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!
Her bones hurt, something parting and drawing in her soul, scraping over the foundations of her movements. Not a leap, not a bound, not a scattering of movement or motions, of exhilaration or glee in her steps, more plodding, more precise, more labored. Her staff was a walking stick, her motives asinine, simple, her breath coated in sorrow, her eyes scattering over the haunted woods, waiting for other ghosts to drift by, to grab her ankles, to send her back to hell. Fangorn maneuvered faster than her today, and together they seemed to billow and wander, stopping every so often to grab ahold of a well-formed stick, a fallen, smaller branch, a bough with its thorns and nettles to sting and grasp and tear. The reddish hues reminded her of old blood, like rusted pinnacles, like the splattering of everyone’s wounds and lacerations across Fiat Lux’s celebrations. By the time she’d finished along the boundary lines, she’d gathered enough wooden portions, reeds, and long grass to start on her basket.
For another celebration. For another potential for disaster; as if they never learned at all.
Phoebe had just come from the shrine, placing offerings to Ludo and lighting candles for her nephews, Remi, Ronin, and Aoife. The notice about her upcoming wedding had been posted, and she figured it was high time she got to planning it, but she simply lacked the motivation for it. She didn't want it. Not really. An attempt to call a bluff had gotten horribly out of hand, and now she was stuck, if only be sheer stubbornness, marrying someone who hated her. Perhaps this was her punishment for failing to stop the mud monster in time; for being so weak that her nephews and friends had paid the price.
But instead she sat, carefully weaving long reeds and grasses together with nimble fingers, occassionally tucking a small flower into the pattern for looks more than function. Pim was the first to notice someone approaching, lifting his head. Phoebe looked as well, following his line of sight, seeing Melita not far off. "Hello, Melita." she called, a forced smile on her lips, one that did not meet her eyes nor shine with the radiance for which the midwife was known. "You must be healing up well if you've gotten all the way out here."
Fangorn was a worrier, a fretter, a bit of a hoverer, winding his way along her ankles when she finally settled down on a rotted log, her pile of reeds, sticks, moss, and other assortments postured around her: a distraction, if nothing else. Last year she’d sat along the Mathair’s roots with Amalia, joking about demons in the forest, wild queens meant to be ferocious and unwinding, unfurling things – better times before the fall of so many other events. Her hands went towards the firmer branches and brambles, picking off bits and pieces, ensuring they were smooth, wouldn’t snag or get caught amongst one another, a billowing sigh flowing through her chest for lack of anything else to do or say.
Except a voice caught at her ears, her head rising along the familiar sound. “Oh, hello Phoebe.” Gentler in tone, tired, fatigued, uncertain of how to press or where to go – cagey and restless because it was second nature, because the world twisted, fell apart at the seams, and then expected them to go on and on and on. “I’m okay.” Better than most – she wasn’t dead, she wasn’t shattered. “How are you?” Her hand went to pat space along the log beside her, an invitation to join.
Phoebe gathered her things as Melita patted the spot on the log, standing to follow her. Pim rose as well, the dragonling lumbering alongside his companion, silvery pink eyes focused on the vampire gourd. He half-yawned, half-roared a greeting to the animated pumpkin, before plopping back down at Phoebe's feet as she sat on the log. His head lifted and rested on her lap, which was where the midwife ended up setting her weaving.
"I'm..." she started softly, her gaze distant, But she faltered, pausing, unsure what to say. Miserable? Dead inside? Grieving? There were no really good words for her to say. She wasn't okay or fine or anything people would want to hear, and she lacked the energy to lie, which she couldn't do convincingly even on a good day. "I'm....alive." she said at length, a sigh parting her lips as she carefully wove some honeysuckle into the weft of her basket. "Do you need any medication for any pain or sleep? I can make you some if you do." she offered.
Fangorn hissed and growled to Pim in return, nesting his way between Melita’s ankles, like a faithful, stalwart guard, He might not have been as large, or as ferocious, but the little gourd believed himself just as mighty, settling in amongst ferns and growth, eager and ready to defend if necessary.
