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!
After hearing the news of Maea’s death, Loren had been despondent. Although his fingers twitched to turn to the bottle, he’d managed to refrain in honor of her memory. Still, that depression, the sorrow and despair lurking just under the surface, had to go somewhere.
So he channeled it into his work, throwing himself into making medicine kits and bandages with wild abandon. He burned it out in training, casting spells until he ran out of energy. And he lost himself in helping run Halo, in making sure its citizens and its people had what they needed.
But that only staved off the inevitable for so long. There were only nights he could fall asleep, too tired to even dream before he began crying himself to sleep. And there were only so many tasks he could lose himself in before even he ran out of things to do.
So, when he finished scrubbing the infirmary for only the gods knew how many times, he found himself empty handed. For a long moment, he’d just stood there, expression empty. Then, almost unbidden, his feet carried him over to the Arcane Academy. Though he didn’t sleep there, he’d memorized the layout. It didn’t take him long to arrive at Maea’s door.
Hesitating outside it for just a moment, he felt tears pricking his eyes. Then, taking a deep breath, he pushed open the door.
She keeps living. It is all she can do after seeing the note that Delphia had posted. It is all she can do and it is what Maea wanted of them. Life is beautiful because it is fleeting,” she had written, and it felt like she’d plucked the notion from Weaver’s head. That was how she had always lived, with the realization that life was too short to give up when the grief feels like it will drown you. Because if she gave up every time it hurt, she would have drowned long ago.
Still, Weaver has found herself keeping busy. She is often busy, between the Kraai, exploring, and keeping up with classes at the Academy. Yet there are still moments of quiet, like now, where the thoughts drift in and she finds that familiar hole in her chest. All the people she has lost, leaving gaps behind that she would never fill. It is like learning to live without an arm, she suspects. You grow used to its absence, but there’s often the phantom of it left behind.
Today, with nothing to do, Weaver finds herself finally going to the Academy for the notebook Maea had gifted her. She is looking forward to sitting by the fire and going through the book, and though Maea would not be there physically, it was a way to keep her alive all the same. Weaver would make the flavors Maea had suggested and make sure they stayed on the menu. She would keep her friend alive, in bits and pieces.
When she arrives, the door to Maea’s room is already ajar. Weaver stops in the doorway, looking in to spot Loren. She leans against the door jamb, knocking lightly on the open door. ”May I join you?”
At the knock on the door, Loren glanced up. He'd only taken a few steps into the room before finding himself frozen. Astra hadn't come on this particular excursion, having learned by now to leave him to his grief.
That didn't mean he minded company. Nodding mutely, he gestured for Weaver to come in. He himself took a few more steps into the center of the room before halting again. Turning slowly, he took in the state of the room, the slight layer of dust that had settled over everything. "How are you?" It came out in a slight rasp, since he hadn't been speaking much lately, and he angrily rubbed at her eyes to get rid of the tears.
Loren turns to her, not far into the room, stepping in further to allow her to enter as well. Weaver strides into the room, though it feels wrong somehow, like violating the privacy of someone who no longer had a need for privacy at all. Still, like Loren, she finds herself stopping not too far from the door for a moment, looking around at the spare bedroom.
Weaver doesn’t sleep at the Academy either, given that she has a house nearby that she vastly prefers. The rooms here are small and cold, though there’s a hearth to light if someone were actually in the room. Weaver stares at the little fireplace for a moment and a fire jumps to life there, giving off heat, even if neither of the occupants actually need the warmth. Still, it brightens the room slightly, and Maea deserves what little fire Weaver can offer. There is no body to burn, no funeral to be had, but that does not mean they cannot honor her.
”Okay,” she says, which is true enough. She is sad, but not broken, for grief rarely breaks her. She turns to him in time to catch him rubbing tears from his eyes. She takes a few steps over to him, coming close if he’ll let her, and rests her head against his shoulder, eyes on the fire. ”It’s okay to be sad. To cry. To scream. But you know she doesn’t want us to live in grief. Life is beautiful because it is fleeting,” she says, parroting what Maea had written to her.
As Weaver lit a fire, Loren glanced towards it. He wasn't cold, but he still gave her a grateful nod. Then he went to go lean against the wall near the fireplace.
