Don't let Sohalia's age fool you; this clever and kind Attuned has been stamping her mark on the world in her own way (which is to say without bloodshed, a rather novel idea in Caido). Having recently left the Hollowed Ground in search of adventure after the death of her parents, Sohalia has been accumulating friends of all sorts while relocating in Stormbreak. Watch this space - we can't wait to see where her curiosity takes her next! Congratulations Sohalia!
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!
Sohalia was more than happy to stand and take a few steps back, though it hardly seemed necessary as Sunjata hopped off the edge to gain even more space. Whatever she had been expecting of a dragon shift, the sheer size of it was certainly a surprise. The only dragons she'd seen were the smaller companion variety, and for a moment, she simply stood and watched in awe. See? Plenty of space, rumbled down the bond, and Soh laughed with delight. Sunjata had been right, of course, and some of her earlier concerns were alleviated by that alone.
It still seemed rather intimate to be accepting a ride from someone that she'd really only seen twice, but the allure of being able to fly and map at the same time overruled any lingering awkwardness that she felt. So she stepped forward, carefully clambered aboard, and pulled her bag to a space in front of her, where her journal and pencils would be easily accessible. "Where to next?" she asked, eagerness clear through the bond. She'd happily go wherever Sunjata recommended, especially now that she could add to her journal as they flew.
sleep don't visit, so i choke on sun // and the days blur into one
Perhaps his gauge of intimacy has been broken over the years, too much of a reputation as well as too close to that side of Frey that he still thinks nothing of it as she climbs onto his back and situates herself between a few of his larger plate like scales. This close, she could see the horns that curl around his head and the large wings that spread and would know where his partial shift had come from during the encounter earlier.
Regardless, he takes off in a random direction from the Steps, offering a bit of contentedness through the bond toward her. I was thinking of Mourn. He offers, waiting for her agreement or disagreement, offering a secondary option in the interim. Or we could go to the Barrows. Either way, it would be up to her to decide, he’s simply heading blankly in their direction.
and the backs of my eyes hum with things i've never done
SUNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Well, this was definitely turning out to be an interesting day. She hadn't set out this morning to ride an actual dragon, but here she was. On dragonback. Flying over King's End. No big deal.
It suddenly made sense, the partial shift during their earlier encounter, and she nearly chuckled to herself at the thought of this magnificent form having appeared inside the brothel - if it would even have fit!
Mourn is good, she agreed silently, choosing to speak through the bond rather than shouting over to be heard over the wind. As they flew, she pulled out her journal and held the pages as flat as she could manage, jotting down notes as they passed over various landscape features. It wasn't quite as neat and precise as it might have been were she on, say, a skyship, but it was a great deal better than trying to memorize the topography and record it later.
May I ask where a dragon shift comes from? she asked, curiosity spiking through the bond. She'd never seen or heard of such a unique shift before.
sleep don't visit, so i choke on sun // and the days blur into one
Little would Sohalia know that Sunjata may or may not be intending on adding a nest of sorts atop the House of Midnight precisely to sit there and become some kind of gargoyle off and on. For now, though, everyone knows his name and shifts enough that he simply just has to display the bits and pieces and they get the gist. They either clean up their act or leave. As evidenced earlier.
She agrees with his initial thought and Sunjata lightly banks to the side, careful to not jostle her as she works, going slow yet not too slow – a middle ground for her to be able to sketch out every feature to where she could fill in the details at a later date when the wind wasn’t tearing through them. It has a majority of his focus that when she asks him with a pang of curiosity where his dragon shift comes from, Sunjata can’t help but to send back a glimmer of surprise again, and he’s silent for a long while as he tries to figure out when he’d received it. I think it was a gift from Safrin, back when I was in her good graces. There’s a little blip of frustration and hint of anger that seeps through before he clears it up and continues on the trek toward the blooming fields of Mourn.
There are large dragons in the Cordillera, however. I imagine it’s based off of some of those, but I am not entirely sure. He’s never been.
and the backs of my eyes hum with things i've never done
SUNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Soh really wasn't trying to be particularly surprising; her simple innocence and lack of general knowledge about Sunjata just resulted in her asking questions that seemed innocuous enough but that led to some unexpected results. So when she felt his momentary surprise through the bond before it disappeared behind a wall that she was beginning to suspect was intentional, she winced internally, not having realized that perhaps her simple question would have a not-so-simple answer.
The revelation that one could fall out of grace with the gods should not have come as a surprise to Soh, given that what the gods give, the gods could take away and all that, but it was her turn now to have her surprise (and a healthy dose of curiosity) color the bond. Still, something told her that perhaps this wasn't the time to ask more questions, and she let the comment go as though releasing it upon the breeze.
She focused instead on her drawings and Sunjata's next statement. How wonderful would they be to see, if it weren't so dangerous, she said with a mental sigh. As someone who aimed to explore every inch of Caido, it frustrated her to no end that all signs pointed to not visiting the Cordillera.
sleep don't visit, so i choke on sun // and the days blur into one
If she were to ask, he wouldn’t mind. It’s a long story, but one that Sunjata doesn’t harbor any worries of sharing. Part of it was common knowledge for everyone before the war – after all, he was the reason Safrin stole the stars from the sky the night he’d changed his allegiance. It purely depended on whether or not she had the time and wished to hear how much hatred the Flood harbors for the goddess in the sky and the drama entangled in all of it.
How he’d burned to get her out of him.
Ironically, I’ve always had a healthy fear of dragons. Ever since that white dragon in Halo had killed his friends upon a botched quest he’d set out on – a thing he still entirely blames himself for. But that’s neither here nor there and Sunjata pushes those regrets further from his mind. They are quite dangerous, though. He rumbles through the bond as the pinpricks of the fields can be seen from this high up of Mourn.
and the backs of my eyes hum with things i've never done
SUNJATA
No permission needed for power play!
Feel free to use magic/force on Sunjata, without killing him <3
Sunjata speaks with an Australian accent and has a passive magic that makes him produce a subtle scent that matches exactly to whatever those around him most desire him to smell like.
Honestly, it would do Soh good to hear about Safrin in a different light (and it would satisfy a leveling requirement so), but she was still too averse to causing any pain that she was afraid to ask, assuming, perhaps incorrectly, that to do so would be to ask Sunjata to relive something that he might rather not. If he was to tell her, perhaps she would remember something about the stars being stolen from the sky, even if she'd spent most of her life sheltered in the Grounds. That seemed like the kind of thing that one would remember.
To hear that Sunjata was afraid of, well, anything came as a surprise to Soh, and she tilted her head to one side as her hand stilled on her journal. She supposed that a healthy fear would make sense, given that they were dangerous creatures, but, let's be honest, curiosity had always been more at the forefront for Soh than self-preservation. Sure, but if they look anything like you do, they're probably magnificent, she said without thinking, and promptly turned bright red. I mean - it's a wonderful shift, and I bet real dragons are breathtaking - not that you're breathtaking, just that, you know, dragons - Burning with embarrassment that was no doubt felt through the bond, Soh promptly stopped thinking. It was probably better than continuing to ramble.
