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!
03-27-2019, 07:20 PM (This post was last modified: 03-27-2019, 07:20 PM by Remi.)
Scrunching his nose again, Remi gave a haughty shrug that quickly dissolved into a sideways smirk. "I suppose if I were a better alchemist I could simply design something to tell me where danger is, so that I could avoid it. As both you and Jigano have pointed out, my not intending to always be in dangerous situations is perhaps no longer a good excuse." He murmured, tightening his stomach so he could half sit-up without the use of his arms, to gently kiss Sam's nose before settling back.
As Sam looked out the window, Remi simply looked up at Sam. The lines of familiarity striking him as impossibly new and complex for a moment. His eyes narrowed slightly, almost bordering on hawk-eyes as he contentedly took in the pale skin, the auburn star-speckling of freckles, the pale lashes over eyes that he would (had, could) lose himself in.
"That is a rather sweet thing to say." The lines beside Remi's eyes crinkled with happiness. "You really think you would always fall in love with me?" He asked looking up, knowing the answer would be yes, but wanting to hear it anyways. "Well yes it has been better, but that is because you did not chose to forget me." Remi replied with a pointed expression.
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I don't think even alchemy could stop you from running into the fight. ..It is something I love about you, anyway. Even if it is infuriating, sometimes. I know if I were ever in danger, you would come to my rescue." Sam had always admired Remi's bravery, his willingness to fight for the right thing, to save his friends. It was the kind of courage he lacked, the absolute dedication to something without the pause, the moment of hesitation.
He was unaware of Remi's eyes on him, would have objected if he'd known the compliments running through his mind. There would always be a part of him that felt small, inadequate, ugly. Luckily Remi did not say anything of it and he moved on without having to insert the insecurities of his past into the conversation.
Sam frowned in a 'isn't it obvious' way and leaned in close, kissed Remi's nose to return the little gesture. "Of course. You are everything I need, Remi. I don't...know how I could know you and not love you."
He supposed that yes, the fact that in this hypothetical scenario he'd chosen to get rid of the memories did matter, but... "We all make mistakes. Even...catastrophic ones. And believe me, it will have been a mistake. Something not thought through...I used to have the most horrible panic attacks, back then. Not anything planned, dear. Even in a dream, I wouldn't do that to you, I'd like to think."
"Always." Remi hummed immediately, rising up again to press a smattering of kisses against Sam's collarbones and chest, each one followed by another soft murmur of always.
Before Sam could pull away as his lips left Remi's nose, the alchemist surged upwards again, one hand curled in Sam's hair as he pressed his lips against the other man's. Despite the weight of his partner overtop of him, and how the moments-ago arching of Sam's back had made Remi's mind wander, for now the only heat the burned on Remi's lips was one of adoration, love, and complete contentedness. Pulling back with a mischievous and somewhat dreamy sort of glint in his eyes, the alchemist shruged. "Oh you would, would you? Even when I was a powerless commoner, who once slept on the floor in a house no bigger than this room in Northaven?" He asked, again knowing immediately that Sam's response would be yes.
"Mmm...well I do know that now. Back then though.." Half-scrunching his eyes closed to try and remember, Remi bit the inside of his lip thoughtfully. "Your voice had been changed already, I think. You did not seem the type of man at all prone to panic attacks" Remi replied with a gentle shrug. "I do think in the note you said that you thought it was for the best though. That for some reason your affection was a bother to me." He added with a solemn shake of his head, indicating the quite the opposite was true, that Sam's love through that time had saved him.
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Sam smiled into the kiss, his lips curving against Remi's and his body perfectly loose and comfortable against his. "I loved you when I saw you, I loved you when you had nothing, I love you now when we have this little house. I would love you in a dark alley or in a fine palace, Remi." The words spilled from him like a poem suddenly inspired, each shaped by the love on his lips and eyes.
He couldn't help but laugh as Remi said he 'didn't seem the kind of man prone to panic attacks'. Really? He supposed he must have been better at hiding his constant anxieties than he'd thought. "Believe me. There was a long time in my life I thought myself the lowest of the low. Worth no more than dirt on your shoe...I used to cry and shake all night after one conversation with anyone, going over how I'd ruined it."
Kissing at Remi's jaw, he followed the rather sad words with: "But I'm better now, mostly. And a lot of that is to do with you, and your patience."
Remi listened to the words, each making his smile wider and wider. He pulled Sam to him, fingers splayed against his freckled and lean back. "You, Samuel, are perhaps one of the sappiest men I have ever met." The alchemist chided gently. "It is one of the things I love most about you." He added quickly, touching his nose to Sam's and letting it linger there for a moment as he sighed a happy breath.
