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!
Her smile is not exactly weak, but unequivocally tired. Overwhelmed by the tsunami of emotions that, much like the storm itself, had ripped through her in the blink of an eye and left both devastation and eerily calm waters in its wake. There is no need to thank him for calling it misplaced; Evie knows he trusts her and her intentions, just as she trusts him in turn. She has never so much as lied to him unless it was for a brief moment for a prank or surprise. Though her smile falls at his own admission to hurt, gently knocking her knee against his and letting her free hand fall from the table to find his thigh beneath it, squeezing there as well. Needing to express herself in all her overwhelming physicality. “I’m sorry, love,” she says softly, full of regret for having been the catalyst for this pain if nothing else. The endearment slips out thoughtlessly, and goes unnoticed. There is nothing to regret there.
The air warms with his magic, clearly focused on the food before them, but Evie only has eyes for Deimos. Her laugh is a little quiet, but she leans a little of her weight onto the hand on his thigh, shifting closer so they sit more side by side instead of facing one another. “I wouldn’t say ruined entirely,” she hedges as playfully as she can manage. “Though I also wouldn’t say no to some comforting.” And though she winks, it’s a rather innocent train of thought for the moment. Closeness, a prolonged morning, maybe a few kisses. Little bandages for a wound he had not caused with his own hand.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
If his eyes widened at the endearment he said nothing of it; just the slightest tension in his gaze, the sudden upheaval in his chest. There were a dozen things to sort out in his head over such a simple statement, and he wasn’t certain if he had the strength to go through each and every one at the moment; so he simply lowered his head, gave over to the depths of a fond smile as he glanced back her way.
The hand on his thigh was an entirely different distraction though, and the fire incantations turned deliberately inward; only revealed, contorted, in a shallow arch of his brow. “I can show you the letter I received from Darkeye too,” because he didn’t know what to do with that notion either, but it was only on playful banter – the wink returned with a wrinkle of his nose accompanying.
The mischief altered readily at the other innocent tones, and he might’ve snorted, but gave over to the antics within an instant, piercing gaze holding hers with purposeful intensity, skull lowered towards crimson and blue, minute spaces between. The deep rumble of his vocals followed, lines of breath and potential drawn. “And how would you like to be comforted?”
There are too many tangled knots in her head to allow enough focus to see his reaction, or even to realize her own slip of the tongue. It’s another day’s issue. Here and now, she can only huff a laugh at his offer. While she hasn’t met Darkeye since the landshark fight, it had left enough of an impression on her to last a lifetime as to his character. “If you reach for anything but me or this food, you’re losing your hand,” she threatens through a playful grin. The hurt is still close to the surface, but his charm and familiar warmth and resilience is a burrow for her to hide in, a gossamer cloak with which to enshroud herself.
His stare, when given fully, is as arresting as ever. Her breath hitches a touch in her throat, but her gaze never wavers beneath his. As he comes closer she exhales a little shakily, perplexed to find it is because of excitement instead of nerves. Nerves that are surprisingly absent. Fingers flex restlessly over a firm thigh, and she tilts her head just enough to brush her nose against his slowly. “Is it the job of the person being comforted to come up with the manner of solution?” Voice heady, whispered. Lips grace his in a barely-there kiss before retreating to the scant distance they’d claimed before.
But Evie, for all her practiced coyness, has never taken to it naturally. No, she is far too headstrong for that. So she uses her hand on his thigh to brace herself, and slides out of her seat and onto his lap in one graceful motion. Still holding one of his hands, but resting the other against his neck; fingertips dancing across pulse and jawline, restless. The vantage point has her looking down at him just a little, and her grinning mouth kisses the edge of his own. “Should I be kind and give you some ideas?”
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
The comment alone had him laughing, nearly a pretense of reaching for the letter left on counter there, but scattered away on playful grins, on nullifying all the sharpened edges. “Fine,” was a quieter murmur once the chuckles had ceased reverberating, because one more thing wasn’t going to malign the morning – much less a conversation, a decision, a possibility he and the priest would likely have to make together.
An observer out of habit, from battles and wars and campaigns, he studied her reaction, grinned all the more when shaky breaths unfurled and fingers toyed restlessly – patient and forbearing. Waiting – for what, he wouldn’t name, but a biding, persistent resolve pooled over his form, laughing again when the answer gave none of the clarity. Whispers and lines drawn back. Air and delicacy. Seeing which would maneuver first; a circling venture where neither strayed. He might’ve chased, had she given him an opportunity, but the words pressed regardless, in their mischievous haze. “Thought I would give you a choice,” instead of presumptions; there’d been enough of that lately.
