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!
07-04-2023, 05:45 PM (This post was last modified: 07-04-2023, 05:46 PM by Remi.)
wild in the silence; no way to make it right
Of all the letters Remi had ever expected to receive, never had he anticipated receiving one from himself. Having scowled and puzzled over the words for some time before shoving the letter into his pocket, the Lullaby went about the remainder of his day in the hopes that he’d either forget all about the instructions his past self had given him, or that the question of What To Do would simply become clear. Neither of these things happened as you can imagine, such that the entirety of the day was spent in a constant state of bewildered frustration that left the Lullaby tense and irritable.
Conveniently Ronin had been out the majority of the day, which left Remi to stomp around the Cordillera on his own. This hadn’t helped matters at all, such that when both dusk and the Supernova came to the Tramezzino, it would be to the Lullaby sitting broodily on their stoop with a picnic basket near one leg and a mess of blankets by the other.
“We are running away.” The Lullaby informs his husband. “Just for a day or so. And we are leaving these.” So saying he dangles his Finders Seekers charm before tossing it carelessly onto their porch.
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
It's little surprise that Ronin dislikes leaving his husband alone all day at this time of year, and when he does arrive back home, he approaches the Tramezzino at a pace best described as a prowl. Indeed, even seeing the picnic basket and the blankets, it doesn't stop Ronin from clambering straight up the steps to their porch to sit down with Remi, his arms snaking around the other man to draw him close, his lips finding the scruff of his cheek to kiss.
"Mm, okay," he agrees readily, swatting at his waist to remove the charm that's usually attached to his belt, tossing it in the same direction without watching where it lands. "Where are we running?" he wants to know, adding a second kiss against the corner of Remi's mouth. "Do you want to take the nimbus?"
No sooner do Ronin's lips meet the scruff of Remi's cheeks, than he'll feel the vast and wary froth of the Lullaby's emotions. After so much grumping around Remi hasn't the energy left to hide the uneasy palette of his thoughts, but nor does he feel like explaining just now. Instead, he glances down into his hands, the palms of which have been rubbed raw and the dirt beneath his nails indicative of having done a little gardening (read: the unearthing of several trees), and gives his head a little shake. "I am not sure. I thought we could just...walk" He replies, the answer applying equally to both of Ronin's questions.
Later Remi will be able to articulate just how much it means to him that Ronin is able to simply go with what the Lullaby needs in moments like this, but of course, it's precisely because it's a moment like this that he can't find the words. Instead, he stands and reaches for the picnic basket, nodding that Ronin should take the blankets so that they'll each have a free hand to twine around the other's.
"I will explain in a bit. For now...can you just talk at me?" Remi wonders almost pleadingly, though really it's the desperate swirl of his emotions that give his words this particularly needy shade.
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I could walk," Ronin says easily, and even though the wash of the Lullaby's emotions is unexpectedly sour, it doesn't dampen his love for Remi at all. Pressing a final kiss to the other man's lips, he rises to his feet and folds the blankets over one arm, the other twining through his husband's fingers, careful of any blisters or raw skin on his palms.
Remi is likely the only one for whom Ronin can be patient right now, but as they begin to stroll away from the waterfall and their houseboat, his steps are as even as ever, and the palette of his own emotions is rosy and content. "Of course I can," he croons, turning to smile sunnily over his shoulder.
"I sent those echo sharks to Flora," he begins. "She wrote to say thank you - I've left Sugar down at the Hanged Man with her until I visit next. You'll need to get to work on that next batch of gin." If it isn't obvious by now, Ronin is a natural conversationalist, and he can carry it for as long as Remi deems necessary.
"And since it's so close, I've been flying up to Stormbreak from Torchline quite a bit. I think I'm faster than some of the skyships, if I put effort in." They head into the thicket of fir trees that border Meadowreach, but the darkness that drops over them is nothing for two demigods. With a crown of antlers appearing around his head, Ronin lights the way as they walk.
"I met the new leader," he continues. "She knows Mateo, but then I think most people do..."
A very small part of the Lullaby hates his husband's rosy presence and would cheerfully claw out the Supernova's throat. In truth, that part is merely the most hurt facet of the Lullaby's soul crying out in anger instead of sadness. It's the part that aches to be taken care of but doesn't know how to ask for help; the part that has been shoved into the smallest chamber of Remi's heart, banished there by the presence of godly strength and determination. That part that, for all intents and purposes, doesn't exist. Not until letters from the past shine a light upon it and the foundation of the Lullaby's strength is shown to be quite shaky.