Melita’s attention was half on Phoebe, and the other portions attending to the beginnings of her basket, starting at the bottom, shuffling and weaving sticks and reeds together, forming a base, large enough to encompass future gifts. Alive sounded like such a distant, all-encompassing thing, when there were so many other parameters and preludes to begin within: but maybe the midwife didn’t want to touch upon those notions just as much as Melita avoided. Alive, when others weren’t. Alive, when others were wounded and mauled. Alive, when maybe they shouldn’t have been – luck and fortune playing out on their avenues when it hadn’t for so many individuals and citizens. Her fingers shook at the notion, and she clenched them into fists for a moment – nearly wishing for better days when they lingered in the labyrinth and swung at wolves. At the offer of medication, for pain, for sleep, the youth considered. “That’d be nice. I’ve been all right though.” Maybe she should save it for those less fortunate, incapable of being mended or soothed right away.
Phoebe simply nodded to the honeybee girl, not remotely concerned about her stock. She near neurotically prepared remedies as of late. Her store of healing teas and tonics and tinctures and pastes had never been so full. "I will make sure to deliver you a month's worth. But if you need any more or anything else you just let me know." she said softly, lips twitching as if she might've smiled, but she didn't.
A moment of silence passed, the midwife focusing on the flowery basket she was shaping with her fingers. But finally, at length, she asked quietly, "Melita...how did you learn how to fight?"
The kindness and benevolence in this world, when it wasn’t being harpooned or lanced by disaster, was always profound. She’d tried to extend it back as much as she could, but wouldn’t have known where to go in the face of all these tempestuous airs. “Okay, thank you.” A nod, a beckoning of acceptance to mitigate pain and torment – except some couldn’t be, and she wanted to say she was sorry about the triplets, about everything else Phoebe and so many had simply lost in the stretches of time and space where they should’ve been delighted.
But instead, the topic diverted entirely, and the shape of her eyes widened briefly, staring down at the fronds of her basket sticking straight up, not yet plaited into formation, and then riveting them to Phoebe. “By necessity, at first.” True fighting statures hadn’t been composed until here; her tenacity, obstinance, and ravenous nature had seen to her defiance and survival. “Sometimes with sticks, or rocks. Anything I could put my hands on.” Anything to keep the monsters, the predators, the demons away. “I just wanted to protect my family.” And even then, it hadn’t really mattered – her mother sacrificing herself for her daughters, Clementine snatched and gone, Zekle disappeared, everything gone, gone, gone. “When I came here, there were several who helped me train.” Alistair, Wessex, and Roana – taught her to ground herself, to become poised and something more than a restless, wild spirit. Now she was just an unrelenting individual, except uncertain of where to put her fighting fists, clenched teeth, and explosive howls. Then, a soft sigh, on edges of basket weaving, on intervals unsaid. "Do you want to learn?"
Phoebe said nothing at first, focusing on the flowers she carefully wove into her basket. Did she want to learn how to fight? No. Not really. But when had what she wanted ever truly mattered in this world? All she had ever wanted had crumbled and been left to rot beneath the earth over and over again. Want wasn't a factor anymore. "No. But I need to." she said softly, at great length, eyes still cast upon the basket she wove.
"It is partially my fault you know, what happened at Fiat Lux." she said, voice dead and distant, almost separate from the person most would recognize as Phoebe. "I went to go help fight it. Even after Frey came to help I...I was useless. I couldn't even hardly hit it." she said quietly, confessions falling from her lips like a waterfall - unstoppable. "I was just a burden. And because of it so many people were hurt. So many died...my own nephews..." Her voice broke, unbidden tears rising in her eyes as she hesitated. Only a moment, but long enough to collect herself.
"I don't want my own weakness to be the reason people die every again." she said after a time, voice barely a whisper but filled with quiet resolve.
The need, the necessity – Melita could understand that too. Sometimes it was a quiet, building thing, and it didn’t prod into reality until something else came along with it (and in this case – death, massive casualties); too little, too late. A part of her wanted to weave the notion that even those still so strong, so forbidding, so capable hadn’t been able to conquer things like false gods, had sacrificed themselves, had fallen apart at the seams just like everyone else. All that remained were the cast-offs, the young, the weak, or the swift; and they’d clambered together to make something of themselves. It was why she never ceased fighting: the fear the moment she stopped, someone else would pay the price.
