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 tempest of LongNight didn’t quite burn against her any longer, but it didn’t mean she rested on her laurels. A skip in her step, a bounding of weapons at her back, and the youth maneuvered through street after street, route after route, until she’d reached outskirts and carried, continued on. Undaunted and unafraid, as if caught by the wiles of nature time and time again, she paraded and flew, skipped and ran, leapt and flourished beneath the wake of the morning sun and the shape of the clouds, the restless energy surging through her blood. Fangorn did his ample best to keep up, long hours of trailing and tracing after her had allowed him to grow in fortitude and strength too. He just lacked the sufficient legs to actually do much more successfully.
Once they reached the woodland though, Melita was instantly distracted by more of the memory mud, floating and wandering along the surface. Not bothered by the potential of some other disaster leering and peeking its way through the brush or bristling nettles, the youth crouched down and poked at the muck again, giggling only a little when it seemed to grow squeamish and attempt to move out of her way. She cupped her palms around a smaller one, and maneuvered it into a ball, and shifted her hands upwards, forcing it to bounce up and down on her whims.
11-28-2019, 10:02 AM (This post was last modified: 11-28-2019, 10:03 AM by Harper.)
For all his experience with magical beings, metahumans, and shapeshifters, Harper is still inexperienced when it comes to magic existing in the general universe. Which means this new mud problem is quite vexing to him. It's adorable in a way, as adorable as partially-sentient beings seem to be to most humans. But it's also well. Mud. Which means it's annoying just by existing. The stubbornness of it only adds to his frustration with it. It clings to everything.
So why is he out in the woods where the mud is arguably worse? Well, that's a good question. He's not entirely sure himself. It's probably the trees, admittedly. The buildings in the Sanctuary are falling apart, and those that are still intact are too far apart to let him really fly. The trees are the closest he can get to the sky, and his treesurfing has improved steadily with how often he finds himself out here now. It has the added benefit of keeping his feet free of the stubborn mud below.
Though he is soon distracted by someone who has found a far better use of the squirmy material, bouncing it in her hands as he settles on a branch to watch her curiously for a moment. The extrovert in him immediately has him flipping forward and off the branch, landing easily and practically skipping her way with an eager grin. "It's like squirmy snow, huh?" An idea begins to take mischievous root in his mind and he bends to pluck his own handful of mud off the ground, making a twisted childish face at the sensation. Lifting his blue eyes to the girl, he bounces it the same way she does, but his smile is decidedly devilish. "Say, care for a game?"
She hadn’t noticed the man in the branch, and ordinarily she might have been frustrated, irritated, annoyed by her senses not catching another; but she was deterred and distracted. The mud bounced and bounded in her hand, the more force she applied, the greater the arch, and she could’ve continued escalating into further tactics were it not for the stranger. Fangorn instantly growled and hissed the moment the individual hit the ground, and the girl remained where she was, crouched amongst the ether and earth, wondering if she should be readying her weapons. The blob of muck in her hands stilled too, as if waiting for something inevitable, fortuitous, ominous, or something otherwise.
He was cheery, face and features blending into some childlike, then devilish demeanor; an attribute she could relate to. Slightly guarded, silent, motionless, she watched as he bent down to pick up one of the maneuvering portions of loam and silt, brows furrowing for a moment in speculation.
But then there were semblances of a game, and her own features suddenly warped into Cheshire grins and defiant, subversive tendencies, an upheaval in the making. “Sure.” The girl rose, wild and untamed, savage and feral within an instant, instincts of worse days rising to the brink of her flesh, her skin and bone, gilded eyes segmented on him. “What did you have in mind?”
There's a gourd looking creature that hisses and growls, and Harper looks on with blatant delight at it. Oliver and Phoebe had told him of companions and monsters equally, though he assumes this is one of the former if the lass isn't bothered by its presence. He gives a jaunty wave at it, bouncing the mud in one palm to allow for the motion, before turning his mischief and focus upon the redhead company he keeps.
Silt and slime cling to his hands like an affectionate creature, but he pulls it into two and begins to juggle them. He's rusty, but it's like riding a bike, and any circus kid worth his salt wouldn't be caught dead forgetting how to do something like juggle.
Something akin to his own mischievous fire must lay within the coals of her own soul, because they rise to meet his prompting. With a grin like madness and mayhem wrapped into expression, Harper doesn't deign to answer her question. Instead, mid-juggle, he throws one of the mudballs at his newly crowned competitor. The other gripped solidly as it lands in his free palm. However it lands, he crows a short laugh. "Gimme your best shot!" No time or care for rules and regulations. Only pure, spontaneous fun.
