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 gentle breeze of the midday wind gently rushed on to Eli's cheek, he'd been leaning against the same fence for a while now, idly watching the same group of herd animals wander aimlessly, munch on grass and lay in the LeafChange sun that had peaked about a good ten minutes ago, finally at the highest point in the day, allowing people to simply bask in it should they so wish. A lot had happened since he'd arrived, and he was still trying to process it all in that thick skull of his, he'd resigned himself to never finding a way home, never getting the chance to see the world he came from again, all his friends, enemies, what few loved ones he had, were gone. All he could do was exhale and try to find a way to deal with what he'd been given.
As the time ticked onward, he lazily turned, leaning himself back against the fence, peering up and down the dirt track that had led him to this point. He wasn't sure why he'd come this way, or what had made him stop here, maybe it was the soft breeze or smell of nature mixed with the unmistakable smell of manure that lent a helping hand to the various crops that had been planted in the various fields of different shapes and sizes, no Eli wasn't quite sure, which made him peer up to the sky, eyeing it for a while before pushing himself from the fence and venturing off down the track again.
He meandered quietly down the path, kicking up stray pebbles and patches of dead grass that had found themselves strewn across it, years of carts, feet and wheelbarrows having made their mark, forever to be etched into the ground. He passed a few people, who he simply gave a nod to with a grunt, he'd never exactly been a people person and he wasn't about to start, but he gave in to being at least polite, having crossed a few too many people because of the way he'd acted when he first arrived, being a bundle of anger, confusion and exhaustion. It hadn't exactly gone down too well. A farmer passed him along with half a dozen of his animals, one of them eyeing Eli for a moment, mewing and wandering over to him with an odd look of almost curiosity, Eli had taken a few steps back, the animal having caused him to tense, the unpredictability of it making him nervous, but the farmer had whistled, given a shout and the animal conceded, trotting off to catch up with the rest of the herd.
For now, Eli was alone again, idly wandering down the track, passing fields, and animals and the occasional person, and he exhaled, feeling just a little off.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
The path leading from the Hallowed Grounds to the fields was one deceptively uneven, with ruts from cart wheels and stones unearthed by erosion beneath her feet making travel difficult at best and outright uncomfortable at worst. Still, she persisted - she had taken to brief excursions to the woodlands throughout the opening weeks of Leafchange to forage and collect, finding a living to be wrung from the sparse bounty of the outskirts as she recovered. As her strength returned and her agility improved, Mel figured perhaps she would one day be ready to venture even further and take on new challenges, and so she devoted herself to these small tasks of finding and gathering that she'd set before herself each day with the same studious passion that she did her reading in the earlier seasons of her arrival.
She walked now through the fields, hunting. A bundle of flax plants grasped in her right hand, the dagger in her left as she bee-lined across the empty fields chasing the pretty blue flowers. Her path jagged back toward the road with its cart-wheel ruts and broken earth as she stored the dagger in its native-made scabbard beside its empty original, peering up the road at an approaching figure kicking up pebbles and clouds of dust along his way, raising a hand to the brim of her hat which she tipped down to better shield her eyes and make out the details.
She had abandoned the eye patch for the day - no longer holding out hope that her sight might recover, her right eye appeared dull and visibly sightless compared to the left. With no reason to protect it from potential damage from the light she found it somewhat liberating to no longer be bound to the patch. Being without had not been the absolute worst, but so it hadn't been fun, either. Depth perception and detailed sight were both things that she struggled with, cursing that she did not arrive with a pair of lenses. Had she lost them? Had she been too cool for glasses? It wasn't her fault that she had practically walked up to her stick-shattering nemesis without recognizing him in broad daylight, that was to say. When he wasn't skulking about in the dark, he still looked broody but no longer as potentially threatening as he had been. Still, her fingers twitched as she considered passing the bundle of flax to her left hand - that she might need dexterity more than strength if he had not changed his shitty attitude.
