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!
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
Going to the Boneyard in the height of Longheat - what could possibly go wrong?
Everything. Absolutely everything.
Chief among them being losing all her sanity amidst all the water that ever existed in her body. Even her sweat-ancestors were having their memories burned out of her cells. Luckily she had come prepared with the right kind of clothing and a sunhat that made her cringe a little to wear as it was far from her normal style, but even the linen and muslin couldn't keep her from swapping out her empty canteen of water for the second she'd packed.
Luckily this shouldn't take long. Just grab a bone, any bone, and head home. So long as it was fresh and sturdy enough to make the journey, Anju would consider it a well-closed case and be on her way. Riya flies overhead like a massive vulture, sometimes pinging at Anju's awareness through their bond to keep her in the right direction to the giant pile of bones but otherwise content to both bask in the sunlight and leave her bonded behind. Arriving at last, the Dragoon begins to pick through the bones, finding it difficult to obtain one that wasn't massive, delicate, or already shattered.
and they will shake their heads and wag their bony fingers
When he'd heard that Captain Rao was going on a mission to the wilds, of course Koa'd volunteered to tag along. Not that she'd asked for volunteers, exactly. Or that he'd told her he'd be coming. But a good soldier took up tasks unbidden, right? And if she really didn't want him there, well.... better to beg forgiveness than ask permission and all that.
Besides, Koa has never been to the Boneyard. And this was not an opportunity he was about to give up.
Unfortunately the lack of communication meant he somehow completely missed her scheduled departure, and by the time he catches up she's nearly upon the eponymous pile of bones. The young Dragoon waves a greeting but, unsure if she's spotted him, opts to jog the rest of the way. Rookie mistake: by the time Koa catches up he's panting from exertion and dying from heat (linen shirts and cotton shorts can only do so much).
Still he manages to straighten up and pull out a rather acceptable salute. "Greetings, Captain!" he greets her brightly. "Pip and I are reporting for duty!" And indeed, a head has popped out of Koa's pack, the little dragon looking very much like he would rather not be in this heat as he whuffs a half-assed greeting.
in all the wrong directions— and by daybreak we'll be gone
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
As Koa will know, Anju is not the type to make concessions for those who cannot follow an itinerary. Though he would receive no punishment given she could accomplish this mission on her own, there is still an amused ping of relief that he has not fallen through completely as Riya nudges her well ahead of time to alert her to his arrival. Straightening from the pile of bones, she dusts her hands of powdered mineral and sand and allows herself a tiny twitch of humor to her lips as she watches him run. He is young and precocious. It will serve him well if he can harness it.
He insists on calling her captain even though there is no ruler to hand her that title any longer. Anju has given up correcting both him and his cohorts - in essence, they are not incorrect.
From above Riya spirals down in a grand display of bronze, trilling a far heartier hello to little Pip in the backpack. It's hilarious how all four seem to have been paired in incorrect formats, for Anju's greeting is reserved. "Greetings Koa. Pip. I'm pleased to see you made it." He will know her well enough to read the more leisurely set of her shoulders as she tilts her chin towards the pile of bones. "We're going to have to move quite a few to find something that isn't too sun bleached. Did you bring enough water?" If not she packed extras, but she cannot refrain from testing him in this small way.
06-01-2023, 09:18 PM (This post was last modified: 06-01-2023, 09:18 PM by Koa.)
K O A
and they will shake their heads and wag their bony fingers
Oh, good, she isn't mad. Koa hasn't managed to fuck up badly enough to earn his Captain's wrath yet, a winning streak he intends to keep up. And when she says she's pleased to see him, well. The soldier's chest swells a little with largely unearned pride.
At the question of water Koa slings his pack off, plopping it - and Pip - on the ground. "Yes ma'am- two canteens for me, and a frozen one for Pip." The little dragon grumbles, slithering back into the pack in search of said ice, her disdain for the heat palpable.
