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, 05:43 PM (This post was last modified: 05-28-2023, 06:07 PM by Odd.)
flora
After her initial period of sulking about having lost the election, Flora realized something that felt like an earth-shattering paradigm shift: just as she'd said the council never really did anything, did the actual government? Other than picking and choosing what boring upgrades to do for the region, what really came with the title of King (or Queen) ? Nothing interesting, at least the way Hadama was running things (which was being Perfectly Polite and Safe and Boring).
The heart of Torchline had never been its government. Instead, it beat in the back alleys; its blood flowed through the veins of the fingers where deals were made and lives were lost; it breathed in secret backrooms and fluttered beneath the sheets of the brothel. Importantly, Flora believed that a good deal of Torchline's soul was here, in the Hanged Man.
So instead of running away from Torchline, Flora was going to stick her daggers down right in its soul and set up shop.
"Suits you," Jack remarks as he steps through the doors of the Hanged Man; he means Flora and her presence there, of course. He knows the establishment like the back of his hand - he'd even fucked Raza on the bar if he remembers correctly - but it's true that as of late the place has been lacking in something. A guiding hand, perhaps, or a face at the helm. Once Jack might have considered taking over the place himself, but that ship sailed the second the Ark did.
"So what's the plan?" he wants to know, leaning against one of the tables and tilting his head at Flora. He doesn't even know if this is above board (aka, with the stamp of approval from their glorious kings) or if Flora is merely doing what she wants, when she wants. He hopes it's the latter.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
This is what you get, alright Flora? You namedrop the Taliesins and you tattle to Safrin, and now your demigod sort-of-father is coming to help you set up a bar. So there.
Ronin is fresh from a swim in the sea when he arrives, his hair still damp and his shoulders pink from the morning sun, but he's at least dressed and ready to do what needs doing. "It's been a while since I was here," he remarks, smiling across at Flora and giving Jack a cursory nod of greeting.
"Just tell me what you need - I'll stay as long as it takes." Maybe it sounds a little bit like a threat. Who can tell, really?
Spinning neatly on her heel as Jack arrives, Flora flashes the captain a dazzling smile. Lit from within with a new sense of purpose and no small need for revenge, the Doubletake indeed seems to shine as she swans away from the bar. There's something flirtatious on her tongue that dies as Ronin pushes through the batwings and strolls into the bar. She'd been meaning to say something to Jack about christening the place, but instead she merely offers the captain a wink. "Oh hey," She trills conversationally to Ronin before sweeping her finger through a thick line of dust on one of the tables.
"First thing's first. All this...garage-sale-chic furniture is out." Gesturing to the wicker furniture and tables covered in so much spilled beer that it made the knife-marked graffiti almost invisible, Flora shakes her head. "If we move it outside through the patio doors, Ronin can start breaking it up into pieces we can use for a bonfire on our re-opening night."
Clapping her hands together and then turning on some music, Flora begins to rather carelessly yeet furniture out of the open patio and onto the sand.
Task 1!
Flora/Jack to remove the old furniture and Ronin to begin breaking it up into pieces small enough for a bonfire.
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
She does seem to light up from within, and for someone who can see just how that looks (from a psychic standpoint, don't be crude), Jack very much likes what he sees. Indeed, he's already preparing a return quip to the one she doesn't quite get to say, the captain glancing over his shoulder at the fucking Taliesin who appears to make things difficult. "Here to build a bar, but absent on election day?" He raises his eyebrows.
Anyway.
"This furniture has history," he informs Flora, but again, she's the one taking over the bar, so... fuck it, fine. Managing to avoid the Doubletake's flinging of chairs and lighter furniture through a mix of telepathy and pure luck, Jack busies himself shoving the tables out through the patio doors. As long as he's not the one baking in the sun, he doesn't really give a fuck.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
there will be scrapes and sutures; viciousness and victory
"My ledger was full of meetings that day," Ronin informs the good captain flatly; more than aware, now, of the significance of election day, he can't very well change the past, but he can change moving forward. Even if that apparently begins with busting up some furniture into kindling and firewood.