"I am sorry you went through that, love." Remi said softly. Sam didn't speak as much about his insecurities as he used to, but every now and then he'd reveal a little bit about just how traumatic his upbringing had been, and Remi would silently wish they had known each other sooner, so that he could have been there for Sam. "And look at you now." He whispered tenderly.
"You do not give yourself enough credit. Imagine if you had never followed me as a bird that first night? Or if you had done what you did in the dream, and left the guildhall that first afternoon? If you really had erased your memories?" Tangling his arms back around Sam's waist, Remi let his head loll slightly to the side, brows raised. "You held us together after my memories of you were taken. Whatever strength you gained from that is more because of you than I think you realize."
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"I spent too much time reading love stories." He admitted with an easy laugh and a shrug. Sam had poured over any tome in the Atheneum promising a romance in his youth, had spent hours with his eyes closed imagining what it would be like to have someone look at him like he mattered, to have someone hold his hand or even...as filthy as it had been to think...kiss him.
He longer knew if he was sorry he'd gone through his early life, himself. It had been painful and horrible, but the recovery...the resurrection, the chance to make new...it had been the most blissful thing he could imagine. Perhaps you had to go to absolute rock bottom before you could reach the true peaks of happiness. Still, he took Remi's apology with a rub of his shoulder and a kiss to his chest.
"I could have easily done all of those things, you know. I was very scared, back then." Still though, he appreciated the sentiment. He let a leg raise up between Remi's, his knee grazing his inner thighs. "I think the only reason I grew so was because I had such a wondrous thing to reach for, if I accomplished the impossible."
With a delighted laugh, Remi curled an arm around Sam, holding the back of his neck as he rolled suddenly to his left, effectively reversing their positions. Though Sam's ascended strength was considerable, his body still weighed about the same and it was all too easy for the alchemist to suddenly be astride the bookmaker, gazing down at him playfully.
"Listen to you." Remi mocked lovingly, leaning down to kiss the space just before Sam's ear, pushing his face to the side with his jaw and trailing the kisses down to his shoulder. "You ought to be a writer or something." He added with another small laugh, his fingers curling into Sam's hair and gently moving it from his eyes.
"My dream aside, I do wonder sometimes what it would have been like if my memories had not been taken. If we never had to go through that strange period." Remi had told Sam once they'd re-found themselves and Sam's insecurities could take it, but bizarre it was to hear that he'd once been nearly-in love with the shy bookmaker. How impossible it had seemed then, and how much hesitation Remi had felt in those early days of doing on second first-dates. "If we could have just been right from the start."
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
Sam let out a surprised laugh as he was turned but let it happen without resistance, glad to move wherever Remi wanted him to be. He had always liked being underneath the other man, anyway. It felt safe, protected.
"My own stories are awful." He insisted. Sam was a records-keeper and a brilliant transcriber, but never an author in his own right. He just didn't have the strength of imagination for it; it seemed his mind only worked that way when it was building various dreams of disasters for his anxieties to play with.
He raised his head to give Remi better access to kiss down his neck to his shoulder, a quiet moan (more of a breath, really, accidentally catching a hum of pleasure) leaving his lips at the sensation. "That would have been nice, but...can anyone just be from the start? Don't all couples go through a time of trial? Perhaps not as soon or as..." He chuckled. "Dramatic, as ours, but something they have to go through."
"Such as, sometimes, I have these terrible periods where you are over me, but you aren't kissing me."
"Well I will never grow tired of hearing them. Even if they always do have happy endings that are not realistic." Remi admonished with a sunny laugh of his own.
Strong as he was, Remi had not yet learned to levitate. So one arm had to remain on the bed to support his weight lest he press down entirely on Sam. Still, his free hand roamed down one side of the bookmaker, trailing absentminded but happy patterns along his ribs as the alchemist's lips continued to kiss the freckled skin of Sam's shoulder, pausing thoughtfully where the line of his chest hair began.
"Dramatic." He chuckled, shaking his head slightly, leaning his face up to kiss beneath Sam's jaw. The fingers of his wandering hand tightened rather possessively around Sam's hip as he grinned against his skin, his kisses now becoming sparsely punctuated with small bites of his teeth. "How horrible. That must be for you." Remi said with an airy laugh. "But I think you will find that I am in fact kissing you." He added, teeth trailing across the bookmaker's collarbone in earnest now, his lips whispering silent words against the pale skin.
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Why write sad ones? Stories are meant to be fun." He chimed back. Sam had read many a sad book of course, but they'd always left him with an odd emptiness, a desire to go back into the pages and fix it.
There was a subtle shift in the way he was touched; teeth entering kisses and a hand on his hip that said more words than mere speech could. He couldn't hear the words mumbled against his skin but could believe that they were sweet and good, could be satisfied just to feel the brush of Remi's lips on his chest above his heart.
