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!
He laughed at Amalia's plain acknowledgement that yes, there was indeed bad shit in the world. It made him a little more open to her religious words; he had never liked preachers who blatantly lied then covered it up with faith and lies.
"I guess...I can see that. If there is someone up there who cares, I'm fucked though. I'm not exactly bursting with good deeds." Adam took a sip from his water and looked off into the shadows of the house. Really, he wasn't half as bad as he made himself out to be, but he still rarely did things out of the kindness of his heart.
He shook his head at her question. "I hardly fucking know about Ludo. It just showed up at the shrine. The rest of them...I haven't even heard some of those names before."
His laughter makes her smile, a chuckle arising in response. Amalia has never been a the-glass-is-half-full person: she is more of a the-glass-is-cracked-and-the-water-is-spilling-out-but-you've-just-gotta-keep-pouring-more-in-because-what-else-are-you-gonna-do? person.
Eventually someone with a greater thirst will need to drink from the cup, and all Amalia can do is make sure there's some water for them, even if she has to give all of herself away to do it.
"I dunno. I've known worse." Smiling wryly at the man, she shakes her head again, not particularly impressed with his weighty and endless self deprecation. Adam may talk a big talk about being a bad guy, but the man she knows is more lost child than wicked villain, trying to make his way in a difficult world just like the rest of them. Any early concern she may have felt about him has long since waned away, replaced by a deep-set concern for him, the same affectionate and fierce protection that the leopard extends to all her friends.
She bites back the urge to leap immediately into story as Adam proclaims his ignorance, knowledge of the gods always ready on her tongue. "I... could teach you about them. If you want." There is no reason he wouldn't, as far as she can see: aside from her own love of the beings, Amalia believes in knowledge, in curiosity. The deities are a feature of their world, present and interactive, beautiful and wise. "Ludo is a soul-gatherer. It collects spirits for Mort, the god of death." It is an invitation for him to ask more. The baker could easily wax poetic about the natures of the gods, spinning stories and spouting piety into the early hours.
07-01-2019, 07:32 PM (This post was last modified: 07-01-2019, 07:33 PM by Adam.)
You've been drinking like the world was gonna end
"...Mmmm." Adam shrugged as if he didn't believe her or he didn't care, but really he knew Amalia was right. He talked a big game and was hardly a saint, but Adam had never murdered, had always struggled to steal from anyone poorer than a duke and had always refused to do anything to a child or other innocent. As criminals went, he was practically soft, but letting people know that in his old line of work would have been tantamount to suicide.
Her offer to teach him about them was oddly out of place in a drunken ramble home, but he found himself actually wanting to say yes. But...his head was slipping out of his hand, dangerously close to knocking out. "How about you make it a bed time story?" He asked, wobbily standing up as he held the railing. "I wanna see this bed, then you can preach at me all you want. Whisper about the Gods in my ears as I sleep, maybe I'll have a vision or some shit." With this said, he climbed the last few stairs then looked about for something that might be a bedroom.
Amalia rises in time with him, aware of how close he suddenly is to slipping down her stairs. Reaching out, she grabs his shoulder, trying to steady him and keep him on his feet. The idea of a bedtime story sends a brief flicker of something unhappy across her face, memories and bitter nostalgia slashing through her mind. These are the bedtimes stories her grandmother would tell her, the tales she slept to as a girl. For a moment Amalia is jealous, feral, loathe to share that experience, to give away the things so perfect, so precious among the cherished snippets of her absent past.
Then the moment passes, and Amalia smiles, her bitterness fading as quickly as it rose, replaced with a gentle laugh. "Sure," she answers, taking him by the hand, guiding him up the last of the steps and into the small attic room. It is not a particularly impressive space, rather small with little more than a bed and a chest with all her clothes. But it is pretty, somehow, sweetly decorated, colorful with fabric and paper flowers and a collection of dainty oil lamps. The bedspread is a crocheted night sky, deep blue with flickers of white stars, a little off-color with use and age. As they cross the threshold the baker becomes suddenly aware of two distinct things:
1) it is a rather juvenile appearing space, and
2) she has never had anyone in here before, let alone a man.
