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!
04-07-2020, 11:27 PM (This post was last modified: 05-15-2020, 06:21 PM by Loren.)
The white sheep of the family
Loren had left Delphia's gathering without much of an idea what he wanted to do for his trick or his treat. On the way back to the Palace, he'd stopped in the market in Snowcloak. After wandering the stalls for a while, he'd finally picked up a few items that looked intriguing: a bucket with a lid, some rope, and some really garish looking paint that he'd been surprised to find. Astra had seemed particularly excited by the change in his usual routine.
Taking all that back with him, he made his way towards the kitchens. His luxere companion settled at his feet as he stared at the cupboards. Still not sure which option he'd go with, he found himself almost aimlessly pulling out some backing supplies: vinegar, milk, honey, flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and some dark tea. Staring at it for a while, he finally poured some vinegar in a cup, filled the rest with milk, then stirred it for a bit and set it aside.
That done, he moved on to the rest of the ingredients. Grabbing a bowl, he added flour, the baking powder, and salt. He was so focused on his work that he wasn't particularly paying attention to his surroundings.
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
She’d had a similar idea as Loren, heading back from Delphia’s gathering to stop at the market in Snowcloak. Normally she liked to head to Mavis’ stall, but she didn’t think the old woman would have the sort of treat she needed for an event like this. So instead she made her way to a vendor with various wooden carvings, eventually selecting a small board with pegs and holes. It was a game; a fun little toy that even an adult could enjoy when they had nothing better to do. It was the sort of thing you played over a drink when the blizzard outside kept you from leaving your house.
As she is strolling through the market, heading toward home, she catches sight of the man she’d thought had been Loren at the gathering. The figures turns in the direction of the Palace, which seems like confirmation enough, unless it was Neron in hiding. That option seemed unlikely though. Weaver nearly lets the figure go. For a moment, she does, and when she changes her mind the figure is already gone.
Still, she knows how to get to the Palace, and so she makes her way there, asking a guard where she might find Loren. Interestingly enough, she is directed to the kitchens. Weaver gets lost only once trying to actually find the kitchens, but when she arrives, Loren is...baking? It certainly looks like he is baking. ”You really do never cease to surprise me,” she says, cutting through the silence. Her arms are crossed in front of her, her black cloak still on, and the scythe on her back. She’s leaning against the doorway, pretending it is entirely normal that she’s followed him here, even if it’s probably mildly creepy. ”What are you making?”
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
As Weaver entered the kitchen, Loren glanced up from his work. Giving her a faint smile, it was clear that he was unbothered and unsurprised by her presence here; as the most visible member of Neron's cabinet in a lot of ways, he was used to people seeking him out.
He took some butter at added it to the mixture. "I tend to surprise people, it's true. Hopefully in a good way this time." He mixed the butter in with a clearly practiced hand, though he glanced up as she asked what he was making. "Just some scones."
Fingers kneading the dough that was still coming together, he gave her a curious look. "Did you need something?" Though he wasn't shocked to see her, he was mildly curious.
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
”It is often in a good way,” she says, finding that he is so much more than she expects him to be. Perhaps her expectations are unfair or perhaps not, but still, she finds herself adjusting her view of him regularly. He was so full of secrets and surprises both. .
He asks whu she has come, and in truth, she has no good reason. She’s not here to find a member of the council, after all. Honestly she still hasn’t quite figured out their purpose or what they even do. Halo had been perfectly fine without them, after all. ”Clearly I needed a scone,” she says, voice teasing, but also buying herself a few more seconds to answer. Though she would not say no to a scone.
”Was that you I saw, skulking in the shadows of Delphia’s little gathering?” she asks after only a moments pause, getting to the point but not necessarily answering directly. In truth, she’d come to see how he was doing, and didn’t necessarily mind an excuse simply to see him, but if that hadn’t been him then she was technically here on an error.
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
Smiling faintly at Weaver's response, Loren began pressing his hands into the center of the dough. "Well then, I'll point someone at you next time they're unpleasantly surprised by me." Once he had a small well in the center of the dough, he began to pour the buttermilk he'd prepared earlier.