Fangorn was only mildly disappointed when Harper didn’t flinch at his antics; his recent successes in coaxing Oliver’s fear had made him hopeful of repeated performances – alas, not to be. Melita snorted at the vampire gourd, to which the enigmatic, eerie grin was turned her way, bounding back to beside her ankles while the stranger’s mischief paralleled her own. Her eyes watched as he juggled the mud, following the practiced movements and motions, the way he didn’t seem to think about it at all; natural and inherent, the way she was with a staff, with a bow. She might have asked him about the volley of skill, had mayhem not spring immediately after.
The mudball flew directly into her shoulder; not hurting, not painful, not a lamentable, anguishing experience (and she’d asked for it, after all), but a raw chuckle still escaped her throat at the splotch of muck and mire staining over her shirt. His laughter instigated, provoked, and roused, one hand grasping hold of her own mudball tightly, before instantly rising to his challenge. She wasn’t wholly inexperienced in the notion of throwing; she’d often hurled rocks, stones, or whatever she could get her palms upon in the Rift when assaulting and sieging upon monsters who’d otherwise rip them apart. It just wasn’t as practiced, as precise, as the rest of her munition skills: arm flung back anyway, before rotating and extending it forward, releasing the ball of silt and loam towards him.
The little jack-o'-lantern menace bounces back towards the fiery child, and Harper is absolutely enamored. He's just so cool looking. Like every childhood Halloween fantasy come to life. Except he's unfortunately not nearly as cool as mud dodgeball so the show must go on.
The connection of his muddy projectile against her shoulder - the wet, sucking sound, the spray of watery grossness into the air - makes him cackle like a manic child in a man's body. Revenge is swift, and Harper ducks the throw she aims his way, only for the mud beneath his feet to shift as he balances, sending him right on his ass into the muck with a squawk of surprise. Sentient earth is the nemesis of a sure-footed flyer. At least it means he's closer to the mud, and he grabs a fistful and flings it wide as he gets to his knees, eyes bright with mirth at his own downfall.
Fangorn decided to assist, in his own, small, infinitesimal way. While the youth laughed and clambered along in the wild display of mud volleying, the little gourd grabbed hold of some of the muck in his fangs, tracing over brush and grass, hoping it provided him with some cover, with some camouflage, before attempting to angle his way towards the stranger. Without arms or hands, his range would undoubtedly be amongst the pathetic, but being bonded to Melita meant always striving, always trying, even when it seemed unlikely at best. So he ducked down, closer and closer, then strived to place the blob on the man’s nearest foot, before hastening off in the other direction – cackling gleefully.
For Melita’s part, she only had a moment to be somewhat nonplussed about her miss (she’d been training in accuracy and precision for gods’ sakes). The way he fell afterwards left her in a zeal of humor, doubled over in peals of ethereal laughter, no longer light but something ebullient and ridiculous, tears streaming down her face at the notion of this fool sinking right into the mud. Even as he flung it, she didn’t truly bother to move, too hung up on the display, and it pelted into her right knee, a squishing sound against the fabric of her dress. Indifferent and uncaring towards his aim, not even bothering to wipe it away, wearing it like a badge of honor, much like the matching accord on her shoulder, on her lean, she grabbed hold of another portion of slimy silt. Finally managing to curl up to full height, grounding her weight into the expanse, on another roughened contortion of laughter, she hurled and harpooned, intending to get him while he was down.
Harper is halfway up off his ass - coated in a thick, clinging sludge of slime and silt - when the little pumpkin-puppy comes toddling along with mud coated on external limb...things. At first distracted by joining the fire child in her tear-inducing laughter, the man scarcely realizes the creature is coming towards him. When he does Harper's heart melts into goo, holding still - even as out of the corner of his eye he sees his competitor compose herself enough to wind up a following shot - to let the mischievous creature dump mud on his shoe. Nearly whimpers his 'awww' right before he gets plowed in the face with mud.
That's what he gets for loving pets, as his mentor would say.
With a shriek of choked laughter he springs to his feet, wiping at the mud and using what falls from his manically grinning features to hold in his hand as ammunition. And then he runs - sprinting straight for her on light feet, intending to lunge forward and press the mud at her face and hair in sweet revenge.
Faithful Fangorn, an absolute delight even in the darkest of times, loosened a hissing cackle from his grumbling existence before tumbling back towards Melita – proud of his efforts. She took the opportunity to scratch him on the head for a job well done, a distraction while their combatant was layered with muck and filth. Beautiful, really, a rendition of magnificent opuses and canvases.
She didn’t try to stifle her laughter there either, wiping away the tears collecting in her eyes, her chuckles ringing in pure, ridiculous, asinine bliss; barely even seeing him rise from the fallen void. Fangorn’s shrieks were the only warning he received, and likely too little too late; she darted on a gasp, shirking the stranger’s mighty touch to the right, but her hair not so lucky. Splattered and coated in the mire, she was entirely indifferent to its saddened, soused mess, since it was usually caked in something worse (blood, sometimes paint), It oozed and coiled amongst the crimson curls, and she didn’t care, rising from the challenge, streaking away, away, away, striving to get better access to another maneuvering blob, grabbing hold of it in her hands and then tossing it over her shoulder – not much aim on the grandeur of laughter again.
