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!
"You do not know the half of it." Remi says with an exasperated sigh, before raising a brow and giving Isla a look. "Or...do you? Flora seemed to know a good deal about your being in Torchline when I went to the tavern asking around." He adds, and if he didn't know his daughter better than he did, he'd have no reason to think that a relationship between Doubletake and Remedy was something to be concerned about at all. But of course one never could be too careful when Flora was involved.
Hissing in a short burst of air through his teeth, Remi nods in solemn agreement. "Best not to." He says, pausing only to graciously accept the drinks brought to them and making sure to offer many, many, thanks. "He was. I asked him about it all before I even drank the liquid, and though it was all bad timing given the season, he was shockingly understanding." But that was Ronin all over, and the Lullaby's bashful smile is no less adoring for his husband's seasonal psychosis.
"Gods, I had almost forgotten about that." Shaking his head, Remi sniffs at his gin. "Living up in the Cordillera has been good for us. We are both venturing out a bit more now, but certainly after the war we both just needed..." Well, what they'd needed had been complicated, and so, taking a sip of his drink, Remi simply says: "time."
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Does she indeed. Accepting her drink with at least as many thanks as Remi, as if she's trying to one-up his politeness, the server will likely walk away feeling both flattered and uncomfortable, but so be it. "I have actually been staying with her for a couple of days," she admits with a smile. "We met the first time at the Hanged Man's reopening. She invited me to stay if I was ever in the area. And after everything with Sunjata... well. I was."
And it's better to sofa-surf than to be officially homeless, Isla thinks. Taking a grateful sip of her fresh margarita, she receives the news about Ronin's knowledge of their meeting with a sigh of visible relief. "I'm glad," she says. "You two are too good together to risk anything." Of course, Isla isn't aware of the Taliesins' self-inflicted solitude, but luckily Remi is there to fill in the blanks.
"Gods, I can understand that," she admits, her smile tinged with sadness now as she gazes into her drink. "I just drifted from place to place, after the war. All the other Ascended became Ancient pretty much right away, but I just couldn't."
Unsurprisingly, Remi's eyes grow rather wide and his smile is clearly pasted in place as he blinks rapidly. "That feels...weird." He decides at last, exhaling a nervous laugh and shaking his head slightly. "Is it weird, though? With everything you and I have been through...even recently, I mean..." Ruffling a hand through his curls, he looks to Isla for some sort of reassurance.
"To say I was worried about risking it would be an understatement." The Lullaby says softly, his voice audibly more sombre as he considers the ice bobbing in his glass. It probably wasn't worth mentioning that he'd nearly opted not to drink the liquid in the vial to avoid the risk altogether.
Glancing up and seeming surprised by this, Remi tilts his head to the side ever so slightly. "No? I would have thought..." He blinks. "It must have been so hard. Especially after Cal and the rest of it, but then to be the only ascended left..?"
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Letting out a soft laugh, Isla is clearly very comfortable with her current situation, and she shrugs her shoulder to Remi. "Your daughter is good company. She must get it from you," she says honestly. "And considering that when I decided to visit Torchline, you still didn't have a clue who I was, it didn't seem all that weird." In short, if it is strange, it's only because Remi is making it that way.
"I'm glad you didn't decide to do this on a whim," she says suddenly, which probably comes as a surprise to both of them, actually. "And I suppose I should apologise to your past self. I thought you'd given up, that's why you didn't make a failsafe." Ah, if only you knew, Isla.
Nibbling at her lower lip and shrugging in a way that hides just how back-breakingly hard it had been, Isla can only offer him a sad smile. "It was hard enough to deal with everything without physically feeling it on top," she admits. "I'm still surprised now, with how much the body experiences the emotions we feel. I've only been an Ancient since Flowerbirth."
07-07-2023, 05:50 PM (This post was last modified: 07-07-2023, 06:12 PM by Remi.)
REMI
the alchemist
& my heart ran away with me
Letting his entire expression crumple in disbelief that Flora got any of her positive traits from him, the Lullaby can only roll his eyes in defeat and shrug.
"Mmmm." Remi hums a touch gravely, swallowing and nodding. "Every time I ran into you I came home more confused than ever. I could not have thought about it properly without Ronin. He was the one who always reminded me how much you meant to me, and always played your advocate when I was particularly grumpy." The Lullaby says, resting his elbow (rudely) on the table and placing his chin in his palm. 'But it definitely was not a whim. Honestly, I was..." Remi's eyes search the wood grain of the table for a moment. "...terrified, honestly. Of what remembering you - us - would do to me. How it would make me feel."
Not able to understand the lack of feeling but certainly knowing what it meant to be overwhelmed by it, the Lullaby nods soberly. "Are you happy with your choice? Of becoming an ancient?"
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Falling quiet to listen and drawing one of her feet up to rest on the bench (also perhaps rudely) so she can tilt her chin against it, Isla feels peculiarly bittersweet about Remi's admission. She both understands it and hates it at the same time, and she's already buying at least three gifts for Ronin for being selfless in a way she genuinely can't wrap her mind around. "Your husband is an incredible man," she says eventually, smirking across at him. "Don't you ever forget that, Remi Taliesin. And tell him thank you from me, please?"
It's a strange and unexpected question, about the transition from Ascended to Ancient, and Isla finds her tongue momentarily tied by it. "I... I think I was starting to regret it," she admits softly. "After everything with Sunjata... it's a lot easier to travel when you can't feel hunger or fatigue or pain, you know?" And being of no fixed abode is a lot harder on a body that can feel it, Isla knows that for nothing.
"But overall? I don't think I realised how much I was missing. Rediscovering everything has been incredible."
