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!
Arialla took a step back as the creature snapped at someone among the crowd, but then she heard a woman mention that it wanted to fly -- and step into the water herself. Arialla moved closer, trying to get a better look at what was going on. The water was behaving strangely ... Some kind of magic clearly at work, though Arialla wasn't sure whether it belonged to the creature or to the woman standing in the water.
"Maybe if we lift it out of the water, it'll have a better chance," Arialla said. She was a good swimmer herself, having grown up on the beach, and she quickly shed her sandals and began to wade out into the water. But the creature was too large and thrashing too violently for her to face alone. Stopping waist-deep in the water, she turned to the crowd. "Anyone else a strong swimmer? If someone can calm it down -- get it to stop thrashing -- we can help it out of the water."
----------
Arialla heads into the water, asking the crowd for help in calming the L'ma and then lifting it out of the water.
Another creature suffering, as was the plight with the rest of the world – frustration and anger webbing and warring through ripples in the pool, and Melita considered what she could do. Summon a god? Would Ludo or Safrin do anything to save it, raise it back into the skies, give back its wings? Had it done something to spurn them away?
She listened to those amongst the crowd, thought about lifting, lifting, lifting – the bracelet dangling along her ankle, a coveted prize from Naiads, coming, working together in tandem as her mind whirled. “I can walk on the water,” she offered, eyes drifting over to Fangorn, placing him down upon the beach, pondering if anyone else would be able to join, would be able to raise it to the skies – if Maea’s water tricks hadn’t already.
So she stepped out onto the surface, the gleaming veneer, delicate, light, and airy, a calm, composed presence, striving to maintain it as she wandered closer to the thrashing, irritated creature, wondering if this was all a mistake.
--
Melita steps out onto the pool to try to reach the L’ma and lift it out of the water.
The frustration from the creature was a palpable, tangible thing, ricocheting and resounding along his chest – flightless, no longer conformed to the skies. For a being who’d only recently understood the value of soaring beyond distances and depths, he understood how much it would hurt, rip, and tear to suddenly lose it altogether.
Maybe he could ease the pain, somewhat, if only for a few moments.
He might not have been able to create the capacity for true flight, but perhaps enough for it to glide, pretend, or feel the comfort of something manifesting as plumes and feathers along its sides. Between his palms he constructed a pliable frame, meant to bob and float across the water, a circular fixture along the bottom, something the beast would be able to slide its body in and out of. Adjoining the structure were wings, a flimsier material, etched and sketched as if they were real feathers and plumes. It likely wouldn’t signify what the animal once had – not enough, not enough, not enough, but perhaps it would be better than naught at all.
While Deimos worked, Zuriel, a being of forests and fronds, sent out soothing calls, striving to impart her wisdom, her strength, her solidity as a presence of calm fortitude; assuaging tones echoing, bounding across the ripples and pool.
When he finished, the General shifted to his eagle form, snatching the frame and its wings within his talons, and flew over the L’ma’s figure, dropping it nearby. He couldn’t talk to it, but maybe it would comprehend the measures of the adornments.
--
Deimos creates a frame with wings – with a circular fixture at the bottom for the L’ma to slide through. He then flies over as an eagle to drop it beside the creature. Zuriel tries to calm it down.
under the bludgeonings of chance my head is bloody, but unbowed
02-09-2020, 03:55 AM (This post was last modified: 02-09-2020, 04:12 AM by Rance.
Edit Reason: (Whoops, forgot the L'ma has no wings)
)
Rance squawked as the wave of primal frustration and anger hit him, almost a physical thing. What the fuck? He took wing, startled and clumsy for a moment before he steadied. Making a quick decision, he lifted properly into the air, fighting the sea breezes to fly the thrashing beast in the water and get a better view. He opened his beak for a second cry, his own anger beginning to simmer. What was this creature to demand things? Was it one of the gods or something else? His stomach dropped and his beak snapped shut as he realized what he was looking at.
A bird, massive and agitated, obviously wither unable to swim or too heavy with water to make it. It’s wingless body almost made Rance shiver, someting about the site of it just seeming wrong. He saw people begin to move toward it, saw a few move to use magic, heard the calls of lift it out and knew there would be more to it than that. He saw a man change into an eagle and instinctively swerved away from the larger avian, but instead of flying back to the tree line, he dove down, changing back to human form just above the water and splashing down not far from some of the others who had left the shore. He might not entirely know what’s going on, but if he wasn’t going to be allowed to leave anyway….