Which she made within an instant later – his piercing gaze widening for half a second before entangling within the alteration. “I have some,” he promised, not used to staring up at anyone, but raising his jaw just the same. Maybe seditiously, maybe mutinously, never quite capable of nullifying the revolutionary juxtapositions, but forging onward, mouth meeting hers as his free hand cupped the back of her head, no edges, no fringes, no boundaries.
He can look all he likes; she is no performer, but everything she could ever be is on display for him to peruse at his leisure. Laid bare. He may have chased given enough time, but Evie has never once given him that chance. Always seeking the bolder path, the courageous. Never letting him doubt her intentions or desires, always blatant in her feelings for him, be they softer affections or sharper hungers.
They haven’t explored those deeper waters yet, though neither has expressed a reticence. Simply no need or desire to rush, to base their relationship on fleeting, physical things. But waiting has an end, and they’ve reached theirs.
Her surprised noise is lost in the press of his mouth as he rises like the tide to envelop her, dragging her close. One pair of hands stay tangled beside them, and Evie’s free hand drops to fist at his shirt in a dizzy need to steady herself. Thighs squeezing around the mass of his own where she sits in reflexive ache of desire that jolts through her like lightning. Her head tilts and she urges his mouth to open to hers, darting and devilish tongue tracing the seam of his lips in search of his own.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
No breaking points, but beginnings, intervals of connections and desires. Foundations always there, over rubble and ruin and pathways marred, unknown until given the right moments – and then more to be discovered and explored. Everything else could be discarded and set aside, for the instant, for the intervals of heartbeats and woven threads, the sudden, emboldened marks and etched, sketches and outlines. He may not have always sought the audacious and brazen road, too calculated, too meticulous, too sculpted and carved by worlds that plagued and marred; but he would with her.
Out of the shallow embankments and teetering on the brink of diving in headlong – the Sword swallowed down her surprise, muffled the mild laughter threatening, following, following, following the arch and need and heady, carnal contemplations. His free hand kept her there, but her head tilted and the urgency intensified, rising to meet the enveloping tides. Mouth opening, he chanced an opportunity of his own, tracing her lips with teeth and tongue, before moving down, echoes and vestiges along her cheek, over the shell of her ear.
In all of Halo she swears there is no warmer place than here in his arms, pinned willingly beneath his touch, sparking embers wherever it goes. He tastes like syrup, and it unfurls a fondness so heart-wrenching she can’t help the soft sound she makes into his mouth. How she wants this. Soft mornings and shared meals, the touch of his hands, the sparks in her veins that spin shivers out across her skin like skipping stones.
He is gone before she can drag him back, but as he kisses across her cheek and down her ear she loses track of the desire to. Feet push into the braces of the chair, allowing her to press herself more firmly into his lap as she tilts her neck for him to further explore. One hand squeezes his, restless with a burgeoning warmth, while the other slowly explores the planes of his chest and down his sternum, fingers following the curve of his ribs to his side. Memorizing by touch what she has already committed to visual memory.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
The morning might’ve been better still had they started off this way – themselves, without the weight of mantles and crowns and titles. But with forbearance came the peeling away of layers too, and it’d been a long time since he’d permitted any of them to be stripped off, to hand over pieces of himself, to let anyone damn well see all the other portions that made him whole and human. Trust, freely given and granted to her, with all the carvings and flaws and shambles in between, with all the sentiments beating loudly in his ears, with all the fringes of liberation winding back the idle time.
He snagged at the shudder of her skin, at the feathering beneath his ministrations, beckoned a smile to reflect along the curve of her ear. A light bite, teeth barely over cartilage and skin, before following downwards, into the angles of her neck, taking the open invitation. Perhaps his reactions were too – undulations beneath the rise and fall of her hand, along the muscles of his chest and along his sternum, the stature of his ribs where his heart resounded and forgot its scars.
Timing can never be perfect, but there is no sense of sadness to be felt over the complexities of their lives. They are slowly perfecting the art of shutting out the world at large to give themselves moments to exist together, free of all expectations and responsibilities. They are both a little rusty, a little scarred, but their edges meet all the better for their cracks.
A soft noise curls in her throat at the gentle pressure of his teeth, a promise more than a threat. Beneath her fingers she feels the flex and release of every little muscle, and chases it like a will-o-the-wisp leading her onward down paths untraveled. Clever fingers slide beneath the hem of his shirt, and for a moment she merely flattens her hand around the curve of his hip; feeling the jut of bone beneath muscle, the heat of his body, the slight movement of his breaths. So focused is she that his mouth upon her throat summons the first full sound - a gasp that makes her cheeks flush to hear it in the relative quiet of the kitchen. Even so she presses closer, thighs readjusting to squeeze more around his hips - for security or teasing even she isn’t certain.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
The Sword had to relearn the art of taking - of snagging what he could, of wanting, of having, of being permitted to even think outside granting and giving to others. And perhaps he still did, intending to cherish and torment to the best of his ability – but to remember that there was no harm, no shame, in forgoing weights upon shoulders and the overwhelming blows of responsibilities. That the mountains would still stand, even if they were tucked inside the warmth of one another for a morning, for a haze, for a daze.
