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!
Instincts, savage, untamed, and unhinged, wild and wild and wild, particles of disease and illness spread through her like an inferno. What fire she’d always held had now been used against her, conforming to conflagrations and embers, cinders and ashes, built to an inferno on blighted kindling and stoked machinations – inherent bloodshed building into her heart. She launched into the woods, leaving Fangorn behind again, as if there was no bond at all (and gods love him, the little vampire gourd chased after her into the night to try and keep her safe – but it was no use, no use, when she didn’t listen to his hisses and growls and cries). Inside her heart and lungs were naught but the pulse, the persistence, the pervading essence of hatred and vehemence, bending and bounding towards the Mathair.
And there, in between roots and fortifications, where Melita once made baskets with Amalia and talked of becoming little monsters, she was one, but so out of her own elements and control, it scarcely mattered. She growled and sniffed the air, eyes searching for what her compulsion and intuition told her existed in these clutches: roses, planted somewhere, in the breadth and width of this anointed, consecrated grove, already blighted and darkened in its own way.
Perhaps the Penumbra had come back to make sure the roses were still intact. Perhaps she had come out of curiosity if it would help at all – out of the hope that it would. She still has two roses to plant, both left at home while she can’t figure out when exactly to go out and about for planting. Either way, she’s here, lost in her thoughts as she approaches the Mathair again, eyes bright and open to scout for any problems since the last time she’s been.
All she can see at first is her rose with a few others – and there’s a small amount of her that is relieved at the idea of it.
But then, with her better hearing, she heard a growl – a surprise, for her. And she slinks back a bit into the shadowed parts of the trees, hiding away and waiting to see what would happen – what was coming. It sounded human enough that she didn’t trust it – she imagines she’d know what an animal would sound like in this instance. But it’s hard to say. And so she waits, to see what happens, what comes of the noise in the woods.
Her skull took on an uncanny, eerie tilt, otherworldly and clearly possessed, no longer fraught with emotions or lines, sketches and details that might’ve given the real Melita pause, that would have hinted to her no more. But that wasn’t her now, not in this midst of fervor and zeal, piercing and puncturing, a clawing scythe down her senses, crawling, pervading, persisting, through any experiences she’d ever had. The honeybee girl would’ve sunk into the ground and resisted, resisted, resisted. This new youth, the painted, puncturing monster she once though she yearned and craved to be, had none of those intuitions and misgivings; and all of the rage.
She crouched forward, leaning into a slow, predatory march, one foot extended, then the other, slipping in amongst the roots and leaves as she sought out those precious flowers. They needed to be destroyed, abominations in the glimmers of savagery and refinement, all the better to be tangled and demolished. A glimpse of red and gold shuddered into her view, and for a moment, her features rang out in resplendence, a sanctified, bewitching accord that had once seemed o sweet, so kind, so compassionate, instantly sinking into a refined precipice of treachery and sedition. She raised her staff, and then sought to bring it down – believing one mighty swipe of its emboldened, timber expanse, with her power, with her strength behind it, would crush the disgusting, disturbing figure.
The figure moves and Rexanna is on high alert – eyes slipping through the foliage, able to see far better than her Abandoned-only body would have. And she spots a glimpse of red hair, and a staff, and her heart sinks with the sounds that come from the girl. She slips forward, all rage and flame and fury, aiming the staff for the roses that had been planted – and Rexanna slips into action. Immediately she’s approaching Melita – an arm held out to try and catch the staff.
But she isn’t fast enough due to her own calculations, and it barely slips through her fingers in the attempt to grasp it – her sapphire eyes watching as it smashes one of the planted ones, splaying it to its side. That’s when the thought hits her, and the Penumbra reaches for the rose, plucking a thorn from it as she tries to corner the girl, to back her off of the roses. “Melita.” She says once, uncertainty lacing her voice as she takes in the blighted woman. “Melita.” She says again, desperation lacing her voice this time.
