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!
This was pretty much Libb's day thus far. Dancing up and down the coasts like a hare, plucking anything interesting hidden beneath the sands. Some had purpose. Some provoked curiosity. Some were flat out gross seriously, throw away your booze and.. miscellaneous items. However, trash to one was treasure to another, and the little scavenger had been devising crack schemes for days on how to make use on what she found.
However, Libbs was a slightly superstitious sort. Or rather, someone who liked to find excuses to do fun traditions. As such, in her bag she carried a very unusual but colorful rock she had found in her journey. She planned to throw it into the pool. And that was still on the game plan!
Until she saw a crowd form on the coast line. Rushing up, Libbs looked to see who had come, some she recognized! Loren Maybe he'll stand still long enough for her to get him the damn lighter this time. Deimos, Melita, actually, quite a few people she knew! Some she didn't. What were they looking at?
She approached more closely, joining the crowd at the stirring waters, curiosity perked. Man, what a good time to find that rock eh?
Torchline was so much more exciting than Halo had ever been. There was some kind of monster-thing appearing in the ocean and it didn't seem like it was going to eat her, which made Jiao far happier than anything in the snowy mountains had.
Settling to sit on the rocks, content to watch the L'ma by herself, Jiao occasionally glanced off to the various people gathered to see it. Always the same ones that came, she thought, when something happened...maybe those that had been trapped in the barrier just wanted to be involved in things now that they could be. As for herself, she had always had a curious nature; the thrashing of the waves combined with the low call had transfixed her for the time being.
Maybe it’s her Ascended ears that register the call, or maybe it’s the recognition of something else that’s undeniably lonely, but Wessex tries to resist the call for a bit. In the end it’s no use and she dons her cloak (Clem’s heart brooch now moved to it), slowly making her way down the beach and in to unfamiliar territory. There’s already quite the crowd - most of whom she knows. Huh. Guess Torchline was a lot more popular than she thought. Sidling up next to Weaver, Wessex offers a silent half-wave in greeting before narrowing her eyes at the thrashing in the pool. Huh. What the fuck is that?
This… isn’t normal. I don’t like it. The lonely call echoes in my bones, my joints, in the roots of my hair. I reach for Hoa and he comes to me, sending soothing pulses through our bond. He’s so level-headed. The slide of his scales has become a familiar comfort, and even though he’s almost too big for me to easily carry now, I lift him up and around my neck, his tail curling under my armpit and then back around my waist again. He’s like a firm belt. So off we go, following the call until it brings us to the Miana Pool - where all the splashing makes me immediately reconsider everything I’ve ever know about L’ma and wishes being granted.
Finding Eloise next to that guy from the bar, I shoot her a glance. “This can’t be good.”
He had heard sad calls before, and some of them had ended well.
Others… not so much.
In the end he could not avoid it, drawn to it as inexorably as any moth to its pyre. He trotted through the thick jungle underbrush, white fur dappled in shadow, until he reached the edge of the pool, the source of the call—
And quite the gathering already there. Flashes of memory – of snow behemoths and scaled sirens – gave him pause for a moment, but Isuma pressed comfortingly against his side, reminding him of the good that could come from such things. Besides, Adam had given him a little bit of a bump to keep helping where he could.
Still, with so many Attuned and mages gathered around, there might not be much he could do that others couldn’t do better. For the time being he stayed hidden with his companion, watching and listening with all his senses.
And sending pulses of comfort and soothing, wordless music through his beastmaster ability to the anguished creature in the pool.
The call rings out, trembling in his ears as it projects a sadness he can't fathom the depths of. There is nothing and nobody around him, no creature that could possibly make that noise. And yet he hears it nonetheless from seemingly miles away. Calling, luring, reaching out for help. In all of Harper's years he has never turned away from a hand in need, and today isn't the day to start.
By the time he arrives there is already a milling congregation, which he assumes means he's in the right spot. The waves thrash and the cries are louder here, and Harper's heart twists in his chest. "Poor thing," he says softly, more to himself than anybody around, the few familiar faces far from his side.