When she told him that it was okay to be sad, but not to be overcome by it, his eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Already did my wailing and tearing out of hair. But I'm sorry I can't control my reaction to my emotions."
Then he gave her a guilty and apologetic smile before pinching his nose. "Sorry. That was uncalled for. There's a...lot going on." Taking a deep breath, he lowered his hand and hugged his arms to his chest. "I just...at least I didn't enter into a self-destructive spiral this time. But I'm so fucking tired of this." His fingernails shifted into claws for the briefest of moments as he dug them into his skin, ignoring the bright spark of pain as he drew blood.
Maybe she should be annoyed at his reaction, but she is not. They each process grief differently, and she can point out all she wants that Maea would have wanted them to keep living, but it doesn’t make it any easier. She just shakes her head slightly, at herself, at the situation, but not at him. ”It’s okay,” she says, dismissing the outburst.
Weaver moves to the small desk, beginning to look for the notebook that Maea had said would be in here. She’s not sure where to find it, but it is what she has come for. Again, she feels like she’s invading private space when she should not be, but of course, Maea would never be back for these things.
”It sucks. Gods, I know it sucks,” she says, a hand reaching up to tug gently at the braid that covers her scar. It is an unconscious gesture, but one that speaks volumes in its own way. ”Last time I saw her, we made plans to work on ciders together, some cocktails for the Kraai,” she says, assuming he has heard about the new bar going in Halo. If Neron hadn’t told him, rumors and gossip would have. ’I just keep imagining all the things we will never get to do now. But there’s a notebook here with recipes she left for me. At least I can make them for her.”
Simply nodding at Weaver's response, Loren rubbed his hands together nervously and awkwardly. When she mentioned she was looking for a notebook, he nodded again. As she went to search the desk, he checked the night table, opening the drawer and rifling through the contents.
Keeping his back to her, he began to speak slowly and haltingly. "Last time we spoke we...got into an argument." Guilt ate away at his voice. "I told her not to do anything reckless while she was distracted by her...whatever was going on with Sunjata." He found his cheeks were went again and he reached up to wipe away the tears.
Weaver picks up various books, opening them only long enough to figure out if they are what she seeks. She tries not to rifle through things that are not meant for her, though it is hard not to linger on sentences in books that catch her attention. Notes that Maea had taken, little markings in the corners. It feels like collecting little pieces of Maea to hang on to, a way to gain a fuller picture of a girl she did not get to know as well as she would have liked.
Continuing to rifle through the desk, Weaver listens as Loren talks, letting him get the story out. ”She told me about that,” Weaver says with a bit of a rueful smile. ”Not about it being an argument. Just that you told her not to do anything reckless.” She pauses for a moment, fingers falling on a feather tucked into a book. ”She didn’t sound mad, for whatever that is worth.” It wasn’t much. Weaver couldn’t promise that Maea wasn’t, but she certainly didn’t speak like she was angry.
Weaver picks up the book with the feather in it, about to open the book when a note beneath it catches her attention. Sunjata’s name is on the front of the paper, and she picks it up. The letter is not sealed, though Weaver does not open it. Instead she tucks the letter, and on a hunch, the feather, into her pocket. She opens the book to the place where the feather had been, though it does not appear to be the thing she seeks either.
Loren just shook his head a bit sadly, back still turned to Weaver. For a moment, he found himself leaning on the night table, his fingers almost white-knuckle as his hands supported his weight. Then he took a deep and shuddering breath. "It was an argument." He didn't sound guilty about that, just a little sad.
Pushing off the wood, he trailed his fingers across the book he found in the drawer there. Lifting it out, he turned and held it out for the huntress. His eyes were bloodshot, but he'd wiped away all other traces of the tears. "I'm glad she didn't seem mad about it." However, he sounded upset about it still.
She chuckles slightly, though the sound is without its usual mirth. ”I did not say you didn’t argue,” she points out. It was not as if she did not believe Loren. Rather, she simply wanted him to know that Maea did not seem mad. Time often reshapes memories; it tempers the anger, leaves only the love.