She’d pin the girl down and prick her with the thorn if she has to – magic and her strengthened body, and inability to feel pain. Except, she doesn’t want to. She doesn’t want to do this to the girl that had been her friend, that had told her Kiada was here and that she should see her. A great friend of hers, and yet… If it came down to it… What would the Penumbra have to do to stop the woman now?
The arm of another was barely registered, not with persistence, pursuit, and petulance pummeled into her mind; bestial and barbaric, her staff reaching its designated denizen with great aplomb, a sinking, simmering growl layered on her teeth and tongue. It was a triumphant howl, an unleashed savage interlude into the sky; one of the sweet, sweet little roses dead, incapable of doing anything at all. She wanted the world to know, raising her weapon into the sky on an illustrious bellow – the voice curling nearby having no effect. It went deaf in her ears, ineffectual and ineffective against the drumbeats of maniacal edges and scorched sentiments, gone was the compassion, fleeting were the notes of serenity.
Her name flickered once, twice, and she finally turned her head to glimpse upon Rexanna – not a stranger at all, someone known, brave, kind, and generous. Melita snarled in response, raised hackles and lips as if she were some great, ridiculous beast, instead of a girl who once dreamed of saving anyone and everyone. She dropped into a crouch, her staff still implored in her hands, lifted up again, over her head, ensuring she’d strike. “Get away from me,” she hissed, an untamed insinuation. It might’ve been a warning, an omen, a clear distinction that the honeybee child wasn’t well, and the Penumbra should leave before she became wounded, or one more indication that the roses and destruction were the only thing on the youth’s mind – rattled, addled, and chained to irreverent pieces and unholy vehemence.
Her words do little to actually curb the attack, but eventually she gets Melita to turn her head just enough to look at her, and when she does and spots the thorn in her fingers, the Honeybee child turns her attack onto her, staff held high above her head, ready to strike, to maim, to fight. The words don’t sound like her, though, and Rexanna soon wonders if Melita will go through with the strike. The Penumbra wouldn’t care – she doesn’t feel pain anymore, and she heals rather quickly. She’s willing to go through with it if it means being able to poke her with the thorn.
So Rexanna doesn’t move from her position, instead, choosing to stand before the child. Arms spread out before her, eyes wide and bright on the girl. In the hand that doesn’t have the thorn, she summons a small sparkler of a firework, hoping it might distract Melita enough with it’s bright golden colors, flitting and flickering around their faces, before she tosses it to the side where it begins to fizzle out above the snow. And then, she darts toward the girl – uncertain if her trick will work or if she’ll get smacked right over the head with the staff.
Ignored again, a warning gone astray – no one ever listened to her here, when she was trying to tell them about her past, when she was trying to reach out, when she was trying not to have them obliterated by the means of her measures. But there was no caring in her heart now, no radiating pulses of compassion or poise, just the Stygian void covering her eyes, her entity, her presence, her soul, piercing, piercing, piercing between the sunshine and sand. Her eyes darted momentarily to the firework, to the bright varnish of color flitting, flickering, dazzling her senses, a distraction, a deterrent; seconds passing before she hissed at that too.
Then she lunged, not for the sparkler, but for Rexanna – timed somewhat imperfectly, still on her impulsive edges, because the Penumbra had anointed movements and motions at the same time, and there was a fumbling of her weapon, the staff winding down towards the woman’s shoulders, hoping to strike, hoping to hit, hoping to tear her apart, piece by piece, bone by bone. It was the only thing thundering and beckoning in her flesh, broken and dispirited and disastrous, nothing to make it stop but the clamor, the din, for demolition and wreckage. She would have it, a dark, dark promise in the back of her mind, unyielding and beseeching, colors of bloodbaths and ichor.
Oh no, the firework doesn’t entirely work the way she’s wished it to. And she’s nearing the child, watching as Melita’s eyes drift toward the colorful sparkler, before she hisses and focuses on the Penumbra once more. And that’s where Rexanna knows she’s likely going to get a good hit in. Instead of lunging for the sparkler, or the roses around her, Melita lunges for her and her mouth opens slightly in a small amount of surprise.
