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!
Look where that got him, indeed. "I dunno, they seemed pretty happy from where I was sitting." And it had only been for a very short couple of seconds that she's stuck around after that, thank you very much. "But I understand. I'll think about it - I suppose I need to do something." Rubbing at her forehead, Isla follows suit and empties her glass so she can raise it for a refill as well.
Resisting the sudden urge to pinch at Flora's fingers with her chopsticks, Isla instead contents herself with peeling some of the raw salmon from her sushi to eat. "I appreciate the offer," she says warmly, and she means it, raising her eyes to offer the other woman a smile. "But if I do come and stay for a vacation, you must promise that your brother and his weird friend aren't staying at the same time."
She doesn't know if she can cope with two Remi lookalikes in one place.
"Yeah, because Safrin told Ronin he had to stop being a hermit and because I invited Remi to come down." Flora retorts, still sounding victorious. "Like, they think they're so happy until they come out of their little bubble and realize just how much they're missing. Do you know they went seasons without visiting me or Mateo? Just up there acting like their little houseboat was all that existed." The girl's eyes roll, and though she's speaking of her fathers, much the same could be said to Isla and Sunjata too, in her opinion.
"Why, not into.." Flora frowns for a moment, trying to think of a pithy way to say what she means. "..fivesomes?" She decides in the end, shrugging at the clumsy name. "But no, I'll make sure. Everest sleeps as a dog and Mateo takes up the entire bed." Complaining though she is, Flora had really enjoyed not sleeping alone; perhaps Isla might pick up on the way the Doubletake's smile goes from sassy to sweetly sad as she recalls the night before.
"So what's the long story about you and my dads?" Flora asks suddenly, nodding another thank-you to their server as their glasses are replaced with full ones. "You said last night it was a long story."
Letting Flora vent because not only does it sound like she needs it, but the situation really does seem dire from the Doubletake's perspective, Isla wonders when Remi had fallen into becoming a bad father. Of all the things she knows about the Lullaby, when she had known him, she wouldn't have thought it possible.
"I am barely into twosomes," she says in her defence, especially given her most recent revelations about the whole massive trauma bond she shares with the Flood. Isla is about to remark on Flora's unexpected roommates when their drinks appear, and she's blindsided by the roll and tumble of the conversation.
"Oh, I don't..." Think you really want to know, think I ought to say, both work in this environment, but she had planted a seed the night before. "It is a long one," she mutters to her drink. "And it started a long time ago now, when we first came to Caido. Remi and I really were the best of friends, and I mean that in the way that friends should be. We shared all the same interests, we had the same kind of humour..." Smiling as if looking at a reflection of herself from the past, Isla seems sweeter somehow, for a couple of moments.
"But then in that first Longnight in the Grounds... I don't know if you're aware of how it used to be, with the monsters that roamed there, but when the sun didn't rise, the Grounds were easily the most dangerous place in Caido." In her opinion, at least. "I was killed out there, in the dark."
Raising her eyebrows in a perfect imitation of the Michael Scott go on gif, Flora even leans forward to rest her head on her hands. The gesture is far from sarcastic though; not only is this the hottest tea she's ever had in her life, but any gossip about her father is welcome. She thinks, anyway.
Wondering what sense of humour Remi has that Isla could share, Flora sits silently as Isla sketches out the landscape of her and Remi's friendship before things take such an abrupt turn that Flora finds her jaw nearly hitting the table. "Wh-" She gapes, glancing around as if someone might jump out and yell GOTCHA at any moment. Leaning forward, still somewhat suspicious, Flora refocuses her attention.
"You died?" It's all Flora can do to remain in her seat. Mashing the metaphorical next episode button, the Doubletake nods for Isla to go on.
"Mmhm. A Longnight monster... got inside me." Averting her gaze and pulling a face, it isn't something Isla speaks about often if at all, but she still remembers the black suffocation, the way every circuit had jammed and screamed, even as an Ascended. "Your father tried to save me by striking a bargain with Ludo. In exchange for a favour that Ludo could call at any time, and I'd be brought back. And I was." Scoffing out a humourless laugh, she raises her glass to Flora as if in a cheers. "As a unicorn. I was your father's companion for a few years."
Pausing for a drink and a bite of sushi, Isla settles back in her seat and shakes her head. "Even now, it's so hard to describe it to people - even people with companions," she admits. "I was here, but I was so intrinsically a part of Remi that those two things became impossible to separate. It was like we shared a piece of the same soul. It goes beyond what people think about as the Attuned bond, or any magic. I could tell you what mood he'd woken up in, or when he needed to be alone or to find company, when his temper was about to boil over. All of it."
