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!
05-28-2023, 05:02 PM (This post was last modified: 05-28-2023, 05:06 PM by Safrin.)
it's fine to fake it 'till you make it
In the deeper depths of the ocean, the waters were cool and crisp and pleasantly dark. Nearer to shore though, warmed by the heat of Longheat, even the midnight waves were pleasantly warm. Amidst an aurora of bioluminescent light swam Safrin, clothed in the barest of sea-foam spray fabric, the goddess seemed to glide through the waves that gently tousled her body, rather than swim through them. Overhead the spray of stars in the heavens seemed nearer for Safrin's presence, as if the sky were not so unfathomably far away, but almost near enough to reach. As if the world were not so big, but a great deal more intimate and close while within Safrin's aura.
Ronin... The goddess' call had come earlier in the day when her Star had come to Torchline, her words a shimmer in his mind, beckoning him to meet her later that night. Now her voice served to guide him to the specific cove, at this specific time.
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
Torchline at Longheat is arguably one of Ronin's favourite places and times to be, and the spray of stars overhead is reminiscent of so many other meetings here with Safrin that he can't help the pang of nostalgia that grips him as he heads down towards the shore. Having heard her call when the sun was high, he's already explained to Remi that he'll be absent from late night drinks and why, and as the waves stretch up to tickle at his bare toes, the smile on his face is a warm one.
For all of their history - and it runs dark and deep and bloody, as magnificent as it is occasionally toxic, Ronin has not felt this at peace for years when coming to see his goddess. "Safrin," he murmurs to the seafoam and the waves, to the stars reflecting back into the sky overhead. "You called me."
Watching Ronin stroll up the beach, the Huntsman isn't alone in the echoes of nostalgia. With no blood spraying his clothes and with an ease in his step not seen in years, the goddess is reminded of the boyish hunter she'd met by the Oasis so many years before. How naive he'd been then, and how willing. Now both the years, as well as her own actions, had hardened him into something strong and beautiful, but she couldn't help but miss the young man who'd looked at her with such reverence and boyish affection.
"I did." Safrin agrees with a bright smile, before beckoning Ronin to join her in the water. Gone were the days of invading his dreams and obscuring his memories that she might have him all to herself in precisely the ways she wanted him. Now, it was with nothing more than a flick of her wrist that she invited him to her, allowing him the freedom to say no.
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
What's that old saying about loving something and letting it go? Ronin doesn't know if Safrin believes in that sort of thing (he has a sneaking suspicion that she does not), but whether or not it's been intended, for the past... almost two years, she has let him go. And Ronin doesn't take that for granted one bit. So it's with all the willingness of that once boyish hunter that he steps into the shallows, letting the water soak through his clothes as he wades his way towards his goddess.
"I forgot how beautiful it was out here," he remarks of Torchline, of the skies overhead, of the warmth of the water. "How beautiful you are," he adds; while it's true that they have seen each other once in the dream shared by all of her followers, even since then, the tension in Ronin's shoulders is gone and forgotten, and he goes to her willingly.
No matter the claims Rae or Frey might make, Safrin takes full responsibility for the beauty of Torchline. Without the pull of her moon and the light from her sun this would simply be another swamp bleeding away from the jungle. It's the shine of her stars, be it day or night, that makes Torchline what it is. 'It is.' Safrin agrees, tilting her head back slightly to bask in the perfect midnight silence all around them.
As Ronin nears, his words echo in Safrin's mind. Rather than reaching for him, she lowers her chin nearly to the surface of the water and gazes at him with a deep penetrating thoughtfulness for a moment. "We often make things out to be more than they are, in our minds." She murmurs, her words sending small ripples across the water. "Does that mean you've not kept me in your thoughts, Ronin? Or am I simply.." Pulling one hand from the water, droplets of bioluminescent aqua trickle down her fingers. "..dull in your mindseye?" For once there is no judgment or bite in Safrin's tone. Instead, there is simply an understanding tinged with sadness, and as she raises her galactic gaze from her hand to the Huntsman's eyes, her smile is soft.