Get back, put your hands up kinda messed up, but it's tough luck
Just as with everyone else, the sad call pulls her ears, drawing her out of her sunbathing stupor. Hmmm. A familiar pull if nothing else, and she is just curious and self-interested enough to cut her time short to go explore whatever is making such mournful sounds. She's not so heartless as to be unaffected, but it doesn't show on her face by the time she arrives, giving a short nod to Deimos in case he looks her way.
Her curse from the last time hadn't bothered her too much, but hopefully she won't get into the same kind of trouble again today. As if she has ever managed to avoid trouble a day in her life.
mother, make me a big grey cloud
so I can rain on you all the things
that I can't say out loud
Hotaru has a passive magic that makes her glow with an internal golden light; it makes her appear youthful and her hair seems to look like moving sunlight. Can only subtly illuminate dark spaces.
It's her first visit to Torchline, so of course something must go wrong to drag her away from what explorations she would normally make upon entering the new realm. At the very least it is far better in temperature than Halo, which makes traveling towards the pull of a lonely song much more pleasant than last time. As with her first experience with these things, a group has gravitated towards whatever creature is making the sound. A few are familiar to her, and she gives a small wave of her fingers at Sam, but she stands away from the group and sadly watches the water.
She's not sure how much use she will be, what the creature even necessarily needs. But Evie can't just leave it alone to suffer.
Don't look up, just let them think There's no place else you'd rather be
Alina distrusted this latest region, Torchline. Then again, she’d distrusted the Hollowed Ground and Halo, and her objections had been overruled, despite good evidence that the outsiders just brought trouble.
So, while it made her skin crawl, she’d gone through the portal in the Mathair. She wanted to seek out whatever problems Torchline would no doubt dump on the Greatwood before they could show up. A bow was strapped to her back (carefully so it didn't impede her wings), a quiver was at her waist, and she held a wooden spear above her hands.
Almost immediately, she felt the call of something. Heading in the direction of the sound, she eyed the group of people gathered there. Spotting a fellow Fae, she headed towards the only other member of her kind she saw here. "What's going on?" Unlike Jiao, the huntress didn't sit. Instead, she held the spear pointed towards the pool.
Rance was still deciding on a new destination when he heard the strange beckoning. It tugged at his mind, at the raven inside of him, ruffling feathers that weren’t actually present. It was a sensation unlike any other in his experience and it made his skin crawl with the strangeness of it.
With Maea’s help, he’d begun to feel less like a baby bird fallen from its nest and more like a fledgling who had wandered off from its flock. He was still lost in a general sense, there was no doubt about that, but he’d finally started forming goals. He had begun writing in his journal again, scratching notes in small, precise letters about landmarks, creatures, plants, expanding his knowledge with each paragraph of observation. He had begun to find some kind of footing.
And then shit like that pull happened and through him off kilter all over again.
Growling with irritation when it became apparent he couldn’t resist the call, he stomped through what he recognized as a portal — and onto a sunlit beach crowded with people. For several heartbeats, he didn’t move, uncertainty stilling him. When it became apparent that everyone was focused on the creature(?)that had drawn them all there, he cursed under his breath and glanced around for cover. Moving to the tree line, he dropped his pack in the underbrush and promptly changed shape, flying up to the nearest branch. His own hesitancy added to his frustration, but it was necessary. Better not to dive into an armed crowd of strangers until he knew what the fuck was going on.
02-08-2020, 05:53 PM (This post was last modified: 02-08-2020, 05:53 PM by Oliver.)
OLIVER
Torchline was fantastic. Sure, tons of people here happened to be super angry and super aggressive...but it’s fine! There were too many other perks of this place that outweighed anything negative. So much so that Oliver continued to visit, even when this normally would’ve been a deterrent.