This was what started the standoff, as the witch appeared like a deer in the headlights, considering her options. He had very well scared her before despite her bluff and bluster, but seeing him now he somehow looked different. In fact, Mel wasn't certain she had ever realized what he looked like in the first place as the image in her head was that of a burly, ill-tempered man with dark eyes, burn scars that melted half of his face. Ragged and rough as he was, however, she had remembered him incorrectly, a disconcerting realization that made her heart sing with some unknown fear, reaching to the empty places where her passengers had once lain, seeking the security of force upon realizing that her perception of reality was not perfect on Caido.
07-09-2019, 09:20 PM (This post was last modified: 07-09-2019, 09:21 PM by Eli.)
Eli
He'd looked at her before he'd seen her, eyes idly glancing her own as he neared her, not caring to read too much into her features or appearance, merely scanning out of instinct for any sort of perceived threat. Finally passing her without a second thought before... had she-?
He sneered a little, peering over his shoulder, eyeing her merely watching him as if she'd seen a monster that made her blood freeze. He rounded on her, raising a brow, as if not recognising her at first, why was she just... staring? "Yes? What is it?" he said curtly, before realisation finally set in. He tilted his head, mismatched eyes scanning her over just to be sure. "Wait... I know you, yeah... I know you lady, we met a couple times." he continued, seemingly not baring any sort of ill-will toward her, just yet... he frowned, offering the slightest of sneers. What did she want? This smelt a little fishy to him, she was standing there, as still as ice, as if waiting for him to attack.
"Look missy, do you need help or can I keep going?" he said again, jerking a thumb over his shoulder to indicate where 'keep going' meant, before the hand joined his other to rest on his hips idly. He knew he might have some explaining to do, but he'd do so bluntly and ever so slightly bitterly.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
"Met" was a gentle term to describe their first interaction - he had terrified her that evening early in Longheat, his stomping approach and brusque lack of tact had raised some instinctual alarm in her then that had been understood to be one in the same with rage. She had viewed him with absolute contempt that day, despite the brevity of their interaction. Where she had shown a measure of compassion and empathy for others before, the soldier's hostility with not only her but the unfortunate souls sharing the road with them that night had stirred her to fight.
Memory of the threat she had perceived him to be challenged her current impression of him. Though he did not look like the monster she had imagined when she brought the grudge up to nurse it, he had still be an absolute asshole and had robbed her of a vital possession by shattering the staff. As her eyes narrowed, she looked him over as well, placing her free-hand on her hip and hugged the flax-bundle to her chest, glaring at him over the bristling root ends. "No-" She was meek at first, her voice soft and uncertain as she looked him over several more times, focusing on his hands, his elbows. Her shoulders sloped for only a heartbeat as she drew her shoulders back together and leeeeaned away from him in a way both subtle and not. Where it looked like she might fall back a step she instead stayed rooted to the spot, unable to move backwards, crippled by the fear that she might stumble at an inopportune time. Image was everything.
"No." She repeated herself more firmly, sniffing a breath and lengthening her spine and squaring her shoulders. "No, you owe me a staff." He had pissed her off, now it was time to work, bitch.
Staff? Oh, the staff, the one he'd shattered after she struck him with it. He exhaled. Perhaps he had flown off the handle a little, yet something in him just snapped, the white fire of rage descended and with what had happened to him on the same day, it had been a push over the edge.
He scowled, eyeing her defiance, was she really going to do this again? Try and square up to him? He was going to sneer when he realised he was going to do this again. He heaved a heavy sigh, he supposed he owed her, she wasn't a bad man, unless it suited him. "Fine. We'll get you another stick, there's plenty to pick up around here, do you want thin or thick?" The words were heavily sarcastic in tone, yet there was a pang of defeat, as if he'd resigned him to helping her.