But, and because obviously there's a but, or there wouldn't be a story, of course things changed. "Over time, I lost more and more of myself. I think by the end, even Remi knew that he'd made a mistake. That's when Ludo called its favour, and Remi became its demigod. Your father killed me for the second time." Pausing, she hazards a glance at Flora. "I told you it was a long story. I'm only even halfway done."
06-09-2023, 07:17 PM (This post was last modified: 06-09-2023, 07:23 PM by Flora.)
flora
Pulling an appropriately horrified face as Isla murmurs ..got inside me, the girl reaches for her drink and then thinks better of it for the time being. It's a good call in the end, because Flora would definitely have done a comical spit-take to hear that Isla had been Remi's companion. With her mouth empty, she makes an O of shock before shaking her head. "EWW. So you were...like, in his thoughts?" The gag she mimes is very nearly genuine at the thought, if only because Flora only knows the current Remi. To think he'd ever been something other than murdery and dadish was an impossibility for her.
"I hate all of this for you." Flora murmurs, taking a hasty sip of her drink before nodding. "Please continue."
Horrified by the next turn in this story, Flora leans back, wrapping her arms around herself as if to ward off a chill despite the heat of the day. "Oh my gods." Whether it was because Isla died yet again, or because Remi had KILLED HER wasn't clear, not even to Flora. "No wonder you hate him." She murmurs, assuming that whatever the ending of the story was, this had to be the worst part of it.
"More than his thoughts," Isla says with a sudden laugh like the chime of a bell. "I told you, it's hard to describe. If you ever get a companion, you'll be halfway to understanding it." But even then maybe not, because humans are a lot more complex than animals, and Isla had been privy to Remi's very, very human mind. And as Flora responds to her second death (some people are just lucky, right), Isla can't help but shake her head.
"I don't hate him at all," she says softly. "Pretend for a second that it isn't your father, and it might be easier to understand. He killed me out of love, just like he'd tried to save me out of mercy. And I was free from there. I went to Mort, and spent time as we're all meant to when we die here." Sighing, because it really had been the last time she'd felt at peace, Isla almost doesn't want to continue.
"At the Festivals of Lights one year, the Voice managed to interfere with proceedings. A huge group of souls came back as Ascended from Mort's realm - it was a choice she gave us. And I chose to come back." Both knowing and not knowing, of course, just how fucked things were about to be. "By then, though, sides had already been formed. People had already drawn lines. And Remi and I were on opposite sides of a war on the horizon. But of course I went to see him. I met Mateo, we had all those tearful reunions and everything you might expect. But it always felt like it wasn't the same."
After being so, so close, it was unsurprising that nothing would compare, in retrospect. "We found ourselves trying to get back what we'd had, even in the middle of a war. Socially, emotionally, physically, even. To cut that part short, though, you know how your father can be killed right?" She's not about to overshare if Flora doesn't know, put it that way.
Flora, who had experienced much in the short time she'd been alive, couldn't comprehend at all the things the Remedy was trying to describe, least of all imagining Remi as someone other than her father. She tries, if only because she wants to hear Isla out, but the steadfast idea she has of her father makes it difficult for her imagination to stretch over the rigid outlines he has in her mind.
What does strike a chord, of course, is the mention of Mort's realm. Biting at the inside of her cheek and reminding her mouth not to make the conversation about her, for a moment Flora does allow her mind to wander to the last time she'd seen her twin. Giving her arm a little pinch in order to focus her thoughts, she nods belatedly. "Right, I remember hearing about that." About the Festival and the resurgence of the ascended, not about any teary reunions, though.
"Wait, you ... no, you didn't..." Physically? Kill her now. It was impossible to believe not only because Remi was her dad and she couldn't think of him as anything other than gross, but because he was gay. Gay, gay, gay, so how could..? "Uh, yeah. People he loves, right?"
"Remi was a person before he was your father," Isla reminds Flora gently through a chuckle, sipping at her drink and shaking her head. Because yes, they did, a few times actually. Back to the best bit, though. "Mm, that's right." She nods. "And I fulfilled that clause. Wouldn't normally be a problem, but as an Ascended, the Voice could act through us, when she needed to. So any time I was near Remi, there was always a risk that..." Well, that the goddess would flood her thoughts and take the Lullaby out in a very, very permanent way.
