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!
Carry me through this world alive I feel no more, this suffering
The sound of voices echoed through the building, reverberating and multiplying between stone walls in a chorus that made Maea think of prayers. It was a massive structure she had walked past a hundred times throughout her life and never paid any attention to. But in the year since her disappearance it had been reclaimed by human hands, refurbished and turned into a center for learning. Medical learning, to be precise.
She was thoroughly impressed, and quite intimidated as she followed the guidance of a helpful passerby towards the dean's office, scaling stairs unto the second floor. Unlike the Aetheneum with its dusty silence and sephulcral row of ancient tomes, this place was active. Teeming with life, striving with the simple objective of preserving and understanding life... Similar to her own guild, and so very different. But the building was of course not the real reason her stomach was turning over itself. There were two, very pointed reasons why she had postponed this for as long as she could.
One. She was here to sell her home. A farm she had grown up on, lived by, loved and thought to die on one day. Breaking that unspoken promise of keeping it running, to a family long dead, was painful and saddening and Maea wanted it over with as quickly as possible, before she could change her mind.
Two? Maea had kissed Sunjata.
The second reason she tried to bury as far deep in the back of her mind as memories could go, because the door she stopped to knock on belonged to his wife. To Phoebe. Someone she wanted to think of as a friend. Someone she had betrayed in the worst possible way.
Friends weren't supposed to kiss their friends husbands, after all. That he'd taken the ring off... in the end it meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Bury me in this cold light I feed the wolf, and shed my skin
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Phoebe’s life was a mess. A complete, utter mess filled with denial and irritation and nothingness all at once. But when she was at the College, making plans, studying, researching, it all fell away. There was order in chaos, things that did not make sense she knew would someday fall nicely into place. There was rhyme and reason and procedure and structure. For this reason, she spent countless hours at her guild, toiling away, avoiding the mess waiting at home as much as possible.
The knock on her door was unexpected but of no surprise. She was the Dean after all, people stopped by with a semblance of regularity. ”Come in.” she called, looking up from her notes when the door creaked open. ”Oh, hello, Maea. What brings you here?” she asked, trying to smile but failing. What once had been so common an expression seemed far too strenuous as of late.
Carry me through this world alive I feel no more, this suffering
"Hello Phoebe. It's good to see you." And it was. It really was, even though the sight of the young woman made her stomach do a summersault as Maea slipped into the room, closing the door behind her. There was not the surprised outcry of 'You're alive!?' that she had expected and received from so many others, and she was rather grateful for it. Perhaps her return had been noted and accepted now, so that she could leave the questions of how and where and why she'd disappeared behind her.
"How are you?" she asked, attempting a smile of her own. It came out pretty well, projecting some of the genuine fondness and warmth she felt, even if it was only a routine question. The polite thing to say. Phoebe could take the easy route or tell the truth, say exactly how everything was, and that would be fine too.
Looking over her younger friend, she thought Phoebe looked tired. Worn down, the smile weak and faltering, and there was something stormy behind the honey-brown eyes that she couldn't tell the cause of. But given all she knew - and she only knew a fraction of what Phoebe had gone through in the past year - it was hardly a surprise.
"I have an offer for you. Or, for the College, rather. Perhaps the Council?" Belatedly she recalled that Phoebe had been elected into that position. It made things perhaps a bit confusing. "Do you have time?"
Bury me in this cold light I feed the wolf, and shed my skin
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Frankly, Phoebe had been too busy and overwhelmed with tragedy after tragedy to notice too much when people came and went. It was all a blur at this point, and not seeing Maea in so long seemed just as likely to be her fault as it was the girl disappearing and reappearing in Halo. So she simply didn’t question it. Maea was here now, and that was what mattered.
”I am…” she hesitated, glancing away for a moment. She hated this question as of late. She wasn’t a good liar, and the truth wasn’t anything anyone really wanted to hear. ”I am alive.” she said at length with a sigh. It was as truthful as she could be without getting into unwanted details. She was alive. It was more than some people could say. ”How are you?”
That the young woman had a business proposition of some sort did surprise her, but she was quick to gesture to the spare chair for her to sit. ”Of course. What is this offer?” she asked curiously.
Carry me through this world alive I feel no more, this suffering
Alive? Well. Indeed, if only barely, were the hesitant tones anything to go by. Maea cocked her head at the blonde, eyes softening. "Is that a good thing?" she asked. "I'm fairly good, all things considered. Health is better than normal, which is a small miracle. Though I look forward to the end of this LongHeat, the constant sun is doing my skin no favors."
Sitting down, Maea arranged her skirts and adjusted the ever-present black shawl about her shoulders, choosing to leap straight into the explanation. Dragging things out would not make this topic hurt any less.
"I've realized I'm not able to run the entire business of my family farm by myself," she began. Emmett had been a farmer, and she knew he and Phoebe had been close, so perhaps Phoebe could relate to the effort required. The dedication that was needed. "The house has fallen into a state of disrepair that I can't fix on my own, and frankly I don't have the passion for it anymore. So I wanted to hear if there is any interest in taking over the land, from your part? For either the Council, or the College. Or yourself, for that matter."