When she requested a scone, he let out a huff of laughter. "Then ask the chefs. This is for me." He flashed her a grin.
Letting out another huff of laughter, he nodded. Then he gave her a slightly amused. "It wasn't skulking, it was wallflowering. Why do you ask?" Tilting his head, he gave her a curious look. "And what'd you think of the festivities?"
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
She chuckles slightly, moving into the room to come a little closer and watch him. ”Oh, I don’t doubt others are unpleasantly surprised. I’m just special and seem to find the good things.” Or maybe she has a soft spot for Loren, even if she probably should not. She leans against a nearby countertop, keeping out of the way, but close enough to not feel like she’s completely out of place. Even if she is.
”Mmm, but I bet these will taste far better.” It’s like stealing food from her brother. It tastes so much better simply because it was his. She’s pretty sure the same concept might apply here.
She chuckles at his response, eyebrows raising slightly with half a smirk on her face. ”It’s wallflowering until you pull a hood halfway over your face. Once you do that, it becomes skulking. And I thought it was interesting, I guess. I’ve heard the story before, though I never knew it was actually true. Sometimes I admit I just wonder what Caido was like, before...gods, well before everything, I suppose.” She pauses, finger reaching up to fidget with the end of her braid. ”You know, they say Halo wasn’t a tundra once.”
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
Shrugging at Weaver's reply, Loren began mixing the buttermilk into the rest of the dough. "Lucky you." His tone indicated he thought she was anything but.
Letting out a huff of laughter, he shook his head. "If you think my food tastes better than professional chefs, you're going to be sorely disappointed." Still, if pressed he'd admit it looked and smell quite appetizing.
Humming thoughtfully at her retort, he finally nodded. "Perhaps you're right. As I told you, gatherings and me don't go well together, so I was just trying to protect everyone involved." He glanced up at her briefly. "So you don't have a tradition like that in Halo?" Oddly enough, he actually found himself curious to hear the answer.
Laughing slightly, he went back to his dough, tossing it onto the counter and taking out a knife. "I'm not sure there was a Caido before the gods. But I know what you mean." He cut the scone into eight pieces, and began placing them on the tray.
"And yeah, I heard about it. The catastrophe, or something." Biting his lip, he gave her a questioning look. "Would you...if there was a way to undo it, would you want things to go back to how they were...before?" It came out hesitantly, mostly because he didn't know why he was asking or even how one would go about doing such a thing.
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
”No, I highly doubt it tastes better than the chefs,” she says, her voice teasing and her grin mischievous. ”But it is vastly more fun to steal a scone from you than it is to steal one from someone’s whose entire job is to give it to me.” She almost continues to ask him if he’s never done that, but she doesn’t, recalling previous conversations they have had. It seems unlikely he’d ever swiped food from a sibling simply for the enjoyment of being an annoying sibling.
She gives him a look as he uses the word ‘protect’, as if standing there with your face on display was a dangerous thing. Though for once, she doesn’t push the subject. The only person he was protecting was himself, but that’s an okay thing. ”No. Maybe once, though if so, it’s been a very long time.” Life in Halo was about finding food and surviving Deepfrost and little more. Or at least, it had been until now.
Huffing in a dramatic, exasperated, but clearly joking manner, she adds, ”not before the actual Gods. The war, the catastrophe, the storms that locked them in their icy prison. She lets him continue though, and his question leaves her quiet for a moment. The truth is, she doesn’t know how to answer. ”Some part of me jumps for joy at the idea, like I want to just scream yes, of course. But we don’t actually know that it was better, merely different. I would love to know what Halo once was. Hell, what Caido once was. But at least this is a monster we understand.” Though still, if it were truly possible, she would be lying if she said she would not try.
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
Loren snorted at Weaver's reasoning. "Fair enough. If I was making these for myself I'd say steal away. But they're for Ludo. Fake Ludo, but it's the thought that counts." Watching her carefully, he put the tray into the oven to back. Turning back to her, he folded his arms across his chest. Unsurprisingly, his posture was a little defensive.
Humming thoughtfully, he nodded at her words. "Somehow I doubt the gods would tell us, either. Or provide a way to reverse or undo whatever curse it was." However, he studied her features, his expression questioning. "But I know Zariah has spoken a few times about transforming the land using magic. So we could...I don't know. Make it into something new."
