods mutely against her shoulder. Maeve, for all he loves her, cannot replace Phoebe. They are different women, and occupy different places of his heart. He prays that Phoebe will find someone who can show her the same. That they need not replace Harper in her heart, but show her she can love and be loved many times over.
They both look a mess, and Harper’s smile is a shattered thing, but he musters it for her sake. He does not trust himself to hold her face in his hands, so instead he merely tucks her hair behind her ear. If he lingers, it’s only for them to know. “Always. I was your friend long before I loved you, and I always will be.” But as she said: in time. Time that can only begin by letting her go, letting their paths diverge to different lands and new chapters, starting here and now.
I am water - soft enough to offer life tough enough to drown it away
