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!
Melita picked the rushing water, the strong, enduring tides to lay out her tribute, her stories, her myths, her songs to Safrin; pondering how to occupy and entertain a deity she’d never seen. In the past, she’d revered the sun and its holy, somewhat embittered fixtures, raptured by the traces of glory, might, triumph, and fire, but she’d never thought to kneel and pray towards the moon. In Helovia, she’d been an enigmatic, eerie figure; the world had hosted hundreds of tales corresponding and intricately carving her exploits into the foundation of their stars and pathways – she’d been murder and corruption, hostility and animosity, a slinking snake, an asp, but also kind and benevolent to those that served her. Should the honeybee girl be wary of this version too? Or did they not blend and align together? Were they alternate fixtures, not quite corresponding, bending away, parallel, never touching, never segmenting?
She and Fangorn found their way to some ample shade, a mesh of darkness beneath the outstretched canopies bordering the Stonesong, sitting amidst the moss and pebbles. The youth knew better than to sing; that had been Clementine’s gift, and never her own – tone deaf, incapable of carrying much of a melody. Perhaps that was why her voice ricocheted in loud decibels and raucous intervals, embodying warnings, howls, or roars; either in play or danger, rarely gentle or pious, honeyed or soft. Even so; maybe Safrin would still listen to her, and maybe it would be worth it, and maybe not everything was lost.
A story it was then, conducting and orchestrated in her mind straight from her memories, gilded eyes lilted and tilted to the heavens, where celestial bodies rested, posed to stare down on mortal bodies and wonder how they ever survived. “Can I tell you a tale, Safrin?” She waited, a series of seconds and cycles, and Fangorn’s stare widened, imploring her to continue even though nothing else in the great beyond did; she listened to the echo of the current, wondered how many had survived its hold, before continuing (I’m a survivor too). “Once, there was a world called Helovia: bright, beautiful, but not without its faults or flaws. It had gods too, with broken shrines and emboldened devotees. Many grew beneath their powers; little girls in fields, gentle mothers with their dulcet lullabies, strong warriors promising strength and dominion.” Her gaze drifted then, away from the clouds and vacant stars, there but not, hidden by the sun. “One day, there was a new face; a trickster, a deviant, and he wielded his subterfuge and deception as a soldier swings their blade. He had the realm duped, offered rewards, cherished followers. Even the gods fell into his fold. Mortals raised the dead for him. They dragged the chains of his sepulcher from the decrepit marsh. They allowed bedlam to thrive.”
She paused here, scratched the top of Fangorn’s head as she thought, as she wondered if the story should end there, or extend into the reaches of the Rift, where the real torture began. “Then Kaos destroyed the world – took it apart piece by piece, body by body, god by god, until naught was safe, and darkness descended. Some escaped. Most did not.” Would that be enough? Or would she want more?
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
In another lifetime, she would have fit snugly into Melita’s story: An icy-cold Colonel, the keeper of a magic mirror, the dry and demanding mouthpiece of a God. Far, far different from the woman she is now some might say - and yet, perhaps not so much. She will always be a woman with a weapon, she will always sport a thorny exterior, and she will always seek to wield power. Some lifetimes will be more vicious; some will tear her limb from limb, test her at every turn, will set her in a monstrous body or send her reeling across time and space. Others will coddle her a little more, call her princess and warrior and Queen. And the truth is that Wessex is all of them and none of them. She is the epitome of complicated.
Not that anyone in modern-day Caido could read her well enough (well, Rory… maybe) or could get close enough to Wessex to say she’s ‘complicated’ without it being a cliche cop-out.
All her relationships now are somewhat… nuanced. Yeah, let’s call them nuanced, instead of complicated. Even those she feels genuine affection for, like Rory and Melita. It’s pure coincidence then, that she comes across her mentee near the Stonesong. And of course, she doesn’t mean to eavesdrop, but she does, letting Melita’s past fall gently on her ears. Part of her thinks it may not be just a story, but she won’t say anything about that. Let the girl tell her if she wishes.
Instead, in the silence that falls after the young woman’s words, Wessex’s voice drifts across the rush of the river with a simple question. “Do you think she’s actually listening?” Cause in the Ascended’s opinion, the goddess’s attention is… spotty at best. Blatant favoritism at worst. And unfortunately for Melly, Wessex’s presence isn’t doing her any favors.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
Her story continued, eyes lit upon the sky, poignant but unseeing, her memories scattered amidst those weary, broken things, moments snatched and whittled into treachery and deceit. Those events had made her, shaped her, into more than just the emboldened little girl running through thistle meadows and labyrinths; born into warmth, baptized and thrust into danger and might. “Their escape was hastened by a portal – and down, down, down they went, into glens of darkness and the unknown. It was cold, and most of them were tossed in different directions, struggling to find the remains of their families.” Should she mention the ghosts, the mysteries, the dynamics of splintered gods and their unholy vows, assurances? Should she snag the sepulchers, how the dead rose from their watery graves and spilled blood upon the masses – their loved ones, their beatific creatures with the same lifelines, the same ichor, the same passion, destroyed again before their eyes? It bottled and waned, it pressed against her mouth and screamed, but for some reason she couldn’t find the tangled notes, the right intonations – flat lined on her lips. Fangorn nuzzled at her ankles, and she scratched the top of his head, manifesting a sigh.
