From Attuned to Ascended to Ancient, Kiada Njovu-Reyes has been reborn several times throughout her short life, but her fighting spirit has never once been diminished. With beauty, grace and a quick wit, Kiada is the whole package wrapped in an infectious smile. Recent endeavours have found her in the heart of the Hollowed Grounds, aiding the region and bettering it for her new Ancient kin, and whatever she does next, we know it's sure to pack a punch.
Congratulations, Kiada!
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!
One of the most beautiful places to visit was the Maw. To visit, obviously. It wasn't a place that Delta would desire to live, far from it, but there was some sort of dangerous beauty to it. a dormant underwater volcano, one that was far from accessible for the normal mouthbreather. It was mostly untouched by those fisherman. When there were remnants, Delta would try her best to clean it up and this was one of those cases.
Struggling quite a bit, Delta was trying her best to remove some fish net, one that had mostly been lost or ripped off. it was frustrating and quite annoying in her eyes, especially when she lacked many of the tools required to remove it. Part of the net was floating at the top of the surface, caught on a rock that was too, just inches below the cold air. This meant that much of her work was done with her head above the water, her hands fiddling with the net to try and remove it from the rock.
Alina had heard rumors of merpeople, who were distant kin to the Fae in many ways: both beloved of the Old Gods, both given abilities beyond other races, both given their domains to protect. Given that, she felt it would be easy enough to seek out one of the aquatic race and secure their help with her quest.
So she flew across the ocean, the bands of light below her beautiful. Before too long, she found what appeared to be a special spot, somehow, the beauty of the land centering around a dark shadow far below the surface. Hovering just above, she actually spotted a mermaid working on a net.
So the huntress took her spear in her hands. With quick and sure motions, she cut it away from the rock. Using the butt of her weapon, she slid it through one of the holes, and lifted it from the water.
There was hardly any warning- no words or anything. Just the faint sound of the creature, the shadow it created, and then the faint appearance of it out of the corner of her eye. The spear came down and instantly, Delta flew back, swimming as fast as she could a few feet away and under the water a few feet as well. Watching with fearful eyes, she stared up. Where did it come from? There wasn't any boats and it looked humanoid. Last Delta had checked, mouthbreathers couldn't do that.
It was terrifying and even when she saw the net be removed, she didn't dare resurface... not yet, at least. The spear had come far too dangerously close to her and there was a large possibility that the creature was intending to hurt her, but merely got caught in the net. Whatever it was, she wasn't sure. Maybe it actually wasn't safe coming out to the Maw...
As the mermaid darted away, Alina's eyes narrowed. She tossed what remained of the net over her shoulder and frowned down at the water. As she did, she brought the point of her spear up. "Have no fear, cousin. I was simply helping you in your efforts to keep your waters clean and pure."
The Fae found herself scowling slightly. "I see the outsiders do not respect your borders any more than they respect ours." However, seeing as her quarrel was not with the mermaid, she forced a polite expression on to her features. "Might I have a moment of your time?" This time, her tone was almost formal.
The voice was easy to hear as Delta had grown used to the barrier of water and sky. It took a lot of training and most humans wouldn't be able to, but her? She could hear everything Alina said. Slowly, she swam up to the surface and poked her head above the water, clearly confused and, well, intrigued. Cousin? And her words did match her actions.
Watching the girl cautiously, Delta tilted her head, clearly staring at her absolutely gorgeous wings. She had never seen something like it! It reminded her of a butterfly, something she had never actually seen with her own eyes. Butterflies never flew near the water and she only had seen a pendant of one. It was mesmerizing.
The pretty butterfly girl had seemed to make an offer, but Delta wanted more information first before she agreed to anything. "I will hear you out, but answer my questions first. Who are you? And what exactly are you? What is it you seek from me?" Looks like Delta had to put on the crown for now, being a big amazing diplomat. Look at her go.
As the mermaid asked what Alina was, her eyes widened in surprise. "I'm a Fae." Brow furrowing in confusion, she frowned. "Surely your people know us. My kind has many tales of yours, although I haven't personally met a merperson before today." She couldn't quite believed that her kind had been entirely forgotten by her aquatic cousins.
Shaking her her head a bit, she reached into her belt pouch and took out a wooden carving. It had been treated with a special resin to make it waterproof. "My name is Alina. And I have a task from Safrin that I was hoping to seek your assistance." Hopefully the other woman, and her race, hadn't forgotten the old ways in addition to the Fae.
There is a small flicker of understanding in Delta's eyes. "You're a Fae?" Fae... had wings? And could fly? Maybe she had forgotten about that. "I had heard of you growing up... but there was no way to see you, not until recent portals seemed to appear... so I just never thought I would meet one." Not seeing Fae made it hard to really understand what they would look like, especially when she could only assume she had butterfly wings on. It was embarrassing, but hopefully the Fae wouldn't be too upset with her.
There was some wooden thing pulled out and Delta looked at it, hoping that the Fae would show her what it was. "Safrin sent you? Did she request you to seek us out personally?" Safrin was someone Delta really wanted to meet so bad. Then again, she wanted to meet all of the gods. The gods were magnificent beings and... unfortunately, it seemed it wasn't in her destiny to see them anytime soon. The last time she visited a shrine, she was blinded. Although her father assured her the gods were most likely not mad, it still left Delta very wary of visiting the Shrine. She wouldn't dare disrespect them, though, so she had no plans of speaking ill of any of the gods. "What do you have with you?"
"I'm a Fae." Alina frowned again. "You know we can't lie, right?" Expression disbelieving, she just stared a bit incredulously down at the mermaid.
