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!
When she'd first heard people were making lanterns for their dead she had immediately assumed it was not for her, something for people prone to sentimental bursts of creativity, something she'd never associated herself with. Yet after she'd heard the idea she'd found she couldn't put it down.
Maybe it was talking to Loren about her father, maybe it was the period of great change they were living in...something made her mind kept returning to the idea of making something to honour his memory. It had been years now and she knew the strain in her chest every time she heard a mention of him would not ever entirely disappear, but maybe doing something to help it could ease the pain just a little.
In Snowcloak there were a few small market stalls where she could buy the base to paint on. She chose something simple, a metal frame with thick paper sides. For a while she stared at it, unsure of what to paint or draw...not that she had any confidence that whatever she tried would even look right. Eventually, deciding the best way to honour her father was with the land he loved, she bent down to pick up a little snow and held it against the paper, letting it soak in and stain it with the melting water.
Stood in the corner of the markets, holding snow to her lantern, she probably looked quite odd; for the moment she was entirely wrapped up in her task.
For being a Halovian native, Weaver actually isn’t in the market all that much. Her brother Korbin handles most of the trading, given that he’s generally better at it and she’s usually busy trying to keep them fed. Lately though, that has changed. Trying to start a bar actually turns out to be a lot of work, and she’s spent a substantial amount of time in the market working with the vendors here to get the things she needed. On the plus side, even if she isn’t here that often, everyone knows the Hale siblings and their story. Not that it’s an unusual one, but the Hales have been subject to the kindness of Halovians for so much of their largely parentless life that it’s not hard to convince the vendors to front her the stuff with the promise of free booze, lodging, and food once it’s all done.
She’d just finished talking to a local glassblower to get some unusual drinkware (Weaver loves her unusual things) when she spots the woman in the corner of the market working on a lantern. Halo is small and she knows the face, though she has never actually met Neron’s new(ish) Captain. Weaver stops at another stall, tossing over some jerky in exchange for a simple lantern base and some paint. She’d made all but one of her lanterns, and suddenly, this seems like a good time to make the last.
Weaver makes her way through the market toward the other woman. Her scythe is strapped to her back, it’s curved blade sweeping above her head. Knives line her waist, though only a glimpse of them can be seen beneath her black cloak. She doesn’t actually need the cloak anymore, but finds she wears it anyway out of habit and perhaps to keep curious onlookers from staring. Not that they didn’t all know what she was, but still, sometimes it was easier not to flaunt it.
”Care for some company?” she asks, holding up her undecorated lantern and the paint, which she is willing to share, as if in question.
The snow held up to the material that made the lantern actually seemed to be making some interesting patterns, ones that Morgan thought might look suitably decorative when a light was placed inside. She was so absorbed in studying the marks she'd made that the sudden voice made her jump; it was rare she could be caught unawares and she felt rather embarrassed as she looked across to Weaver.
"...I cannot stop you from standing here, you are free to be where you like in the market." She said factually, looking back to her lantern...then Morgan sighed, knowing how she had to sound. "Sorry. Yes, you can. Who...are you making a lantern for?" Conversation did not come naturally to her, especially not pleasant chit chat or socialising with strangers, but she had made herself commit to get better at it, so she had to practice.
Weaver chuckles slightly at the woman’s response. She can’t quite help herself, but it’s a good natured sort of sound. Before she has a chance to respond though, the woman continues, turning the answer into something a little less factual and a little more personal. ”My father,” she says, finding a small ledge to put the lantern and the paint on so she can begin to decorate. ”Well, stepfather, technically, not that it much matters. He raised me.” She shrugs slightly, the difference between stepfather and father meaningless to a girl who never knew her real father. He was a story to her and little more, and she did not mourn not knowing him.
”You?” she asks, nodding to the lantern with it’s snow-soaked patterns. Clever. Weaver opens some of the paint and dips a brush in, beginning to make swirls on the lantern. She’s never quite sure what to make for her Accepted father, who simply hunted and provided for them, who trained them and loved them. His lantern was always the plainest of the three. ”I’m Weaver,” she adds after a moment. ”Help yourself to paint, if you want some.”
It seemed they were both mourning their fathers; had Weaver not given this answer Morgan might not have felt compelled to share her own grief but with the connection between them it felt somehow safer. Adjusting her lantern in her hands to look at it, she said: "I mourn my father as well."
Nodding and taking some paint, watering it down to an almost entirely translucent state, Morgan began to add faint splashes of colour into the snow-stained lantern surface. "I am Captain Morgan Aristomache. Ah..." She looked over to Weaver. There was an obvious question, one that usually would be far too personal to ask a stranger, but in these circumstances... "How did your father pass?"