"It nearly happened once, at Stormbreak. I think that's when he must have decided that he had to forget me." Because of course, she doesn't know, having never been privy to the discussion. "He sent me a letter to say he was going to Ludo, and that..." That she would be the only person to carry their memories forward. Feeling her throat wanting to grow tight, Isla steels herself. "That was that. Everything I've just told you, he has no idea ever happened."
And then they lost the war, she lost Cal, and she discovered what being alone really, truly felt like.
The wrinkle of disgust at the thought of Isla and Remi together was swiftly erased as Isla spelled out quite clearly what the problem was, vis à vis the Voice. "Oh." It's a small sound, but one that seems to appropriately capture the gravity of the situation, and even as the Remedy goes on to explain it, suddenly it all makes sense.
It's the first time that Flora doesn't try and hasten Isla to fill the silence, and as the Doubletake swallows and leans back in the chair, all she can do is stare at her drink while her mind tries to sort things out. Having never had the sort of love or even friendship that the Lullaby and Remedy shared, it's all too easy for Flora to side with her father's choice in just..forgetting. Instead of voicing this though, the girl just bites at the inside of her cheek before leaning forward.
"So..last night then. Does he just...not even know who you are now?"
Neither silence nor filling it helps this particular wound, and Isla hasn't realised it's started to bleed again until she promptly lifts her drink and shoots it back in one, wincing at the burn and telling herself that's why her eyes are stinging. "He recognises me now," she says roughly, setting down the glass. "We ran into each other accidentally, in King's End. Not my finest moment." But her life has been filled with not fine moments, and in the big scheme of things, that meeting isn't even in the top ten.
"But no, he doesn't know who I am in any sense that matters. I doubt I even cross his mind." Shrugging, because what the fuck else is there to do with this shitfest, Isla taps her empty glass as if to ask if Flora wants to get another. "So yeah," she finishes with an airy sort of smile. "My best friend doesn't remember me, the man I loved died what I imagine was a horrible death, and I started to fall for a demigod who is completely and emotionally unavailable."
"I hope you punched him." Flora comments dryly, before recalling what Isla had said the night before about it not being a good idea to hit the Lullaby.
Ouch. Even for the Doubletake, who has no real sense of the sort of loss Isla is describing, this sounds painful and though she doesn't want to minimize it by saying something like that sucks, she's a bit at a loss about what to say. "Well..." Releasing her breath, Flora looks up at the top of their umbrella with a frown, before seemingly struck with an idea.
"What if you just forget him back? Not like..to be petty, but then you can just...try and be friends again without all the drama?" It seems like ar remarkably good idea to her, but just in case it isn't, she has a backup plan. "Or, just make him dream with you and you can like...show him all the memory stuff again, make him feel bad, and kick him in the balls." A total win; Isla can show Remi what he lost, and in a dream the Remedy could make things as painful as she wanted without having to worry about Remi getting murdery about it. Or at least, not really murdery.
"I threw a rock at him," Isla admits with a small smile directed into her empty glass, the Remedy rubbing at the back of her neck. Not expecting any of what she's said to be met with ideas, it's with complete surprise on her face that she glances back up at Flora, tilting her head a little. "I..." She doesn't know how to phrase it, at first, because the suggestions are those of the young and the fiery, and Isla is very much beaten by life nowadays.
"I could never," she says of forgetting Remi, sounding firm about that. "And I don't want to punish him. Even seeing those memories won't mean anything to him if he doesn't have those feelings any more." Shaking her head and feeling a little flustered, Isla swallows hard. "I told you it was a long story," she murmurs, as if to try and change the subject.
"Hah. Amazing." Flora of course loved her father, but it wasn't like Remi had been an exemplary parent, and Isla really did seem fucking awesome. That's why, despite her affectionate feelings for both demigods the Remedy had been with, Flora was firmly on Team Isla.
Though she can practically hear the attempt to change the subject in Isla's voice, Flora is very much invested now. It feels like a cliffhanger at the end of a show, but instead of being able to binge the next portion, you're left googling to see if it's going to be renewed. "So that's just it then? All those years worth and it's just...done?" Realizing that this might sound judgemental given that Isla is the only one in a position to do anything about it, Flora flutters her fingertips against the table apologetically before taking another sip of her sangria.
"That is a long story." Flora agrees. " I just hope that isn't where it ends. Not for you, at least." She adds with an optimistic smile, still hoping the Remedy will take her up on a beach vacation one of these days.