Then the huntress' expression grew even more confused. "But traders from Torchline have made it to the Greatwood before. Have your kind truly forgotten mine?" Again, she couldn't quite believe that the merpeople had truly forgotten all about the Fae.
"She told me to meet all the races." Alina took a deep breath. "In order to protect my lands from the outsiders, I need a little bit from each race. Hair, a fingernail, maybe a scale."
With that, she dipped lower towards the surface, holding out the wooden carving. "I was hoping to exchange this carving for it." It was a beautiful piece of craftsmanship, the best the Greatwood had to offer.
This Fae was really making her feel bad. First she decided to wave around a massively sharp spear in her face. Now she was being questioned intensely? This was awful. ”Traders are not mermaids. I told you. I learned about you but I didn’t think I’d ever meet you- I’ve already seen so many new things recently. I only just discovered that there were so many other lands or that people came from other worlds.” It was so much to process and Delta’s memory recall was clearly suffering. And now she was visibly upset, clearly not happy with being interrogated. ”My kind have not forgotten you. Trust me. My actions do not represent them as a group.” The mermaid was beginning to feel small and young. No longer was she a young adult, now she was a small fry. Just trying to survive.
And then it just got. Stranger. After making her feel so bad and accusing her kind of forgetting about the Fae, Alina decided to ask her...for a body part. Was she just trying to make her feel bad so she’d feel obligated to give something up? If compromise was what she wanted, she had seemingly lost it as Delta felt downright terrible.
Swimming backwards a bit, she looked away, gnawing on her lip nervously. ”Would you forgive me and my kind if I gave it up?”
As the mermaid spoke, Alina continued to frown. "Do the mermaids not have traders?" However, when the other woman brought up Outlanders, the huntress' expression grew ugly. "Count yourself lucky the outsiders are just now coming to your lands. They will destroy them, even if they don't mean to." Her voice was angry, but also sad.
Simply shrugging at the mermaid's claim that she was not representative of her kind, the Fae raised her eyebrows at the other woman's offer. For a moment, Alina seemed to consider the offer. Finally, she nodded. "All would be forgiven." With that, she held out the carving, still willing to make that exchange.
The mermaid shook her head, now extremely intimidated by the Fae who she once thought would be a delicate butterfly. "Not exactly, no... we don't usually have too much reason to trade since a lot of stuff we can just find ourselves." Then again, Delta had also heard rumors and tale of some not so good trades going on... but she wasn't about to mention that to the Fae.
To hear that Outsiders had seemingly destroyed the land of the Fae was heartbreaking. "What did they do to your home? We can try to make sure they are respectful- the Governor of Torchline will hopefully make sure of it." The new Governor had come down to speak with her father, so surely he would make sure to respect their land. How bad would it be?
Reluctantly, Delta reached down and ran a hand along her tail, searching for a scale that was loose enough. It took a bit, but soon she used her fingers to remove a scale, flinching ever so slightly. Pulling the scale out of the water, Delta slowly reached out with an open palm, displaying the scale. "This is suitable... yes? And if I do it... do you think I will be in Safrin's favor?"
Nodding in understanding, Alina just let the conversation about trade go. As the discussion swung around to outsiders, she scowled again. "Despite our best efforts, they brought a Blight and fire to our woods, and they destroyed one of our sacred trees to open a portal." Then her eyes narrowed. "Isn't the new Governor one of those outsiders?" Although she wasn't entirely certain, she had heard something along those lines.
Taking the scale eagerly, the huntress held out the carving she'd brought. "This is suitable." Hesitating, she shrugged. "It can't hurt. But I can't exactly speak for the goddess." Indeed, she would never dare to put words in Safrin's mouth.
All of this were things that Delta had never heard of. Confused and concerned, her eyebrows creased and she looked away briefly at the water, clearly trying to think. Turning to face Alina once more, she tried to get all of her questions answered in one go. "What was this Blight? And... the people create the portals?" Thankfully, she wasn't bombarding the fae with tons of questions. "While he may be an outsider, he has gone out of his way to speak with our leader... and he plans to work with us to ensure our happiness. I have faith that if he does anything wrong that our leader will be able to handle it." It was weird saying 'our leader' and not 'my father' but Delta couldn't tell just anyone that the leader was her father. That would be awful and ill-advised.
With the scale leaving her hand, Delta reluctantly grasped the carving. Had she... done too much? Perhaps she should've asked her father for permission or prayed to the gods to see if this was a wise choice, but it was far too late for those sort of actions. She couldn't go back on what she had done and all she could do was stare at the carving left in her hand. "I hope that Safrin will be able to bring you happiness, then." Surely, this was for a good reason that would maybe benefit tons of individuals, not just one. By the way Alina worded it, it would hopefully help all of the Fae... so that's good, right?
Still scowling, Alina forced herself to speak calmly. "The Blight was a disease sent by the Voice that ravaged the plants and animals of the Greatwood. Twisting them and killing them. And it did the same to people, made them crazy, turned them against their loved ones." Her fingers tightened on her spear. "And then, as if that wasn't bad enough, she sent her Ascended to destroy the Mathair, killing many Fae in the process."
As the mermaid spoke in a complimentary tone of the new Governor the Fae rolled her eyes. "Your faith is misplaced." It came out in a sharp rebuke. "Besides, even if he personally is willing to leave you alone, how is he stopping others from doing the same?" For a moment, the huntress remembered she was speaking to a child.
Perhaps that's why Alina's tone gentled somewhat. But only a little. "And I hope that you truly are prepared for the problems the outsiders will bring to your waters." With that, she started flying up and away, having gotten what she came here to acquire.