A sense of triumph unfurled as a laugh against her skin as he won the first challenge – one only known to him, anyway – listening to the noise unfurling from the back of her throat. Satisfied and content, he followed after the trail of pale, ivory skin, intending to cause another, as his mouth reached the rise of shoulders and muscle. His free hand released the back of her head and all the idle crimson locks for prying along the top of her shirt, just barely, so it inched downward, so his lips and beard could trace there too.
Deimos wasn’t without his own exhales though, a breath pooling and hitching along flesh as her fingers found their way under his shirt, teasing in their descent. He might have been flushed too, unknown, indifferent, uncaring at the potential reddening of his cheeks; chasing down the pulse beneath complexions. But as the rest of her pressed closer, entangling further around form, there was a muffled sort of snort, an inherent, instinctual rise of his hips to meet hers.
It may have been a challenge only he was privy to at first, but the warmth of his laugh across her skin brings her to the awareness of its existence right as she concedes defeat. at least it is a pleasant one, a loss she would take again and again, the happiest woman to stand on the outskirts of the winner’s circle. Crimson strands unfurl down her back as his hand releases her, and her head rolls back as she arches against him, the shirt she wears pulled aside for him to seek as much skin as he desires. The texture of his beard in contrast to the warm wet of his mouth is dizzying. Evie can’t determine whether it is her own long dry spell or Deimos’ everything that seems to be the cause for her swiftly climbing arousal, but he doesn’t seem offput by her eagerness.
His hips move beneath hers, and a quiet whimper escapes. She feels heady with her station, knowing the powerful figure beneath her is tamed and tempered only because he allows it, desires it. The hand still twined with his squeezes, and the one at his waist impatiently unbuttons the top of his trousers, the sound of the fastenings loud in her ears that hum with her own heated blood.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
Some corresponding challenge seemed interwoven there, or his interpretation of goading and invocations, because he would have kept going, going, going, had the quiet whimper, and the residual feeling of his trousers loosening (then tightening), not echoed in a slight gasp, a sharp inhalation against her shoulder. A rumble, a grumble, to follow, as if the fringes would pierce and laden her flesh as well.
And maybe there was a concession on his part too, because staying there on the chair wasn’t going to happen, not with the way the blood was pounding in his ears and rampantly intertwining beneath his skin. In one sharp movement, his free hand lowered, then wound along her waist, carrying her upwards as he rose too. “Not here,” was a distant murmur, a voice forgotten and rusty, laden upon her neck once more, ghosting over the shell of her ear again, as he slowly made his way out of the kitchen, Evergreen in his arms. A habitual turn of movement and motions, as if his strides ensured they’d get there, for his mind was wholly occupied, came to the aperture of his bedroom.
And so it is that he too breaks his silence, and she shudders to feel the tremble of it against her bare skin, through his mouth and chest alike. She wants to get closer, no matter the impossibility of it, so that every breath in his lungs could shudder it’s way through her own body.
Her hand has just begun to slide towards his waistband when he moves all at once, making her strangle a gasp of surprise that turns into a tiny, stifled yelp as he stands abruptly. She is little more than a sack of flour in his grasp, and there is no fear to chase away the fire in her veins that stokes only higher at the easy show of strength. Distracting as his mouth is (and Gods, it’s distracting) Evie manages a breathless laugh, legs wrapping around his waist to help in supporting herself. “Don’t want to take me on the table?” is her heated murmured response, hands that had been denied their goal now twining in the hair at his nape, encouraging the mouth at her neck with a subtle, begging pressure. Hoping to the gods that he knew his way blind, because she would be no use in getting them safely to the bedroom.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
“Another time,” became a heated promise and molten conviction, a distracted whisper rumbled between movements of his mouth. As luck would have it, his precisions in movement ensured they made it through the entryway, though with the tightening of her legs around his waist, the thought process minimized to either the wall or the bed; settling for the latter based on quick assessments and locations.
Lowering her down upon the threshold was another aching process; hands slipping towards her back, legs still intertwined – he muffled a laugh against her nape, leaning over until he was certain covers and blankets were beneath her figure and crimson locks were spread along canvases of nothing else. Lips eventually roamed downward again, as calloused fingers wound gently over the bottom hem of her shirt, tugging in ghostlike vestiges, purposefully teasing and toying. “Off,” was a rumbling undertone, feral between the other outward gasps.