But where his companion is already over this shit Koa is raring and ready to go, pulling on a pair of gloves before returning his attention to the bones. "Not too bleached - got it." Without much wait he goes for a particularly large femur(?), pulling it away with a grunt. "Anyting in particular we are looking for, Cap?" he wonders, placing the bone down in a puff of dust.
in all the wrong directions— and by daybreak we'll be gone
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
He earns her approval a second time, though it appears it is at the expense of his cranky companion. Riya chortles a laugh that has Anju hiding a smile, sympathetic to his plight. "Perfect." Then, at Riya's insistence as she circles them lazily, trailing smoke out of her nostrils, Anju tilts her chin at Kao's bag. "Has Pip discovered her element yet? Perhaps she is at odds with the desert." Riya loves the heat of the sun, but given she loves nearly everything maybe Anju is working on faulty logic.
Riya of course flies back into the skies the moment they set to work, clearly unwilling to help when fun could be found. Anju doesn't even bother mentally commanding she stay close. After over twenty years together she knows Riya's habits as if they were her own. Pulling a large pelvic bone from the pile - and watching half of it crumble and splinter beneath her fingers - Anju drops it to the side with a grunt and continues her hunt. "Ludo commanded the retrieval of a bone to improve my bow. I do not know what they intend to do with it, so I am looking for a straight bone no larger than our forearms." That way it would be easy enough to travel with, harder to break, and of a sufficient size for the deity to craft with.
and they will shake their heads and wag their bony fingers
How he wishes it was Pipsqueak up there, flying lazy, majestic circles in the bright midday sun! Alas, Koa has been stuck with a tiny flightless wonder who prefers to suck on icicles rather than taste the skies. "Oh, she has," the young soldier confirms with wry weariness, extracting the flightless wonder from the backpack and depositing her on the ground. His efforts earn a protesting squawk as she scrambles off toward some shade. "Burned enough of my things in her first couple weeks to remove any doubt. Definitely fire, but she still hates the heat. Maybe she's defective," he adds with mock-sadness, which elicits a grumbled string of what might have been curses, could he understand the dragon's tongue.
But to business. The young man lets out a low, impressed whistle at the revelation that Ludo commanded this quest. "My ma was always a follower of Ludo," he tells his Captain, though doubtless Anju is already well aware of the fact. The pair had served together as Dragoons in the years before her death, after all.
Koa reaches for another bone, this one what appears to be a suspiciously large vertebrate with far too many spines. "What do you suppose--?" he begins to wonder, but a sudden outburst of squawks and trills from Pipsqueak draws his attention to his companion, who has burrowed somewhere in the pile of bones. "What---?" Koa asks, kneeling down only to have a rather frantic little dragonling barrel out of the nest of death and into his chest, pursued by Gods alone knows what.
in all the wrong directions— and by daybreak we'll be gone
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
Anju is not the type for boisterous laughter given her stoic nature, but she cannot help a chuckle at Koa's despondence. "Or merely stubborn. Though I cannot say I enjoy the desert either, can you?" Her amusement is far subtler; the creases near her mahogany eyes, the slight deepening of a dimple in her cheek. While Anju hates this particular desert for more personal reasons than weather, she cannot hold it against Pip for wanting to stay cuddled up against the ice pack instead of flying beneath the blistering sun.
The reminder of his mother shouldn't be unexpected, and she would never ask he hold his tongue just to spare her the grief. It is a good thing to see in him, this ability to remember her fondly instead of hiding away all mention of her. "She always had great taste. We often visited its shrine together - though we disagreed on which toys it would fancy more." This time her smile is a bit sad, but only she, the bones, and Koa need know that.
From within the bones emerges Pipsqueak, helterskelter and running like something has tried to eat her tail. Anju's hand flies to her hip, deftly slipping her dagger from its sheath to level it at the shadows hiding between the bones. "Is she injured?" The bark of her voice is more Captain than Anju as her eyes never waver from the bones. From above Riya's alarm shapes into something protective and she dives from on high, a small stream of fire escaping her mouth to try and light up the inside of the pile to either char whatever is within or lend light for their human eyes.