He took a deep breath. "It would obviously be an incredibly difficult project. And I would only allow it if the people of Halo wanted it."
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
She isn’t really surprised by his defensive posture, yet she finds herself almost hurt by it. Why? That’s a really great question, because she has no reason to be. It’s not as if he hadn’t opened up to her, and yet, somehow she wants more. Though is that so unusual for her? Perhaps not. Weaver always wants more. ”I might just need to convince you to make more for me,” she says, teasing (though she wouldn’t say no if he did).
Weaver doesn’t respond right away, clearly thinking over what he said before simply reacting. She tries to be open minded about the idea, and she is, which is perhaps amazing given that it’s Zariah’s idea. Though she does have to give the Archmage some credit; her tactics worked, even if they were brutal. ”I don’t know,” she says after a pause. ”I am not against the idea of changing Halo, but rather, that just seems like the wrong way to do it. If Halo wanted it, perhaps the gods would change it to something different, if not what it was before. Or allow us to. But to use magic to do it seems exactly like what caused all this in the first place.”
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
As Weaver teased him a bit, Loren's lips twitched. "Consider me convinced." Lowering his arms, he grabbed the ingredients that were already out and began to prepare a fresh set of scones. "What's your favorite flavor?" He started working on the flour and the dough first, since that didn't need her answer.
Giving her the time to think it over, he just worked on mixing the ingredients as best he could. Still, he watched her carefully. When she finally did respond he let out a huff of laughter. "You're probably right. And I have no desire to get on the bad side of the people of Halo or the gods." His tone was amused. However, much more quietly he asked, "If you could change it, what would you want?"
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
{say]”Well,” she says with a chuckle, ”are you always this easy?” She gives him a teasing wink, resting a hand down on the table she’s been leaning against. He starts work on the dough, though she doesn’t need the time to think about flavors. ”Chocolate. Or cinnamon.” Yes, sometimes she is simply a girl, and chocolate solves all problems. Probably if the people of Whitebrim had chocolate, they would stop eating people.
His next question though is equally as hard as the first, and she pauses again, finally letting out a low chuckle. ”You know? I think I’d change very little. I love Halo and all that it is. It’d be nice if it were a little warmer, if maybe on occasion the snow would stop and we could see some dirt beneath it. But I don’t necessarily want it to be vastly different. We are who we are here because of where we live, and to change it is to take away an important part of our identity.” There’s a lot of truth to that. Halovians were shaped by their land and the hard life they lived, but she thought it made them better in the long run. ”Though I don’t think anyone would be upset if the temperatures would get above freezing.”
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
At Weaver's quip, Loren just smiled faintly. "Only one way to find out." He actually went so far as to wink at her, though it looked almost awkward on his usually stoic and serious features.
Nodding at her request, he pulled out both chocolate and cinnamon and tossed them into the dough. Stirring them in with the rest of the dough, he smiled as she revealed she wouldn't change a thing about Halo. "If that's the case, then things will remain as they are. We'll find a way to work with the environment, not change it." His tone was soft, and he gave her a tentative grin. "To that end, I wanted to ask you something."
So precious is this life, this gift, this temporary blindness.
She laughs at his wink, an unpracticed thing despite all his recent endeavours. Not that she has specifics, but he’d alluded to it enough that she has some impression of what he’s been up to in his not-so-distant past.
Both flavors go in, and she nods approvingly. ”I knew I liked you for a reason,” she says, as chocolate and cinnamon do not need to be an or. They are certainly a very tasty and. ”I think that would go much farther in Halo then turning us into something entirely new. I think even if the people of Halo loved a tropical forest, if it was led by a Launceleyn, they would pretend to hate it out of spite. Sorry, but your family has not really earned their place here yet.” He was the only one who had proved himself to be of any worth, but she wasn’t sure all of Halo would see that.
Her curiosity perks at his next question though, wondering how tt could be related to the topic of changing the environment. ”And what is that?” she says, prodding him forward.
Burn and drown and embrace the false dark, then grasp the unthinkable height of resulting joy.