"Mmm." Remi hums in all the appropriate places. His fingers are tight against Ronin's and his eyes are levelled unseeingly on the ground before them as they simply walk until the rush of the waterfall is far enough away that it's only a phantom sound buzzing in Remi's ears. Loving Ronin for his rambling if only because it creates some semblance of normalcy before what, Remi can only assume, will be the Moment Things Change, it's with a gradually slowing of his feet rather than an audible halt that the Lullaby indicates that they've gone far enough.
Not saying anything for a moment, eventually, the Lullaby puts down the basket so that he needn't release his husband's hand, before reaching into his pocket for the letter. Staring down at it, crumpled somewhat by the day's activities and yet seeming all the more dire for the ease with which he could just tear it up, the Lullaby runs this thumb over it for a moment before holding it out for Ronin to take. "It arrived this morning." He explains, not that the timing was at all relevant compared to its contents.
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Happy to chat away until Remi says otherwise, Ronin's only indication of his soft understanding comes in the squeeze of his fingers against the Lullaby's. And when they do eventually trail to a halt, it's conveniently in one of the glades amongst the fir trees. The sky opens overhead to stars that are just waking up, and both demigods are painted in a mixture of new moonlight and the gentle glow of luxere antlers.
Depositing the blankets and similarly not releasing Remi's hand, it's only as the Nova straightens back up that he spies the letter, raising a curious brow at it. "Oh?" Tilting his head, he accepts the crumpled paper and carefully opens it, blue eyes scanning the looping script (a script that, especially now that the sun has set, seems all the more forgivingly authentic). Slowly Ronin's expression turns serious, and it's with a deep sigh that he closes the letter to hand it back to his husband.
"You never told me you wrote it," he says, as if to assure Remi that he hasn't been keeping it from him. "But I did always wonder if you'd made a loophole, given how hard a decision it was."
Strangely, Remi feels as though he's been unfaithful to his husband and that the letter in Ronin's hands is as scarlet as they come. Isla was, after all, the only other person Remi had loved in any important way since being with the huntsman, and in this of all seasons he expected no understanding whatsoever. Perhaps that's why when there is no tsunami of anger or bitterness surging from the Nova's fingertips that the Lullaby frowns and nearly pulls away. He doesn't though, or at least the most he does is flinch slightly before his frown melts into confusion. "You are not angry?" He wonders, exhaling a breath he'd been holding, though not sounding as though he was at all relieved.
Swallowing, Remi blinks a few times and looks over his shoulder, as if just noticing their surroundings and the crown of silvery antlers Ronin was sporting. "I feel so many things...and strangely nothing at all." He mumbles, eyes taking in the tree-lined glade and the soft star shine before returning his attention to Ronin. "And I know this...is an unfair time to talk to you about this, but I am afraid I will demolish at least half the mountain range before the season is up if I don't."
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"It is a letter from you, to you. About something I know you cared very deeply about," Ronin points out with a gentle smile. "How could I be angry?" The implication being, of course, that if the letter had come from Isla directly, there might be a very different conversation happening. (No conversation at all, in truth, because Ronin would be finding a dragon to feed the letter to).
Folding the paper and tucking it back into Remi's pocket, the Supernova tugs at his husband's hand so he can wrap him up in the sort of embrace reserved for long-awaited reunions and hard-won battles. "While we're out here alone, I think I can handle it," he murmurs into the other man's curls. "As long as you don't decide to skip off right now to find that serum. I might have something to say about that." And a flare of something fiery and possessive does light up in Ronin's emotions at the prospect.
Unable to help himself, Remi slips into the usual cadence of their shitfuckery such that the raise of his eyebrows and the tilt of his head is entirely boyish and skeptical as if to say well... It was Leafchange after all, and Remi could think of any number of reasons both big and small over which Ronin could be angry. The laughter on his lips stings, and almost immediately Remi finds himself clearing his throat and swallowing.
Pressing himself firmly against his husband as if the ground might suddenly fall out beneath them or if he was about to do something as foolish as reach into The Core once again, Remi's fingers reach out to clasp the huntsman's shoulders to draw them all the tightly together. The anger and heat that pulse from Ronin somehow relax the Lullaby, who was finding himself all the more unmoored by his husband's understanding. "I do not want to go anywhere right now, especially not without you." He whispers into Ronin's collar.
"Honestly..I do not know if I want to go at all." The admission is a soft one, though the words had tumbled around Remi's mind for so long that day that saying them finally felt anticlimactic. Pulling back just enough to be able to see the silvery light from Ronin's antlers reflected in the huntsman's dark eyes. 'How could I?'
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Rolling his eyes affectionately and needing no words to either understand or respond to the Lullaby's expressions, Ronin concedes to the other man's point. He's never been angry at Remi in this season though (or very rarely, anyway) - he's usually angry at everyone else. But - and gods if the way Remi clutches him close doesn't cause the possessive flare in his emotions to grow tenfold - this isn't a one-off, like sleeping with Hotaru at a Frey shrine. It isn't a hall pass, it isn't a stranger.
