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!
There’s scarcely enough breath to laugh, but she does it anyway. Chest cracked open and leaking love so fast she’s sure it’ll kill her. “Little more should do the trick,” she huffs, flush high in her cheeks and down her chest, eyes bright with pleasure.
They close as he makes his way back up her, but only because she can’t cope with the new heights of sensitivity she’s feeling. Wrenching them back open moments later to watch his path, needing to commit it to memory. She doesn’t want the world outside to touch or influence this moment, but the Grounder in her whispers if this is the last time…
She memorizes the shape of his mouth as it kisses her skin, layering every freckle and dip with attention. Warmth blossoms beneath each place he pauses, pinpricks that connect in their multitude until she is warm enough she’s sure she could melt all of the tundra and bring Halo’s first flowering spring. “Come here,” she whispers, bleeding need and affection, legs lifting to cradle around him and lead him closer with a hand at his nape. She adjusts her hips until she can feel him, hovering and promising, and she gently presses her heel into his lower back. “Please,” she breathes against his lips moments before she takes them again, arms draping around his shoulders.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
An appreciative hum reverberated from the back of his throat, growing into a distinct rumble, a soft, muffled laugh at her response, placing it along her skin so that it absorbed into flesh and bone. A recollection of joy and pleasure and sated components rather than anything else; because gods knew they had enough of the other miserable ones. No dirges. No requiems. No pyres – unless it was built to their anthems and releases, to their satisfaction and ease, to their perseverance and potential. And he wasn’t going to sink, not below the fathoms, not along the brink, staying above the surface with clear intentions and grasping hands, taking in her, her, and her.
The resolve stuck fast and determination layered down into the enamel of his soul, working their way through undulating sinew and shuddering flesh, following after sensual peaks and highs, after whispers and pleas, after affections and necessities. Fingers at his nape, entangled in the wild mane, led him onward, otherwise he would’ve continued taking a slow path merely to rankle and tease.
No words were necessary. Only when her mouth found his again did he relent; a breath aligned along their bodies, before pressing in. Her lips swallowed the subsequent groan, the intermingling of indulgence, but he stayed, very patient, very still, waiting for adjustments, for relaxation, before another inevitable march and dance.
His attention, undivided and potent, scours away any of those lingering fears and whispers. Had she not been the one to tell him the power of hope? Those fears can rest. Here, with his body shrouding hers as if to hide her away from the world, nothing can hurt her. Not even her own mind.
Every lovestruck fool believes their partner selfless and powerful enough to protect them from all harm, but is she not the luckiest of those fools, to have it be true?
The slide is slow, and it aches in the way all beautiful things do. A pain she has no desire to heal. He pauses, considering, testing; always careful with her in the times she needs it. Always knowing the boundaries of what she can take. Evie’s quaking moan is swallowed by the press of their mouths, but the tilt of her hips is unmistakable as she uses the strength of her legs to pull him in deeper, until there is nothing left for her to take. She writhes a little then; full and breathless, adjusting. “Okay,” she whispers against his mouth, trying not to squirm, her own mouth restlessly traversing from his lips over his cheek and down to his neck, so she may leave her own marks now that he is close enough to do so.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
Deimos had never reflected hope - perhaps pragmatism, at the most minute. But here he was wild and open and giving and taking, shrouding, sheltering, offering, accompanying the myriad of emotions with safety and ease. In the present, they could have one another instead of fending off the rest of the world, instead of caving into the weight on shoulders or the breadth of a mantle. Time and space and a place of their own, carved out of mornings or evenings, in miniscule spaces, joined, learning, exploring, sculpting and whittling to their own delights and desires.
The tilt of her hips lured and enticed, and he instinctively sought to follow, like any predator, like any minatory beast. Remaining completely, utterly still while she writhed and adjusted below almost made him come undone there, fingers tightening somewhere along her ribcage for an instant, until the whisper contorted against his mouth. And he swallowed that too, lips consuming hers as he arched, thrust, built a pace – shuddered from each breath over his cheek and down his nape, muscles twitching under touch and caress and stroke. A rhythm of molten parallels; fleeting and chasing, slowing and revolving, maneuvering in accord; mouth moving along her exposed neck, kissing pulse points, nipping at skin, coiling and curling a crescendo.