The sounds of another were suddenly there, too quiet, enough so that her gourd companion hadn’t even sensed them, though he gave up a sudden alarm, a quick hiss and growl, until Wessex came into view, and her heartbeat managed to retain its normal rhythm. The voice simmered over the rush of the river, stung more than Melita would care to admit. She shook her head, loosening the taper of fiery locks from her shoulders, gaze not swinging to Wessex, lifting back up to the celestial clouds. “No.” None of them really ever had, and she just surmised it was something lacking in her: abilities, strength, conviction, and no matter how much she’d manifested into the surroundings, no matter which world she persisted within, they didn’t glance her way. Not enough was a constant echo in the back of her mind, carving and clawing its way through her spine, her skull, ricocheting in pulses and waves. But eventually she’d make them see, make them notice, make them stop and stare. So she shrugged. “But I’ll still try.”
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
She doesn’t sigh so much as look at Melita with something akin to pity mixed with resignation. If the girl wanted to go down that route, Wessex sure as hell wasn’t going to stop her. She is her own woman, is big enough to make her own decisions. And who knows, maybe her good nature would be in her favor - Wessex is sure that her personal tendency towards bitterness and cynicism were never attractive qualities in the Old God’s eyes. So she found one who embraced her dark side, instead. All of her. Gave her gifts she’d begged for from the Gods and yet was always found wanting.
So to say she’s prejudiced against Safrin is, well, a bit of an understatement.
Instead, she just shrugs and keeps herself holed up in the safety of the shade of the trees by the bank. Wessex is quite relaxed, actually. Or is it tiredness masquerading as relaxation?
“Fair enough. Took me thirty some-odd years before I gave up praying to them.” Looking down at the roots and dirt by her feet, she digs her toe into it a little bit and then towards her mentee. “So how’s this story end?” she asks, low and knowing, but refusing to call the little firecracker out completely. The ’for you’ is heavily implied - in her eyes, her crossed arms, the way she sticks around.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
It was something and then nothing, the challenge and resignation in the girl’s eyes gone to ash and embers, not worth the kindling or incitement – Wessex permitted her to continue wandering into her ignorance, and so the girl shifted her eyes back to the sky, to the clouds, to the heavens. While Wessex shrugged and rooted herself into the confines, staying instead of straying, the youth simmered, pondered where to traverse next. Curiosity might have settled into the Ascended too – for she must’ve caught the intonations and declarations Melita had sequestered into the heart and soul of the wood – and so she drifted, back and forth, over memories, distance, and time, gaze pinpointed on everything and nothing all at once. Haunted, poignant, her words were clear, dreams of yesteryear melting and corroded into nightmares, decibels of terror sprung from lips of strangers and beholden, fond friends. “It was a world unlike any they’d ever been immersed in before – hope a blighted, strangled thing, nestled and confined. All they found were demons and monsters, fiends and fickle gods, over and over again.” She paused, brows furrowing, the telltale mark of a scar burning on her back. “Once there were ghosts of those they’d lost – come back again because one had dared to dream in its fruition, and the crooked paragon allowed them to resurface. Then they struck their own family, their own kin, unhappy, restless souls incapable of being freed.” Her hands glided down the arch of her spine, as if scratching an itch, but in reality, it was to feel the weight of the blemish, of the lightning strike, earned because her sister had been unprotected, and Melita had been a shield in the night, incapable of doing anything else.
“So when they survived, the rest of them turned to might, to strength, to uniting. They had to find a way to conquer their adversaries, enemies, and the ancient, duplicitous demon, or escape.” Then there were the intervals in between, some simply unable to continue, broken, beaten, and damned, their mothers clutching over their throats and suffocating them whole, ghosts of their cherished beings sinking them down into the gallows, no spring, no turn, no beatific realm or icon to save them. “A lot were lost along the way.” They had names and faces and blood in her memory, never ash, never embers, but real and tangible, strings of a harp, musical, mellifluous turns. “Instead of vanquishing chaos though, they lived within it – until a portal opened, and they dove. Some ended up here.” She shrugged, a loosened smile entangling itself around her mouth, as she resumed her boldness, her audacity, the wake of her trials and tribulations, but the potential for so much more. “Their stories aren’t over. Not by a longshot.” She shook her head and laughed, mercurial, whimsical, and defiant again. No world could beat her down for long. Not with the fire in her heart. “What’s yours?” She inclined, brow arched.
