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!
Unable not to titter as this time Sunjata is the one trying to breathe his tea, Isla feels herself relax in his presence in a way she'd always been able to, but for the first time in over a year the pleasantness of company doesn't come with added guilt. (Not that she can confess to have had much company, and where she has run into people, it's been polite to say the least).
Hearing the question he poses, Isla surprises herself by getting a little bit invested in it, and she sidles into one of the chairs at the table and shrugs the copper coloured sweater back on her shoulder where it's trying to slip down. (She blames Sunjata's spider arms for that one). "...Everyone's got a kink, right?" she says eventually, smirking and glancing up at him.
"For some it's fur and feathers and claws. For others it's ice or fire or lightning. If you're going to open a brothel, it feels a bit vanilla to keep people from expressing themselves fully, right?" She grins.
His gaze follows Isla to the seat, follows the way she adjusts the borrowed sweater from falling off her shoulder, before steel rises to meet pebble blues. A huff leaves him, amusement tugging on his features. “I suppose you’re right. Can’t be a Frey demi and have the most vanilla brothel out there, hm?” He sighs, arms unfolding from his scarred chest, taking a few steps to sit beside her in his own chair.
His elbows reach the table and he props his head up on his lightning scarred palm, fingertips threading through his crop of hair. “Just outside of it, then.” And hopefully far enough away from Phoebe’s baby garden to not complicate matters any. “That way everyone can fully express their desires, hm?” He still has no idea what to call it, how he wants it designed, but he does know if his extravagant tastes were good for one thing, it was good for businesses. The VlamVloed had proved that for him, even despite being an Outlander.
And then whether he decides to move into it and run it from there as Maeve had done… He takes a long inhale and sighs slowly out his nose, already feeling the weight of the work of it on his shoulders.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
"Exactly," Isla says with a lopsided smile, glancing across at him as he comes to take a seat next to her. "You'll have people flying, sailing and travelling from all over to spend the night. You could put in a bar and rooms for rent along with the other services too. It would be a welcome break from the road, right?" Because King's End is probably the only marginally tamed part of the Wilds, as far as she knows.
Whilst she can go on forever, planning and making decisions and logging them, Isla notices the signs of stress and fatigue in the Flood, and she reaches out to grasp his shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "There's plenty of time to make decisions," she reminds him softly. "You don't have to rush it all now. There's no deadline, no war coming. Just sleep on it for tonight."
There’s a surprising amount of excitement within Isla’s tone and he can’t help but to feel more inspired the more she goes on and on, giving thoughts and ideas and things they could add, and it all begins to bubble in his mind around whether she wanted to help him. At least, while it gave him purpose, perhaps it might add some for her too.
But before he has a chance to speak, she’s grasping his shoulder gently and steadfastly, enough that his steel gaze rises to meet her pebble blues. “I don’t think I’ve gotten out of war mode.” He didn’t have to fight in it, anyway. It was just a ramp up and then… Over, things were supposed to go back to normal but everything had changed. Everything had changed.
In spite of that, he offers her a gentler smile, one that’s with some amount of relief for her reminder anyway. “You have a lot of great ideas Isla. I think I’ll need to write them down unless you’d like to help.” The offer hangs in the air, his scarred brow rising ever so slightly.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
"Maybe you haven't had a reason to, until now," Isla says softly with a small smile. "I know I haven't. But with nothing else to fight, my war mode was just... wandering, I guess. Waiting for something to..." Kill me, she realises is the end of that sentence, and it's so close to the brutal truth of her existence that she ends up clearing her throat and finishing her tea instead of what she's saying.
Letting her hand fall away from his shoulder, Isla is lucky in that Sunjata offers a change in the subject and a suitable distraction all in one. Inhaling a stuttering breath entirely without thinking, she surprises herself by grinning up at him. "Would you have me? To help, I mean," she says. "I don't know how much use I'll be. But I can make sure your brothel has a really good medical bay."
It would be the same boat, yet again, waiting for that next threat — one that might take him out as well. After all, he hasn’t become strong enough to be immortal, unsure if he even wants to at this rate. But he shifts the conversation to keep his mood at least somewhat lighter (he can dwell on it later when he’s alone.)
