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!
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Court of the Fallen was created in October of 2018 by Odd, Honey, and Crooked.
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Loren just shook his head sadly. "Oh I've done plenty of reckless things. Enough to know better." However, his expression was guilty. "But...I get it. I just...gods." He took a deep breath to try and control himself, even though he knew it was futile.
When Weaver's tone and expression and posture all changed, he looked at her. Really looked at her, noting the signs of her own sorrow. Reaching out, he tried to lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. "May she burn brightly." It came out with the intonation of a prayer.
Shaking his head, he rubbed his hands together anxiously. "Nothing specific. Just figured someone should...come here before Zariah tossed everything." For a moment his sorrow was replaced with anger at his cousin and her callousness. That too faded quickly.
Sliding down the wall, he sat next to her. Slinging an arm over her shoulder, he sighed. "Everyone keeps telling me the best way to honor the dead is to be the best version of myself. To live life fully and all that." His tone indicated how much he doubted that particular advice.
For a moment she gives him an almost playful look. ”I know. I was not so drunk I don’t remember you telling me about your reckless ways,” she says, though the moment is short lived and lacking some of her usual mischief. Weaver lets his hand come to rest on her shoulder, and at his words, she sends the fire in the hearth higher. It crackles and burns, raging for a moment, before settling back down into a normal fire. ”So often there is not even a body to mourn, and I have yet to decide if it’s better or worse that way.” They do not get to say goodbye, and yet, perhaps it is easier in some small way. A mercy, to never see someone so full of life without it.
At his next statement, Weaver chuckles darkly. ”Good point. Salvage what you can,” she says, her humor grim and dark though. She imagines Sunjata will be by soon enough, though still, she cannot bring herself to simply leave the letter. Just in case he does not get here before Zariah or someone else. She is certain she will see him and deliver it.
Weaver leans her head against his shoulder, his arm around hers, content in the quiet camaraderie. Her eyes stare at the ground in front of them, seeing boots and floorboards, though not quite seeing any of it. ”And they are right. No one I have lost would want me to stop living. But I don’t think that means we can’t be sad or we can’t miss them. I think it just means we have to figure out how to live with the holes they leave behind.” It gets harder, with the passing of each one of them, but they will find a way.
04-02-2020, 11:10 PM (This post was last modified: 04-02-2020, 11:26 PM by Loren.)
Snorting at Weaver's comment, Loren just nodded. However, he lacked the energy to make another joke, even if it was at his own expense. Instead, he just let his head fall back to thump against the wall. "They suck in different ways." Taking a deep breath, he rubbed his eyes. "But I think I prefer a body. That way you can say goodbye properly." He let out a huff of bitter and mirthless laughter. "Gods, what a thing to say and to know."
Glancing around at the room, he shrugged. "Got any ideas what she might want us to save?" It came out hesitantly, but he clearly didn't know what Maea would consider valuable.
Squeezing the hunter's shoulder gently, the healer nudged her foot with his own. "They're right. I know they're right. But I've got some mighty big holes." His lips twisted in a wry and unhappy smile.
”This is Caido. I think most of us have probably thought about that question.” Particularly in Halo. People went out to hunt and did not come back. You never learned what happened to them, and were simply left to wonder. An avalanche? An ursur? There were so many things that could kill you. In the end, it probably doesn’t matter why they don’t return, though still, there’s a desire to know. Like maybe with a body or at least an answer, you can feel better somehow.
Weaver thinks for a moment. She didn’t know Maea all that well, and after a moment, she shakes her head. ”I’m not sure. I didn’t get to know her as well as I would have liked, but I feel like she’d probably just want us to save the things important to us. Things to remember her by. But I’m not sure she was the type to care too much about stuff unless it was important to someone else.” It was a sparse enough room to suggest that Weaver might be right, though she’s only speculating really.
Weaver nudges his foot back, a slight smile on her face despite the topic. They might keep losing people, but they did gain them as well. This moment, on the floor of a dead girl’s room, is proof enough of that. ”I wish I could say that it stopped hurting with time,” she says, for death has followed her for all her life, and she knows from experience that time only morphs the pain. ”We just deal with it. We live. And it hurts. Every damn morning, it hurts.”
Loren nodded in a sad sort of acknowledgement. "Probably." Pressing his lips together, he ran a hand through his hair, then let it fall carelessly to the ground.
Looking around more closely at the room, his eyes lingered on the books. "I think I'll just collect everything that seems to be a personal item. There are...other people might want to have things to remember her by too." He glanced over at Weaver.
Giving her shoulder another squeeze, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "And every night too." Opening his eyes, he smiled sadly at her. "Some times I wonder what it would be like if I couldn't deal with pain. I know, ironic, coming from me. But...maybe losing myself again wouldn't be so bad." However, it was clear his heart wasn't in it.
