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!
Quiet. Serenity. These were not things that Zariah oft found herself amidst. She was the head of a powerful family of mages. She had two small children. She was Queen of the Hollowed Grounds. Chaos shrouded her days and cradled her at night. But everyone, even the most accustomed to calamity and bedlam needed respite every now and again. Zariah sought this in the Oasis, which was pristine and soothing always it seemed.
Dusk would soon set, but she did not care as she climbed up a tree, lounging on a low, thick branch near the water’s edge. As she leaned back, hands cradling her head, wild curls spilling over either side of the branch and one leg swinging lazily over the side, she gazed at the sky with half-lidded eyes. She might have appeared almost dozing to most, but she was still fully aware of her surroundings, like any good predator, alert at all times.
He'd never been to the Oasis – but the stones, the water were a calling refrain, an echo of things he’d lost and found – broken, whittled chinks of armor stuck to his chest, humming, crooning, in the interval of his stalwart boundaries. They were calming, instituting composure when he shouldn’t have any left, not after landslides and new bruises, scars, and wounds, not after the flickers of domination and supremacy crackling down their spines, not after, after, after everything. The hints of dusk played across the surface of the pool and made him recollect a hundred myriad things, the cast of the Moonlit Tides and their salty air, the scream and cry of gulls, the rush and hiss of the current, where he would play and invoke mischief and design rudimentary schemes, where he was free and liberated. He stared across its reflection, its watery veneer, its glassy exposure, thought about diving into its depths and remembering the zeal, the fervor, the rush of its power and prowess, clutching him in its grasp, a promise that he was nothing, but could become something.
But the beast didn’t – muscles tired and spent, not quite fully healed, better than death and annihilation, but a brutal, barbaric reminder that he could’ve been lost so damned easily – and instead, chiseled his way along the embankment, a predatory, quiet, hushed inclination. His senses told him something was out there – but it could’ve been anything, and he was not Attuned, capable of taking flight after it and exploring, exploding, into the midst. The Reaper could’ve roared, could’ve howled, could’ve manifested and divulged a series of imposing dominions, a cluster of intimidating barrages; but instead he slunk, lowered down into the lengthy grass, a predator on alert. It was a savage prowl, an awakening of his senses, a broadening of his chest as he inhaled, as he exhaled, as he remembered, recalled, how to hunt. Nefarious, hushed, nearly inaudible factions and rituals, despite his bulk, despite his size, usually monolith and tower, Colossus and giant, but lingering down into the sway of jungle cats and mountain lions, carving, sculpting, a requiem for the unknown, poised, like the edge of a knife, like the fringe of a dagger, like the swing of a broadsword.
06-20-2019, 11:10 PM (This post was last modified: 06-20-2019, 11:19 PM by Zariah.)
It was the sound of the great reaper stalking that caught her attention. It wasn't particularly loud - just a slight rustle of stone against grass. Slowly she turned her head, unable to miss him in the grass from her vantage point above. How intriguing. She watched in silence for a time, trying ro decide if it was worth revealing herself and destroying solitude, or if she ought do it herself since she was bound to be seen. She wasn't exactly hiding.
"You're an awfully large fellow to try hiding in the grass like that." she said dryly, watching him with a seemingly blank gaze, leg still swinging aimlessly. While he might dwarf her in size, she clearly did not feel threatened by his presence. "Shouldn't you have a weapon to hunt with as well? Or are you a Destined?" she asked curiously.
He was stone and marble, conviction and resolution, catching movement and motion ahead, pale, alabaster flickers of plumage and dominion; a lengthy beak, heron gone to the marsh for one last feeding. It might have proven to be a decent meal, something he could cook up and savor for later – drawing upon his instinct, upon the eldritch inclinations in his blood, a lifeline, enriched ichor with the denizen of upheaval, disregard for life. He considered stunning it, or running it through with a dagger if he was quick enough, its stealthy, quick, long legs made and hastened to evade and escape – his brow furrowed, more minatory steps presiding, brain urging him onward, faster, faster, before it could hear him, before it could see him coming.
