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!
One might think that after the sort of bender he'd pulled down in Torchline at the Hanged Man's reopening, Mateo might take it easy for a little bit.
And one would be wrong.
In reality, this is the same night out according to Mateo, because if he's stopped to sleep then it was by accident and it doesn't count. The White Hart is a good place to start and/or finish (wink wonk) a bar crawl, though quite which one the botanist is doing as he swans inside is anybody's guess.
Still wearing the equivalent of some fishing net, patchwork pants and an assortment of seashells and glittering rings, Mateo stops to kiss someone's cheek, get his ass fondled by a different stranger, and exchange an intricate handshake whereby something may have been slipped between fingers, before he arrives at the bar.
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
Koa may not be concluding a 24-hour bender, but he's had his own busy night by the time he reaches the Hart. Fresh off a boxing match and sporting a brand new split lip, the young man is ready to down something strong that will ease the pain of his aching muscles, and sand down the edge of adrenaline that always haunts him after a fight.
Luckily the Hart is popping, and it doesn't take long for the Dragoon to be distracted from his woes. By the time he makes it to the bar he's already received two comforting kisses and had a mysterious shot pressed into his hand. He eyes it speculatively as he slides onto a stool, and then, shrugging, throws it back. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
"Fuck, that smarts!" Koa presses the empty shot glass against his lip, wincing at the sting of alcohol that's seeped into his cut. Turning to the man beside him, he finds himself doing a double take as he processes Mateo's unique 'fit. "You look like you just came from a mermaid orgy," he informs the botanist, eyebrows raised appreciatively. In ripped black jeans and a black t-shirt Koa is rather subdued by comparison, but hey, he makes it work.
Having ordered a very similar shot to the one Koa is currently shooting back, Mateo glances across at the other man purely because he's heard the words mermaid orgy and not because he realises he's being spoken to. "Oh I wish," he drawls, his accent thicker for the booze already in his system. "You look as though you need an orgy," he adds with a wink, raising his glass to Koa before sinking the shot as well.
Wincing at the sour burn of it, Mateo sets his glass down and cuts the shenanigans, because of course he knows the Dragoon beside him. Clapping Koa on the shoulder, he taps the bar for another drink, this one to nurse rather than to swallow in one. "Nasty cut you have there," he remarks with a mischievous bob of his eyebrows.
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
"Sure, you know of any happening tonight?" It's half-jest, half-earnest, because while Koa's soul is willing for some action his body, alas, is weak. And if anyone could rustle up an orgy he has no doubt it's Mateo; the man is infamous throughout Stormbreak for his wild parties and uninhibited streak.
Koa tries not to wince as Mateo's hand lands on a particularly sore shoulder, lurching forward a little further than might be appropriate given the force of the pat. "Hard day of training," he shrugs with a grin, then grimaces as the expression tears a scab open, leaving him licking blood from his lip. Mateo probably knows what kind of training Koa's been up to, why his face is bloody and his knuckles bruised, but the young Dragoon would still rather not draw too much undue attention to his extracurriculars. He can't imagine Anju would be delighted, and as for his Pa? He shudders at the thought.
The barkeep returns with their pair of drinks, smoky pink things that smell of anise and have a garnish of leaves he can't quite place. He raises it up to clink on Mateo's, murmuring a soft cheers. "So if not an orgy then what? Family reunion?" the lad asks jokingly, raising an eyebrow and perfectly unaware of how close to the truth he's hit.
"Not by word of mouth, but say the word to me and I will see what I can drum up," Mateo tells the other man, bobbing his eyebrows at him and busying his fingers turning his empty shot glass over and over again. His smile slants towards the apologetic as he notices Koa wince dramatically enough that it might well have been an imitation of the botanist, and although his hmmm is skeptical at best, he makes no further mention of it.
The garnish in their drinks is a mix of peppermint and coriander, which is a bold choice, if Mateo says so himself. Luckily he's much more interested in the drink itself, smirking at Koa over the rim of his glass. "Not far off," he admits. "I was in Torchline. My little sister has just renovated a bar down there, so I was attending the grand reopening. A lot of my family was there. It did not stop it from being messy."
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
Koa chokes mid-sip, though whether at the flavor of the drink or the mention of Mateo's little sister, who can really say. "My condolences," the boy says, once he's regained sufficient composure, his glass tipped his comrade's way. "Though from what I've heard of your family it'd be more remarkable if things didn't get messy," he adds with a rueful laugh. Rumors of the Talisen/Abruzzo clan have always been rampant in Stormbreak, and Koa has enough personal knowledge to assume that many are true.
The mention of Flora seems to have unsettled him somewhat, though, Koa swirling the liquid in his glass with an expression somewhat thoughtful, somewhat constipated. "How, uh, how is your sister?" he wonders, trying (and fialing) to sound nonchalant.
"No need for that - I had a wonderful time," Mateo says with a smile half hidden by another generous sip from his drink (he needs to get back to a merry buzz at the least, else he might get sober enough to get hungover). "And you are quite correct - though in my family's defence, we were not the only ones in attendance. And we were not the only ones causing trouble, either." Thank the gods for Torchline, right?
Given that Mateo is a flirt and a wildcard, of course he zones in on Koa's discomfort, from his expression to his tone of voice, and there's a shit-eating grin on his face this time as he turns to behold his friend properly. "She is fantastic," he says. "I believe that taking over the bar will be the making of her. Would you like me to pass on your congratulations?"