He folded his arms, left hand grasping his right upper arm, his right resting just under his other armpit. He sighed again, giving her his usual scowl. "Damn it... look, I'm sorry okay? It was a bit of a bad day." he said, finally apologising to her... he reckoned it was the least he could do and it might at least ease her off a little.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
She'd have smacked him again for the sarcasm that dripped from his voice but she couldn't bring herself to approach him, nor did it seem like a proportionate response. The memory of whoever she had recalled in his place during her ruminations had filled her with a great inclination toward physical violence and retaliation, something she realized was not entirely fair to the brute, though it wouldn't have hurt to keep a close eye on him. She knew him to be unpredictable and aggressive, and bad day or no she wasn't so sure this wasn't some sort of trick to have her let her guard down.
"I want one that won't break." Despite Monnrow's peevishly offered olive branch, the witch wasn't giving him any quarter, mentally weighing his apology as she searched his face for deceit. He like a bit of a meathead and Mel had little faith in his ability to lie, but here she was checking anyway. Assumptions were prone to becoming liabilities and she plainly did not trust him.
Another few seconds ticked by as she scowled, rooted to the spot, attempting to fix her face. As her expression settled into a cool neutral she sucked in a breath and did her level best to continue to try and be the bigger person, if not literally then metaphorically, because like hell she was going to be one-upped by this bloke. "Yes, you and I both. The heat disagrees with me. When we "met"..." Her expression flickered at the word. That was a delicate way to put it still. "I mistook you for someone else." Pursing her lips she squinted at him, sizing him up. Like hell he was going to be the bigger person. "I'm sorry for striking you. You were being unreasonable."
He eyed her, he too weighing her up with a raised brow, part of him wanted to walk off there and then he suspected that would confirm her suspicions about him so he decided to tough it out. "Mrm- have any ideas where to get one like that? I don't see many sticks makers round here missy" he said, offering a reasonable assessment of their surroundings quite clearly, it was mainly fields, trees, the occasional bird or two, they weren't exactly in the centre of a bustling market and he really wasn't too sure how he was going to even get her this stick, but he'd resigned himself to actually getting her one, it was perhaps a better olive branch than his apology he thought.
"Who exactly did you think I was...? The eyes don't exactly make me fit in all too well." he lightly teased, the answer tinged with an air of bitterness, he didn't like standing out, standing out made you a target and that made him tense, on edge. Neither of those were a good, but together they made for an uncomfortable combo.
He waved her apology off however, jerking his head up the path from the way she'd been coming. "It's fine, really. Look- can we head back to the settlement that way? Where were you heading?" Two questions for the price of one, it was clearly her lucky day!
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
She snorted, shaking her head she knew the request had been made in spite - still, she hardly in a position to fell even the slimmest of saplings and he looked better suited to the task of it than herself. He seemed to accept her command rather readily. While she viewed the speed with which he'd changed his tune from snide to snide but trying to be apologetic as grounds for suspicion, this wasn't a gift horse that Mel felt the need to examine the teeth of. If he got her a stick, great! If he didn't, well, what had she really expected?
Mel shifted the bundle across her chest, meeting his gaze as he mentioned his eyes, somewhat dumbfounded that he had mentioned such a thing, particularly to her. A twinge of self-consciousness averted her gaze where all his bluster and hostility had failed to, shrinking behind the flax roots. She did not answer him on the matter, though met his gaze again a moment later and wondered exactly that - who had he reminded her of? She caught a whiff of the sea on the wind, and suppressed a shiver.
"I'm not going that way, I was coming this way. I'm gathering flax to make cloth." She lifted the bundle as she explained the task matter-of-factly. "I read once how to spin the fiber into thread and thought I might try - learning new skills almost seems a necessity since we're here. I need another one and a half bundles like this one before I can go home or it won't be worth it at all, though." Mel wondered how far his apology extended, how much she might have to manipulate him to help her out even further. How much she could manipulate him. Tipping her head to the side she offered a shy smile from behind the dusty stems. "You look like you could do that in no time, if you're really worried about me getting back to Sanctuary in one piece..." She didn't think he was, but she knew how to play to a man's desire to feel not only wanted but useful. "Maybe you could help me out. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours, what do you say, Mister...?"