Weaver nods as Morgan says she is mourning her own father as well. It is not uncommon in Halo to find that the younger generation had lost at least one, if not two, parents. It was a hard place to live to a ripe old age, after all. Those that did were lucky as hell. Weaver simply nods, understanding in the gesture. There is no need for an empty sorry, simply the camaraderie of shared sorrow.
Weaver watches for a moment as Morgan decorates, finding the effect pretty. She turns her attention back to her own lantern, continuing with the paint and no real plan. His lantern never really fit him, because nothing really fit him. ”Disease,” she says, not minding the personal question. It doesn’t bother her to talk about lost family, to remember them. At least it kept them alive in some small way. ”It was an ugly thing, though I was young enough maybe my memory has made it worse.” Disease, blizzard, ursur. In the end, something in Halo took them all.
Morgan's lantern began to take on vague spreading shapes of faint colour, some of them looking almost like mountains, which made her smile: her and her father had always shared their admiration for the nature surrounding Halo, the place where she had gone to grow...where she had been when he died.
Was it worse to lose someone to something like a disease, slowly and painfully watching them go, or having it in one quick snap, like it had been for her? She had never even seen the body. Both were terrible for their own reasons, she supposed.
"I'm sorry. My father was killed by a thief. It...was sudden." A small pale dot of red in the middle of her lantern, to account for the violent end. "He was the Captain before me."
She has experienced both versions of death. John was the first to go. Slowly, painfully. They watched him turn into a shell of himself, watched him wither away as they cleaned up the vomit and the blood. Her mother was the next; she’d gone out to hunt and never came back. Simple as that. Her brother was a similar story, except she’d been with him that day, and she’d nearly died as well. If they’d been farther from town when it happened, she would have bleed out on the snow as Erebor did. It was only luck that kept her alive. She’d give the gods credit, but if anything, Mort had simply decided he didn’t want anything to do with her yet.
”I suspect he would be proud to know you took over his role,” she says, meaning it, even if she does not know them. She’s never heard anything bad about the Captain. Unlike most of the cabinet, Morgan was at least a natural. Not an outlander, not a Launceleyn. Not that those were necessarily bad things to be, but still, it is nice to know they are protected by someone who actually understands this land. ”Though I am sorry he was not around for you longer. This land has a habit of taking its residents far too young.”
Morgan held her lantern out before her to look it over, but brought it closer when she saw the eyes of passers-by on it, not liking the thought of them seeing the object meant for her father's memory. It was one of the few sentimental things she still held dear, memories of wooden sword fights and long late night talks as she grew into a teenager where her father had laid out the land before her and explained how each detail worked.
"He was here long enough to teach me what he needed to." She concluded, gently turning her lantern in the light to see how it changed. "I hope if I ever have children they are open to hear my own lessons, though I have less to teach." Morgan knew plenty about battlefield tactics and history but she lacked her fathers ability to take that knowledge and craft it into stories, lessons.
Setting the lantern down to dry she looked over to Weaver. "What do you do in the Citadel? I have not seen you in the streets before." She usually had a good memory for the faces that were every day sights. "Ah. Are you a hunter?"
Weaver’s hand stills in her painting, finding that the lantern seems reasonably well decorated. It is a simple thing, but still pretty, and fitting enough for a father who never shone brighter than those around him. He may not have been her biological father, but she could not forget him during Leafchange. He taught her to hunt, to fight, and treated her no differently than he treated either of her brothers, both of whom were his.
Putting the brush down for a moment, Weaver turns her attention to Morgan as she speaks. ”Perhaps you have less to teach, but you look young enough. I would imagine that will change, given time.” Though some part of her wonders if they ever feel as capable as they remember their parents being. She always felt too young, too naive, too foolish. Even as she grew and these things became less true, her memory of her parents was a shiny, spotless thing, washed smooth and shining against the tide of time. They always knew what she did not.
Weaver nods at the guess, noting how Morgan can actually put such things together, as most Halovians Naturals could. ”I am. My father and older brother taught me how, and I joined them even before when I did not need to. My younger brother, Korbin, does most of our trading. His face is likely more familiar to you than mine.” Weaver spends little time in the streets of the Citadel, at least until recently. ”Though I have been working on opening a bar, so perhaps I will actually be around more.” She nods in its general direction. Not a lot happened in Halo, so rumor of the Kraai had spread quickly, though not everyone knew of it yet.
