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 water throws her well off balance, and she can’t even see the cutlass as it comes smashing into her side and stomach area. She goes stumbling backward, bent over her stomach and dripping wet, though her attack had worked and she’d at least managed to poke him with the knife before he’d kicked her ass.
Her attention on her stinging stomach, she notices the pain lessening, as if...healing? What? She stands up, dripping wet but in less pain, ready to fight again if he’s moving toward her but hoping that he’s stationary as well.
After a moment, Weaver takes a few more steps back, hands up slightly and to the sides, weapons hanging limply. ”Damn boy,” she says, out of breath, but grinning. ”You can fight.” Not everyone made it so hard, and she appreciated the challenge. ”Sorry about the cuts. Can I...can I try something?” she asks, wondering if she’s right. Is it possible?
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
As soon as Saiden felt Weaver's dagger puncture his side, he'd fallen back. Sheathing his cutlass, he pressed one hand to the wound, trying to stem the bleeding. Inspecting it, he determined it wasn't so bad, though he still hissed at the pain.
However, her comment caused him to glance over at her. "Guess we can both handle weapons." Unsurprisingly, there was something more than a bit suggestive about his words.
"No need to apologize. It happens sometimes." At her question, though he raised his eyebrows. "What, you going to nurse me back to health?" His tone indicated that he very much wouldn't mind that. "You can try whatever you want with me."
She looks up at his comment, grinning, momentarily distracted from her possible discovery and the blood seeping out of his side. She’d usually come up with something clever to shoot back, but she can’t manage clever right now when she’s busy wondering if she can heal. ”No,” she says, shaking her head. ”I’d be a terrible nurse. I’m the kind of nurse who tells you to suck it up and deal with it.”
It’s clear she’s distracted as she talks though, eyes trained on the stab wound. She reaches out, fingering the edges of the wound gently, and she realizes she can feel the split skin and veins in the same way she could feel fire flickering in a lantern. She begins to stitch, watching as the blood stops and the skin knits itself back together. It’s not the greatest work as she can’t quite heal it all the way, but can at least stem the flow of blood and remove the worst of it. He’s left with something pink and a little swollen, but far better than before.
”Does that feel okay?” she asks, looking up to him, hoping she hadn’t accidentally put something back together in the wrong way, though there had been little to mess with and nothing vital. At least not as far as she could tell. He was breathing, right? All good.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
Saiden grinned easily at Weaver's comment. "Maybe I like that kind of treatment." Unsurprisingly, his voice had become flirty and suggestive again.
As she laid her hand on him, his grin turned into a smirk. However, it faded slightly as his flesh knit together and the flow of blood slowed. Smiling more genuinely now, he reached up to capture her hand with both of his. "It feels great." Laughing, he reached out with his magic, pulling up a bit of water.
It washed the blood from both their skin, stinging in his cut. "In fact, I might insist you do it again." Still, he made no move to pull her closer. He simply raised a questioning eyebrow.
His response leaves her smirking, and there are some rather terrible comebacks that come to mind, none of which feel quite clever enough to actually utter. Too predictable. Too easy to simply confirm that he likes rough treatment. Let him work a little harder. ”You like tough, shitty nurses?” she says with a smirk instead.
She watches as he cleans the blood away. Her free hand trails up his chest, fingers light against his muscles, enjoying the feel of his tan skin. The cut across his chest knits together before her fingers even get there, this one easier to heal given it’s rather shallow and superficial nature. She sort of wishes he had more wounds; she wants to keep practicing, though she knows to keep going would tired her out quickly. It’s a new magic, after all. ”I’m wasting a lot of magic on a boy I barely know, it seems,” she teases, though she doesn’t pull away.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
Saiden grinned disarmingly. "Maybe." Smirking right back, he cocked his head to the side. "Or maybe I just like you." Voice cheerful, he arched an eyebrow at Weaver.
As her fingers traced his chest, his own reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Would you like to get to know me better?" Surprisingly, his tone came out more hopeful and curious than flirtatious.
Smiling a bit, he let his hand fall back to his side. "Because I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to get to know you better. And I'd be a fool not to recognize that you're competent, dangerous, and beautiful, which is quite the alluring combination." Still, his voice was inviting, but not at all insistent.
She arches an eyebrow right back at him. ”Do you like me, or just the way I look?” she counters. She is used to being liked for the way she looks, but enjoys being liked for more. Pretty girls were easy to find and easy to bed, but pretty girls like her were something else entirely.
He tucks a stray hair behind her ear, and she lets him, enjoying the gesture. His next question takes on a hopeful tone, something that feels more genuine to her. She doesn’t respond right away and he keeps talking, essentially answering the question she had already asked.
Her grin turns a bit more real, something pleased and interested. It was hard not to be mildly flattered at the words he chooses to describe her. ”And how do you recommend we get to know each other better?” she asks, not alluringly but genuinely.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
Still smiling as charmingly as he could manage, Saiden shrugged. "Why not both?" Again, despite the slightly flirtatious tone to his voice, there was also something admiring in the way he looked at her.