The voice of another snagged on the grass, and the heron, sensing danger, immediately took flight. On an air of savage, bestial frustration, he rose in silence, tower and monolith again, gaze lifted to the sky to watch the potential meal vanish into the horizon. Then he turned, shifted, a reticent, nonchalant veneer, wretched façade, broadening across his features – betraying nothing, not exasperation for the things he’d lost time and time and time again, not ire, wretched and pulsing along his limbs, and not disappointment, for an opportunity squandered. He was his old self again in the face and loom of a stranger: detached, icy, a chilling void grappling over his foundation. He gave naught, naught, naught, blank gaze matching blank gaze, maneuvering his way along the grass again, considering ignoring her entirely, but with the presence of mind to give a simple answer as he proceeded further away. “I have a dagger.” He raised it above his head, gold and glinting, proffering and permitting weaponry only, before lowering it, back into his palms, hidden and tucked, sliding along the embankment, the game scared away already by the clamor of voices, the chances lost. Why it mattered to her was beyond his reasoning; not a beast intending to pry.
She glanced at the dagger, unimpressed with it but any such indication did not show on her face. When it came to the game of neutral expression, Zariah was a master. Most Launceleyn's worth their lick of salt were. "Interesting. So you are a Destined then." she concluded. Of course she didn't know for certain. The Queen had an inkling he was since magic users usually preferred smaller arms like the dagger if they carried arms at all, rather like archers. And he certainly wore no bow or quiver.
But she would like to know.
"You wouldn't have liked that heron anyways." she said with a shrug, sitting up. "Terribly sinewy, and not much meat to speak of. Their all leg and feather." She watched him quietly for a moment. "What's your name? Clearly you don't know me."
She could draw interesting conclusions based on a fundamental lack of details: anyone could carry a dagger. He could give a small toddler a knife. He could give a goat a stiletto. Neither would indicate whether or not the child, or the farm animal, had an ability to utilize magic. As he walked, further and further away, and she kept talking, inquiring, prying, he was reminded of Jigano: and intended to play the same game, purposefully defiant, no clear notations or answers. “Not necessarily.” He shrugged, tucking the dagger back into his belt, felt her gaze, her eyes on him; wondered what he’d done to continue garnishing the attention. If he was oblivious and obnoxious enough with his veiled, shrouded responses, perhaps she’d go away and leave him be – it was a hope.
He crept along the shadows again, blending into the darkness, familiar and another enriched haven, an essence he could breathe in, a sharp inhale, a glimpse into the Stygian void. She kept remarking upon his potential heron kill, how he wouldn’t have liked it – but sometimes meat was meat, and if one was starving (like some, like many, left to their own devices) they’d long to snatch and grab whatever they could. The beast prowled and didn’t remark upon that though, slowly intertwining himself down to the water’s edge, yearning for twilight to make its appearance. Clearly you don’t know me bristled along the horizon – and he turned towards her then, arching a brow, piercing gaze scrutinizing her for a few moments. She might have been familiar, but between the echoes, the throngs, the upheavals, the damned disasters, he couldn’t put a name to a face. She hadn’t been amidst the people gathered for their Fae meeting. She hadn’t been toiling in the cave, striving to rescue friends. He couldn’t recall her lingering in the outskirts of the fey woods, neither spirited away nor playing amidst the river’s song. “No. I have not seen you around.” He tilted his head, a thorough, carnivore irreverence, before leaning down, dipping his fingers into the water, toying with the surface. “I am Deimos. Who are you?”
"I suppose. You've yet to answer the question though." she said as she spun on the branch so both her legs dangled off. Zariah tilted her head to the said, mass of curls falling over her shoulder, yet she seemed to not care about the state of them. Her mane was the last bit of untamed wildness in her being, honed as she had made herself to be pointed, smooth, unyieldingly precise and disciplined.
"I am easy to miss when I do not wish to be noticed, Deimos." she said with a small smirk. This was about to become interesting. What sort of opinions would this fellow have? Would he show reverence or attack immediately? She was prepared for either. "My name is Zariah the Merciless, First of her name, Savior of the Destined, Head of the Family Launceleyn, Queen of the Hollowed Grounds."