Her hand falls away from his shoulder and he almost misses the touch, paired with the slight guilt he feels about missing it, but he buries it quickly to offer her a smile in response to the grin she gives him. “Well it sounds like you don’t have many other plans in the works, and while it would be good for me to have something to do, if you could benefit by joining it then why not?” He counters with a light shrug, his smile growing a bit brighter with the prospect.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
"Hey, you don't know I don't have plans," Isla counters, though her tone is teasing at best - because they both know she doesn't, unless they involve wandering around and being a loner until the next time she runs into someone. And next time it might not be someone as kind as Sunjata. "Why not?" she agrees in the end, offering him a fanged smile and drumming her fingers along her empty mug.
"You should get some sleep," she tells him. "If not for you then for me, so I can sleep vicariously through you. In the meantime I'll see if I can make a start on some plans for this brothel we're apparently building. I hope you're good at construction, otherwise we'll have to recruit some outside help to get the job done."
“Oh, well then excuse me.” He teases her lightly, that small smile returning on the edge of his lips, tugging up briefly as she agrees. It would make things easier – and Sunjata’s learned quickly that he and Isla do work well together (that brief stint of running the Grounds with her as his second proved that for him, among everything else), and he’d learned he can’t quite do anything on his own these days (too terrified of a repeat of when his father tormented him).
So it’s settled, and as she tells him that he should get some sleep – lips parting to protest immediately when she brings up a good point. So he nods, giving the point up, though not without some childish petulant sigh. “I’ll try.” To sleep, that is. “And I’m quite good at building, but if we wanted to speed things up help would be required.” He offers before he stands, taking his mug to the sink and slipping away toward the bedroom.
He leaves the door open out of pure habit, curling up under warm blankets, and while it takes a lot of tossing and turning to get him asleep – he finally does, soft snores rising from the room enough that Isla might be able to hear. For a little bit at least.
It probably hasn’t been more than two hours and Sunjata’s grown restless again, tossing and turning, half curled in on himself, not quite awake but dreaming, living through a little nightmare again, warped and churned by his mind and the what ifs over the past couple of years. He wakes with a start, a cold sweat, long legs tucked against his chest with an arm wrapped around them, the other on top that he can bury his face into as he tries to catch his breath.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Help would be required is a bit of a snag given just how antisocial the two of them have become. Or... well, not antisocial per say, but just... unconnected. Still, it's something Isla has plenty of time to mull over when Sunjata takes himself off to bed; she bids him goodnight and waits until the soft sound of snoring (her senses aren't this acute in the refuge, but it's still audible) comes from the room.
And then? Well, she'll apologise for it later, but she's got to make some space to work, so Isla spends a little time clearing away the empty bottles and other evidence of Sunjata's coping mechanisms before sitting down at the table to begin writing up the ideas they've voiced. She gets as far as a "???" in the place of a name, their initial suggestions and some initial supplies they'll need, before there's a strange sort of silence instead of snoring.
Isla doesn't know what makes her go to check in on the Flood, but when she does it's more than obvious that he's not had a sweet dream, and she steps into the darkened room on soft feet. "Hey," she says softly. "Are you alright? Can I get you anything?"
A cold sweat, surrounded by the way he’s curled in on himself, chest heaving as he pants against his legs, he doesn’t hear her when she comes in. At least not until her soft voice floats through the air and his hand clenches over his knee, blunt fingernails digging in. “It’ll pass.” He manages to croak, arms trembling for a moment as he tries to regain his composure, having forgotten for a moment in his sleep that she was there.
Eventually he untangles himself enough to run his hands along his face, wiping away the tear tracks left behind, sniffling to himself, before he runs those hands through his hair. Red rimmed steel lifts to find Isla, though his head is still mostly buried by his knees, keeping himself at least somewhat closed off. “I don’t sleep well is all.” Which Isla would know very well by now that’s the case. Too many nightmares lurking in the dark awaiting to take him.
It’s why he doesn’t sleep much at all, or if he does he drinks enough that he can’t remember the torment his mind puts him through. He wants to apologize for concerning her, but he already knows what she’d say. So he shifts a bit, lowering one leg into the blankets, his arm propped up on the remaining one to cover half his face, trying to open himself up more. “The only time I ever did was when Nate was here.” Comes the whispered admission.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
"It usually does," Isla agrees gently, "but that doesn't make it any easier, does it?" She knows Sunjata can be both a private and open person all at once, so she doesn't encroach further into his space until he starts to sit up a bit, to invite further conversation. With a sad and understanding smile, she moves to perch at the edge of the bed, fussing at the sleeve of the sweater she's wearing.