Phoebe had been there too then, like Sunjata, trying to stave off the monster – mattering little in the end, when everything came crashing down upon them – and the words but at least you tried were on her lips, until the other girl mentioned her nephews. Gone, just like that – in a snap, in a flash, drummed down into oblivion. Instead, while her hands wove, trancelike in the plaitwork, gone into inherent, instinctual measures as her mind traced the self-scorn, the self-loathing, voice quieting in the hushed threads. “I lost my sister like that too. I tried, but I wasn’t enough.” I’m so sorry might’ve left her mouth too, but it felt useless and meek in the onslaught. Everything else she could understand: resolve and determination filling in the gaps, in a nod, on a sigh. “Where do you want to start?”
01-20-2020, 08:29 PM (This post was last modified: 01-20-2020, 08:30 PM by Phoebe.)
in a world where you can do anything: love
the honeysuckle princess
The midwife dared glance over at the honeybee girl. "It is the worst sort of grief, isn't it." she said softly, not a question, but a statement. Phoebe didn't need to ask to know it was true. For those you cared for to perish because you failed was a grief unlike any other. Her eyes fell again then to the basket in her hand, curling the edge to complete it and keep her work from unravelling.
"I...I don't know. I wouldn't even know where to start." she said quietly. She had absolutely zero combat knowledge. It was the sort of thing she had actively avoided. Where did one begin to fight with more pointed effort than hacking and slashing on instinct alone?
Of all the things to be wise about, it shouldn’t have been death.
But there they were, just the same. Her eyes still downcast, a subtle nod while her hands worked and weaved, the form coming together, tightening fronds so none bulged or loosened in the process of meandering and puttering over more. It hurt. It would always hurt. Time would lessen some portions of the wounds, but not the grazing, blistering, malicious thoughts of not enough or if only I had been stronger. There was no way to turn back the hours, the seasons, or the years, to strive to undo the damage. So they lived with it, let it sink into their shoulders, let it drown out their lungs.
Where to start – in truth, there were likely too many avenues and routes to explore. The girl sighed, tracing over the nettles, the thorns, the rasps of wood. “It depends on how you want to grow, or what you want to do. I like the bow and staff.” Archery for long-distance, for trying to maul and unleash before the adversary could even reach one’s side. The staff in case they did (and then harnessing, unfurling that power and precision).
Phoebe set her basket to the side, hands moving to rest atop Pim's head. Distractedly she ran her fingers over his scales and horns. Melita liked the bow and staff. What would Phoebe like? How did she want to grow and what did she want to do? There were too many questions with too many answers she didn't have. She wasn't particularly strong, but she was quick and flexible. What did that amount to combat-wise? What avenue should she take? As the questions whirled in her mind she began to feel overwhelmed once more by her own inadequacy. She couldn't even answer a question about where to start, how on earth was she ever going to go stronger?
Maybe she couldn't.
Her hands began to tremble slightly, feeling her mind begin to go down dark and winding paths she'd rather not take but didn't have the strength to fight. "I...I don't know." she finally managed, a mutter of defeat as she gazed at the grass.
Perhaps the question was too much now, amidst the still unsettled moments, the sparse instances where anyone had time to collect themselves before the next damned upheaval. No time to breathe, no time to seethe, no time to choke down on all the ashes; maneuvering onward into the forefront of some other damnation. She used to believe the Rift was the cruelest of all: but maybe it was Caido, with its glimmers of hope, compassion, and tenderness, and then everything else crumbling, fumbling, and dying around it. Like pretenses, like specious, furtive glances, too headlong into the notions, the thoughts, of minimal triumph, before one felt it wrap around them like a noose.
She continued with her basket, knotting off some ends, some bits and pieces, before her eyes floated to Fangorn, nested in the leaves, and to Phoebe’s trembling hands. So she reached with hers, the half-finished adornments in her lap, lending support when and where she could. It probably wasn’t enough. Nothing ever was. “When you’re ready then,” no push, no shove, just a gentle whisper and palms to hold if she wished to take them.
The touch was a surprise, but not an unwelcome one. Phoebe glanced first at the hand over hers, then over to Melita. A small smile curved her lips, not quite reaching her eyes but genuine nonetheless. She appreciated the gesture, and though perhaps she and Melita were not particularly close, she considered her a good friend. "Thanks, Melita." she said softly, hardly more than a whisper. She wasn't sure when she would be ready, but it would have to be soon. She was far behind the curve if she wanted to be of any use the next time a mud monster attacked.