"You don't need to tell me." Remi agrees, feeling strangely melancholic about it, as if having been reminded of just how wonderful Ronin is, has only reinforced the notion in the Lullaby's mind that he absolutely didn't deserve him. "I will tell him." He agrees through a half smile while his right hand secretly carves R+R on the bench seat with one of its talons.
He doesn't know, but isolation has dampened the Lullaby's imagination enough that he can't picture what it might have been like. Remi's smile, genuine at first, wavers ever so slightly as he bites the tip of his tongue sharply enough to have pinpricks of tears beating at the back of his eyes. Rediscovering everything also includes sex, and more important, sex with Sunjata, and though he is neither lusting after Isla because of her ascended bite nor is a seasonal mess like Ronin, Remi still finds a way to find himself stiff with jealousy.
Clearing his throat, don't be selfish, don't be selfish, don't be selfish, Remi forces himself to brighten. "Anything you have left to rediscover? Or discover for the first time, perhaps?"
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Remi," Isla says softly, not quite chastising the Lullaby but the tone is close enough to it nonetheless. Even after two years without speaking, she knows that tone and that expression well enough to read between the lines even without the Attuned bond. "You are also an incredible man. He's lucky to have you as well, you know." Plucking up her drink again, she clinks her glass against Remi's as if to remind him that it's there.
Tilting her head after taking a sip of the margarita, the silence goes on for just long enough that the Remedy properly feels it, and even at Remi's question, she tilts her head. "Is that really what you wanted to ask me?" she wonders. "Because you and I both know that list is probably very long." And specific; eating candyfloss, feeling snowflakes melt on her palms, dressing in silk and so on.
Swallowing, having expected the I'm going to compliment you relentlessly now that you're back in my life to only go one way, the Lullaby pulls in a skeptical breath but knows better than to argue. Opting to drown his doubt in gin, Remi takes a large sip before licking at the top of his mouth loudly and pulling a face. "Not mine. Not bad, but..." He shrugs.
Glancing up, thinking Isla looked very small and adorable the way she was folded up around her knees, the Lullaby sighs and offers her a boyish smile. "Fine, is there anything on that list we can do together?" He asks, the terseness of the words loosening up immediately. "Because I feel like I have missed out on quite a lot of firsts with you in the years we have been apart, so.."
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Smiling over the rim of her glass, Isla is both disheartened and amused at Remi's analysis of the gin, though it's a shame it isn't his own vintage. Ah, well. As for the things they can do together, the raise of the Remedy's eyebrows tells that she's trying to decide whether to take that as an innuendo, but eventually she lets it go in lieu of actual thought. "Yes," she decides suddenly, shifting in her seat and angling their beach umbrella up a bit to reveal the shoreline and the port beyond.
"I want to go on one of those," she says, pointing towards the skyship port. "I've never been on a skyship before. I want to take one to the Greatwood. Another place I have never been before. I can't possibly imagine why." Can you, Remi?
It's all not not an innuendo, but given that Remi had literally just watched himself ravaging Isla's body in any number of different ways just days before, he thinks he's actually doing a good job of being appropriate. Whether he in fact is doing a good job isn't up to him.
Raising his eyebrows as she turns, his gaze following her own eye line, Remi has to stifle a huff of laughter which only turns his smile all the more crooked. "That all sounds very doable." He murmurs, fluttering his eyelashes at her innocently before tilting his chin up slightly. "And actually, you have been to the Greatwood many times, just..." His eyes lower for a moment before bouncing back up again. "...not in that body."
Was three hours of friendship long enough to make haha remember when you were my companion? jokes? Time would tell.
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"It does? I'm very glad to hear that. I've heard the skyship from Torchline to the Greatwood takes quite a while, and I was afraid I'd get bored." Which, if this is a first they conquer together, isn't going to be the case, right? Satisfied at having been able to rope Remi in on an adventure, Isla tilts the umbrella back down so that it doesn't disturb the patch of shade they've found.
"Oh, shush." Isla scoffs at him, grinning; it might only be three hours of friendship for Remi, but the Remedy has been waiting on this for years. "This will be my first time in the Greatwood on two legs and without being a horse. Is that better?" Reaching out suddenly, now it's Isla's turn to steal Remi's drink, but she doesn't settle on a sip, knocking it back in one.
And promptly pulling a face.
"Gods, I don't like that neat," she tells him, pushing the glass back.
"I suppose we will have to bring a deck of cards, then." Remi says with a grin. "There are much faster ways of getting to the Greatwood, like on the back of a manticore-" He says out of the corner of his mouth before chuckling. "Though depending on what level of relaxation you are looking for, we could always borrow the one that Mateo and I made and fly it there ourselves...?" There were merits to both means of travel in Remi's opinion, but because this was Isla's bucket list, he'd let her have the final say.
"Unicorn." Remi interrupts, flashing her a smile before grumbling dramatically as the Remedy swiped his drink. Looking both impressed and a touch relieved (the gin wasn't very good, and life was too short to drink bad gin), Remi raises his hand to beckon their waiter back over. "Alright then, you order the next round of drinks." He suggests, reaching for their empty glasses and putting them conveniently on the edge of the table.
Code blatently stolen from queen of codes, Sky!
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I know very well that there are faster ways of getting to the Greatwood, but I want to travel there for the first time on a skyship," Isla repeats cheerfully, only to light up at the news that Remi has a ship already. (She doesn't know, of course, that said ship actually belongs to Mateo, and that he lives on it. "That one," she says instantly with a nod. "Maybe I can try to steer it for a bit then as well?"
Side-eyeing the empty glass of gin and already feeling very pleasantly fuzzy in her face and her fingertips, Isla considers for a moment. "Maybe one of those... oh, you know the ones!" She raises her eyebrows at Remi like he'll just magically read her mind. "With the orange juice and the champagne?"