At her question he laughed, the sound lively and bright and inviting. Slipping his hands into his pockets he cocked his head to one side. "I think," the words came out slowly and carefully, "that you bested me. So you should get to choose how we get acquainted." Grinning, he stared into her eyes. "How does that sound to you?" His voice was almost friendly, and he found himself waiting patiently for her response.
”Both is fair,” she concedes, certainly not minding being liked for her looks. After all, she rather liked his looks as well, along with other things, and she wasn’t attempting to be a hypocrite. Probably, anyway. Mostly. Maybe she doesn’t mind being a little bit of one though.
His laugh is pleasant, alive and inviting and she finds herself smiling back. ”I would call it a draw,” she says with a slight cock of her head and a playful smile. He’d just been better about not accidentally stabbing her ribs. ”But I’d like to do something fun. Show me something good. Where’s your favorite place? What’s your favorite thing to do around here? Something like that.” Her choice, but also his, leaving some room for his to show off a little about himself.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
Smiling at Weaver's response to Saiden's compliment, he nodded. As she called their bout a draw, it blossomed into a full on grin. Then, though, he scratched the back of his head, part thoughtfully, part idly at her request that he take her to do something he enjoyed.
"Well alright then!" His voice was almost cheerfully enthusiastic, and he began to pick his way down the coast away from the lighthouse and towards the port. "While we walk, perhaps we can get to know each other a little bit better."
Glancing at her, he found his eyes drawn to the weapon on her back. "Why the scythe?" There was an open and honest curiosity in his voice.
She follows, enjoying his cheery response to her request. Weaver was always looking for adventure, in whatever form it took. Sometimes it was what you might think of as an adventure, but sometimes it was as simple as sitting beside a fire with a good drink in hand and getting to know someone else. Life was too short not to enjoy everything it offered, to grow too stuck in the routine of every day. Not that she didn’t have a routine, not that she didn’t spend most of her life just trying to feed her family, but yet, if she looks back, she did so much more than that. It wasn’t such a bleak life, really, but rather a life full of responsibility and fun.
”My mother,” she says, her smile nostalgic but happy, and it’s clear she doesn’t mind talking of her family or the scythe. ”She was always unorthodox, when it came to parenting. The kind of mother who got you drunk on purpose so you learned what it was like. She taught all her children to fight, encouraged us even. I learned first with swords and knives, but one day, this was sitting in my room.” It had been clearly made for her; the right height, the right weight. ”I have never been the strongest, but the scythe is so different it comes with an advantage of just being unusual. I think she just wanted to give me whatever advantage she could.”
She pauses for a moment, then asks her own question. ”Where are you from? Here?” There’s no malice behind the question, no prejudice if his answer is that he is an Outlander. She is just curious, as she is always curious, about where people are from, what worlds are out there, what life has been like in places other than Halo.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
"Well, she certainly seems to have taught you well, however unorthodox her methods might've been." Saiden's tone was admiring, though whether it was of Weaver or her mother (or both) was hard to tell. "I never got the chance to know my mother, sadly. She died in childbirth. Had some stepmoms though." He smiled a bit nostalgically as well, a match for her own expression.
Shaking his head at her question, he grinned. "Nope. I'm an Outlander, from a land called Northaven. Though I've been here in Torchline for close to two years, and I like to think I fit in nicely." Glancing at her, his grin gained a bit of an edge. "I know you're not from around here. So where are you from?" Still picking his way down the beach, the port was growing larger on the horizon.
”Stepmoms? Plural?” she asks, not judging, just curious if he’s willing to talk of it. She is always curious. Knowledge is a currency, it is power, but also, she just wants to know about him. Learning about others is important, and she finds that though she is often sleuthing for gossip that she is also just interested. ”I never knew my father, though I only had one stepfather. He was a good man. I was the weird bastard middle child. Not usually how that works,” she says with a laugh, but of course, if you knew Straia, you knew it wasn’t all that surprising.
”Two years almost makes you from here. Kind of. Though you look like you belong well enough,” she agrees, eyeing his tan and muscled skin. It was certainly not unattractive. ”Halo. Born, raised and stuck there until recently. I’ve been enjoying warm weather. It is very weird.” She’d never dreamed of walking outside through the surf in bare feet, of wearing t-shirts beneath the summer sun.
weaver
-- ask no questions, and you'll be told no lies --
Nodding at Weaver's question, Saiden grinned, though something about it was a bit bittersweet. "My da had four wives and six children." At that, his easy expression faltered and his eyes tightened with grief. "I'm the only one left." His eyes prickled with tears and he looked away sharply, not wanting to share this with a woman who he'd just met.
Looking back, he offered her a weak smile. "I'm the bastard middle child too." His voice wavered a bit, but the grief faded slightly.
"Aye, well, I was born and raised on the sea, and one ocean is much like another." Shrugging, he raised his eyebrow as she mentioned she was from Halo. "That's the frozen wasteland, yeah?" Despite the insulting words, his tone was actually just curious, no offense meant.
