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!
They emerged from the Fangs into air as biting as any mountain with teeth: Neron, Wessex, and the two guardsmen who were to be their escorts. Sprawling beyond the mountain range before them lay the tundra, near blinding against the snow and the ice. A bracing wind blew right through them, and though Neron’s cloak and clothing were tugged by it, he did not shy from the temperature.
“The path to the Fangs from the Citadel and vice versa is not well marked,” he told the Queen of the Hollowed Grounds. “If we truly are to trade, it would make sense to rectify that before you invite more of your people to Halo.” Because it was no skin off Neron’s nose, truly, to let them freeze to death. The meat wouldn’t go to waste at least, and then raiders would leave his soldiers well enough alone.
But that wouldn’t be very diplomatic, would it?
“I’ll be able to create a pathway of sorts, to allow for surer footing. Is there anything you can think of that would allow those in the Hollowed Grounds to recognise this as a landmark? If they wander into the Tundra, it will be near certain death.”
11-12-2019, 10:03 PM (This post was last modified: 11-12-2019, 10:11 PM by Odd.)
"Best shut yer bleedin' gob or i'll slice yas from tongue t'tail I will."
This voice belonged to one of the guards, a short and plump man (or so he looked anyways, bundled up in furs as he was), sneering at what appeared to be a wildly malnourished Ursur. Even so the beast was massive and its strength obvious, given the many ties that constrained its movements. The other guard, a much taller and more stoic type, merely grunted a response to her counterpart. Rather than yelling at the restrained creature, she produced a rabbit from one of her bags and tossed it into the creature's waiting jaws.
Maybe at some point Wessex and Neron would get to the point where they could openly say what they wanted to, starting with that neither of them give a fuck if certain people died out on the Tundra.
But that wouldn’t be very diplomatic, now would it?
The result of which is now two leaders doing shit they don’t necessarily want to do. The curse of appearances strikes again. She looks out into the white expanse, and then to the guards yelling at what appears to be a big ‘ol bear on its last legs. Weird, but alright. She raises an eyebrow in the display’s direction but refrains from making a comment. Not everyone out here can be civilized.
“If the path is evident enough, something tall and dark at the beginning and end,” like a spire, she thinks, “or something that runs along the path that they can physically hold on to.” If they’re bundled up enough to be able to make a fist.
Neron agreed wholeheartedly with Wessex’s comment about being civilised, and his opinion on those hassling the bear was evident in the brief closing of his eyes. Once he had collected himself, he nodded to his fellow leader. “A flag at either end, perhaps, though the Tundra has a nasty habit of coating everything in snow. Both, perhaps, would be a good idea...”
Glancing over his shoulder at the guards, he gave a brief nod. “Begin plowing,” he instructed - once this was over there would need to be regular patrols out to plow the fresh snow and keep the path from being covered over. For now, the bear would do its work. In the meantime, the Hailstorm turned his attention to the beacon that would act as the ‘start’ of the trail. As for Wessex...
“How are you at scouting?” Neron wanted to know. “Work like this will be long and draws a lot of attention.”
Neron advises the guardsmen to plow snow with the bear, and asks Wessex to scout the surrounding area.
She nods. Something at both ends sounds important. “We have a big, black obelisk in the Grounds. If you wanted something sturdier than a flag, a smaller one would certainly catch their attention and point them in the right direction.” And forever remind them that it was The Voice who gave them entry to the new world. It’s a less than subtle move on Wessex’s part, but the Queen couldn’t give less of a fuck about what’s appropriate or not right now.
Watching as Neron gives his orders, she gives a skeptical glance towards the rest of the crew and the skin-and-bones bear. She almost feels sorry for it, having heard of what it could be, and yet not so eager to see a healthy one up close and personal. Turning her attention back to the Warden, Wessex smiles thinly at his question. Hunting, tracking, scouting - it was all part of a food provider’s daily tasks in the Grounds. “Excellent.” She turns to the flat expands of white and grey around them. “I’ll take a look around.”