His grip tightens around her, but it only stokes the flames in her belly, turning her nerves to cinders until she is more fire than woman. He takes, and she gives, and the same in reverse. The sudden arching, rolling movement has her toes curling and her hands tightening around his shoulders even as her own bow towards the bed alongside her head, tossed back in gasping, moaning chorus. It reveals his skin all the more readily for him to mark and ravage, to feel the travel of sound through her throat.
She wraps her legs around him, clinging and recoiling with every thrust, chasing each welcome intrusion. Her hands find his hair, tangling in the wild locks, holding him close to her chest. Babbles fall senselessly from her lips; pleas, goads, praise. Each one a hiccup of sound interrupted by the pace of their joining. Climbing faster to the precipice with every moment, and clinging with both hands to the sensation, wanting to linger as much as possible in the sensations.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
They could be fire and brimstone, and he’d purposefully send their flames into infernos, where pyres would flare and conflagrations would rise, savoring every figment of their intertwined blaze; the heat bending and blurring, scorching along skin and flesh and bone. He snagged at arches and chased after them in revolutions and tides, undulations of sinew, matching her chorus with low rumbles and gravelly rubble, unfurled rhythms maneuvering in tandem, in pace, in union. His were low, diving below the higher pitches of her voice, intending to heighten and reach and pull and grace of her sounds; tongue drawn against her nape, catching at beads of sweat, urging her onward.
Legs wrapped around his hips just brought him closer to her, tilting, angling, finding their ferocity and timing. Hands entangled in his hair caused more shudders along his skin, pooled a myriad of things in his ribs, coiled and contorted and knotted and gnarled. His words might have been nonsensical too, if he had any to share; save for deeper growls and minatory murmurs, a low groan punctured by her shoulder, or pierced beneath her ear. Eventually, his teeth and tongue and lips found her jawline again, following curves until mouths met, devouring and savoring, managing a feat of framework rumbling past his chest. “What do you want?” was a low whisper – meant for pace, for control, for consistency, to send them both over the edge.
She can’t get any closer to him than she already is, but Gods how she tries. Hands sliding on sweat-slick skin even as they grasp demandingly, possessively, refusing to let go. His hair is a good alternative, and the way it holds him tight to her chest, hips driving at a deeper angle, only makes her voice tangle with his all the louder.
Both lungs heave for air, wasting it gleefully on snarled, whined expressions of pleasure. The grumble of his question is just another sensation on her skin, and it’s nearly too much. She loves it. Can tell already that this is a new craving she won’t be able to fully sate. “This, just like this, just you,” she pants between the rhythm of their bodies connecting, one hand slipping down between them to aid herself to the peak, not wanting to lose the touch of his hands on her skin. Clenching helplessly with how it only surges her pleasure like an electric shock, crying out through a lip she bites too late.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
Neither of their demands were silent; indulgent, grasping, craving things on whispers and bedroom hymns and growls immersed in between moans of pleasure. A driving and insistent need built behind his spine and spiraled along the depths of his mind in the same facets as predacious, minatory ends, unleashed and feral and infernal in different, alternating platitudes; here was simply to be consumed and delighted and raw, the answering pant only needed to persist and continue.
His skin shuddered again beneath the relish of her touch, muscles pinpointed and infinite, waiting for the miniscule round of control to slip away and pierce through them both. Snagging onslaughts and fierce motions, escalating each thrust to a new height, each angle to a new aspiration, one of his hands remained along her ribs, along the arches of her back as each undulation sent them towards peaks and highs, while the other went to join her. The only answer she received otherwise was a low growl, mouth unbidden along her ear, upon her throat, drifting across pulse points and curves, pressing along her jawline until they found her lips again – swallowing down the merciless outcries.
She knows she won’t last much longer. Not after all this time, after so many years untouched. Subsisting only on kindly, platonic touches, brief things that didn’t feed the hungry, aching thing inside. Now, it gorges to overflow, stuffed full with the touch it has craved for so very long. Her skin sings until it nearly aches, attuned so brightly to his touch it’s as if she can feel every ridge and whorl of his fingerprints as his hands caress her body.
