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!
Soh would be happy if she could stay here forever.
The sun was out, the temperature was perfect, and a light breeze played with her golden hair as she sat in the Barrows outside of Wrenzoak’s Refuge, her head tilted up to enjoy the sun’s warmth. Tarak played in the nearby grass, stalking unsuspecting mice. Every now and then, Soh felt a flare of satisfaction through the bond that told her he’d been successful in his hunt.
It was a lazy sort of morning for the young Heart, one that had brought her no small amount of peace. She’d been working nonstop ever since Jude had left, the better to fill her mind and ignore her emotions. Things were complicated enough in Stormbreak without dealing with her personal drama: the Abandoned were finally being welcomed into the city, and she’d been busy with preparations. So, too, had she been puzzling over how to approach Koa about his recent political blunder with Halo.
Sometimes she wondered if she wouldn’t be better off had she never assumed leadership. If she’d never left the Hollowed Grounds. But that was neither here nor there.
Sitting in the grass was calming, and the sound of birds chirping and bees buzzing filled her ears as she considered, briefly, laying back to take a nap in the sun. But then a familiar figure appeared, and Soh sat up straighter as her eyes widened in recognition.
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
Harper is drunk again. It has been an unexpectedly pleasant state of being, and one he has occupied for an unclear amount of days now. Sunjata and the House of Midnight had broken through his barriers and fears of being inebriated, but it had led to a haze of inebriation with no end in sight.
Faded hickeys trail up his neck, and though he doesn’t sway - years of gruesome training too rigid even years later for such gracelessness - it’s clear from his glassy eyes and distant expression that he’s not all there. Which is likely why he’s not the one to recognize Sohalia first, and why it takes her calling out to him for Harper to even realize she’s there.
His stomach sinks in dread, but the alcohol keeps him from feeling the full effects of regret and fear. Instead he changes direction and meanders her way, sitting with a humph beside her and setting the bottle in his hand to sit between his knees. “What are you doin’ all the way out here, sweetheart?” His voice is slow and syrupy, a drawl of a foreign accent that Caido has never seen and never will thick around the syllables.
You're out of reach and we're out of time, I take it all and toe that line You held my hand and pulled me down with you
Sohalia stared as Harper came closer. She couldn't help it: his eyes were glassy and distant, faded hickeys trailed up his neck, and he sat beside her with a humph, hiding a bottle of something she couldn't identify between his knees. It was a side of him she'd never thought to see. He'd always been so strong, so solid, so stalwart in her mind that she couldn't reconcile the man she knew with the man before her. Even his voice, when he spoke, wasn't quite his, thick and foreign and wrong, and she eyed him with concern as he settled in next to her.
"Just visiting," she replied vaguely, her silver gaze fixed on his so that it didn't wander curiously over the hickeys peeking out along the side of his neck. "A friend thought I could use a break and brought me out here to fly kites, of all things," she added with a laugh. "And I thought I'd stay to see Jata and maybe check out the meteor crash site that everyone's been talking about." She hesitated. "What about you?" she asked, cocking her head to one side, studiously ignoring the obvious answer in the bruises on his neck. "You're a long way from Torchline. Is everything... okay?"
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
Her voice is familiar and soothing, and Harper relaxes further at her side as she expands on her reasons for visiting. It’s almost a lulling sensation, and when she comes to a stop it almost startles him, bringing him back to the present.
Any parental concern for why she might need a break fizzles and dissolves beneath alcohol and bitterness alike at her gentle question, making room for a harsh bark of a laugh. “Ah, I guess I never told anyone but Flora and Hadama…” he trails off, vaguely wondering if he should have posted on the Notice Board at the very least. But what did he owe them anymore? Staring up at the cloud-dotted sky, Harper shrugs loosely. “I left. Quit. Abdicated, whatever. Sunjata said I could stay here as long as I wanted, so here I am.” Which is probably not what his daughter figure is expecting to hear, but it’s freeing to say it out loud. Though it does prompt him to take up the bottle and take a swig from it, hoping to chase the memories away and hide from the few responsibilities he has left that still haunt him from afar.
You're out of reach and we're out of time, I take it all and toe that line You held my hand and pulled me down with you
Sohalia had never really been around drunk people - not for any length of time, anyway - and so it was that she didn't really recognize just how far gone Harper was, at first. He was relatively upright and listening, anyway, and she almost expected the typical fatherly concern that she had come to expect from him - until it didn't come. It was then that she tilted her head almost comically to one side, regarding her father figure shrewdly. He wasn't himself, that was for sure. What could she do to help?
But then he said he'd left Torchline, and Soh's brows rose in surprise. "Oh!" she said, and promptly fell silent, unsure what else to say to this revelation. Something must have happened, she decided, but she wasn't sure how to find out what without prying. So she jumped to the next possible thing in her mind to say, which was: "Jata -" will take good care of you. "- has always been kind to me."