Weaver takes the book from his hand, opening it. It doesn’t look like cider recipes, though she’s not entirely sure. She puts it aside, in case it is what she needs, and pulls out two drawers from the desk. She takes the top one and hands the bottom to Loren, if he wants to keep searching. Weaver takes a seat on the ground, drawer in front of her, legs crossed beneath her.
”She was telling me how she had an itch she couldn’t scratch. I’d be mad at her for it, but I get it. We long for more, though what that more is is hard to come by.” She doesn’t know what Maea was seeking, what drove her to some dangerous mission on some far off shore. She only knows that Maea had to make her own choices, even if that meant leaving them behind.
Biting his lip, Loren nodded at Weaver's words. She took the book from him, but it apparently wasn't what they were searching for. Sighing, he took the bottom drawer from her. Bracing it against the wall, he rifled through it idly.
Pausing to glance over his shoulder at her, he felt his eyes growing watery again. "I know. Believe me, I understand." He turned back to his search, combing through the papers and books there. Taking one out every now and then, he flipped through them, trying to read them before he began to cry again. "I have longed for more my entire life. But I've never gone seeking danger or knowledge or power just on the off chance it might..." Voice trailing off, he shook his head sadly.
Finally, something caught his eye. Frowning, he stopped on that page, scanning the words written there. Shifting he held out the book to her. "This it?"
She shuffles through the contents of the drawer in front of her. There seems to be little more than odds and ends in here, knickknacks, pieces of a life that would never be lived. Weaver fingers the items, wondering what they could tell her if they could talk. Stories of a girl who’d hoped and dreamed, who’d loved and lost, who’d been loved and now was lost to them.
Her attention drifts from the items to Loren’s words, and she nods. ”But you are not her,” she says simply. Could they judge her for making the decisions she had made? Well, they could, she supposes, but was it right to? They all made decisions, often ones others didn’t agree with. She knows from Loren’s own mouth that he’s well familiar with that concept. Not that she condones Maea running off and putting herself in danger, but perhaps she had run off instead to help. Perhaps she did not know just how dangerous it would be. Perhaps it should not have been.
”She may not have known, either, exactly what would happen.” Weaver is not sure if that makes it better or worse, but still, it may be the truth. Loren hands a book toward her, and Weaver turns toward him fully, taking the book and looking at the page it’s open to. She grins as she skims it, finding that these were clearly directions to make cider. Weaver flips through some of the pages, finding various notes, flavor combinations, and directions on how to do things. ”This is it,” she says, her smile sad but full of memory and love. ”It is not very much, but it is a piece of her I can keep alive.”
Biting his lip, Loren nodded slowly. "I know that. I didn't...I was responding to the last thing you said." Sighing, he set the drawer down after Weaver took the book down. "I'm not mad at her for her decisions. I'm just sad that she's gone, and like I said, I'm tired of feeling sad." There was something despairing about both his tone and his expression.
When she explained that this was exactly what she was looking for, he tried to muster up a smile but failed. "I'm glad you have something to remember her by." Moving to lean against the wall, he hung his head and scuffed the ground with his toe a bit.
For a long moment, he was silent. Then he closed his eyes. "I'm running out of people I care about." It came out in a barely audible whisper.
”I know,” she says, her voice soft. ”I’m just saying that even though maybe you haven’t gone to do something reckless, doesn’t mean she didn’t need too. We are all different.” She pauses, one hand resting in the drawer, her eyes looking at nothing in particular. A ghost that is not there, perhaps. ”Though I wish she hadn’t,” she says, her voice quiet and so un-Weaver like in that moment. Still, she cannot help but see before her all the things that can never be, imagine the life that will never be lived.
She nods a small thanks that he had found the book, and tucks it into a pocket, before moving to put the desk drawers away. With the book in hand, she did not need to keep looking through Maea’s things, though some part of her is tempted to anyway. ”Did you come here looking for something?” Or did you just come here looking for her? Though she does not say the second part, for it seems like something that is understood.
With the drawers replaced, Weaver moves to sit against the wall by Loren. There’s nothing suggestive about the move like their first meeting, merely friendly and comforting. ”I know,” she says simply, not trying to tell him there will be more friends. There will be, but they don’t replace the old ones. Living doesn’t make the pain go away, it only makes it feel familiar, and it is easier to live with something you have grown used to.
