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!
"Jigano. Ronin." With a nod, Josh reached for his notepad and wrote the two names down, intending to do further research when he got the chance, though sadly 'landsharks' were priority #1000 on the long, long list he was beginning to develop in his time in Caido.
Lily seemed to need a moment to process what he told her about the US; patiently Josh waited and watched her, interested in the reaction. He was a little surprised she'd so easily believed him, but he supposed after time living in this place, his story wouldn't seem so fantastical. "Virginia is still there." An odd attempt at consolation, but the best he had.
"Nice jewels. You're a wealthy woman? ...Were a wealthy woman?" He asked, this question actually born from simply curiosity and not any kind of secondary motive. "I don't know. It is not the first dimensional portal that has been opened on Earth. However, it could also just be coincidence."
Lily exhales a breath she didn’t know she was holding, glad that Virginia has survived all the way to two-thousand and something. For unknown reasons, she’s both very proud and attached to her identity as a Virginian, but then, you would be too if George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were from Virginia. “Oh! No. Well, sometimes I am. But I had to look a certain way, so -” It’s complicated, something she doesn’t want to go into - not right now and not right here.
With a bit of a handwave, she indicates it’s not something she really wants to talk about, even if the question was out of pure curiosity. In fact, she’s about to put the conversation to an end, but Josh mentions that there are other portals, and her head snaps back towards him. “What do you mean it’s not the first? There were others before mine? How do you know that?”
He is from the future. It makes her start to wonder what other kinds of things he might know. Which then begs the question - what should she ask?
Sometimes I am. Josh nodded, assuming Lily was likely some kind of freelance worker living from check to check or something more time-appropriate for her. Personally he'd always been fortunate with a life that did not cost much and plenty of funds from his early years working on big networks and had not really had to worry about money at all.
He was surprised to see her shock about the portals, having expected her to dismiss it like most other people he spoke to on Earth: she had been through one, he supposed. "There have been rips between dimensions for as long as existence has been around. The Ancient Egyptians harnessed the energy and built their pyramids as homes for them; many older texts contain references to dimensional travel. The US Government has been collecting documents on them for a long time. It's just top secret." Josh clearly had absolute confidence in what he was saying, his voice steady and gaze intense the entire time.
He had her up until then; Lily was actually quite interested in what Joshua had to say, but what he rattles off is just a bit too much for their first meeting. The words go in one ear, jumble around for a bit, and then fall out the other, partially-digested and half-understood. She is, after all, a lady of limited education with massive blind spots when it comes to anything outside the womanly arts.
“Oh. Okay.” The idea that her very fledgling government might have known about the portal is deeply disturbing and it causes the singer to blanche a bit, followed by a unsettled feeling in her stomach. Blue eyes fall to her knees, to the dark hole her feet swing out into. And all of a sudden she is a bit homesick - not for the life she lived, but for the familiar and the safe. For an innocence lost.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Joshua. I’m afraid I’m not feeling very well all of a sudden.” It’s time for her to go and curl up in bed with a hot cup of tea and have herself a good cry. Everything will be better after that.
Josh could tell, with his limited social perception, that he had said something to upset Lily, but he was unsure what it was. To him the fact that the government (or indeed, most authoritative bodies) would hide things was a given part of life, something that most people around him accepted to at least some degree, even if they dismissed exactly what he thought was being hidden.
"Okay. ...Do.." He was not one for niceties, but this had been a pleasant conversation by his standards. "Do you want me to walk you down the stairs?"
“No…” she says slowly, then turns her gaze to the sky. It’s grown a bit cooler in the time she’s been up there. “I think I’m going to fly for a bit. Have a think.” Flying is awfully good for thinking, especially when the wind isn’t too rough and you catch the right updraft. She flashes Josh a smile, hoping to convey that he hasn’t done anything wrong, really. She asked and he dumped a lot of info in her lap. Their worlds are very different.
“It was nice to meet you! Hopefully I’ll see you again before LongNight. And don’t forget to come down for it!” She has a hunch he won’t make it up there all winter, but it’s best to let men think they can do certain things until they realize they can’t. Giving him a final wave, she shifts to a small brown songbird and leaps into the air, flapping to gain altitude and then dive over the edge of the Spire and out into the surrounding trees.
Hearing that Lily would fly, while perfectly logical for the world he was in, still took a moment for Josh to process and understand; still he nodded and stepped back to let her shift, secretly relieved he wouldn't have to think of things to say on the walk down the Spire.
"I will try." He promised; watched her fly away as a bird into the sky - aerial attacks were not very well protected against here, he realised. Perhaps he ought to be looking into that.