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
"Oh no? What other legendary Torchers made an appearance?" Koa leans forward, authentically eager, his appetite for gossip information on other places ever hard to quench. He hasn't had much opportunity to leave Stormbreak, even with the borders open and the skyboats in place, even in the peacetime after the war, and so he soaks in other people's stories, exploring vicariously through them. Maybe he's too dutiful a Dragoon to leave his post.
Maybe he's just afraid.
Heat rises in the Dragoon's ears at Mateo's prying and shit-eating grin. Usually, discussion of flings and near-conquests would not bother Koa, but Flora is his friend's sister and it just feels... wrong. "Not sure she'd love to hear from me," he confesses before taking a heavy pull at his drink, the burn of the liquid distracting from that dreadful thing called shame. "We, uh... well. I wasn't as charming as I usually am, last time we met." He finally looks back up at Mateo, a crooked smile on his chagrined face.
"I do not know much about legendary Torchers, but the mermanta king himself was in attendance," Mateo says. "And more demigods besides my parents - the Flood and the Nightingale were there. A few notable faces from Halo, too. There was a lot of writhing about on the dancefloor, if I recall." He might have been guilty as charged for it as well, but that's besides the point.
But now they're getting into the gossip about his little sister, and while the botanist is as jovial as ever, there's a whisper of something distinctly Taliesin in his expression as he beholds his friend. "It is good that I know Flora can hold her own in a fight, otherwise I would be wondering if I needed to defend her honour," he remarks. "What did you do, exactly?"
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
"Sounds like quite the party," Koa says with a low whistle, making no attempt to hide his FOMO. A boatload of demigods, royalty, and the whole Taliesin clan? No wonder Mateo hasn't come down from the high of a night like that. "I'm sure you were leading the charge," he adds, smirking knowingly at the young man whose epiteth is, after all, The Party King.
Ah, but the gossip. Koa finishes his drink before he answers, hoping the flush of alcohol will hide the red in his cheeks. "Ah... we may have met once, when she came to visit," the Dragoon says slowly, copper gaze studiously fixed on his empty glass. "And I may have tried to sneak out in the morning." It's as close as he's currently willing to come to saying I fucked your sister, but Mateo has all the necessary tools to read between the line.
He's looking back at Mateo now, running his fingers through his hair, a bashful, apologetic grin on his bruised face. "In my defense, I didn't know she was your sister," Ko adds, as though that might somehow make things better.
06-09-2023, 05:03 PM (This post was last modified: 06-12-2023, 07:04 PM by Mateo.)
Mateo
"It was," Mateo laments, though the looseness in his limbs and the buzz behind his eyes suggests that tonight could end up much the same, with a little bit of encouragement. "But I regret to inform you that I was only second on the dancefloor. I cannot be showing myself up at my sister's event, can I?" Right, because the botanist is a stickler for decorum. Everybody knows that.
His brows furrow, then, not at the idea of Koa and Flora spending the night together - they can do as they please as far as he's concerned - but that she's visited Stormbreak before and still not come to visit him. (Burn the witch). "Listen," he says, once Koa's cringeworthy story has ended, Mateo reaching out to clink his glass against the other man's. "I have snuck out of my fair share of bedrooms in my time." So he can't exactly chastise someone else for doing it.
"I have never been caught, though. For shame." Chuckling, he takes a healthy drink and raises his eyebrows at Koa. "Did she slap you? Please say that she did."
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
Well, Mateo takes the whole thing quite well- not how Koa might have reacted, had it been his little sister, but then again the Dragoon doesn't actually have any siblings to be protective of. The anxiety melts from his grin, becoming closer to a normal doesn't-matter-had-sex expression when Mateo clinks his glass. "Might've," he admits ruefully when asked about a slap, reaching up to rub his cheek as though he can still feel the ghost of her hand there.
Raising his glass up again, he offers one last cheers. "To bad decisions, eh?" Koa laughs before downing the remainder of his cocktail, the weird herbal taste buzzing harshly in his throat. He leans his elbow on the counter, head on his hand as he gazes speculatively at Mateo. "Night's still young and all that- what do you say we make some more?"
On the contrary; had Flora been the one to approach him about what had happened - and had she been upset about it, especially - this would have been a different story. As they say, though, silence is golden and ignorance is bliss, and if Flora's happy, he's happy. "Oh good," he coos about the maybe-slap, because he's nonetheless proud of his baby sister, and he raises his glass in turn.
"And to running from them," he agrees, clinking his drink with Koa's and also downing his cocktail in one, though he makes it look suspiciously easy (it's because he's already drunk, lol). Setting down the empty glass and gazing sidelong at his friend, the smile that creeps across his face is dimpled and catlike. "I thought you would never ask," he says, patting his pockets. "Want some snapdragon?"
I'm a scholar and a gentleman And I don't usually fall when I try to stand
It's good to have that on the table. Honestly, Koa's relieved that Mateo knows: it means he won't have to tiptoe around the siblings, should he ever happen upon them both in the same place. And not having been sucker punched by a brother is always a positive. The Dragoon cannot promise he would have been so chill, should the tables have been turned.
Koa grins and cracks his neck, stretching in anticipation of a wild night. His smile mirrors that of Mateo, though it's more wolfish than catlike. "Hell yeah," he says, extending his hand for the (powder? liquid? flowers to brew into tea?) drug. "I haven't been properly fucked up in a minute, and I have tomorrow off." He also has some pain to mask, going by that lip.
"How about your love life, eh? Seeing anyone these days?" Koa raises an eyebrow playfully as he leans back in his seat. "Or should that be the evening's mission: get Mateo laid?"