With a nod to Neron, Wessex sets out at an easy jog to scope a wide-ish perimeter, all senses on alert for Ursurs or Frost Giants or anything else that might seem a threat.
"Yarp." Says the fat stout guard. "Sir." Mumbles the taller, decidedly less comical one. Creating a whip from nothing at all, the guard cracks it over head with shocking skill. "Onward ye great ballsac o'fleas." With an unhappy groan, the Ursur began to trudge forward..
..in entirely the wrong direction.
Grumbling curses to herself, the taller woman reached out with her mind, coaxing whatever smile minds she could summon to her. Rabbits, white foxes, but mostly mice appeared, forced by her will to squeak and shamble about to get the great bear's attention. "Good thinkun'." The short guard bellowed with a yellow grin, receiving only a sneer from his counter part.
Slowly but surely with the animals as bait, the ursur began to plow in the right direction.
It was a shame, Neron thought, that - based on the personality of his fellow leader and his decidedly icy countenance - there were not more good-humoured minds about to enjoy the comic display of the two guards. As it was, Neron was simply glad that Wessex had loped out into the Tundra so as not to have to watch the embarrassment. In turn, he turned back to his own work. A big, black obelisk... How wonderfully phallic.
The majority of the wasteland was quite the opposite colour, but Neron located plenty of ash from a fire not long burned out, gathering it together to stand at the beginning of their trail. A deep breath, a modicum of concentration, and the Hailstorm’s work began.
It would appear, at first, as a wobbling, shimmering thing on the horizon; creating water at his fingertips, Neron mixed it with the charcoal until it was black as pitch, before coaxing it up and up and up. The temperature, in the meantime, worked to freeze it into shape, until there was a similar black obelisk jutting into the sky.
As Neron finished, a crack of leather drew his attention to the Ursur, whose harness had snapped in the middle of plowing. Wonderful.
On the horizon, too, there was movement. Wessex would not find bears, or giants... but the brief wink of blades, of people wrapped in furs. Watching, wild eyed, hungry.
It is terribly phallic, but he’d asked for a recognizable sign and given that the Grounds has no insignia for themselves, no mascot, nothing unique save for the Spire… so let the visitors take from that what they will.
She doesn’t look back to watch Neron work - might have been impressed if she had - but keeps her focus on whatever might be lurking beyond the endless grey-white stretch. Everything here is foreign to her; the Wraith doesn’t know what’s out of place, what bits of movement might be threatening, so she can only assume that everything is out to kill her (how disappointed they would be to find her body made of something other than life-sustaining meat). Eventually, however, Wessex sees something; There’s the tell-tale glint of metal against the sky, which slowly evolves into a group (how large? She can’t tell yet) of people? (yes - fur-wrapped bundles of people).
Trying to maintain a certain distance from them, Wessex is confidant that her speed can keep her safe, but she doesn’t want to lead the group back to Neron. Unsure of what the best plan may be, the Queen opts to stand still and wait to see what happens with these mystery tundra folk will do. Knowing her luck, they aren’t ‘just curious’
“Come on, ye lazy lump ‘o bones!” the woman yells, while the fat one cracks his whip over the Ursur’s head. For a moment, the pathetic creature moves a little faster, but even easy prey can’t seem to motivate the depressed and broken bear. It lumbers on, slowly plowing the snow flat until ann ill-placed ‘encouragement’ from the whip hits the dry leather harness and it snaps off one shoulder, dropping halfway off the beast.
“Ya fuckin shithead!” the smarter one yells at the stupid one, immediately trying to coax more small animals out to overwhelm the emaciated bear before it realizes it’s halfway to freedom. “Ah slipped,” the man whines in defense as he darts forward, getting as close as he dares to fix the harnass. Clearly nervous to be this close, instead of mending the original break, he creates a new piece of leather, thick and heavy and it seems to do the trick - for now.
The mind-controlled animals thin out and the woman guard scowls, hissing, “Yer lucky if ‘is Excellency don’t skin yah fer dat.” Cause it'll be on his stupid, fleshy head, not hers.