Gods, what was she supposed to do in this situation? She wanted to ask him what had happened, how to help him, but she'd never been presented with anything quite like this before. Gods, did Jude know? She blanched. Harper had said that only Hadama and Flora knew, so what if he hadn't even told his son?
She suddenly wished he wasn't the only one drinking.
It wasn't that she was disappointed, or upset, or angry - Harper was a grown man, and more than capable of doing whatever he wished - but she was concerned. This was nothing like the man she knew. She cleared her throat. "How, um... how do you know Jata?" Perhaps that would be safe, solid ground on which to start her many inquiries.
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
In his inebriated state, no matter how well-controlled he is even when drunk, he doesn't linger long on Sohalia's stuttered but otherwise easy acceptance of the news he has shared. "He's a good man. One of my only friends, really." Again, not an appropriate thing to say to your daughter, but Harper is too far gone to recall things like propriety and what children should and shouldn't know about their parents. Or perhaps he is simply stuffing down the voice in the back of his mind that is far too sober and scandalized by his own admissions.
Though she has no way of knowing, the question is equally tripwired, but honesty is easy with liquor in his veins. "He was Phoebe's first husband. It ended really badly. Whole thing was a mess from the start, really." He'd been present for the wedding - though understandably not past the vows - and even then he'd hoped that Phoebe would put a stop to it when he'd told her she could and that he would take care of her. "Phoebe was in love with me, but she was real young in my eyes. Things were different in my home world. So I went to Sunjata for advice and such, and we were both Safrin followers at the time." His face pinches because the wording isn't wrong, but it's certainly revealing, and even he hasn't come to terms with his feelings on Safrin these days. Particularly his dwindling faith. "Just carried on from there really. How do you know him?" There's no suspicion in his tone, aware Sohalia is too straightlaced for the House of Midnight, and that Sunjata was too far gone for Nate and Hotaru to ever consider a young girl.
You're out of reach and we're out of time, I take it all and toe that line You held my hand and pulled me down with you
Acceptance of his news was one thing, but it was far from easy - as was reconciling the father figure that she knew with this inebriated man before her. He seemed too far gone to read the concern in her eyes or to regain control of his feelings, and part of her welcomed the honesty even as the rest of her yearned for the dad she knew. The one who she could cry to about losing Jude, the one who she could confide in about her leadership woes, the one who she could ask for advice without judgment - but that man seemed to be nowhere to be found, and she worried that if she started asking too many questions, she might not like the answers she received from this Harper.
It was as Harper spoke that Soh realized how little she knew of her foster father, and even of the man she'd taken to viewing as an older brother. She hadn't realized that Phoebe and Sunjata had been in a relationship, and it seemed to her that Harper and Jata's friendship must have been quite strange. Not that it was any of her business.
"We ran into each other in the Oerwoud, back before I settled in Stormbreak," she explained, smiling at the memory. "He was on a quest for the House of Midnight, so I tried to help." She wondered if that would warrant further questioning; from an outsider's perspective, it must sound questionable at best that she'd helped Jata with a quest for a brothel. In reality, she'd only answered a few simple questions and, though she'd been embarrassed at the time, it had led to a lasting friendship.
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
Sobriety is a long way off, but sitting in the sunlight and listening to Sohalia while also having paused in his drinking makes small bits of clarity begin to shine like dappled sunlight in the fog and murk of his brain. Enough to prompt him to rub a hand over his face, wondering vaguely why he feels so worn down. What day was it even?
Perhaps it would make him concerned, but he knows Sunjata too well to even begin questioning the implications of their meeting. Instead, he smiles. "You've always been so helpful," he praises, sweet as honey and twice as proud. Though it makes him sigh immediately afterward, the thoughts of Edmund and Jude encroaching now that the paternal sentiment has dawned on him, and unable to fully push them aside this time. Instead, he tries to focus on the child he has in front of him. "So what brings you here, honey? You said you uh," he quickly scans his recent memory for her explanation, aware he is displaying his inebriation but not wanting to show how badly, "needed a break, right? Everything okay?" Because even in the depths of his rediscovery and selfishness, he can't ignore the idea of her hurting, even if it's belated.
You're out of reach and we're out of time, I take it all and toe that line You held my hand and pulled me down with you
Harper's praise was a balm to Soh's fragile soul, and she smiled shyly over at him as she twisted to face him more fully in the grass. She'd always striven to be helpful, and in most cases, she rather thought she'd succeeded, but it was always nice to have external validation that she'd been doing the right things. Especially the way things were going these days.
And though there was a little voice in the back of Soh's mind that insisted that Harper was in no place to listen to her qualms and worries, the majority of her was just naive enough to think that if he was asking, then clearly he was alright.