"You got it," he tells Flora, ducking out of the patio doors (and catching a wicker chair she's kindly yeeted out after him) to create a space to break things up. A combination of Emmett's axe and his own considerable strength makes quick work of anything shoved his way, Ronin even taking care to create organised piles of timber for them to use when the time comes.
Finding herself slightly drunk on Jack's snark (she'd noticed his comments during the election, but hadn't really had the frame of mind to mention it), now the Doubletake just hmmph'd! in a sing-song tone before glancing toward Ronin. "Wouldn't have mattered much anyway." She huffed with a small shrug. "But I'll show them." This latter sentiment was said under her breath, because as much as Flora might have wanted to get Ronin a little bit in trouble with Safrin, the fact that her family had fallen so low in the general opinion of Torchline was something she very much was determined to change.
"This furniture is gross." Flora sings back to Jack. Yes, yes, a good many deals had been bargained for here, houses lost in bets, companions wagered away on losing poker hands. Very sad, anyway. "And I can promise you that the new menu will be so much better most of Torchline won't even notice the furniture has changed." She adds as they manage to remove the last few tables and umbrella stands.
Now empty of nearly everything, the Hanged Man looked a good deal larger, but also a good deal filthier. "Ugh." Grimacing, Flora wrinkles her nose and heads back toward the kitchen to begin filling buckets of hot soapy water.
"We need to sweep outside, mop in here, and clean out the kitchen, so..." Her voice trails off. Assuming cleaning wasn't something that either Ronin or Jack would particularly enjoy, she'd let them choose the tasks they found least deplorable.
Pick your tasks!
Clean the kitchen, mop the front area, or sweep outside
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
"I've no doubt you will," Jack purrs to Flora, out of earshot of any snooping demigods (and he should fucking know). Still, rolling his eyes but complying with the moving of furniture for no other reason than it's not his problem once it's all said and done, the captain finds himself standing in the Hanged Man dusting off his hands. He can almost replay old memories here if he tries hard enough, but the sudden knowledge that most of those he knew are gone now, or missing, is just the right sort of unpleasant to keep him from the task.
"Just another deck to swab," he points out, when it comes to mopping. And thus Flora will learn that Jack Barclay isn't just a sailor by name, because by the time he's done with the interior of the Hanged Man, it will be of the same quality as the deck of the Ark. (That is to say - fucking spotless, thank you very much).
Jack mops!
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
Maybe Ronin ought to be more suspicious of the conversations taking place out of earshot in the Hanged Man, but given that he's the actual same age as Jack what the fuck, he doesn't expect anything untoward to be going on with his adopted-daughter. More fool him, hey.
Still, once the lumber has been chopped and arranged and their next tasks are revealed, he knows where he'll be of most use. "I'll take the kitchen," he says, having to hop and skip out of the way of quite a menacing mop to get behind the bar, but managing to make it in one piece.
Once in the kitchen, of course, he finds it a horror show all of its own, so Ronin recruits the help of his astral projection to begin wiping down surfaces and deep cleaning equipment.
Flora waggles her eyebrows at Jack as if there was something sexual about the way he'd said another deck to swab (which, if there had been, would only have been a reference to how laissez faire the captain was when it came to his sexual partners making it not the type of thing Flora should have found enticing, but here we are). Not thinking at all about the ages of the men currently helping her and only wanting to impress one and use the other, Flora shrugs at their chosen tasks and heads out to the patio with a broom in hand.
Immediately regretting her choice, Flora flags down a passerby with air magic and recruits them to help blow the sand away with promises of free drinks for a night. The bribe works, and soon the deck is clear and the Doubletake's palms are blister-free.
Returning inside, it's to a sparkling interior and a kitchen whose cleanliness she can smell. "Colour me impressed." She trills, beaming. Already she can see things as they will be, but of course there's a step or two to take care of before opening night.
"Ronin, did you bring the crate from Dad...?" Flora wonders; Remi had promised to put together an opening-night crate of his best and newest selection of gins and wines. 'Since our shelves are look pretttyyyy lonely." Indeed, Flora had thrown away the majority of what had been behind the bar. It had been so watered down over the years that it probably wasn't even alcoholic anymore. She'd salvaged what she could, but alas, it wasn't much at all.