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
He nears the goddess, buoyed by the gentle waves, until they are standing barely apart. That she doesn't reach for him is something he both notices and doesn't know how to take; for the first time in so long, he would have gone to her so willingly it wouldn't have even occurred to him that there was any other option. "You know that isn't true," he murmurs, of her first point. "Your name leaves my lips before I sleep each night." As it has done for seasons and seasons.
"And if you are dull in my mindseye, it's only because my imagination can't compare to the reality of you." Smiling boyishly, lit up by bioluminescence and basking in Safrin's presence, it's only now that he realises quite how much he's missed standing before her. Time is a healer, so they say, and whatever cracks and tensions have been created by their previous meetings have begun to melt back together again.
Perhaps it's a test to see if he remembers the pledge he'd made, or perhaps it's just her unfettered need to hear him say the words; either way, Safrin closes her eyes and nods as a small smile plays across her lips. Able to feel the warmth of his nearness through the water, the goddess sighs softly, seeming to come to a decision as her eyelashes flutter back open to regard the Huntsman.
'You have always known just what to say." Safrin muses somewhat reflectively. It's this trait and possibly this trait alone that has kept Ronin in the goddess' good graces despite her fickle and vain nature, and it's this trait that keeps him from the lashing she'd been preparing.
"Flora came to see me." Taking a step back from Ronin into the deeper water where she would have to begin to tread water, the light from the water causes starlight to dance across the bridge of Safrin's nose. "Did you know she put herself forward for leadership of Torchline? She made some very interesting campaign claims in the process."
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
"You have always been the inspiration I needed," Ronin counters, resisting the urge to follow after her as she steps back into the depths. The glow of the water sets off the curves of her body in a way that the Huntsman knows has to be more than natural, and yet he appreciates it all the same. Safrin hasn't beckoned him with her, and so despite instinctively wanting to follow her light, he keeps to the shallows where she's summoned him.
He's about to ask how their daughter is doing when, surprise of all surprises, it's Flora's name to leave the goddess's lips, and the shock in Ronin's expression is all too obvious. "Is she in trouble?" he asks instinctively - in trouble and seeking Safrin's help or in trouble with Safrin, it could be either, he thinks. "I didn't know she was campaigning for leadership, no."
A comet streak of something lights up Safrin's face for a moment in response to Ronin's surprise. It's perhaps a species close to amusement and satisfaction, but there's something decidedly feline and luxurious in the expression as well. 'That remains to be seen.' The goddess replies with a shrug that doesn't breach the surface of the water, but sends small ripples out. "It sounds like she tried to lean fairly heavily on her connections with you, and with Remi." She continues, dark eyes fixed upon Ronin.
'It sounds as though she believed her divine relations would have been more than enough to win her the crown. Not only was it not enough...it seemed to have a negative impact." Safrin lets this thought stretch out between them, wondering if Ronin's words or his body will breach the distance first.
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
At first Ronin only listens, his body statuesque in the water despite the way his fingers flinch beneath the surface, and as Safrin continues, his brows furrow together. The thought bursts forth without his conscious contribution, a whisper of have they forgotten what we did for them that will, of course, not only be laid bare for Safrin to read, but is likely just the sort of thing she's getting at. (Not that he's caught up to that just yet).
"I see," he murmurs, swaying forward a touch with the pull of the tide, his hands slowly clenching into fists beneath the waves now. "So she did not win the leadership contest?" It's only half an assumption, because he imagines the beaches would be full of talk about her when they arrived, not to mention what Flora herself might have done to announce such an achievement.
The way a meteorologist might read and predict the severity of a stormcloud, so too does Safrin read the Huntsman without the need to delve into his mind. Her gaze trickles across his face like a soft rain, and though her eyes don't move to look beneath the water, her hands instantly move to cover the fists he makes beneath the waves.