Their hands together between their bodies only hasten that end. Her cries muffle themselves as his mouth finds hers, and her eyes shut as she arches and bucks down into his thrusts, thighs tightening mercilessly around his hips as she squeezes. Trembling all over as the string finally snaps, and every nerve hits supernova as she shudders around and beneath him, crying his name against his mouth in supplication. A religion finally worth giving herself over to. She quakes in the roiling aftermath of her orgasm, aftershocks cresting over her, waiting eagerly for him to join her even as she relishes in the oversensitivity.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
No rush to the end, but a building rapacity, both unfurling and uncoiling the nooses, the drawstrings, the ways in which they’d been scarred time and time again. A biding of patience and fortitude, an unwinding of sinuous designs, a bend and serpentine loop of touches and caresses and strokes, magnetic crescendos tracing the outlines of eventuality. For a being once destined to not feel a thing at all, he catered to this, listening to the sound of her breaths, to the swallowing of his name, to the release stoking fire after fire across her skin and along her body – with an insistent need to join.
He rode every wave with her, muscles tightening, figure taut and bound, until his own release, following after and after with a hallowed reverence blended into her lips, combined on the rush of breaths, gasps, and moan; growls rumbling deep in the pinnacles of his chest, in the thunder and rush of his heart. More undulations and crests, an infernal bliss, lungs snagging and snaking at air, while his hands roamed, unceasingly lingering across her sweat-soaked skin, until arms came to either side, towering above, piercing eyes staring down, amused – but heedful, watchful, calloused fingertips brushing a crimson lock out of her face. “All right?”
She swallows down his own reverence in much the same fashion: greedy, wanting. She clings to him as he shudders, hands never ceasing in their roaming, wanting cycles that she arches into blissfully. Her own hang on his shoulders as he pulls away, and though her body appreciates a moment to breathe and slow, her fingertips restlessly press into his skin, waiting for the moment she can pull him close again.
He disarms her with tenderness, and Evie leans her face slightly into the touch of his hand as it brushes her hair away, smile lovesick and unintentional. “Perfect,” she assures on a slightly hoarse voice, paler blues never wavering from his own. One hand traces up his trapezius to cradle the side of his neck, beneath the dark artistry of wild hair clinging to his sweat-lined skin. There’s a million things she could say - one foremost within them - but she holds her silence with a smile that says it for her. “You?” she whispers, thumb gently caressing the column of his throat.
the ocean does not apologize for its depth and the mountains do not seek forgiveness
Eyes analytical for battle, for crusades, for campaigns watched her now – piercing and contemplative, absorbed and amused, content and satisfied – yearning to ensure she felt the same. The maddening ire of prior conversations seemed like a lifetime before, and now all that existed were designs and desires – an unwinding glow on a lingering sigh, gaze softening, as fingertips promised to sear once more, if given the chance, pressing into his skin in a listless enticement.
Her smile persisted in beguiling, luring factions, and he nearly snorted at it, opting to duck his head towards hers again instead, snagging, capturing, taking, his mouth over her lips in a deepening wake of inveigling qualities. Perhaps he could’ve said something more, but nothing ever seemed suitable to sink and simmer along on his tongue – not when actions could always prove far more certain and sure, spoke louder than the whispers and promises still scarred over inward souls. The accompany growl ghosting across her flesh came with a Cheshire grin, juvenile at best. “Perfect,” an echo of sentiments; churning away their prior rage. “Your idea was much better,” than miring and muddling down into their irritation; burning it off in heedless, sinuous arches and moans.
Their sweat already is beginning to cool, but the heat of his body keeps the chill at bay. She could lay here in his arms until the war came to find them, nestled away in this bed. Were she a more selfish woman, one who cared only for herself and not the entire Citadel she’d somehow taken beneath her wing, perhaps she’d even entertain the fantasy. Alas, even in her head it’s a reprieve she can’t envision. Instead she basks in the thudding of her heart in her chest, the haste of her breaths, the throb of her entire body in the time to the echoing chambers of lust. Fading out and leaving her with only contentment and satisfaction.
His commentary is unexpected, and it makes her laugh, bright and breathless. Fondness nearly breaks her ribs with the ballooning of her chest, seeking companionship in his own. Instead she folds her arms around him, holds him close, brows pressed together and tips of noses gently brushing. Her eyes close. “I’m known to have some good ideas once in a while,” she murmurs, lips curling in a smile. There’s little more left to say, so she takes the time they have left and cherishes every second of it that she can spend in his arms, committing the scent and taste and touch of him to a memory too mortal and fallible for her liking. Time and magic alone would have to steal these memories from her, if they dared to at all.