She bit her lip, looking away with a frown. "Everything's fine. Things are just... complicated at home," she hedged, unwilling to dump her problems into his lap, but one look at the concern on his face broke her resolve. "Jude and I broke up," she confessed. "And I don't know if we're still friends or not." Memories of their last conversation left a sour taste in her mouth that she didn't want to inspect too closely. "Koa's been doing... something in other lands that had Deimos asking me if I'd authorized him to act as a militia, of all things, and I don't know how to even begin to address that. And then we've got the Abandoned coming soon, on top of everything else..." She sighed.
"It's just been... a lot, lately. I wish -" But she stopped, suddenly feeling as though she should be stronger, better, than this. As though she shouldn't be dumping all of her concerns on someone else's lap - even if he wasn't leading a foreign nation anymore. But this was her dad, or as close to one as she had, and if she couldn't talk to him... "I just wish I didn't have to do it alone," she whispered, wrapping her arms around her knees.
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
Harper can tell this is a conversation he should be sober for the moment she starts, but the only way he knows how to sober up fast is to shift, and he isn't sure how to do that without being entirely too conspicuous. The confession of her and Jude breaking up is enough to make his veins go cold. While it's not unexpected, and they're young enough to rebound from it, he feels his stomach twist and tighten sickly. He'd moved all the things in the Court of Stars to an apartment that he paid for in advance for the entire year, and ensured Jude's cat had a caretaker until the boy returned. But he had anticipated Jude to have Edmund and Sohalia both as his support system, and now...
"I'm sorry sweetheart," he utters through lips gone numb with too many emotions. "I...I didn't know." Because he hasn't even seen his son. Even the haze of alcohol can't numb the sudden self-hatred that digs its claws into him.
"Koa seems to be treading on a lot of toes then," he huffs slightly, taking hold of the topic with both hands. Not forever, mind, but he needs to get his head in order before he can tackle the problem of his kids breaking up. "He came to meet Hadama and I and wanted to question one of our citizens. Someone who'd been involved in a bandit altercation that ended in death. But he refused to tell us who, and was demanding to take charge on the matter," he waves a hand in the air, scoffing slightly, not meaning to be so transparent with how it had soured his temperament toward the young man but unable to help it, "he wouldn't budge. Wouldn't even let us sit in on a literal interrogation, and still didn't give us the name by time he left." Deimos' name registers a little late, and he frowns and turns towards his daughter. "Deimos is a good man as well. I like him. Don't let Koa make an enemy of him, kiddo." It wouldn't end well for a variety of reasons.
The way she slumps and curls in on herself makes Harper's heart tug, and he leans sideways to wrap his arms around her. He smells of alcohol and multiple kinds of cologne and perfume, but hopefully the hug will distract from that. "You don't have to, sweetheart. Even if it's not me, you've got plenty of people to help you," he reassures softly. "Is there anything I can do? I know I'm a bit of a mess right now," he admits, voice going soft and low with pain that hadn't been present earlier, "but I'm still here if you need me." No matter what. Even if it meant having to get his shit together to do so - because he hasn't fully learned to put himself first yet.
You're out of reach and we're out of time, I take it all and toe that line You held my hand and pulled me down with you
If he didn't know, then he hadn't heard from Jude. And if he hadn't heard from Jude, then did that mean...?
Shit. She had to find Jude.
But she didn't have the right to go flying to Jude's side now, did she? Even if every fiber of her being longed to leave Harper to sober up in the grass as she hopped on the next available skyship and ran for Torchline.
Would Jude even be in Torchline?
Gods, what she wouldn't give for their communication devices!
The news about Koa stopped her in her tracks, and she turned to blink slowly at Harper. A chill settled in her veins. First off, what all had Koa been doing that she wasn't aware of? And second, was Harper talking about the attack on Jude and Edmund? The attack that he clearly knew nothing about? Was that why Koa hadn't wanted to give names? Oh, gods. "M-maybe he was trying to, uh, protect their privacy?" she asked, her voice wavering. Gods, what was she supposed to do? Was there a reason Koa hadn't told Harper that it was his sons involved? Had Jude asked for secrecy? She ran over their conversation in her mind, trying to remember if there was a reason she shouldn't tell Harper the truth.
As for Deimos, she nodded. "He is a good man, and I'm trying - I just, I don't know how to discipline Koa without making everything worse for everyone. But I know I need to do something." It was her responsibility now, after all.
Soh wrapped her arms around her knees and bit her lip, trying to gather her thoughts so that Harper wouldn't see just how scattered and devastated she was - or just how much he had inadvertently added to her plate just now. "No," she said, flashing what she hoped was a sunny smile. "I'll be fine." He had his own problems, and here she was, adding to them, asking him to set his aside to help with hers. Self-loathing reared its ugly head, and she shoved it aside. "I'll ask my council what they think about Koa," she mused aloud. "Surely we'll come up with something between us."