Thank the gods she doesn’t feel pain anymore.
Because Melita’s staff lifts and slams hard with an audible crack against Rexanna’s shoulder, where it meets with her neck. “Melita. Stop it right now.” She manages, a motherly tone overcoming her as she chastises the girl. She thinks she can see a small amount of stars in her eyes, or perhaps that’s electricity? She doesn’t know, but in an instant, despite the brief moment of shock, her arms reach for Melita. One had holding the thorns in the hopes of impaling one of them into the woman’s arm, the other intending to grip onto her arm or staff to keep her from smacking her upside the head with it again. Melita will have to try harder if she wishes to tear the Penumbra apart bone by bone.
The crack upon the Ascended hybrid caused the most illustrious smile to bloom across the girl’s features. In another time, in another place, it would’ve been just as magnificent and spellbinding as all her other manifested grins; this one, however, with the blight’s essence, seemed contorted in malice and menace, an eerie, enigmatic interplay of emotions. The fact that she’d been successful was a measure of her disheveled decrees, immersed and entangled with so much brutality that the rest of Melita seemed completely marred and ruined. She could hear Rexanna’s admonishments, the incoming lectures, but she didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care, shaking her head from side to side, bounding along interwoven roots, scaling and leaping across the top of the Mathair’s fortifications, intending to use it as a launching pad. “Why? What're you going to do to stop me?” The youth sneered, the smile turning into a wild, savage, untamed, feral thing,
Except suddenly one of the Penumbra’s hands was on her staff, and the youth pulled, tug, bracing against wood and fibers, and cursed some foul notion beneath her breath. “Fok jou,” fumbled through her brain and along a hiss, memories sparking and sizzling from days long since gone – hardly noticing the rose in the woman’s grasp until it was too late.
A thorn grazed her skin, piercing and puncturing, and just like before, when Loren had slashed into her flesh, portions of the Stygian pestilence drained away from her features, and she was suddenly breathless, consumed, exhausted, standing on top of roots with her staff in hand and shock written on her face. “Oh no. I’m so sorry.” Because that was all she could say nowadays, her eyes flickering over to Rexanna, horrified by what she’d done, by her lack of control again.
She silently thanks her goddess for not feeling the pain that accompanies the crack on her shoulder, but the power of it all is enough to make her unsteady, especially as Melita continues her assault with her body and her words — and Rexanna’s eyes sharpen sternly on the red haired girl. Suddenly, the Penumbra’s hand latches onto the staff and she gives it a slight tug, trying to get the girl into a position to be struck by the thorn.
But she hears a distinctly familiar “Fok jou.” That sounds so similar to a language she’s heard before that her brow raises, mind races toward Kiada and the similar phrasing and sounds, before she focuses and manages to pierce Melita’s skin with the thorn in the struggle. And the small girl deflates before her, realizing what she’s done. And Rexanna’s heart breaks for her.
She can feel a small amount of liquid seeping through the scarf she wears, from where Melita had hit her, but she pays it little mind as she reaches toward the girl and lets go of the staff, opening her arms wide. “Shh, Melita. It’s okay.” She tells her — because it is. Rexanna will not judge the small child for the terrible things that have happened, for the blight that has spread and taken over her mind. And she thinks back to Kiada for a brief moment before she takes a step toward Melita, perched on the roots. “Come here.” It’s tender, an offering, open arms accepting for the girl to hold and hug, to cry should she need to.
It had happened again – spiraling, spiraling, spiraling into the cool pits of darkness, thriving in amongst its shades, its decadence, its splendor, forgoing the rites of fire and flame, forgetting what it meant to be enduring and persevering. She’d caved in and been spun into sonnets of ether and bloodlust again, fanned fumes of terror and treachery – and to who but Rexanna, someone who hadn’t deserved it, not one modicum, not by any amount.