"Mmmmm, Jack can you help me with something back here...?" Innocently said, Flora disappears through the kitchen and into the Back Room. Having never actually been back here a few times, it's upon the captain she relies to tell her what's what. "I plan on making good use of all this." She whispers. "But for now, let's just make it...let's just hide whatever needs to be hidden, and board-up whatever needs to be boarded incase someone comes wandering back here."
Ronin to unload the alcohol from Remi.
Jack and Flora to do back room things >.>
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
Having been wringing out the mop and setting it and the bucket to one side, Jack has been busy enjoying the sway and spike of Flora's thoughts, as well as her ingenuity when it comes to recruiting others to do her dirty work. Indeed, it takes a moment for him to parse through what she's said out loud rather than in her mind, and when he realises he's being summoned to the Back Room, he's got a mind to fully embrace that innuendo for all its worth.
Alas, it's just business for now, the captain cracking his knuckles and gazing over the room with a wrinkled nose; since Raza it has gone to shit a bit, he thinks. "Should be some empty crates in the kitchen," he rumbles. "We'll label 'em vague for now. You'll want a real inventory when you set up." Almost like he's done this whole contraband thing before, right?
Collecting the crates and beginning to organise everything, he pauses to heave at a trapdoor set into the ground, but it reveals only rubble beneath. "This used t'be a tunnel up to your dad's place, when he was Governor," he explains. "The islands movin' around must've fucked it all up. Still, could be useful one day." Setting the door back down, he moves to finish his work with the crates.
full speed ahead 'til i'm dead
Jack being an Abandoned is common knowledge these days, however his Telepathy remains a well-kept secret:
Magic: Passive Telepathy | The user can read the surface thoughts and emotions of those within a 30ft radius. Control is excellent. Note: "Thoughts and emotions" include anything written in a character's narration in a post.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
Also branded with a small star tattoo beneath his left eye.
"Mm, I set it just outside," Ronin says of the crate from Remi, wiping his hands clean as he emerges from the kitchen and sets his sights to the shelves behind the bar. And for all of the unsavoury nature of most of Torchline, the Supernova would be lying if he said he didn't feel more than a little impressed with how Flora is conducting herself in the rehaul of the bar.
Heading outside and being appropriately oblivious to any Back Room Shenanigans, Ronin hefts the crate indoors, cracks it open, and begins stocking shelves. He wonders if Remi might end up being Flora's supplier if the drinks do well. With a smirk on his face, images of flying crates down to Torchline on dragonback fill his thoughts as he sets out the gins and wines. Any other liquor will need to be sourced elsewhere, alas.
Nibble at the inside of her lip, for a moment Flora's mind went blank as she glanced around and what she'd hoped would just be a fully functioning secret lair. Instead, there was nothing but cobwebs and a few mice. The old Flora might have broken at this. With Enzo around she would have had the luxury of sitting down and sobbing for a while as her twin figured out what they needed to do. Alone here, Jack and Ronin notwithstanding, the Doubletake allowed herself only a few moments of internal knee-weakening panic and hopelessness before straightening and taking a deep breath.
"A tunnel to the jail and into the Fingers would be better than the Governor's house for now." She decides, her aqua gaze narrowed as she looked down at the trap door. "No reason one of the gods can't help with that." Flora further adds, before completing her thoughts for Jack's benefit. "Manual labour would get it done...but that requires people I can trust, and just now I'm a bit short on supply." Something about keeping secrets between two people only being possible if one was dead.
With the Back Room deal with enough for now, Flora sashays back through the kitchen to find Ronin putting the final touches on the bar. Rather than it looking scarce, Flora decides the selection of alcohol looks curated. Not that she won't add to it, but for now she isn't unhappy with the selection.
"Final task is..." Drumming her fingers on the bar, Flora pulls out three glasses she hadn't thrown away earlier. "What will you have to drink?" So saying, the Doubletake toasts both Jack and Ronin, kissing each on the cheek for their efforts before sending them away that she might finish things off her own way (wink wink).
~FIN
We need love, But all we want is danger We team up, Then switch sides like a record changer