Grumbling something both affectionate and grateful as the Lullaby's whispers trickle through the air, Ronin hastily conjures his duplicate to spread the blankets out for them to sit on, before he tugs the other man down and into his lap. Problem solved, then, he wants to say automatically. I'll eat the letter and we'll pretend it never arrived. But therein lays the problem. It has arrived. And Remi would want to go, if he only knew what he had given up.
"It's one of those impossible things," he says slowly, "where you could only know the answer to that question after you did it." Sighing heavily and letting his head loll against his husband's shoulder, Ronin furrows his brow. "How did it even get here, after all this time? Why now?"
Sitting like a man-shaped boulder in his husband's lap with his legs wrapped around the huntsman's waist and one arm looped over his shoulder, to anyone passing by the pair likely looked like an adorable gay couple out for an evening of star gazing. Not that there was anyone to see them in the Cordillera, but just the thought of it has Remi rolling one shoulder as his wings unfurl to shield them from view.
Mirroring Ronin, Remi too lays his head between the arm draped over Ronin's shoulder and the huntsman's neck, pressing his eyes and lips against his husband's skin and considering very seriously abandoning his own body and disappearing into Ronin's for the remainder of the season. I suppose I must have given it to someone to mail. It was marked to arrive at the beginning of Leafchange of this year. Remi thinks with a soft sigh.
It could have been Ludo for all I know, though it probably would have arrived sticky or covered in cat hair if that were the case.
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Torn between wanting to lock Remi in a tower somewhere and knowing with heartbreaking clarity that the man who had forgotten Isla would be begging for him to do the right thing, Ronin is equally as relieved as feathered wings come to shroud them from view. "Ew," he mumbles pointedly, not wanting to think about a letter arriving sticky for any reason. While his fingers draw soft patterns along Remi's back and stroke at the softest feathers near where his wings sprout from his shoulder blades, the Supernova grumbles his reluctance against his husband's shirt.
"This is a part of you that's been missing, whether you like the idea or not," he says gently, pulling back enough to look at Remi properly. "And you've lost so much in your life, memories and otherwise. To get some of it back, even in this capacity... I can't let you give up that opportunity." He leans in to kiss the Lullaby's forehead. "It doesn't change what you've done and the man you've become since then. You aren't going to lose any more of yourself, by gaining this."
Smiling into the crook of Ronin's neck, it's with an ease that only those with godly strength possess that Remi can maintain such a ferocious embrace of the man he's twined around. Perhaps once the sun comes back up his arms will have grown tired and his fingers will be sore from where they're clutching at the Nova's collar, but for now not even an apocalypse could loosen the Lullaby's fingers. He'd pull them both into the dreamworld before he released his grip.
Searching Ronin's gaze, his own having grown all the lighter for the play of light from the Nova's antlers against his wall of feathers, Remi shakes his head ever so slightly. "But I did not just love her, did I?" He asks quietly, and not only because of how close they were, or how his feathers dulled the sounds of the world around them. "I was in love with her." Ice shivers through his veins then as his lips part to allow for a shaky inhale. "I do not want to love anyone but you. I do not want to be in love with anyone but you. It.."
Glancing up to where his feathers domed over top of them, Remi searches the silvery light for the sort of words which might make this all make sense. "..right now I cannot even imagine there is anything I could see that would make me fall in love with someone other than you...but what if there was?" The words shiver from his lips, but only because the entirety of his body is trembling now.
THE LULLABY
i’ve been chasin the storm of a lovesick lonely lie
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Swallowing hard as he gazes up at the man he's so madly in love with, it's a good thing Ronin doesn't try to bite his tongue to keep his words at bay, because he'd likely have snipped right through it with teeth that are suddenly sharp and unforgiving. "Remi," he whispers, the hint of a plea or a warning in his voice accompanying the soft growl that rumbles up through his chest and throat. "Don't."
He's trying to do the right thing. To do what Remi would want, even if it doesn't seem like it right now, but there's only so many times he can ignore what he wants. Leaning in to steal a kiss from the Lullaby's lips as if to silence the blasphemy of being in love with Isla, Ronin spends a slow few moments gathering his composure. "I am yours," he whispers eventually. "And you are mine. And that was true even when you remembered Isla. I promise you that. And besides, it won't be like truly remembering. This is just... watching a dream."
Not trusting himself to part from his husband even a fraction, it's with an awkward manoeuvring of antlers and wings that Ronin lets his head loll against Remi's shoulder. "She was your best friend as well," he says slowly. "Your very best friend, before anything else." And the alchemist had only very recently mentioned not having any left.