”Its feathers are fuckin’ waterlogged,” Rance shouted about the noise the bird was making. ”Just liftin’ it out of the water isn’t going to be enough if its too damn heavy to move.” Wasn’t there anyone else there who’d been a bird long enough to know what it felt like to be drenched to the bone? He looked around at the others, already stepping a bit further in, hands up and wary of approaching too close to where he could accidentally be hit with the massive thrashing body, beak, and talons. ”Need to get it upright and to shore, maybe it can preen the water out!”
—————
Rance advises that they need to help get the L’ma to shore, not just out of the water, and moves closer to assist if its successfully calmed.
they say it's all been done
but they haven't seen the best of me
Glancing up as a familiar silhouette swooped down towards him, Ronin allowed himself a small smile. Sugar - naturally - was drawn off into the air with Jyoti, leaving the hunter with a rather fetching otter-scarf. "It cannot fly," he said gently to Amalia. "I've heard legend of it..." But then a disturbance from both the water and his companion had him stepping forward. Whistling sharply for Sugar, Ronin called the dragon back from where he could feel her fear and guilt at angering the creature.
Once she was safely out of the way - and, seeing those who were so eager to try and help - he ran to approach the pool as well. "I'm going in," he said - a brief warning to Amalia.
Deimos's idea was ingenious, truthfully, and he nodded at the bigger man before vaulting into the pool as well, intent on lifting the L'ma along with the others. It was a shame his husband wasn't there, he thought distantly - a manticore would probably make short work of it.
Ronin calls Sugar back so as not to anger the L'ma further. He hops into the pool with the others to lift the creature as well.
Tell me little dear if you've only lived here,
have you ever really lived at all?
Sam took a step back as the L'ma got closer, unsure of what to do when faced with such sorrow from the large, ancient creature; unfamiliar with the tale he did not know how to help, did not know what it needed...and it seemed like there were already plenty of people jumping into the water.
But...surely, if the creature couldn't help itself, as big and ancient as it was, all the people running in couldn't either? The thing Sam felt more than anything from the L'ma was shame and anger at being watched in it's moment of pain - and well, he could understand that.
Rather than rushing in as well to try and help, not wanting to add to the chaos, he slowly raised his hands to cover his eyes, wanting to make it clear he was not going to watch the L'ma in it's shameful moments if it did not want the attention.
--
Sam covers his eyes so he isn't watching the L'ma in it's moment of distress.
Jiao hopped off the rock as the L'ma came closer and began to thrash about, attempt to hurt those wanting to attack it - in it's panic, it seemed likely it might hurt more people on the beach. Flying up to avoid the waves it was sending out, she thought she might be able to calm it; not by raising it but by tricking it.
Concentrating, she tried to use her Glamour to hover clouds over the surface of the water, wispy and soft like those on a Longheat's day. Hopefully, the L'ma might see them and be comforted with thoughts of the sky above, she thought.
--
In an attempt to calm the L'ma to defend those it might harm, Jiao uses her Glamour magic to try and create clouds around it, so it thinks it's in the sky.
Amalia nods at Ronin's decision, maintaining her position on the Dark Star's shoulders. Truthfully she feels they are all being incredibly chaotic, swarming the poor creature in its time of distress, but at least they are trying to help.
Jyoti continues to swim around the creature, singing soothingly and empathetically to the other creature. Like the L'ma she has lost access to a greater sky; she tries to send images of stars and cosmos to the beast, to bond with it over their loss of the heavens. It hurts Amalia deep in her core, to know what sadness her companion holds. As Ronin dives into the water Amalia lets go, her body undulating smoothly through the water as she goes to join the little whale.
Reaching out to the L'ma with her mind, the girl offers her own sympathy and strength. We have made you wings she tells it softly, extending her voice to any other Attuned and sending a pulse of affection to Deimos. Shall we help you put them on?
Jyoti continues to sing to the L'ma. Now in the water near it, Otteralia uses her Beastmaster ability to ask if it would like them to put the wings on it.
Of course attention and the way everyone gathers around only further distresses the creature, and Harper's heart twists painfully. Everyone tries to move at once, and everything is chaos, nobody really trying to work together. But Harper doesn't have magic, no way to calm the creature by talking in its language, no way to create a sling or wings to help it. He's just a regular man, useless and helpless.
Instead he walks into the water with the others. Ready to help the creature into the metal frame another had created, or help get the others out of the way if it begins thrashing. If its despair becomes threatening enough, hopefully he can grab onto whoever is closest and throw them closer to shore. As he wades in he hums softly under his breath, trying to appear unthreatening and to lull it with sound and music.