Clearing her throat uncomfortably, Amalia hopes he is too drunk to pay attention to her youthful decor, let alone her sudden, ferocious blush. "Come on," she murmurs, nudging him toward the bed. "And take off your shoes. I don't need dirt in my bed."
Adam let himself be led into the bedroom, only really having a moment to look around before he had to flop down onto the bed, his legs truly protesting keeping his body upright at this point. He did have the presence of mind to think it was sweet though, the kind of space he liked. Full of colours and personality, clearly belonging to Amalia and no one else.
Well, except for him right at that moment.
Sitting on the edge he tossed off his boots, revealing that he did not wear socks (which did not smell like a very good revelation) then his belt, dropping it to the ground along with his guns and knife, his bag too. Without his accessories it was even more obvious how slight he was despite his height and feeling a little self conscious, he slipped under the covers.
If he noticed Amalia's embarrassment, he didn't say anything of it. Instead, he just asked: "So which is your favourite God? Lets start there."
Amalia watches him begin to strip, wondering if he intends to become fully nude. It wouldn't matter her overly much: Amalia is not particularly perturbed by nudity, especially considering how far Adam's bony figure is from Deimos' strapping one. She is grateful when he takes off his boots, though the smell makes her wrinkle bet nose, not terribly thrilled to know those feet are slipping into her bed.
Sitting beside Adam, Amalia helps him draw the blanket up, tucking it close around him in an unconscious, thoughtful action. "Vi." It is the easiest question to answer for her, and always has been "He is the god of life. His vassal inside the Grounds is Safrin, who is a goddess of starlight and beauty."
Sighing contentedly, the baker rests her head on her palm. "Vi - and the other old ones - made the world, with the help of Caido the Bright One. Rae took the domain of nature, Mort of death, and Vi of life "
Being tucked in surprised Adam thoroughly, an experience he hadn't even had as a child. It made him laugh, but it was actually quite nice to feel cared for. He would just never, ever, ever tell anyone about it (and Amalia hopefully know not to either).
"...So..have you spoken to this Vi guy?" He asked, not intending to be disrespectful but voice lacking any of the appropriate reverance. "And how come they need another one for nature? I mean...isn't that kinda life? Is there one for uh...un...natural stuff?" His questions weren't elegant, but they were genuine, curiousity clear in his eyes.
"Spoken to him? Yes." Amalia has spoken to Vi every day of her life, his name never far from her lips, her prayers, a hymn across her heart. And though she suspects this might not be what Adam meant, she does not clarify further, content with her own experience of the world, the answer in the music of life itself.
She laughs lightly at his barrage of questions, recognizing many as having once been on her own lips. "It's more like... Vi's charge is life, and Rae's is change and nature, I guess? Rae made the Attuned, and watches to see how we grow and adapt." Thus is her rudimentary understanding, based off knowledge from Safrin's texts and ancient tales.
His question about unnatural things causes a cloud to darken her face. Looking off into the distance, Amalia take on an unhappy affect. "Yes... the Voice. She was once an Abandoned, who rose up and challenged the Old Gods. She wanted to change the natural world into one of machines, and wires. So the Old Ones were forced to make the barrier, and trap her inside it, in the Spire."
"Whoa, really?" Adam asked, imagining full deep conversations between Amalia and the life-giving God. If she had explained he would have dismissed the answer, not thinking much to prayer - it had never gotten him anywhere until he'd gotten Ludo's attention.
Amalia laughed, but it wasn't unkind. He drank in the knowledge, the intelligent and curious Adam drawn out by his drunken vulnerability and sleepiness. "Hmm. The Attuned are the animal-shifty people. I mean...you don't seem that different to anyone else, except sometimes you're a bird." Did she spend a lot of time in her bird form..? He thought galavanting about the forest preening and shitting all the time would probably make it hard to run a bakery.
The Voice...he'd heard her mentioned. "But the barrier's gone, right? So is The Voice gone too? Or did she get out?"