Admittedly he did like being useful, it gave him a sense of purpose, even if it was just for a short time, he tilted his head a little, raising a brow... but flax? Cloth? It didn't exactly sound like something he was any good at that aspect of it, but at least he could carry and collect things well enough. "I can do that, don't worry about it." came the reply, accepting her assignment with little hesitation since... well if this was what it took to actually get this over and done with, it seemed like it would have to be done.
Learning new skills was somewhat of a requirement here, even he had to admit that, he'd needed to learn quite a few things since he'd arrived, no longer having access to many of the things he'd taken for granted. True, the military had prepared him in part for such a life, but, it was much different than he'd really expected, and the change had hit him around the head like a brick.
Sneering, he peered back the way he'd come, his eyes looking back to her. "Well, lead on then- don't wait around for me missy- and the name's Eli, Eli Monnrow."
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
Excellent! Mel's smile broadened and she drew behind the flax bundle, lowering it from in front of her face. She pulled one from the bunch and offered the nearly four-foot stem to him, some remaining wilted blue flowers still clinging in places, though most had gone to seed, presumably for visual reference. His very first flax stem - *how lovely a gift*.
Without bothering to explain the present, she moved on, glancing over her shoulder at him as she hugged the bundle across her chest and marched through the fields, slowly and deliberately finding her footing in the uneven grasses and ground cover.
The fields were tough but flax was tougher - it sprang up in sparse stands periodically regardless of how brutal life in the Hallowed Ground outskirts might have been, the plant persisted. It was a gratefully accepted boon where Caido offered few. The lack of plants, however, indicated that this might be quite the fetch and gather quest. How long had she expected to be out here gathering for two bundles? Such a goal seemed like a day-long task for someone that struggled with basic navigation on uneven terrain.
As she drew close she halted, catching her breath a moment before lowering her current bundle to the ground, looking up to Eli with an expression that briefly suggested he might better please her by simply leaving. She didn't like being seen like this. She wasn't weak, she wasn't useless. She didn't want him getting the wrong idea that she somehow needed assistance. The hostility in her expression vanished in a split second, replaced by a thin smile. She unwound from her belt a length of heavy twine and laid it flat, transferring the bundle onto it, though did not bind it. They needed more.
"You pull it up by the root - they're not very deep so it ought to come up cleanly - if you beat it on the ground you'll drop the dirt and then put it here - that might be enough to complete this bundle." Finally, unable to put it off any longer, she struggled to her feet. Eli might have seen grandparents more graceful. Clearing her throat she intentionally metered her breath, not winded but certainly slow about it. It was then she stopped looking at him again, turning toward the plants and pulling the brim of her black hat down as she one by one began to pluck them from the ground. Efficient.
Having been gifted a stem of flax, and after giving her a skeptical, almost amused look he'd followed along behind her, the scowl forever plastered on his features, even when he wasn't looking at her. It was hard to gauge just what he was thinking or even feeling, unless one thought he was in a perpetual state of bitter contempt. They came to the field, the wind blowing what plants, grains and loose leaves there were, ever so gently in its grip. Eli wasn't exactly sure what to do with the stem he'd been given, deciding for now to merely keep it in his hand... as well, there wasn't much else he could've done.
He frowned back at her as she gave him the look, the one that almost demanded he left her, yet it soon vanished and he was left wondering if he'd somehow annoyed her once again, causing him to scowl even more so than he usually did.