Harper wades into the water to help lift the L'ma while humming softly, is prepared to help grab others in the water if it becomes dangerous.
Get back, put your hands up kinda messed up, but it's tough luck
Her magic is useless here, too predisposed towards violence and offense than helping creatures from watery depths. As similarly helpless people mill about and move into the water, Hotaru stays on the beach, sharp eyes casting around the rocks and sand. The frame of wings Deimos has created will not allow the creature to lift fully, they'll have to get it to shore. Hotaru wades in just to her knees, feeling useless and uncomfortable as the creature thrashes in the depths.
She folds her legs beneath her to kneel in the shallows, holding her arms out underwater towards the creature in hopes the others will help lift it, that she can grab on and help pull it to shore. "Come to shore," she says to it, for lack of anything else to do to help it. To let it feel the breeze, to dry out, to hopefully be lifted enough with all of them working at it to get some form of flight for the creature.
Hotaru comes into the shallows at the front to wait for the L'ma to be lifted so she can help pull it forward onto the shore, speaks softly to it.
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.
02-09-2020, 08:19 PM (This post was last modified: 02-09-2020, 08:20 PM by Evie.)
EVIE
Mournful cries turn to thrashing and objection, and Evie can't help but stare where the wings on the creature are missing. Her earth magic is useless here, not until they get it to shore, so she wades in with the others. Hoping to try and put a gentle hand on the L'ma if it will still, her healing magic unfurling to try and ease any pain the creature may be suffering. Do the stumps still ache with phantom pains? Still burn from removal?
She isn't much use here, others far more helpful, but at least she can try to stop the L'ma from hurting. Even if she doesn't have the mystical powers of removing the pain from its heart.
- - -
Evie goes into the water and tries to use her healing magic on the L'ma in case it is hurting from its removed wings.
Don't look up, just let them think There's no place else you'd rather be
Saiden glanced at Eloise when she showed up. Grinning at her, he ambled over. She seemed overly familiar with a man who seemed only vaguely familiar to the cook, so he gave the stranger a once over. Then the Hali grinned easily and turned to the navigator. ”They're not always bad, either." Of course, Raza came to back up Eloise, and Saiden shrugged at the Hanged Man's proprietress.
As Raza headed towards the pool with Hoa, the cook followed her, knowing Jack would be pissed if anything happened to the woman. As others with water magic started trying to lift the L'ma from the pool, Saiden added his own magic to the efforts. He also tried to use his air magic to try and ruffle its feathers in order to give it the feeling that it was in the sky.
Saiden tries to lift the L'ma with water magic. He also tries to create a little breeze with air magic to ruffle its feathers.
02-09-2020, 08:40 PM (This post was last modified: 02-09-2020, 09:05 PM by Loren.)
LOREN
Eloise sidled up, and Loren glanced at her. ”If the clothes are a problem for you, I can take care of that, no problem.” His voice was wickedly teasing. Then Sam showed up, and the healer shrugged. ”No idea.”
Eloise’s concern caused him to glance at her sharply. ”What stories?” He peered at the pool, wondering if he should try to get people to evacuate. That concern redoubled as Raza came up.
However, he knew he could never get people to leave. Besides, if the local wanted to help, Loren would assist her in her efforts. He let go of Astra, who joined the rest of the companions in trying to soothe the scared bird in the pool. Loren took a deep breath, centering his magic. That done, he reached out with his magic.
He decided not to duplicate Maea's efforts to try and propel the giant bird up towards the sky. Instead, he did what he could to pull the water away from it and part the surface of the pool, attempting to get rid of the water containing it as best he could. Simultaneously, he sent a bolt of healing magic towards it.
Loren tries to pull away the water above the L’ma He also heals it from a distance.
look at how a single candle can both
defy and define the darkness
my whole life is mine, but whoever says so will deprive me,
for it is infinite.
As Maea came up, Amun shrugged. "No idea. Looks like a giant bird fell in the water and is trying to get out." Nate and Melita came to stand by the potter as well, and he shot them both grins.
Then people started getting into the water or close to the water. Amun was pretty sure that was a terrible idea, and would likely just result in someone getting hurt. Maea was doing something with her magic, the potter figured. However, they probably wouldn't be able to help the bird at all, and they definitely wouldn't be able to help it if it kept struggling.
So he lifted his hand and primed his flashbang. However, he made no move to fire it just yet, just watched. If it got violent, however, he would stun it.
Amun readies a flashbang to fire at the L'ma in case it gets violent.