"They say Ascended don't dream, but Varus used to have the closest thing to nightmares that I can describe," she murmurs, lowering her gaze to the blankets, having to swallow past the grief that surges at the mere mention of those who are gone. "I used to read to him. Boring stuff, medical textbooks, that sort of thing."
Brushing a lock of hair back from her face, Isla finally glances back up at Sunjata again. "You don't have to talk about it," she assures him. "But if you want me to stick around, I can. I'll bring the work I was doing in here with me, unless you have any very boring reading material lying about."
She agrees, but as she continues he twitches to close off a bit more, preventing himself from doing so as he takes a shuddering inhale. “No.” It doesn’t make it easier, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He could try to prevent himself from sleeping until he eventually passed out from exhaustion, but he’d wake again shortly after with too active of a mind. Perhaps he should ask Frey to remove his ability to dream in the hopes that it lets him sleep peacefully at night.
Ah, but then on the rare occasions where he may have a good dream would be impossible.
He doesn’t know which is worse, the option of potentially having a good dream but dealing with the probability of nightmares? Regardless, his heartbeat begins to slow as he regulates his breathing, listening while she speaks – a distraction he’s thankful for, otherwise he’d be reaching for one of the old reserved bottles from the VlamVloed to drown away the darkness. “Distractions.” He mumbles softly. “Nate would… Talk all night about random things if he had to.” And when Nate had his own type of nightmares, Sunjata would be there to hold him tight even if he fell asleep. At least the touch and closeness reminded him that he wasn’t alone.
A part of him wants to talk about it. A part of him doesn’t. The more he does, the more in his head it is, but the less he does, the more it burrows in for later. So he completely unfolds himself, grabs a threadbare blanket taken from the Boondocks house that still faintly has the scent of Nate on it, wraps it around his neck to half bury himself in it. “I wouldn’t mind if you stayed.” He offers quietly for her, taking the hint that she wouldn’t mind it either. “I want to see what you’ve been working on.” Those red rimmed steel meet her pebble blues with a silent plea of distract me, distract me, distract me.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
"One of the perks of being an Ascended," Isla says with a wan sort of smile. "We can talk all night if we have to." They didn't get tired, didn't need sleep, and going from that sort of reassurring constant to nothing at all... well, it's safe to say that the Remedy isn't surprised at the state of Sunjata, even from a strictly medical perspective. She nods as he gives her the go ahead to stay, their eyes meeting and her smile growing in warmth.
"Alright - just give me a second," she murmurs, padding out of the room to collect up all of her plans, lists and thoughts, giving Sunjata a few moments to try and get comfortable. And when Isla returns with her papers, she sinks down onto the bed beside him this time, shifting to sit up propped against some of the pillows, and it's so reminiscent of her nights spent int he Hollowed Grounds that she has to make herself look around the room at all the things that aren't familiar.
But it passes, little by little (just as she and Jata had spoken about), and she glances at him and thumbs through a couple of the papers, before starting to explain in a low voice. "So," she begins, "we spoke about having the building on the outskirts of the Refuge, where it wouldn't be covered by Frey's effects on the place. First, we ought to scout that area, see if there's an ideal spot for it. Once we have chosen a space, we can clear it out and ready the land to build..."
And on and on like that; Isla has made plans for the core of the building (the brothel, naturally), with scope for extensions to include an inn, a space for wagons and horses to be tethered and fed and watered, a bar, and so on. She's compared the pros and cons of being too close to the river, whether or not a basement would be plausible (or useful) and a variety of other aspects of the building.
After that are the lists; supplies and resources for building, ways to potentially make it easier (an Abandoned with earth magic, for example), the bare bones to make it a functional and habitable space. Once they have that, they can move onto the aesthetics.
It is a perk, among other things, he supposes for the Ascended to not sleep. Though there were times he knew Nate missed the ability to be able to shut it all off, but there was little he could do to help it other than try to distract him in turn. So for now, Sunjata works his jaw as Isla says she’ll be right back and he shifts over on the bed to make room for her, listening as it creaks and he adjusts the blankets enough to make it comfortable for her too.
And when she returns and slips in, Sunjata adjusts to half turn toward her, laid back again with blankets and pillows propped up so that he can half curl in to listen and watch her explain. He only has a few interjections, ones such as ‘what if we made our own little river’ and suggests his dragon shift for helping dig out the earth too, but with each and every suggestion he grows more and more tired.
And by the time they reach the aesthetics, he’s mumbled one thing that’s mostly incoherent before falling asleep again, rolling half into her space so his head presses against her cool arm.
love will save you, but it won't save me
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
