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!
The Sword was no stranger to family: he’d had them before, in the press of moonlit waves and the stretch of sea-salt air, fire bursting from the hands of a boisterous father who would stop at nothing to receive what he craved, wanted, and desired, the quiet, contemplative efforts of his mother’s water, stern and stubborn and wiser than the entire lot of them. His life had been full of precious memories and vibrant lessons of racing down beaches with the wind in his hair and the sensation of freedom clustered into his bones, his blood, his youthful vigor, long before he’d ever picked up his first wooden training blade. Then too, he had kinship; brethren and brothers in arms, fighting for glory, for triumph, for devastation of their enemies with wild spirits and pledged hearts. They all flickered apart, one by one by one, in a steady march and drumbeat, in a vicious, unwinding haze, felled and scattered and bludgeoned, until his time amidst fields of war extended into digging graves and makeshift catacombs. He grew cold. He grew distant. He grew apart from everyone and everything, a hardened faction, a meticulous, silent piece of the backdrop, waiting for his turn to waste away.
Helovia hadn’t been much different: an appeal of family long after they lost the Edge, when they were clustered and cluttered together along the Steppes, learning to live on edges of the devil’s backbone. They hated one another and they hated the world and they hated the rawness, the bitterness, of defeat, bringing them into bonds of kingdoms and sovereigns, refugees scraping along ice and rime until they limped into mountainous regions and remembered what it was like to have something to call home. In those hollowed, hallowed halls, he sacrificed and rose, he toppled and destroyed, he made a name for himself on blades and death, helping them all to reach into their devilish inclinations and spread the ferocity, the forbearance, to drench the world in their malice, in their regrets, in their spite. Their vitriol had been like its own pestilence, and he’d savored every tiny, miniscule victory, until, until, until the crown was upon his head and the summits were suddenly on his shoulders; cold and stark and barren again. He lost there too, in the stretch of rain, the chilling, warped panels of their imminent demolitions. He disappointed Ophelia and he forgot Psyche and Huyana cascaded away, until he was illustrious for simply being a shell, a weapon, a machine meant to murder, meant to protect, meant to abolish.
Then there was Rexanna, Kiada, and Hotaru, faces that didn’t flicker away from him when he marched by, strong, enduring, capable people that didn’t shake, didn’t shudder, didn’t flee when he scorched, when he lanced, when he broke. When they failed to waver, so did he; and they were rapacious intervals of strength and dominion again, beasts with purpose, with precision, with capabilities far beyond their rivals. They’d been warriors and thieves, kings and queens, and none of it had really mattered in the end, no singular title, no tilted crowns, no glacial thrones: bonds forged in sieges, in certainties, in assurances.
He held Hotaru within one now, didn’t drop, didn’t plummet, didn’t falter while she maneuvered, while he closed his eyes and wondered what he’d done to deserve, to earn, them all back. It was love and devotion – not the ardor and bliss of Amalia’s sun – but the reaches of protection and promises, vows he’d only shattered when he’d taken his last breath. They’d all had one another’s backs once, upon summits and crags, amidst secrets and storms. This world wouldn’t be any different.
She leaned into his grasp, and his gaze conformed to hers, going back and forth along the different colored hues, green and grey, life and death amongst mountain valleys, his breath a shuddering inhale as he strived to keep himself composed. If his eyes were the same, perhaps the rest of him was too – just as flawed, just as chaotic, just as stupid and ineffectual and damned, but better here, because they all had one another and suddenly the weight of the world wasn’t too much, wasn’t too harsh, wasn’t too overbearing. The Sword snorted as she leaned into his brow, shaking his head thereafter, instantly wistful and torn. Her next set of words were enough of a blow anyway, billowing over the surface of his flesh like a hot knife, and he closed his eyes for a moment to ward off the onset of something behind them. “Neither did I,” the soldier whispered – incapable of doing anything else but falling apart beneath the rain, heart and lungs shuddering one last interval, no chance, no opportunity, to unravel thoughts and commitments and murmurs. It’d only been him, the shadows, and the ghosts, calling him home.
But she tugged on his face, a hold on his cheeks and beard, not allowing him to dissipate into some otherworldly ether, the string of phantoms pulsing in his skull. The smile was winsome and genuine and he tilted his head into its good graces, a sigh billowing through his chest. “I am glad you are here.” A truth, simple, keen, and honest, as most of his confessions had been. He slowly released her back to the ground, bestowing a soft landing into powder and snow, turning his head at her inquiries, trying to hide the bizarre rush of tears threatening to run down his face. When he’d brushed them aside, a choked sort of laugh caught in his throat, and he motioned for her to follow, back along the entrance to his home. “Most of the time,” he answered; a shrug to his shoulders – not daring to get into the details of the harder experiences here, how many times he’d almost died (again), how many times he’d failed, how many times he’d simply thought about sinking into the mire and letting the void take him. There were too many grand things now, and they could varnish and lacquer over the melancholy; he refused to spoil this moment. “Have you seen Rexanna and Kiada?” He glanced back over his shoulder, holding her gaze in his. They were all intertwined in their triumphs, in their defeats, in their victories – before they reached his door, and he opened it wide, arm extending to invite her inside.