Damn it Harper has always wanted a pet, and as he watches Fangorn go tumbling away with a hissing sort of laugh, he can't help but want to make grabby hands at the creature. Fangorn isn't a dog but he's a perfect companion - he's even environmentally friendly! Which makes it worth falling right on his ass into the mud and getting smacked right in the face with more of it.
But as they say, there's nowhere else to go but up! Harper chases after the laughing vixen and her cackling companion, managing to smear mud on the ends of her hair in a frustratingly, delightfully close attack. His long legs keep him close behind her, though the extra height makes it incredibly difficult to avoid the mud she slings overe her shoulder. Nearly knocks his forehead into her butt as he ducks, and moves with the motion to try and tackle her from behind into the swampy material beneath their feet. Laughter already spilling in big booming waves, adrenaline high and happy.
A chase; rapacious, ravenous means, and if she were in the Rift she would have gasped and scraped and clawed her way through the underbrush, any measures of escape, any opportunity to evade. She would have hurled rocks, branches, and then kept moving – as it was now was more nymph quandaries, lightly skimming over the muddy surface and sodden loam, laughing, laughing, laughing, high-pitched, bright, full of ebullience rather than disaster. Fangorn was quick to pick up on the notions too, rolling and bounding, intending to assist in whatever way he could.
While the vampire gourd went for the stranger’s ankles, maybe to grab the hem of his pants, maybe to gnaw on a shoe, Melita’s maneuvers became wild and unpredictable – no more straight lines, but fleeting, quick, swift, wild insurgencies towards the left, towards the right, attempting to surge through the grime, the muck, and the mire. She could feel his grip, his grasp, closing in, and in a last ditch effort, so she wasn’t pulled down, so she wasn’t flailing along the muddy vestiges (even though already haphazardly soaked and stained), she darted off to the side, hoping to avoid him completely, so he could go down on his own.
The chase is impeded by their raucous laughter, sounding like wild animals crashing through the underbrush to the tune of their howling amusement. His lungs quiver with mirth even as he gasps for air, grasps for her. She slips his fingers, Fangorn tripping at his ankles and making him stumble, lurching to correct the motion automatically while trying not to smash the adorable little terror into pumpkin pie.
Like a wild hare she rabbits to the side, and though he slides magnificently in the mud he doesn't fall again - small mercies - and instead turns to try and swoop Fangorn into his arms. Failing that, to hold mud over the little grinning gourd, and calls out through his laughter to Melita. "Surrender or your buddy gets it!" Don't misgender the bitey vegetable after all. She's fast and slippery, and he's not above playing dirty.
Missed and near-captures punctured the scene, the laughter buoyant, light, and ridiculous; only altering in her steadfast movements and motions when Fangorn was incapable of keeping up, suddenly victim to Harper’s muddy ministrations. She whipped around, her eyes glinting, suddenly a wild, fierce, feral thing, not to be trifled with, not for her beloved companion to be threatened. The girl was aware it was all a game, all amusement and diversions, but it was one she intended to win, to conquer, to unravel. The malevolent edges to her smirk might have been entirely savage and nefarious, wicked and disastrous, making fast, swift motion to her wrist, as if drawing back a bow – for it to materialize from her bracelet, adorned along her arms in one traced contortion to the air. “I never surrender,” she remarked, the cheekiest of grins maligning her edges, her boundaries, her fringes, mire-coated and ember-laden, reaching into her quiver for a fire-scorched arrow, notching, aiming. On a frenetic movement, Fangorn intended to make his escape and evasion, not that he would’ve cared much about the mud, already speckled and traced in its filaments. Then the girl, Cheshire and unrelenting, maneuvered her gaze straight back to the stranger. “But perhaps you should.”
Her devilish grin and the solemn vow that she announces across their mud-strewn little battlefield reminds him of a ghost of his past, a flame-haired woman he'd loved and loved and lost nonetheless. It makes him stutter, hesitate, grief dragging hard against the vessels of his heart. Denying him the time to evade or seek shelter from the flame she conjured, all the more parallel to his former beloved even if the color of the flames are wrong. His smile cracks, even as he lifts his hands in surrender, aware he doesn't have any of his gear to defend against such an attack.
Fangorn goes toddling away, distracting him from the ache in his breast, and he laughs - softer than previously, perhaps a tad strained - as he capitulates. "You've got me pinned, my lady. I surrender." Grinning he stands fully once more, stretching languidly, hands reaching for a sky he wishes he could reach. Distracting himself from old memories. "I'd say I still win though, that was a blast!"