It was on one of those visits where he noticed a massive commotion. Making his way over, Oliver managed to see quite a lot of people he recognized. Many of them were familiar, a couple weren’t, and one or two were people he’d really rather not see. Meaning, he chose to try and duck his head aside, hiding from anyone that may....want to cause something. Instead, he tried to merge in with a bunch of strangers, hoping he’d be just an innocent bystander, waiting to see what was going to happen.
They arrive, and with it many choose to simply watch. Can’t they see the suffering? Can’t they see the way the L’ma shifts around the pool, wings useless and aimless when it surges again and again to try and reach the skies? It wants nothing more than to go home –
– But its home has been the bottom of the ocean for longer than it can remember, to the point where the time it had flown the skies in all its glory are just a memory. Or were they a dream?
It does not know what is real anymore, and as it spins among the Miana, eyes desperate and sorrowful, it looks to all those who have arrived to witness this sad story. Its eyes land on Sugar first, a trill of sorrow sent toward the dragon and Jyoti as the dragon arrives – but it’s anger deep beneath, of winged and flying creatures when its own wings have been taken from it.
Even Jigano’s efforts are met with further thrashing, further rage. A tempest of its anger at those that watch its suffering, that the L’ma eventually snaps out at Alina as she holds the spear pointed toward the pool.
The L’ma is angry at those that standby to watch it. It snaps out at Alina and sends a pulse of frustration to everyone surrounding the pool.
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If there’s anyone here who knows what it’s like to be stuck on the ground, it’s Hoa. Who here can’t see the sorrow in the creature’s eyes, see the uselessness of its wings? I’m sad for it, for even doubting its existence. Hoa sends me images and pulses of anger that seem to originate from the creature, then wanting to comfort, sliding down my body and towards the L’ma.
But I can’t let him go alone. As the only real Torcher here (sorry El and Saiden), I growl at the tiny flying midget that was threatening the L’ma, “Put that fuckin’ thing away.” You don’t get to come to my people’s pool and just threaten things like you own the damn place. Hoa is cautious, but has reached the pool by now, perhaps trying to show the bird that he, too, understands what it’s like to be unable to fly.
I step forward and squat down, emboldened by my companion’s empathy and desire to help. “How can we help you?” I ask, placing a hand on Hoa as if to say I’m with him, please don’t hurt me. I can feel him trying to radiate calm, but I don’t know if the L’ma can feel it.
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Hoa (snake companion) comes down from Raza and tries to empathize and comfort the L’ma as another land-bound creature. Raza tells Alina to put her spear away and asks the L’ma how they can help it.
02-08-2020, 11:02 PM (This post was last modified: 02-08-2020, 11:04 PM by Maea.)
MAEA
Maea kept her eyes on the churning waters, tried to see what it was that caused the ocean to heave like that. The cries tore at her heart, a desperate lament she somehow understood, because it was one she had come to feel herself lately. Longing to break free, to escape, to... take flight.
It was a bird, she realized. Or had been, once... something vast and beautiful, now half-drowned and waterbound. With only the legends to guide her, it took a while before she realized what it was, what it wanted, but once it reached her... she understood.
"It wants to fly," she said, speaking aloud to answer the question someone asked nearby. "It... can we help it? Give it wings, somehow?" She looked around, saw the huge crowd that had gathered. Somewhere, somehow, between all of these people... surely there had to be someone who could help it?
For her own part, all Maea could do was move the water. So she did. Stepping up to the frothing sea she let it wash up over her knees, drenching the pale skirts and reached out for the water, tried to solidify it beneath the L'ma and raise it high as she could, so it could get closer to that sky it so longed for. Hoping it might help. Knowing it would not be enough to grant its own, deep wish.
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Maea tries to raise the L'ma higher up towards the sky by lifting and condensing the water beneath it!
Lost in a world full of non-believers Searching for smoke in a still water pond
BASE INSPIRED BY ODD <3
♦ Violence, magic, thievery is permitted with Maea at all times. DM me if you have any ideas ♦