"Not quite the kisses I meant, but very good anyway." He grinned, stroking a hand over Remi's hair. Softly he pushed himself up into Remi's mouth and hips, moved his hands down to splay across his shoulder blades. "...I'm glad I can touch you now. Once it was...you were scared of it. But you are so lovely to touch, I think my life would be quite barren without the simple joy of it."
03-27-2019, 10:11 PM (This post was last modified: 03-27-2019, 10:11 PM by Remi.)
"Ahh well, I am just a poor uneducated alchemist, so I suppose I will have to take your word for that." Remi replied with a coy wink and laugh.
"Well you should have just said tha—" Remi tried to protest with a grin, until Sam's lips pressed against his own and the remnants of his cheeky reply were lost in a gentle hum of happiness against his love. Colour tinged his cheeks at the compliment, and his pale stare lowered almost abashedly for a moment. Quickly though the embarrassment passed, and he smiled above Sam with a gentle shake of his head. "Perhaps I should get fat so that there will be more of me to touch, mm? Or learn to shift into something really large."
Remi's eyes drifted from Sam's to the corner of his lips, which he kissed gently. "I like touching you as well." He whispered. "And tasting you—" His lips ghosted upwards, pressing against Sam's as his tongue parted their lips to gently stroke inwards as the hand on Sam's hip tensed another notch. "—and feel you—" he whispered again and—
—I don't have bedding like this? The blankets I've made at Ronin's are a patchwork, not this cream colour? And—I haven't seen the sea since Northaven? But how can this be Northaven if Sam is here, and—
"..looking into your eyes."
—though now that he was, they seemed some sort of nothing colour. Remi knew they were blue, so why...why weren't they now?
"..and..."
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
He let the comment about Remi being an uneducated alchemist slip by as soon as he was sure it was a joke, putting the clear denial of that into the affection of his kiss and the stroke of his hands on Remi.
"I am perfectly content with the amount of you there is now. But if you were to grow, I would not complain. " His own hands slid down Remi's back and cupped his ass as he was kissed with a distinctly more insistent tone, flirtatious words dripping off Remi's lips.
He felt his cheeks grow hot at the comment about his eyes, looked away for a moment towards the window... the storm was getting louder again. A particularly large wave crashed against the side of the house and he felt the shake, looked back up to Remi -- who seemed lost suddenly.
Sam is, after all, a figment of Remi's imagination, so he doesn't notice the gaps in logic. All he feels is them, and warm, and happy.
Sam placed a caring hand on his cheek. "Remi? Are you alright?"
With a happy growl forming low in his throat, Remi moaned happily at the feeling of Sam's hands taught upon him. "Alright, not fat then. But perhaps bigger in other ways." He replied with a quiet laugh, the innuendo too obvious to just let it slide right by, especially the way his hips wanted to press down and forward
"Yes, I just—" Remi mumbled, pressing into and against Sam's hand as he tried to look outside again. Another wave pounded the little house and suddenly the outside world was drowned away in deep oceanic hues. Luckily none of the seawater was coming in through the open window. Convenient that. But then again the logic of a drowned house and an open window was completely lost on Remi, who instead was simply fixated on the clear scent of the sea, and how strange that was, in Sam's presence.
From outside there came a loud howl—did storms howl?—and then it finally did happen: the bedroom began to fill with water. It flowed in almost silently until the bed they were on began to float about the room. Still Remi hardly noticed. Instead he was looking down at Sam curiously. Each time he tried to fix part of his partner's appearance, it would...almost vanish as if suddenly caught in a blindspot. Freckled skin would turn pale as his mind failed to recall his freckles. And his eyebrows...they had been...the shape was...
"Lets just ignore the water. I'll see to it later. Please, just do not go, alright?" Remi said suddenly, the arm at Sam's hip now scooping into the hollow of his lower back to hold him close, as Remi lowered his lips to kiss with surprising force against Sam's neck, as if somehow the physicality of it all would keep still whatever it was that felt as though it was slipping away.
I forgot what it was like, to think I found you finally
What if you were the one for me? I hope you weren't the one for me
Speaks with a thick Italian accent.
Force and magic can be used against Remi without permission.
"Well, I can't say no to that--" Sam looked over to the window again at the howl, watched with a detached interest as the water began to rush in. If this sight was odd or distressing to him he did not show it at all, only watching it flood in then taking a hand from Remi to trail his fingers in the water for a moment, then run the cold wetness down Remi's spine with a teasing smile.
He made a surprised noise as he was pulled up and close, smiled at the kiss to his neck. "Where would I go? We're at home in bed, dear. There is nowhere to go." His hands caressing all of Remi's back, up to his neck and down to his thighs, he pressed his body up and revelled in the feeling of lips on his neck.