Anything, as long as it was put to good use and no longer sat alone on the fringe of the Woodlands, to slowly decay.
Bury me in this cold light I feed the wolf, and shed my skin
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
”It is better than dead, or so I have heard.” Phoebe said with a slight shrug, unable to keep up the charade of happiness for long. But fortunately Maea spoke of herself, which gave her something different to focus on, something work related even. Quietly she stood and went over to a cabinet. She rummaged for a moment before pulling out two jars of cream. ”Here. Put this on if you know you will be out in the sun for a long time. It will help lessen the chance of a burn. And if you do get a burn this will help soothe it.” she said, again forcing a smile as she handed the jars over and sat.
But Maea’s offer was a surprise indeed and her eyes widened. A whole farm? For the College? Well…”It is something we could definitely make use of. I’ve been told our medicinal garden out back is far too small for our purposes.” she said, thinking back to Kai’s assessment of the small, orderly plot.”But…are you certain?”
Carry me through this world alive I feel no more, this suffering
"Oh, I don't know about that. Around here, it is said that Mort's embrace is the ultimate reward for enduring the trials of Rae," she countered, a little smile playing on her lips. "But the best way to please Mort is also to honor Vi, and the only way to do that is to live every second of life to the fullest extent of our abilites." Her father had said it often enough, pious man that he was, and Maea agreed with the idea. Death was the only certain thing; life was the adventure to be taken on the path there. Painful as it may be.
Following Phoebe's path from the desk to the cabinet and back, and accepted the jars with a surprised smile. "Thank you! That's very kind. I'll put it to good use." Two jars might seem a lot, but she needed more than most people. Her complexion meant no tan would ever darken her skin, so any bit of protection would go a long way, and save her much trouble indeed.
Returning to the business, Maea nodded firmly in response to the question. She was very sure of this. "It's just too big for me to handle alone, and I want to focus on my work for the Loreseekers. Simply renting it out doesn't feel good, I wouldn't be able to keep away... and I would much prefer to see it come to good use."
Bury me in this cold light I feed the wolf, and shed my skin
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Phoebe listened quietly as Maea prattled off about Mort and the gods, finding herself staring off into the distance. It was so simple, she realized, to say those things, when counting those in your life who had died in the last year took up almost more than both hands. ”If I’m being honest, I’m a bit tired of honoring Vi as of late.” she admitted quietly, barely more than a whisper. She had been shattered, over and over again in the last year, each blow worse than the one before. There had been no time to grieve or rebound, life simply crushing her again and again and again.
Some of the pieces had been ground to dust, forever lost it seemed.
But Maea was happy with the sun creams, and seemed intent to get rid of her farm. ”Well we can definitely make very good use of it. What is it you would like in exchange for it?” she asked, realizing it was likely a hefty sum the girl was looking for.
Carry me through this world alive I feel no more, this suffering
The thing was... she cared far too much about people. It had always been the reason why they hurt her so much. You didn't give people the power to destroy you unless you loved them, and far too often she had handed her trust and affection to the wrong people. If Maea had been able to set aside her genuine affection for Phoebe, maybe she wouldn't feel so awful about what happened with Sunjata. If she didn't care about him and his feelings, it would have been so much easier to pin the blame of it on him and be rid of the guilt, the same... But she did care. And Maea couldn't bring herself to feel anything but sympathy for this broken woman as she heard the reply, the lackluster tone, the implication that life was not the wonderful gift it should be at the moment.
Relating to that sentiment was only too easy.
"I know," she said quietly, hoping it came out as soothing as she wanted it to. "If you could stand some advice, I think you could use a break. Get away for a while. Take a friend and leave for the Greatwood, just... think of nothing but what's right in front of your eyes. It helps me sometimes." And other times nothing helped, and she could only guess at what this person needed right now.
As for what she wanted for the farm... Maea sighed, slumped down in the chair and rested her chin in the palm of a hand. "I honestly don't know," she admitted. "I haven't found another place to settle down in yet, so at the moment I don't need much. Some new clothes, tools for the trade... I traded what was left from the brewery to the VlamVloed for board, so at least there's that, but... Honestly, I don't know where I'm going yet. It's hard to know what to ask for when I've no clue what I will need."
Admitting this made her break the first rule of trade. Always know your asking price. But this was such a big change for her, and she trusted Phoebe enough not to take advantage of the information. "What could be offered?" she inquired instead, slipping the ball back to the other woman to see if she had any ideas.
In the end, this would benefit all of the Grounds. Phoebe could afford to be as generous as she wished. Or not at all.
Bury me in this cold light I feed the wolf, and shed my skin
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
Get away? To where? With who? She had no one. No where to go. No reason to either. It all seemed rather pointless to her. "Maybe." she said finally, deciding she lacked the energy to argue the point with her, or anyone really.
Fortunately, business was at hand. Doing some quick mental calculations, considering the size and likely state of the farm, she came up with a potential agreement. "I can't offer much upfront. But once the land begins producing, we can give you a portion of what is harvested. It will all be medicinal, so you can either use it or trade it to sustain yourself." she said.
Thankfully, that agreement sat well with Maea and the deal was finalized. It seemed there would be quite a bit of planting in Phoebe's future.