Weaver put her brush down and Morgan looked over her own lantern, wondering if anything else needed to be done to it. Maybe later she could add something from her father's armour, a lot of which was still in the guard barracks in the back of a cupboard - her one secret, her one flaw in the efficiently organised and kept rooms. No one had ever said anything of it. For the moment she put her own lantern down too, letting it dry.
"Mmm. I will be as old as my father was when he died in five years. I do not feel anywhere near as wise yet." Maybe he hadn't either. It struck her that he might have just been trying his best too, feeling just as lost as herself.
She did know a Korbin, as she knew most of the traders in the markets. "Opening a bar? Quite a different venture. Tell me...while you've been out hunting, have you seen anyone..strange? Threatening, perhaps?"
”Either he died very young, or you look young. Or I am a terrible judge of age.” All those options seemed entirely possible, but she’s not necessarily pressing for a specific age unless Morgan feels like giving one. ”Though perhaps you are right. I always recall my parents as knowing everything, as seeming so sure, and yet I wonder if they were just doing their best. Maybe they felt as uncertain as I do.” John’s sure hands on a weapon, her mother’s constantly calm and collected demeanor. Yet if she thinks about it, doesn’t she mimic that now? Just because she doesn’t feel it doesn’t mean she doesn’t act like it.
”A bit of a stabler venture, I admit. But I have always lamented the terrible booze in Halo, and then opportunity fell into my lap. It cannot hurt to try, I hope.” She chuckles slightly, because it probably could hurt to try. Already the bar has put a strain on her relationship with Korbin, but she still hoped her brother would soften to the idea of change eventually. ”Honestly, the strangest thing is the number of people in the Tundra anymore. Coming and going from the portal, I assume. It makes it that much harder to actually hunt any game and it has become a bit harder to decide who is a threat to Halo and who just happens to be a large hulking person,” she admits, one hand reaching up to fidget with the end of her braid. ”Why do you ask, if I may?”
"My father died shortly after his 40th birthday." Morgan confirmed; far too young for a man of his strength and wisdom. He'd often felt much older, weathered by the battles he had faced and mature beyond his years, but truthfully he had had so much more life to live. If she thought about it too long she would get caught up in how unfair it all was, so she instead moved to focus on Weaver's next words. "You can still be proud they did their best. I...have seen many parents in our streets do less."
While she was not a frequent drinker, Morgan snorted - she knew well that the alcohol in Halo had often been poor. "Then I shall visit when you have the bar established. Do not make your establishment too attractive, though; I may never get my guards back to work." The joke came with a small smile and a huff of laughter.
"Ah. Yes, there have been a lot of visitors. Have any given you trouble..?" Her mind immediately went to the Ascended she knew had come to Halo, but Morgan was not so blinded by that that she didn't believe there could be a threat of any kind out in the Tundra. "I ask because there has been a worry about the...denizens of Whitebrim and their particular appetites. We fear they may soon attack hunters: I recommend you stay away, if you can."
Weaver listens as Morgan tells her of her father. Forty. Not a long life at all, and Weaver’s own parents had been granted less time. There was something unfair about it, certainly, though Weaver has grown used to the unfairness of this life they lead. Maea had certainly been too young, and yet she was gone. Erebor had been too young. Most of them were though. Living to a ripe old age wasn’t something that happened too often here. ”It seems it’s not just our streets where parents do less,” she says, recalling many of the conversations she had had with those outside of Halo. ”I consider myself lucky to have had such good parents at all, even if our time was short.”
Weaver laughs at the next comment though, amused at the humor Morgan offers. She seems to be warming up, if only a little. ”Ah, then perhaps just don’t tell them it exists. Good booze, roaring fire, dim lights. I admit, it is the sort of place designed to keep you around.” She gives Morgan a little wink, but then adds, ”I will be sure to water down their drinks, at least.”
”Not particularly,” she says with a nod toward the scythe on her back. ”Though I’m pretty sure just the look of that thing keeps people away. I probably never actually needed to learn to use it for it to serve a purpose,” she says with a slight chuckle. Though she is not a large woman, between the scythe on her back, the knives of her waist, and the general ‘don’t-fuck-with-me’ look that Weaver has mastered, she’s not usually bothered too much. ”I steer clear of Whitebrim on a good day, usually. Though...I mean, I know you have plenty of soldiers, but if you ever need help dealing with them, I’d be willing.” Which she means. It is a foolish thing to offer, probably, and Korbin would be pissed at her. But if she can help Halo, then why wouldn’t she? It is her home, and she serves it in her own way.