"Right, sounds simple enough." he replied, exchanging places with her as she hobbled up to her feet with all the grace of a thin, old twig. He eyed the flax stems, following them down to the ground where he finally tried his hand, he took one by the stem, near the root, giving it a firm tug that made it come away from its brown bed before he unceremoniously beat it against where it has once stood, the dirt coming off within a couple of whacks! He peered up to her, as if confirming he had done it correctly before he placed it at the designated point and began working away, building her up another bundle of flax while she loomed over him, watching him with no doubt with a pleased smirk.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
Perhaps to Eli's surprise, he'd have found her not a merciless taskmaster, but rather doing her best, cleaning the dirt from her own bundles of uprooted plants with a few dainty smacks, periodically using the black steel dagger at her hip to carefully cut away tangles or to trim unruly root bulbs. In fact, between the two of them the flax didn't last long - what might have taken all day for her alone took not overly long at all between them and in a short time she found herself securing the second bundle with twine. Sitting back on her heels she looked up at him, removing the hat and gently fanning herself with the floppy brim, wiping obvious dirt from her fingers before ruffling her hair and pulling it up in a tail off her neck.
She seemed not overly exhausted, but reasonably tired, and did not try to move but rather remained next to her small bounty. "You're not bad at ripping up plants." She didn't sound surprised and though that didn't sound like a compliment it didn't seem entirely like a criticism, either. Still fanning herself with the hat her attention turned toward the bundles, giving them a pat or two each - she'd sleep like a rock tonight if she could ever get comfortable. Hard work was hard.
Blinking, she covered a yawn with the hat, winding her hair into a knot at the back of her skull and using the hat to fix it in place as she found that there was no time like the present to face tasks you didn't really want to complete, like hauling these miserable flax-bundles all the way home. She did not look at him as she rose to her feet, struggling silently to remain stately and composed about it, spending a moment to dust herself down before even approaching the bundles... and stopped. She did not want to get back on the ground. "Mister Monnrow? Could you hand me one of those bundles?" She shot a glance his way, expecting perhaps derision or a sneer, maybe a sarcastic quip for her request, but here she didn't have much choice. She wasn't about to leave the potential basis of her livelihood out here to rot.
Really he wasn't all that bad at it, he'd turned it into a routine. Grip. Yank. Smack. Toss. Over and over again like some human conveyor belt, it had been a good few hours of toil at this point. The sun was started to ever so slowly wind down and the sweat on his brow glistened ever so slightly as it caught the light but finally, they'd seem to have enough. He dusted his hands off, though they were still dirty with worked in soil and dirt, leaving them a slightly black colour.
"Well, glad to be descent at something." he quipped, giving her the smallest of grins. She wasn't as bad as he'd thought she be, he was honestly a little take a back when she herself started to help, getting back down onto the ground to help pull flax up, and for that he had to give her credit, it would've been rather simple to merely watch over him like some snooty factory owner watching over their work force from their office.
He stretched out fully again, rolling his shoulders back in a few semi-stretches, and exhaled, hands resting on his hips again. He looked over to her as she pointed out the bundle she wanted.
"Yeah, sure." he simply said, giving her a small nod as he moves over to collect it, hauling it over one shoulder, not even making any sort of sneering remark or bitter come back. "Where are we actually going with this missy. Do you have a... mill? A factory-... something?" He raised a brow, having absolutely no idea what you did with flax when you had it, he was all too used to synthetic materials, something Caido had no access to, or knowledge of, and for that... he frowned.
"Si vis pacem, para bellum." - If you want peace, prepare for war.
"You don't need a an entire factory - just a place to soak it and let it dry again." Hoisting up her bundle, Mel hugged it to her chest, peeking around the bulk of it at the ground as she picked her way back to flat ground again. "It probably isn't as easy as it sounds, but here we have nothing but time to get it right, I suppose." At least until they froze to death. Mel wasn't overeager to see winter in Caido and worried deeply what it might mean for her. Still, she tried to have faith that things would work out - it seemed like the only option she had been left in this situation.
As they set foot on the dusty path again she worried the scar on her upper lip with her teeth, focusing on the road out ahead of her, tucking into the task of leading him back home - something she wasn't entirely convinced was a good idea. "You can call me Mel - I've been here since spring- you, know, Flowerbirth. I take it you just arrived? You must not have caused too much trouble after we parted ways."