One large, black obelisk took form at the beginning of their trail, Neron gazing upon it for but a moment before his steel blue stare moved on to the Ursur and the trouble his two idiots were having in keeping it under control. “Skin you? Hardly,” he said softly as he passed them by, his black boots crunching on the freshly ploughed snow. “The amount of noise you’re making, I’ll not have to do anything.” The warning was gentle, subtle - but true. The hungry masses of the icy wasteland would make short work of the guards. Perhaps the bear too, if the creature didn’t join in the feast.
Leaving them to their task, the Hailstorm pressed on ahead until he spotted Wessex, following her line of sight out into the Tundra. “Raiders,” he explained. “Exiled from the citadel, mostly - out here they’re reduced to mad cannibals.
Keep a sharp eye, but they ought to leave us alone.” He waved a hand, conjuring a wave of water that froze on contact with the air, leaving a spiked fan of ice in the raiders’ direction.
Up ahead of them, a large dead tree had fallen across their intended path. “We ought to move that before the bear gets close. Care to give me a hand?”
Cannibalism? Her upper lip curls, eyes narrowing as her judgment suddenly shifts from merely defense to defense and disgust. It’s one of the ultimate taboos - even when they were starving in the Grounds, they never ate their own. “What warrants exile?” she asks, assuming that being exiled is the worst punishment possible in Halo. With one last glance, she turns from the menacing group and back to the task at hand, quietly musing over the situation she’s observing.The Warden must be fairly powerful if a three-person team (let’s count each guard as half a person, since they seem to be half as competent) and an emaciated bear haven’t been attacked yet.
At least neither monarch is much of a talker. She can appreciate some silence to begin to digest everything.
There’s a tree up ahead, and she nods in agreement at his suggestion. “Give me a minute and I’ll make it easier to move.” Stalking forward, the Wraith unsheathes a set of salons and begins to slice through the mid-sized and smaller dead limbs. They drop to the ground and she kicks them aside until there’s more or less a central trunk and any branches that would require more of an effort. Heading to the tip, she gestures towards the middle, inviting the man to either push or use his magic to shift it out of the way.
The Warden’s displeasure seems to be enough to cowl the guards for a couple of minutes, both of them shrinking slightly under his gaze and murmuring “Yus, sir.” The bear shuffles mechanically onward, dragging its plow behind it, while the taller one shoots death glares to her fat counterpart. Their going is slow compared to the Warden and his companion, so in an effort to hurry the fuck up, she calls an unlucky rabbit to her then reaches down to break its neck, tossing it to the bear with surprising accuracy. It tears into the bite-sized snack, but goes no faster than it did before. The fat one, to his credit, has one eye on the raiders now. “God-fersakin’ gut-munching demons,” he curses, before spitting on the ground. Like hell he was gonna let them wear his skin and eat his eyes.
The bear and its maidens fair would continue to plow at a snail’s pace, but hey, at least the job was getting done. And the raiders looked to be keeping their distance once noticing the glittering obelisk of black ice that Neron had fashioned. In the meantime, the Warden admired his fellow ruler’s talons and watched her take apart the fallen tree with mild curiosity. Such things he had yet to encounter in his time on Caido... interesting.
“I like to try and encourage a fair trial,” he murmured, stepping up beside Wessex and conjuring some water beneath the logs so it would freeze, allowing them to slide the pieces off the road more accurately. “Murder, theft of supplies, abandonment in the Tundra... what do you imagine would warrant exile?” Rhetorical, perhaps, but it would be interesting to compare their ruling styles.
With the tree moved and the raiders flanking them - if not approaching directly - the rest of the trip across the Tundra, while long, was largely uneventful. Foreboding walls of stone and ice seemed to rise out of the horizon before them, and Neron slowed his pace. “I imagine a further marker might not be needed - hopefully it’s obvious, that they have arrived.” He motioned at the structure. “Welcome to the Citadel. I hope you enjoy your stay.”
The PQ to establish a road to the Citadel is complete! Hooray!