But then she was engulfed, surrounded by arms and warmth, and she wasn’t worth this either, the comforting, the indulgence, not for her crimes, not for her malice, not for all the wretched instances she’d concocted and unleashed. The youth still took the offering, greedy and avaricious even when the disease was no longer coiled in her fixtures, in her eyes – because how long had it been since she was afforded any ease, any tranquility, any repose? “It’s not okay,” she warbled, mumbled, into Rexanna’s embrace. “None of this is okay.” Her head shook back and forth against fabric, adamant on her stance, on the way this earth had churned and turned her over. The youth tried not to cry either, holding them at bay, rooting them behind her eyes, swallowing down the bile threatening to coat over her soul. Maybe someone should just vanquish her right then and there, be done with it; slay the monster, kill the beast, before she could concoct any more damage.
Oh, she knows it’s not okay. But she can pretend that it is – pretend that the grief and regret that crashes over the small girl means more to her than the fluid seeping from her shoulder from the inflicted wound. It wasn’t Melita, but the guilt within her of how the blighted have changed and how she and her people may have caused it, begins to pour through her. And she holds the girl tight, to her chest, running somewhat cold hands through the youth’s hair, a tender, motherly touch. Because that’s all she can give her in this moment of clarity. She can’t fix it, but she can give the girl this.
“It wasn’t you.” She tells her softly, continuing to hold her tight and brush the strands of hair from the girl’s face. “I don’t blame you Melita. The roses are going to work, I know it.” She doesn’t know it, but gods does she hope it does. “We will get you back to normal.” There’s a firm determination within her at this statement, hoping deep down that she’s not wrong and that the honeybee girl won’t be the most recent bright soul to succumb to the darkness afoot.
The comforting embrace had its effects – not quite warm, despite the notion of live bodies (because Melita had no idea about Ascension, because it was winter and everything within her felt cold instead of molten and infernal), but supportive and calming all the same. By the time Rexanna ran hands through her crimson locks, the girl had managed to stifle the sobs, to root herself, to press slower breaths back into the air – never allowing herself to suffer for long. There was no time for it, not when there were other monsters in the world, not when there were other demons threatening to take them all apart, bit by bit, bone by bone, until they were just bleeding, bludgeoned masses on the floor –
Something choked, suffocated her, the soft ministrations of Rexanna’s entity only refracting over the surface. She felt entangled and knotted, cut off from anyone and everyone, because she’d been stupid, because she’d been blind, because she’d been desecrated by a disease that seemed to only embolden her innermost, darkest ambitions. “But what if it was-“ she started, inhales and exhales expanding rapidly, a panic searing over her lungs. What if it had been her all along, only enhanced, only unleashed, when there was nothing, no one, to stop her? No conscience, to and through the heart, unraveling by stitches and seams, and no matter the motherly assertions, no matter the determination, maybe she couldn’t be helped. Maybe she couldn’t be saved. Maybe she was just as monstrous as she’d been permitted to be – naught to tie her down, naught to desist the crushing weight of her sorrows, of her stupidity.
The Penumbra’s hands gently run through the fiery hair of the girl. She manages to stifle her sobs and anxiety, and Rexanna makes no comment on it. She keeps it all calm, all contained, letting Melita root herself however she needed to, for however long she needed to. But the one thing Melita has experienced that Rexanna had not, was that continuous need to fight or fly, and she wishes for a moment that the girl might feel some amount of safety – so deeply. And so she tries to keep her in her arms, giving her a place of comfort, of solace, where Melita could know that despite what else happened in the world, Rexanna would be there to protect, to fight, to ensure that she felt safe.
Maybe not today.
But one day.
And she hears the girl as she begins, mentioning that it might have been her, and Rexanna’s heart breaks slightly, wishing to hold the girl tighter should she let her, while she scuffs out those fears immediately. “It wasn’t, Melita.” She offers quietly, hopefully, despite everything. She’s proud of the girl for being so strong, for having made it so long. And she would fight against everything to ensure that Melita wouldn’t have to endure it anymore. “I don’t know what the blight does, but it makes people not themselves… It wasn’t you, I promise you that.” She croons to the girl, soft and gentle, easing the worries away where she could.