Weaver nods as he suggests taking the personal items. ”I am sure there are people who would want to have something of hers.” Maea seemed like the sort of girl you fell in love with (in a friendly fashion, and maybe sometimes more) pretty easily. She seemed like the sort that would have left her mark on many hearts. Weaver pulls the feather and the letter to Sunjata out of her pocket to show Loren, figuring there’s no reason to keep them a secret. As far as she had seen between the two of them (limited, admittedly), they were friendly enough. ”I did find this. I’ll see him at the Kraai later, so I thought I’d bring it.”
She sighs slightly. ”I find the nights are easier. Like over the course of the day the pain has settled to a quiet ache. It’s in the morning, in that moment before I fully wake. You know how you can wake and not be sure what day it is? I find I wake and expect them to all just be there still, and when I remember, it’s like someone ripped out my middle.” She doesn’t typically admit that, though Loren is easy to talk to. And he’ll get it. They may feel pain differently, but he’ll get it all the same.
As he says losing himself wouldn’t be so bad, she shifts a bit so she can look at him a bit better. Still tucked beneath his arm, she doesn’t quite face him dead on, but she can see his face well enough. ”Do you really mean that?” she asks, giving him space to answer, though she doesn’t think he does. She thinks he wants more than to spiral, more than to simply give up.
Maybe it was a draft rushing down through the chimney that made the fire flare up. With a sound like a sigh, it roared high for a moment. A few books on a shelf began to topple outward, disturbed perhaps by the rummaging the two visitors had been doing. With a thundering crash they fell to the floor, leaving only a few items remaining on the shelf.
A book of adventure stories, that had nothing to do with magical studies. A battered bow, salt-stained and no longer functional but prized enough to keep all the same.
A small pouch of Torchline origins, full of collected seeds...
And a small silver amulet, with intertwined symbols of the Hollowed Ground Heralds.
There was a stack of letters too, with the distinct look of invitations about them.
Curiously, a scent of ripe apples and lavender filled the room, and it lingered long after the fire had settled down again.
Nodding, Loren lifted his arm from Weaver's shoulders. "I'll gather what I can then." However, he made no move to stand up just yet. Instead, he leaned slightly towards her, bumping their shoulders together.
As she revealed the letter, he peered at it curiously. "Sounds good." Taking a closer look at the feather, he eventually shrugged.
Staying quiet as she explained why waking up was more difficult for her, he gave her a sad smile. "Benefits of a troubled upbringing, I guess." Letting out a bitter laugh, he shook his head. "I become alert pretty much instantly when I wake. At night, though, alone in my bed, left with my own thoughts..." Voice trailing off, he hugged his knees to his chest.
"No? Maybe? I don't think so." Sighing, he rubbed his temples. "If I was the only one it would affect, then yes. Perhaps I'd run away from it all, maybe try to start fresh." Pressing his lips together, he shook his head. "But I know it would hurt people, and it wouldn't help with the pain."
Of course, at that point a wind sprang up, causing the fire to flare. That was unusual enough to cause him to rise to his feet: he was just in time for the books to topple. He gazed suspiciously at the fireplace and the bookshelf. "M-maea?" There wasn't fear in his voice, but there was a great deal of caution.
She listens as he explains his own pain, and she nods, though there’s a slight chuckle with it. ”Gods,” she begins, nostalgia tingeing her voice. ”I’m so tired at night I barely make it to my bed half the time. But my older brother used to scold me for ‘sleeping in’”. She says the last bit while making air quotes with her fingers, the emphasis in her voice clear she disagrees. Now she thinks back on those memories fondly, even if she’d just been annoyed at the time. ”I’d wake up with the sun and he’d already be dressed, with a pot of tea ready, pretending I was late.”
She sobers though as he answers her next question, listening and nodding slightly. He knows the answer. It wouldn’t help the pain. You can’t drown it away. Honestly, in the end, the self-loathing downward spiral usually just makes you feel worse. She’d flirted with it briefly after Erebor died, though she’d never actually had the luxury of succumbing. She had a younger brother to take care of, after all. ”I suspect you have more to stick around for than you realize,” she says. Hell, he was the only Launceleyn she happened to like, though he probably didn’t realize how much she’d miss him if he were gone. They may be new friends, but that didn’t matter.
As the wind rises in the room and the fire flares, Weaver jumps to her feet alongside Loren. Her hand flies to a knife at her belt, though she stops herself from whipping it out. There’s nothing in the room but the wind and the crashing of the items on her bookshelf. When the wind and the fire die down, there are only a handful of items left on the bookshelf at all. As Loren speaks her name, seeking the ghost in the room, Weaver takes a hesitant step forward. Then another. Soon she crosses the small space to the bookcase to see what remains.