"Animal-shifty people... I suppose that's one way to put it." Grinning, Amalia shrugs, letting her features shift. Fangs peek out from behind her lips, and her ears become round and furred. Slitted eyes stare down at Adam, bright with amusement at her own light jest, the feline appearance ghosting over her figure before retreating back down to human skin. Tilting her head, she regards him thoughtfully. "Have you ever thought about it? Taking on an animal form?"
Her mirth dies at the discussion of the Voice, and the girl turns away, a distant expression on her face. "She's still here. Though signs of her.... the woods are dying, and I think she's to blame." Hardened, angry, the girl glints, a little of the feline back in her features. Then she sighs, and shakes her head, letting her golden hair fall about her shoulders.
Glancing sidelong back at Adam, Amalia bites gently on her lip. "I... I was there. When she was first freed from the Underground. It was my fault." Her hands curl and uncurl in her lap, and she stares down at them, a frown on her face. How much of this would have been avoided, if only she hadn't spoken the riddle to set the Voice free?
Adam watched with a (rather weirded-out) childlike amazement as Amalia shifted her features. It was the sort of thing he'd be sure he'd made up because he was drunk, but he had seen her change into an animal before. Somehow, it had been less odd when it had been an entire transformation. "..Uh...no, I can't say I have. I dunno what I'd even wanna be, to be honest."
Amalia seemed personally upset about The Voice, and Adam found out why when she insisted it was her fault. Not knowing anything about the situation, he shook his head a little. "I'm sure if it wasn't you, it woulda been someone else, right? Don't beat yourself up too hard...sounds like the Gods are still alright with you, right?" Surely they wouldn't still be making nice with someone who helped a traitor in their eyes.
He thought for a moment, trying to recall something he'd heard once in the bar. "The..Voice...she's got something to do with the uh, vam--the people with the teeth, right? They don't seem too bad."
Amalia tilts her head, smiling distantly at his confusion. Shrugging, she takes it easily in stride. "I didn't know, until it happened. But now that I have the leopard... I feel like part of me was missing, I suppose." a more reasonable person would note that it isn't for everyone, but Amalia is not reasonable. She is ardent, reverent, impassioned by piety. She loves the gifts the gods have given.
She does her best, to deserve.
Adam's platitudes are sweet, if unhelpful when it comes to alleviating the girl's guilt. "I suppose," she offer noncommittaly, her hard black eyes still far away. But his next question draws her back, and she shifts uncomfortable, biting at her lip. "Ascendeds. Yes." Another sore subject. How many have been lost to the Voice's Wiles, brought low by the promise of superiority, of being 'bright?'.
"Once upon a time... There were only four gods: Caido, Mort, Rae, and Vi." The girl scoots further into the bed, leaning back on her elbows. "The created the three races: Accepted, Attuned, and Acquired, which we now call Abandoned.' She glances at Adam, waiting for an invitation to proceed.
"Huh." was all Adam could really bring himself to say, not considering much about Amalia to be 'leopard-like'. It seemed like a weird thing to even think about in the first place, him not being used to talking about 'what animal he'd be' outside of bar conversations at 1am.
She said nothing as to whether the Ascendeds were good or bad, which was a little worrying. He knew a couple of Ascended people and had found them to be fine enough; but Amalia knew more about it all than he did. What if they were secretly going to drink all of his blood or something?
It seemed if she was going to explain it, she was going to go the long way around it. Adam settled in for a story and listened. When she paused, he asked: "I'm...Accepted, right?"
"I think so?" Amalia blinks down at Adam, genuinely surprised he does not know his own race. "If you have no magic ability or the ability to shift, then yes." She does not comment on Ascendeds: she has seen him eat enough to suspect he is one of them.
"The Accepted were the first. Then Rae made the Attuned, so people could become more in tune with nature. Finally, the Acquired were born from residual magic, their abilities manifesting as they aged." She begins to pull at a stray thread on the blanket, thoughtful. Amalia is a good storyteller, when the mood strikes. And when she knows the story.
"Then around three hundred years ago, some of the Acquired decided they would challenge the gods. So they turned themselves into unnatural forms, replacing their blood with fluid, and called it a science." Her disdain is apparent in her tone. "One of those became the Voice."
