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!
02-12-2020, 02:33 AM (This post was last modified: 02-12-2020, 02:44 AM by Loren.)
LOREN
Sighing, Loren pinched the bridge of his nose. Then he looked at Delphia again, eyes still dull and unamused. "I mean, can you give me a specific instance of something you found funny and something you found clever?" Voice still a monotone, he tilted his head to one side.
Shrugging, he took the next two rocks and examined the symbols on them. "Probably. I'd be shocked if they didn't. They're oh so knowledgeable." There was something dark and bitter in his voice as he spoke of the twins, enough so that the healer had to shake his head to clear it.
Grasping the fire rock with his telekinesis, he held it out at the maximum distance, his brow furrowed in concentration. A phoenix appeared, and grasped the stone with its talons. It pulled them into its body, bathing it in flames. Keeping that and the compulsion up at the same time taxed his mental limits, but somehow he managed.
Finally, he dismissed the firebird, letting the stone drop. Rushing forward, he caught it carefully with his telekinesis, then placed it in the snow to cool. Next up, he placed the lightning stone on the ground. Backing up, he took a deep breath.
On the exhale, a dragon appeared. Still breathing out, his creature did as well. When it did, lightning blasted out from it, striking the stone. Glancing over at the daughter of Mort, the Launceleyn raised his eyebrows, dismissing the dragon as he did.
Her head tilted slightly, a bit confused despite understanding the question. "It is not about something specific. It is about your essence and soul." she said, shaking her head a bit. But, he had asked, so she would try to come up with an answer. "When we first met, you were very clever. You made me think deeply on things I thought were unquestionable." she said, as a point of something more specific.
Her head tilted again, hearing the sarcastic edge in his tone as he spoke of her god-cousins. "They are. But they are not all knowing. Neither can fly as far as I know." she said, the corners of her eyes crinkling with the hint of a smile. Her eyes then turned to the phoenix that suddenly appeared to burn the stone, shortly followed by a dragon of all things, shocking a stone with lightning. She broke into a grin, and looked at him then. "That was clever too. And quite brilliant."
Loren frowned slightly at Delphia's explanation. "But if you can't come up with specific examples, how can you possibly say that I am clever or funny?" However, he shook his head slightly, recognizing the folly of continuing this conversation.
"Well, they seem fairly convinced that they know best." It came out slightly too tartly, and he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "If you say so." Opening his eyes, he selected the rock with the water symbol on it (he assumed). Laying it on the ground, he created water to bath it in, completely surrounding it and leaving it there for a while before he dismissed his magic.
Delphia shrugged. "Because I still feel it to be true." she said. That to her was all that was needed. This wasn't an instance of fact or not, but a judgement of her own perception.
She hummed and nodded. "They spend a great deal of time immersed in scientific discovery and research, and they are very young." Delphia said, a hint of a smile on her lips. She watched quietly as he submerged the rock with the water symbol, placing it with the others once he had completed his work. "All that is left is a rock from deep underground." she said.
Sighing, Loren shook his head slightly. "Yes, well, that makes one of us." His tone was slightly bitter, and more than a little guilty.
When she asked for the final stone, he bit his lip, considering. Finally, he knelt down. Pushing the snow aside with his magic and his hands, he finally exposed a large patch of dirt.
As he did, the goose that he'd given the air stone finally returned. It seemed tired, which wasn't surprising under the circumstances. It dropped the rock at Delphia's feet, and he laid a hand on it to heal it.
Then he released it, and called upon another set of animals. While he waited for them to show up, he shifted into a honey badger. His claws weren't great at digging into the frozen dirt, but he made decent progress. Eventually, he was joined by five ferrets or weasels (he was never sure which). They joined in his efforts, and soon a small hole was forming.
She smiled a little and nodded, knowing well that Loren doubted himself, especially in this time of grief. She didn't know who in his life had died, but they had clearly been important. And so she let the topic drop, instead watching him work at getting the stones.
"Thank you, Goose." she said as she took the stone, patting its head gently. But as soon as it flew away, a whole cadre of weasels came running in. She watched curiously as they dug into the ground. Though it was slow going, given how frozen the ground was. "Would it be a bit easier if you thawed the ground with somr fire?" she suggested.
Glancing up at Delphia's suggestion, Loren nodded, then remembered he was still shifted so the motion no doubt looked more than a bit odd. Turning back into a human, he ordered his weasels to back away from the patch of earth they'd cleared.