”Do you think she is showing us what she wants us to save?” Weaver picks up the stack of letters, examining them. She holds them out to Loren to look at, or to take one, if he wishes. ”They look like invitations?” To what, she is not sure, and it feels almost wrong to open one. Though maybe they were supposed to.
Snorting, though there was no mirth in it, Loren shrugged. "I tried that for a while. Then I ran out of things to tire myself out." Facing Weaver, he smiled faintly even though his eyes were still sad. "I spent about five years as a farmer. Those pre-dawn waking up habits are impossible to break." Much more softly he added, "it sounds nice." He reached over to clasp her shoulder gently.
Shaking his head, he sighed. "Or maybe I'm far too aware of it, and that's what I'm clinging to." He gave her a knowing look, though one hand rubbed nervously up and down his thigh.
The weird maybe visitation was almost a welcome distraction from his thoughts. Glancing over at her, he shrugged. "No idea. But it wouldn't be the strangest thing I've encountered in Caido." His eyes darted around as he searched for some explanation for the changes.
Eyes narrowing, he stepped closer to the shelf of belongings that were left. Rifling through the pile of letters, he paused when he saw his name. Gulping, he opened the letter. As he read the contents, which recounted plans Maea had put together for Sunjata's birthday, the healer's eyes misted and he tucked it away again. "Yeah. These are...they're invitations. We should...we should give them to Sunjata."
”You as a farmer. You know, I can actually see that,” she says, imagining him up at the crack of dawn to work. It is not hard to picture him with his sleeves rolled up, sweat on his brow, dirt on his face. ”We only needed to be up generally around dawn though. My brother...he was just the best of us, honestly.” The last part is tinged with sadness. Death followed them everywhere, but still, she enjoys looking back on those mornings with fondness all the same.
At his next sentence, she smiles warmly. ”There is a lot to live for, even when it doesn’t feel like it.” This time it is her turn to reach out a hand, resting it on his shoulder with a gentle squeeze. Though the moment doesn’t last long, interrupted as they are by the strange ghost-like wind.
Weaver chuckles. ”Far stranger things indeed,” she agrees, fingers stretching out to feel the small silver amulet. She looks closer at the amulet as Loren takes the invitations and begins to rifle through them. The symbols of the heralds are on amulet, and she suspects this is very much the sort of this Maea might have cared about. She can only believe that somehow, Maea is guiding them.
Weaver turns her attention back to Loren at his words, a bit of confusion on her face. ”Invitations for what?” she asks, hoping they were invitations for something good. Because they needed something good, and maybe Maea had left them that too. Girl seemed to think of everything.
Loren actually smiled a bit at Weaver's comment. "I liked it, actually. There was something simple about it, and I liked to think I wasn't bad at it. Plus, the animals actually liked me." Obviously that last part was self-deprecating.
As she spoke of her brother, the healer laid his hand on hers. Giving it a gentle squeeze, he met her eyes squarely. "Don't sell yourself short. You're pretty great in my eyes." Immediately realizing what he said, he lifted his hand and rubbed it a little anxiously. His cheeks had flushed slightly and he bit his lip.
Humming noncommittally at her comment about the weirdness of Caido, he sighed at her question about the invitations. "They're for a birthday party for Sunjata. That...Maea was planning." The very thought of it brought the tears back to his eyes, and he wiped them away angrily with his free hand.
She chuckles with a bit more mirth behind it. ”Ah yes, Loren surrounded by his sheep. I can see it,” she says, giving him a slight wink. It might not be a bad life. Find somewhere with some grass, start a small farm. Rise in the mornings and live a quiet life with the sheep and the cows. There’s something almost tantalizing about the thought, right about now.
Though as the topic shifts and he replies, looking rather sheepish himself (haha, punny), Weaver brings himself slightly closer to him. ”Well, I can think of one human who likes you. And I’m way better than a sheep.” She gives him a warm grin, not shying away from the truth. She does like him. What that means exactly is entirely uncertain, on the other hand. Weaver isn’t the sort of girl to have expectations, and she isn’t the sort of girl who does heartbreak either. No, she’s simply the sort of girl who rolls with life as it comes, and wishes for happiness for those she cares about.
Her smile widens at the mention of Sunjata’s birthday, and there’s something pleasantly devilish about the grin. ”What if we threw the party still? A farewell gift from Maea to give us something good. I imagine she would like that.”
Loren outright laughed. "I'll have you know I was an excellent shepherd." It felt wrong, almost, to be joking like this in Maea's room, but some of the tension eased out of him anyway.
Peering at her, he gave her a thorough examination, though that faint amusement still lurked on his features. "Are you sure? You haven't provided me any wool, which is quite useful." However, his expression softened into something much more grateful. "Thank you. And, you know, same."
As Weaver brought up throwing the party still, he hesitated. Shifting his weight awkwardly from side to side, he finally nodded. "Fine. But if he hates it, this was all your idea."