Trying to part his closed fingers, Safrin shakes her head. "She did not. The margins were not even close." This in itself is nothing that concerns Safrin; both Hadama and Harper were followers of hers and far less rash than the Doubletake. However, the fact that no one seemed to care at all about the Huntsman's influence was a worry.
"She had other reasons for coming to see me." Maligning Harper and asking for poison chief among them. "But she did want to make me aware just how little weight your name now carries in Torchline." Safrin continues, weightless in the water despite the weighty implications of her words. "I could correct their views on you having abandoned Stormbreak, as that was on my order...but Stormbreak stands rulerless, while you and Remi remain in the mountains where almost no one can reach out. Those are facts that are not mere misinterpretations. "
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
His fingers relax with her coaxing, though Ronin's eyes drop away from her starlit face and into the water, as if ashamed by the truth of her words. It's instinct that makes him want to respond with emotion, with but we needed its, with memories and nightmares combined of what occurred up on the Cordillera, but of course the world doesn't know all of that. And even if it did, the world likely wouldn't care, because Safrin is right.
But I'm so happy wants to dance from his tongue next, and the Huntsman swallows that back as well, forgetting himself for a moment and gently squeezing her hands. "I am not sure I am leadership material any more," he hazards, the clear worry being that he'll be sent up to the floating isle again. "But I..." He doesn't want to say it, doesn't want to offer the possibility of leaving the mountains for good. "How quickly they forget," he mutters instead, letting out a long sigh.
Releasing her grip on his fingers and letting the warm water fill the places hers had just been, Safrin pulls away though the implication is more than just physical. "The choice is yours, Ronin." She says softly, the moment suddenly holding all the tension of a breakup. Nothing has changed in the atmosphere - it has not begun to rain, there is no distant spark of lightning, and nor has the air gone cold - and yet somehow there is the memory of petrichor on the breeze, the echoes of thunder.
"Once, I was what you wanted most." For perhaps the first time, these words are merely descriptive as they fall from Safrin's lips, rather than a manipulative attempt to guilt Ronin into heeling. "I offered you power and love, and for a time that was enough. Then, I asked you to rise even higher..to fight for people who'd forget your name as soon as even learn it. I took you from your home and positioned you where I needed, in more than one respect." If ever Safrin was to apologize for Seren's coming to be, this is as close as she'd ever come.
"But now I offer you a choice. From Fallen Star, to Dark Star, to Huntsman...you have moved farther and farther away from me. If you no longer wish to be mine, with all that it entails...I will release you." Speaking these words, Safrin's lips don't tremble nor do tears pour from her eyes. She is a goddess after all, and before Ronin there had been others, and after him there would be more yet. Still, the somberness of her tone and the freedom she offers him is as true a declaration of her love as a being like Safrin is capable.
"But if you choose to remain Ronin...you cannot hide away on the mountain for all eternity."
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
Her hands slip out of his and for a moment the Huntsman feels lost and adrift, as though the gentle sway of the waves is suddenly a tempest dragging him asunder. Unreadable, his eyes scan the depths of the water as if imagining that they go right to the core of Caido and beyond. It's not a choice he's been expecting, and it isn't one he takes lightly.
Because he can see the life without starshine in his eyes, he can see lazy mornings and endless afternoons in the Cordillera, wiling away life until there's no more life to live. He can see it, he's had it for the past few seasons... but he knows well the path he walked to get there. It's a long, black hole shadow that Ronin casts, and - likely for the very reasons Safrin chose him to begin with - when he does glance back up to the goddess, it's with steel in his spine and a set to his jaw.
If you love something, let it go. But that's not the end of the saying, is it?
If it comes back to you, it's yours forever.
"I am only who I am because of you," he says softly. "Every beat of my heart, I owe to you. If I've been able to grow distant - if I've been able to grow at all - it's only because you put the earth back beneath my feet and the breath in my lungs. For all the years that pass, I'll never forget that." Inhaling a long breath, the Huntsman nods to her.
"Thank you for being patient with me. But I still choose you."