Then he summoned a phoenix on it. It scratched at the ground with talons of flame, making far more progress than he and his weasels had. However, he could feel his energy draining more rapidly than he liked. It didn't help when he had to call upon his water magic to shoo away the liquid that came from the melting ice before it could interfere with his phoenix's work.
02-29-2020, 06:13 PM (This post was last modified: 02-29-2020, 06:13 PM by Delphia.)
DELPHIA
It might look odd, seeing a badger (or whatever small creature he was) nod at her, but she smiled nonetheless. What else could he do, after all, since she was not attuned and therefore could not share his telepathic bond. But as he summoned the phoenix and bid his weasel friends to stand clear, she could see the exhaustion from all this exertion. The slight hunch in his shoulder, the beads of sweat on his forehead - all indicative of his tiredness and all for the sake of her quest for a Cat Sith.
Quietly, she looked through her back, trying to find something she thought might help. It took a moment or two, for she was not necessarily the most organized person, but eventually she withdrew a small packet of beeswax covered cloth. "Here, eat a few of these tiropita. They'll get your strength back up." she said, opening the cloth to reveal small, triangular shaped pastries, filled with a tangy cheese and parsley mixture.
Loren was burning through his magic dangerously quickly. However, given he was also burning through the ground, he figured it was a small price to pay. As Delphia offered him food, he sighed, and waved a hand to dismiss the phoenix. "Thank you."
Taking one of the pastries, he bit into it gingerly. As he did, his eyes widened. "This is good," he exclaimed, mouth still full, then flushed slightly with embarrassment. Making sure to chew and swallow properly, he ordered the weasels to begin digging in the now loosened ground. When he finished his snack, he gave the daughter of Mort a grateful nod before shifting back into a honey badger to join them.
Delphia smiled, glad to see some sort of reaction out of him at long last. Good food had a way of doing that to people though. "I am glad you enjoy them. They are my mother's recipe." she said, folding up the empty cloth and placing it back into her bag. Everything she cooked had some connection to her mother, one of the few very tangible things she had taken from her mother's heritage and incorporated into her own life. And she would remember that Loren seemed to appreciate this sort of food, that it could bring him some emotion separate from his grief when need be.
The digging was certainly hard work in the frozen ground of Halo, but with it warmed from the phoenix and the many paws diligently clawing at it, it seemed that slowly but surely progress was being made. The demigoddess knelt down as well, pulling piles of dirt away from the hole to make it easier on Loren and his cadre of weasels.
Loren nodded in understanding at Delphia's words. "My compliments to both you and her." Though he couldn't exactly bring himself to smile, and his voice still was dull with grief, his expression did soften slightly around the edges.
With everyone working, they were making decent progress with the hole. However, he had no idea exactly how deep the rock had to come from the earth. So he kept digging, his claws breaking the ground and moving the dirt aside so that she and his weasels could move it out of the way. It was tiring work, but he kept at it, even as the slopes of the hole grew steeper and the hole grew deeper and deeper.
Delphia simply smiled at the compliment, nodding in acknowledgement. She didn't think the ones she made were nearly as good as those her mother had made, but she was glad they had brought him some small happiness.
The day wore on, and as dusk began to settle over the cold landscape, the hole was finally at such a depth that Delphia could neither see nor reach the very bottom of it, even with how long her arms were. "Do you think that is deep enough to be considered deep within the earth?" she asked, wondering herself how far they needed to go, and if there was a stone to be had within.
At the bottom of the hole, Loren shifted back to human. His arms and face and indeed his entire body was streaked with dirt. Keeping the tips of his fingers and his nails as claws, he continued to dig. As he did, he glanced up at Delphia. "I have no idea." Looking down again, he crouched, eyes scanning the dirt for an actual stone.
Biting his lip, he rolled a kink out of his neck, directing the weasels to continue carting dirt out of the hole. Even their nimble paws and bodies were having trouble with that at this point. "Did you father give you any indication how deep the hole needed to be?"
"No, he simply said from deep within the earth." she said, tilting her head to the side as she considered it. This was meant to capture a Cat Sith after all, and so she imagined one sitting at Loren's feet. Though their shadows could stretch far and wide, even she wasn't certain that one could actually jump up from the hole they had made with any sort of ease. "From the perspective of a cat, I should think this would indeed be very deep within the earth. Is there any stone at the bottom to be taken?" she asked.