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
That certainly grabs her attention. “More than just you?” she blurts out, utterly unaware that Melita had any family here, let alone others that might have come from the same world. That concept in and of itself is rather hard for her to swallow sometimes; while Caido has magic and Gods and whatever the fuck she is, people from other worlds just creates an infinite amount of possibilties, dreams wrought in both hope and despair.
It make her feel very small at times, insignificant in the grand scheme of things, though the Lady tells her she is bright and has so much potential. Wessex is living during a perfect storm of events; a thousand firsts, each day unlike the one before it or any their world has likely ever seen, and while she knows the Outlanders were brought here to help them and her Lady, that very bitter part of her also wonders why it wasn’t possible for the Caidonites to do it themselves.
During Melita’s last bit of the story, Wessex has settled in the grass, cross-legged, leaning against the trunk of the tree. She looks down, picking at a clump of wildflowers to one side of her. She can’t help the scoff that falls out of her mouth, because it’s the first time anyone’s ever asked her that. There’s some irony in that, but she can’t be bothered to go looking for it, afraid of what she’ll find. “Nothing quite so heroic. I grew up here. Small family, devout, loving mother and beautiful, kind sister. I always liked knives and fighting and had a lot of anger to deal with. Sometimes I think the people here tolerated me simply because of them.” A shrug. “Then my mother died and I started working just on a for-hire basis. That didn’t do me any favors but it kept food on the table. My sister died next. Finally, I came down with the symptoms and said fuck that, I’m not ready to die.”
Ah, there’s the irony, considering she died anyway, of her own stupidity. The only difference is that her earlier choice ensured her resurrection - reanimation - repair - and so in a way, it has been a double blessing. “So I chose to Ascend, shortly before you all came popping into Caido.”
And now here they are. Somewhere she never thought she'd be.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
“Yes,” might have been a hiss, might have been a growl, were it not coming from a curled, coiled snicker, an impish, irreverent glow and grin. There’d been Kiada (whom she chose not to associate with), Rexanna, some man named Deimos, and a haphazard assemblage and collection of others, somehow lost and found and together all over again. Her eyes were a resplendent, teasing, taunting thing, could’ve been a part of the stars and cosmos if they weren’t so devilishly maligned, raised back to the constellations, listening as Wessex spilled her secrets.
It was short, blunt, to the point, everything the Ascended had always been – knives, fighting, anger, tension, an intriguing outcast position well before she took herself into the ramparts of scaling and conquering. Her head tilted, humming under her breath, as a disease swept into the story: I’m not ready to die an anthem, a tattoo, an emblem drawn to almost anyone’s life. She wasn’t surprised that Wessex would fight on and fight another method, another means, another modicum in which to arm and render herself whole. The youth didn’t judge the endeavor, had likely done plenty worse on her journeys and sojourns to ensure those at her side remained there, even if, in the end, it hadn’t truly mattered. She lowered her gaze to the moss at her feet, under her hands, to the weight of the colliding worlds pressing in amongst them, to Fangorn nibbling by her ankles, to the grass swaying, tickling her hands. Then it riveted its way back to her mentor, the inquiries a never-ending exploration. “Which life do you prefer?” The one before, or the one after?
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight
Melita doesn’t elaborate on the rest of her kind, and Wessex doesn’t press the matter. It doesn’t really matter, just a curious bit of information that might be useful somewhere down the line. Why the girl seems to find it funny, she doesn’t know, merely quirking a brow and holding the expression for a moment.
Anyway. Moving on.
The perfect summer day does nothing to temper the feelings that flood through her machine-like body when Melita asks the final question, the be all-end all of dualities. For all her Lady’s work, she found reason to leave them with emotions - both a blessing and a curse, though these days, the hardened woman is finding them more of a hindrance to her daily life than a helpful way to connect with others. Wessex sits with it for a moment, looking at her hands and running her fingers over flesh that will never decay, never age past the day of her Ascension at thirty-eight. Hands that have held others’ and wielded more power than she used to be able to imagine, hands that loved and killed and cooked and now…? Only seem to be able to divide, simply by being what they are.
“I’m not sure,” she begins. “Before I was loved but for all intents and purposes, helpless and aimless. After, I experienced more power and miracles than I could ever dream of, but am hated for my choices.” She shrugs, perhaps more sorrowfully than she means to, but refuses to say more.
“I’ll leave you to the rest of your day. Keep up your training.” A smile and a nod replaces any hint of emotional disturbance as the stone wall of a woman rises and retreats almost soundlessly back into the woods.
{FIN}
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