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
Harper grunts slightly, clearly wanting to argue the topic, but he swallows it down - misreading her hesitancy and panic as split loyalties and not wanting to badmouth her Dragoon any further. "Does he not have a superior? I know the Dragoons haven't been very plentiful since the war, but it shouldn't be your job personally. You've gotta delegate sometimes." Oops as if that wasn't previously my job. He isn't entirely sure how Stormbreak is run these days, but it's not often that he and Sohalia talk shop so to speak.
Her brightness is a lure in the dark of a running stream, glinting in the light and hoping to catch the attention of the beasts that swarm within. Harper nearly takes it - but the sun and the lengthy pause from drinking is bringing him too much clarity, so he frowns and hugs her tighter instead. "Hey, seriously. I'm a free agent now. What did I just say about delegating, huh?" Maneuvering so he can brush her hair from her face and look into her eyes, he focuses as hard as he can on pushing past the inebriation. "Even if it's just shifting to sober up and we can spend the day together getting your mind off things. I...I don't wanna fail you too, kiddo." Maybe he needs her to need him. Maybe this is more about Harper than her - and he isn't sure if that's the kind of self-serving he's been trying to learn, or something more insidious, more selfish.
You're out of reach and we're out of time, I take it all and toe that line You held my hand and pulled me down with you
"Anju's gone," Soh murmured, clearly torn as she wavered between telling him and not. Gods, didn't he deserve to know? "She left with Mort's demigod to investigate things, and I haven't heard from her. She was the captain of the Dragoons, but with her gone... I think it's up to me..." Soh lifted a hand to gnaw at her thumbnail absently. Then, as though coming to some kind of decision, she sat up, crossing her legs beneath her and turning her attention fully to Harper. "It was Jude," she said. "I'll bet that's why Koa didn't want to tell you. It was Jude and his brother who were attacked. They're fine," she hurried to add. "Er - physically, anyway. I don't know details, just that, um, it's why I didn't hear from him for so long. He was making his way home with Edmund."
And maybe it was the wrong thing to do. Maybe it wasn't her secret to tell. But she wasn't going to leave Harper in the dark about his son. And if it helped to shed light on Koa's actions, well, she wasn't going to complain about that, either. Not when she was still so unsure of her feelings for the young dragoon.
Soh looked up at Harper as he swept the hair from her eyes, shaking her head. Now more than ever she was determined that she could see things through without asking for help - especially when she was sure that Harper had his own problems that he was dealing with. "You could never fail me, Dad," she told him firmly, her silver gaze holding his. "Just - you know you can always come to Stormbreak, right?" she asked. "I mean, I get it if you want time away to do... whatever -" She kept her eyes carefully trained on his, away from the hickeys marking his neck, not wanting to think too closely about what he was doing to make himself feel better. "- and I know it's not home, but, it could be, if you wanted."
I stood outside when the roof gave in You crawled from the wreckage you were lying in
"Have you considered sending a search party for her?" He'd done exactly that for Maeve and Phoebe alike in the past, though he prays Sohalia will have better luck than him in finding her wayward Captain if she does. He knows exactly how being involved with demigods can alter someone's path.
He's not expecting the sudden tumultuous confession that springs from her lips. Anger comes far easier to Harper when inebriated, and something dark and furious flickers in his eyes at the idea of his sons being harmed. "And he didn't see how instead he might have earned Torchline's favor by telling the King directly that his sons had been harmed, and offering to coordinate with us on the investigation?" His voice shakes with a baritone of anger, incandescent. He has to pull one hand away to fist against his thigh, not wanting to unintentionally squeeze her too hard or have her feel it. Maybe it wasn't her secret to tell, but he's glad that she has. Even if it makes him feel sick with the need to see his sons as quickly as possible, to make things right he hadn't even known he'd wronged.
Harper deflates slightly at her soft concern, glancing down at the half-tipped-over bottle between his legs, mocking him from the grass. "Nowhere has ever really been home here," he confesses quietly. "I thought it was Torchline for a long time. But maybe I was wrong." Maybe Stormbreak would be better than wandering through King's End and trying to drink his memories away. "Sunjata has been helping me learn to focus on myself for once. But I don't know how to exist without a purpose still." Thus the alcohol and sex, trying to numb away the feelings of aimlessness and boredom. Lifting his eyes to Sohalia's, he gives a wry smile. "But maybe I'll try. Though Jude might hate me for it." It's a soft warning, and one he's willing to bear as he makes clear - Jude would likely feel that way regardless since he'd left Torchline - but he doesn't want to make things worse for the two of them.
YOU'RE OUT OF REACH AND WE'RE OUT OF TIME You hold my hand and pull me down with you