His hands stretched out for the water once more, the cool, chilling presence of it keeping him in check, holding him to a threshold less barbaric, more stoic, a glacier, a mountain, a piece of stony, monolithic contortions. Some slipped into his palms, and he brought it up to his face, biding his time, fluid and conspiring, quiet and hushed, silent as the grave, as he scrubbed over his features. If she wished to be unyielding, he would be the same – an inflexible, unbending machine, a slab of marble barely carved or sculpted, right down into the rigid nature of his bones, of all the days he’d spent machinating the twist and turn of shadows, the seditious, irreverent spread of man and beast. He didn’t even roll his eyes at her next statement: she wasn’t there when they saved others from a landslide, she wasn’t there when a flinthopper set the world on fire – and perhaps none of that mattered. Maybe she was busy doing other things. Maybe she had scattered moments, just like the rest of them, battering against the earth and screaming outcries when it didn’t listen to their pleas. Maybe she simply watched. Maybe she knew better than those who kept striving, kept trying.
He didn’t even show the slightest bit of surprise when her name, and various titles, spread across the surroundings, echoes of chains, of notice boards, of an army he was meant to be a part of. The Reaper’s mind however, whirled in its divisive moments, a tread lightly and be careful funneling its way into his mind; never at ease, not in the splash of twilight, not in the promise of darkness. His gaze flickered back to her, unreadable, maintaining the same reticent, withdrawn, detached predilection. “How would you like to be addressed?” A haze of memories gnarled against him (Deimos, Lord of the Aurora Basin), titles and sweeping intonations never his strong suit: he was what he was, with no other claim to fame. His throne was gone. His tomb was vacant. The devils were all gathered here. So he pressed, the depths of curiosity woven and tinged. “I hear we are meant to join your army. What do you intend to fight against?”
My, my, but wasn't this one an interesting fellow? Stone cold, defiant - but not so defiant as to warrant harsh reprimand - and clearly unafraid. There was a calculating aspect to him, one not so quick to fly to fury, it seemed. So few she had encountered here were so restrained and measured. It was refreshing. "Your highness, queen, things along those lines shall do fine." she said, still watching him with an analytical eye.
"Whoever shows themselves as the enemy of the Hollowed Grounds." she said with a shrug. "It is not about shipping people off to war, it is about being prepared when it comes. The people here are scattered and mostly untrained. We are but sitting ducks if a singular, unified force tried to overtake us." she said, twirlling her hair with her finger.
Deimos had been practiced in the art of subversion, adversity, and irreverence for so long that it’d become natural to resist. While some portions of the earth bowed their heads and accepted without question, without fault, with naught more than demure accord, he frequently did the opposite. He kept his head up. He aligned his eyes with scrutiny, with study, with careful, inquisitive airs; a coldblooded nonchalance that gave nothing away. He was burrowed and buried, a hollowed vessel when it was required – when the chill ran down his spine and left him a wolf, rather than a mere, abandoned, forsake, desolate creature. Restraint was a gift, a Siberian thrall to his muscles and movements, all coiled, all curled, all contorted, until it was required to strike. Yet she did not, and so the measured, Machiavellian composition remained, chiseled in the darker threads and features of his face. He didn’t bow. He didn’t call her your highness, my queen, or pledge allegiance. The beast listened.
He understood preparation, training, could comprehend getting them all ready for the physical aspects of it. He’d done it multitudes of times, beckoned by the drum, the beat, the banners; placed his sword and shield in hand and went straight into battle. Back then, he questioned very little, because triumph and glory had been in the promised proclamations, and his heart had leapt at the chance to become something. In the end, he’d become a malicious, menacing predator, carnivore incantations bruising and unwinding, with an abundance for sedition and revolution. “That may be true,” he admitted upon her last line – pondering who she thought would become enemies of the Hollowed Grounds. Or if it was just the foreboding, ominous dirge of it all. He swept more water into his palm, then released it, playing, toying, calculating while the cold reaches settled into his skin. “They may not have ever known war.” And in a sense, he was glad for them – because while he was an unrelenting force, a driven, barbaric machine, a living, breathing weapon, the fact that some could maintain their innocence, never needing to shed blood, must’ve been a grand, beatific thing. The Reaper tilted his head back towards her, curious all the more. "Have you?"
"I think it very likely there are a great many things they have never known that are commonplace amongst other societies with neighbors." Zariah said, shrugging a little. That the naturals had survived as long as they had with no government and only anticipated threats was a completely unrealistic model to move forward with. If only people understood this.
Her head tilted slightly at his question continuing to study his features. "Yes. My homeland had been been at war since long before I was born. My family were the most elite mages in the King's military." she said, expressionless, emotionless, just as she had been trained to be. "And you?"