I'm such a lucky duck Come on and dance now, everyone is having fun
{absolutely necessary table change}
He forgets, sometimes, that the grief is not his alone: that there are others who still mourn and remember, outside the small circle of his father and himself. It is the gift and the curse of the young, to believe oneself the pinnacle of an experience, the only one who the light touches in a sea of human gray. So the sound of sadness in his captain's voice startles the young man, and at once he feels guilty and awkward, unsure of his footing in this topic of taboo. He doesn't like to look too closely at his grief, has avoided really considering what it means for him for years. He carries on her legacy in the form of an ill-fitting blade, never allowing himself to drop it except when he's alone, with only his thoughts to know his secrets:
His young arms, how they ache.
Anyway. All that to say that Koa doesn't respond to Anju's reminiscing except to clear his throat and dig a toe into the dirt, and so is almost grateful when Pipsqueak breaks the awkward silence- or would be, had her abrupt appearance not set off so many alarm bells. His mind goes briefly blank with panic, but the sound of his Captain barking orders cuts through like a silver knife. "No, ma'am," the Dragoon replies after a quick one-over, snapping up onto his feet and bringing Pipsqueak with him as he backs away from the bone pile, and whatever lurks inside.
Riya's fire lights the dark spaces between the bones, and for a moment it seems there might not be anything inside. Then the light fades, leaving only two pinpoints...
...which abruptly solidify into beady eyes over an open beak full of small, sharp teeth, as the cockatrice hurls itself from the darkness, screeching bloody murder, its terrible bat-wings flapping wildly as it bee-lines for the group.
We're all dancing to the sound of bass and drum Come on, come on and dance now
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
His grief and the way he contends with it are not unfamiliar to her. Unfortunately, she has had to navigate a multitude of reactions since the Battle of Stormbreak. Furious parents accusing her of being the reason their children died in her command, endless silent weeping on street corners that no longer had any ends, stony shoulders and - sometimes the worst - a desire to share stories and heart-to-hearts. Silence and moving on are ironically the easiest for her to swallow.
She is launched from her introspection forcefully, every muscle tensing as Riya's spout of flames lights up the dark beneath the bones, nearly drowning out the sound of Koa's response. He backs away as well, which Anju does not disapprove of given her superior rank and experience. The cockatrice comes screeching out from the depths, and Anju jumps backward at the same time as she unsheathes her sword in a wide, double-handed swing to try and keep it at bay.
"Riya!" she shouts, and her sister lets a full-throated blast of fire escape this time right as Anju drops to her stomach in the sand to avoid the lick of its scorching heat. The cockatrice dies screeching, wings melting into itself and hitting the sand with a sick thump. Back on her knees quickly, Anju spears it with her sword just to ensure it is truly dead before using her implanted weapon to leverage herself back to her feet.
Turning over her shoulder to Koa, her dark brows furrow as she examines him, glad to see he is unharmed. "Perhaps we should be less particular about the bone we pick," she mutters, pressing her foot onto the cockatrice to pull her sword free with a grimace at the remnants that stick to the blade. She'll have to clean that. "If there's one there may be more of them."
I'm such a lucky duck Come on and dance now, everyone is having fun
Oh, wow. In the Battle of the Boneyard Koa is useless, but honestly what he does or doesn't do hardly matters in the end, because Anju pulls no punches in displaying why she's defacto leader of the Dragoons. With a swift grace Koa can only dream of the older woman dispatches her foe, leaving the cockatrice skewered and bloody, Riya at her side.
Koa finds that he is staring, and snaps his mouth shut with a click. It's the closest he's come to real combat, and he finds himself more shaken than expected, as well as appalled at his inability to act. "Guess it's chicken for dinner, then?" the boy jokes weakly, trying to hide his shame in humor, quaking voice masked by a laugh.
Then he grows quiet, fully expecting to be rebuked. In his arms Pip is shaking, clearly rattled by her brush with death. "Yes ma'am," Koa murmurs tightly, stepping again toward the bones, unable to make eye contact with his commander or her kin.
We're all dancing to the sound of bass and drum Come on, come on and dance now
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
His gawking is only noticed the second time around though she merely lifts a curious brow at it. Snorting a laugh at his weak humor, Anju wipes her blade off perfunctorily on her thigh before sheathing it smoothly. Except when she turns to him, he is pale and withdrawn, head tilted towards Pip in a way she has seen from many young Dragoons as they face their supervisor's wrath.
Anju may be a stoic and overly-honest woman, but she is no monster. Those old days of The Needle are beyond them, and she seeks to keep them there. Still, she is not the type for flowery words or hollow comforts. Koa had done the right thing in ceding the field to her as the more experienced swordsman but it would do little to make him feel better for perceived cowardice or lack of usefulness. Instead of surely failing at comforting him, Anju hopes her silence on the matter will speak for him as no hammer falls where he expects it to.
Riya, meanwhile, fills the gap as she always does and croons quietly at Pip in clear concern. Anju lets her do as she wishes and merely comes abreast of Koa at the bone pile, picking through the outskirts this time. "Here - a femur. Tell me what you think of it." Plucking it, she extends it towards him like a brandished blade, dark eyes hard to read. She is intentionally providing him a chance to examine and provide feedback on it, something for him to succeed at and impress her with so as to outweigh the darkness she can see coiling around his shoulders.
I'm such a lucky duck Come on and dance now, everyone is having fun
Ignoring his meltdown is probably the kindest thing Anju could do for him, and one day when he's not melting into an embarrassed puddle Koa will appreciate it. For now the best he can do is swallow up the shame, squaring his shoulders and schooling his pale face into unaffected focus. Reluctantly he lets Pip squirm out of his arms and over to Riya, briefly jealous that it isn't him being held by his mother a large dragon. The little beast scuttles unabashed to the large dragon, attempting to clamber unabashed onto her senior while chattering in dragon language about her brush with death.
Koa's brushing death, too, though in his sense it's literal. He's picked up what he can only assume is a finger when Anju addresses him again, and it flops somewhat comically in his hand as he turns back to his captain. He relinquishes it in favor of the sword-like femur, taking it firmly in his large hand and feeling for its weight. "It's large, but light," he says appreciatively, giving it a speculative swing or two. The bone is unlike any sword he's wielded, yet it feels comfortable, sturdy and well aged.
He hands it back, nodding. "I imagine it'll make an excellent bow, ma'am." He fidgets with the finger, but his shoulders have relaxed a little, some of the adrenaline and anxiety clearly assuaged. "Shall we head back, or do you want to camp here for the night?"
We're all dancing to the sound of bass and drum Come on, come on and dance now
06-27-2023, 02:22 AM (This post was last modified: 06-27-2023, 02:35 AM by Anju.)
For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted, Whom evermore I follow wistfully
Jealousy aside, Riya charitably allows Pip to clamber onto her comparatively massive form, lifting her wings to shield the younger dragon on each side as she croons understandingly to the youngster's chattering. Anju spares them a rare, fond smile. At times she too feels the desire to hug and otherwise comfort her soldiers, but such was not the allowances afforded to her as their captain. Instead, all she can do is this; try to build back up their confidence, allow them their privacy for negative emotions, and attempt to shape them into overall better people. Always attempting to not have it be noticed, and therefore never expecting any gratitude.
Snorting shamelessly at the humorous display of the finger that wilts once it points towards her, Anju takes the bone back from him once he is done with his examination and she spins it over the back of her hand as she would a sword, nodding in clear agreement. "Let us head back. We have a few more hours of daylight, we should use it to get to safer territory before camping." As far away from cockatrice nests and bone piles as possible. Angling a rare smirk his way, she gestures at the finger. "Bring that. I want to use it to scare your fellows." She'll even let him in on the joke if he cares to be included in her sparse moments of mischief.