There was a condescending derision hanging on her first words, and though he didn’t say anything about it, it contorted against him. Good for them for not understanding barbarity. Good for them for never having to devastate or ruin another country. Good for them for not comprehending the measures of war. It left them sitting ducks, but it also meant they survived by other means, skills, and pursuits; they weren’t built on destruction and mayhem. Not like him, who’d once served king and country based on the notion of conquest, who’d descended straight into oblivion and never looked back, who never once thought of reaching for the skies, the heavens, or the stars, always presuming oblivion and Stygian wiles would catch him in the end, immerse and sink him into his hate, his contempt, his loathing, his savage, unworthy throngs. “Yet, they also seem to realize how to accomplish things without violence.” The beast shrugged, staring across the water, having a strong urge to dive into it and simply not return; swim below the surface until the sun sank and the moon was full.
Reigning and roaming in his impassivity, he merely listened to the slide of her history, to the beats of homelands scourged by war; similar circumstances, except his family hadn’t been completely shacked and tethered in mage tiers. He’d gone with his friends, and they’d plagued and ravaged because their sovereign had demanded it, and something in between his ribs stung because it sounded like it was going to happen again, again, again (and he couldn’t bury them all over; wouldn’t be able to find enough space for the graves, wouldn’t be able to dig into those tombs, the cycle calculated and swirling over his shoulders, pressing down into his spine - you never escape your demons). The same detached air pulsed against his features while his mind seared and smoldered, a riotous octave piercing through his skull. “I survived several wars.” Which time, which place? The doomed invasions of Helovia, before he sat upon a throne, when he was a soldier, fighting for their home and losing it all? The damned crusades, embarking with grins and infidel regimes at their backs, until it was nothing but death? Was this the pattern, the refrain, the stanza, he was condemned to repeat?
Zariah tilted her head to the side, considering the man in silence. Quite the optimistic perspective he had. ”I suppose this is true. Do you truly believe that enough to save them from annihilation should another force present itself?” she asked, genuinely curious. How deep did his optimism run? Or would realism win out, and make clear the danger at hand. It wasn’t really about if, but when in this case. They couldn’t hope to survive on pleas of mercy and anger over Outlander or Natural – it would all be drowned out by the screams of massacre.
She nodded, realizing that his statement covered more history that he revealed. It was no surprise really, he seemed the fighter sort – one didn’t gain his demeanor without reason. ”A common thread in our past. It is nice to know there are some kindred spirits here.” she said, running a hand absently through her hair. ”So, are you amongst those who oppose my rule?” she asked, deciding to be blunt rather than allude to her question.
The Merciless clearly didn’t have much respect for any of those who lived here, or their actions. But perhaps she hadn’t seen them: down in the caves, when they struggled to find the source of outcries, why pain and anguish lingered in the dirge and din; when the flinthopper hastened its fire and flames across forests and harkened to ignite fields, when LongNight pressed and they were offered sanctuary. There were hundreds of notions and perils, of trials and tribulations, yet, they’d managed to survive each and every one without blistering wars or drum beats from afar; gallivanting them to raise their pitchforks or munitions, cluster together and assault some neighboring force. “It depends,” he proffered in the exchange, still not looking at her, waiting for the ground to swallow him whole; diffident, reserved, and callously irreverent.
A common thread, kindred spirits incited and scathed against his bones; he didn’t want to be entangled in the same niche: yearning to not be in similar realms. But the past loomed and haunted, scratched and clawed, and there had been days stretched under glacial mountains and voracious summits, where he’d clutched at a throne, at a crown, someone else discarded – taken, taken, taken, scepter in hand while others dispatched and fled; when he’d merely been a soldier, a General, suddenly hastened and thrust into politics. They failed him now too – as she asked if he was opposed to her rule, and he bit back the retort, the snort, the rising growl in his throat, smothering them down, down, down into his chest. His gaze, a foreboding, ominous wake in its own right (ghosts, phantoms, and wraiths, tucked there, a restless animosity threatening to escape), was unattainable, unreachable, unobtainable, cloaked and hidden, a dagger in the dark. The only thing to crack in his impenetrable stance was a lift of his brow, arched at her blunt accord. “That will be contingent upon your actions.” Ambivalent, inconclusive, reticent, a blackguard along the threshold, his judgment just as reserved as his frame.
