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!
She swallowed some rue, some regrets, for her words as Nate answered her questions. Things he’d lost, maybe more than just senses, the appeals of whims and capricious efforts others considered natural and human. He didn’t have that anymore, and the inability to go back on his decision, to confront either the Voice or some Old Gods, to try and retain something, seemed all the more sobering. “Did -,” and the girl stopped for there for a moment, narrowing her eyes to gaze out over the sea, but it couldn’t provide the answers, and maybe she was still prying too deep, still opening up wounds yet to fully heal. “Did you rush into your decision?” Was that why there was something embittered within? Or was she just trying to rationalize the entire conundrum?
The honeybee might’ve dove further into the story of the Naiad, the entire, wonderful experience, if the Ascended breaches didn’t cling so harshly either. It was a shame, really, now that she truly thought about it, time and distance and expanse allowing her to breathe, that those not even involved had been discarded from its limbs. Nate hadn’t been immersed amongst the Mathair incident, that she was aware of, hadn’t done anything awry except exist in the Voice’s threshold. “It was,” she said quieter, snagging at Fangorn, bringing him back to where they nestled and sat.
Too long lingering in those scalding depths, and it circled right back to her. The nightmares weren’t there now, in accord with his efforts, guidance, and distraction. She curled her arms around the gourd, not too tightly, and managed another smile, turning and twisting back his way. “Yes. Thank you.”
05-30-2020, 09:03 AM (This post was last modified: 05-30-2020, 09:07 AM by Nate.)
Don't make me a liar, 'cause I swear to god When I said it I thought it was true
As much as he would like to simply leave this topic, to let it fall away and not have to answer her questions anymore, Nate doesn't stop them from coming, doesn't show any discomfort. Though, it seems he's not the only one in turmoil, if her false start, the way her gaze is drawn to the waves, the distant horizon, is any indication. What eventually leaves her, after the pause, spurs a matching pause form him, stretching out nearly as long on the other side while he works over his answer, tries to decide exactly how much detail to go into. "I don't know if... rush is really right. Pushed, a little bit, and... not told exactly what it would entail." Or rather, told, but shown something different, though that would require quite a bit more explanation that he really couldn't be bothered with.
Perhaps, if he knew the thoughts behind her newly muted enthusiasm, Nate would feel guilty, would be quick to assuage the doubts and worries surrounding where he could and couldn't go. It wasn't as if he had any real desire to go to the Greatwood, after all. But he isn't a mind reader, doesn't know the turmoil. So he let's the quiet answer drop, a grin and a nod replying to it, bright eyes scanning the ocean, the dunes behind her, and finally settling on the gourd in her lap, the vegetal creature still piquing his curiosity, lending him another topic to jump to. "How'd you end up with a walking pumpkin?" Maybe not the most tactful question, but at least it was out there.
"I'm glad." Nate turns to her with a proper smile adorning his lips, fond and warm, glad that Melita met his gaze, but more glad that his efforts hadn't been in vain, and that he hadn't somehow sent her spiralling back into nightmares with the mere mention of them. "Do you want to come back to the house with me?" It's a quiet offer, Nate worried about overstepping bonds he isn't really sure are there yet, but she needs rest, and it's better to break apart with family than it is alone.
An abrupt gasp left her the moment Nate confided he hadn’t known all the details of what would happen. His choice in Ascension had been almost furtive, secretive then, tucked away, forgoing other circumstances and trivialties, forgetting the probability and likelihood of suffering. It made her mad, a sudden, incensed stoking in her blood, grinding and unwinding, pulsing right down to her fingers, which clenched and unclenched in her swift fists. Were she anywhere else she mighr have growled or howled too, irritated, annoyed, and vexed for him. “That’s ridiculous.” Where was the justice? Her brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, staring out over the sea as she concocted mutinous considerations, but had no outlet to place them within. “So you were deceived.” And her gilded eyes went toward him, all manner of vengeance and ferocity unfurling in their wild measures. Oh, he’d distracted her from anything and everything else to be certain, but now the cost was her rage.
Except he must’ve attempted, or known better, because the topic shifted to Fangorn, and she couldn’t remain in that threshold of abhorrence and contempt when discussing her companion. The youth inhaled and exhaled a few more times, a rise and fall of breath, lungs, and chest, stare riveting back to maneuvering tides and currents, the tips of rosy-hued fins as they dove back beneath the water. “He was one of the few surviving ones the first year we were here.” The smallest smile managed to fragment along her mouth, hands reaching out scratch the top of the gourds’ head. “I offered him some food, and he stayed with me.” Because Fangorn, like her, had known how to endure, persist, and prevail.
The offer pulsed through the air too, and she wondered for a second what it would be like, to not worry about those rendered traumas, of grasps slipping over throats, of the pressure, the agony, the twist and turn of fateful accord. “Sure,” was a little quieter, but she rose off the sand with the pumpkin in her grasp, ready to follow.
Don't make me a liar, 'cause I swear to god When I said it I thought it was true
Here is where his mistake lies, the insinuation that he was blameless, choiceless, working against his ego. There is absolutely no part of him that want's to say he was tricked, that someone had managed to deceive him, though, the more it rattles around in his head. What else was it, if he was told one thing, but shown another thing entirely, and then asked to make a choice? Was it really a true choice at all? It kept blue eyes from meeting her, missing the flashing anger, the righteousness on his behalf, though didn't the sheepishness, the unwillingness only prove her point some? There had to be some answer though, so he offered a shrug of his shoulders. "Something like that I guess." Then he was stepping on to the next subject, away from the scrutiny of her words and sharpness.
As Melita's voice grew lighter again, Nate hazarded a glance towards her, shoulders dropping the slightest bit when he saw her attention directed towards the gourd cradled in her arms, his own troubles playing second fiddle to the creature, exactly as he'd hoped. "How long ago was the first year?" He asks softly, brow raised in quiet curiosity. He wondered if Melita had been here longer than him, by how much. But he grins again too, obviously glad to hear the tale of connection, to see the bond between girl and vegetable. As strange a bond as it may be. "Seems like you know the true way to a creatures heart then." He teases gently.
Nate's grin only grew as she agreed to come home with him, as she stood and cam to his side, an arm unwinding to wrap around her shoulders easily, the simplest way to show support that he knew. "If nothing else, you'll be around family, right?" He made no indication of if he was talking about Sunjata, or if he was including himself as well, leaving the choice to her.
“Who had you choose?” He might’ve tried to peel away and hide, but now her rashness, her brazen, hot-headed compassion unfurled, corrupted, and contorted, incapable of swallowing or smothering it away. It was fire and brimstone, cinders and embers, brimming to the surface and climbing up the inside of her throat, to become molten, to become infernal, to become rebuttal and resurgence. For all her faults and flaws, the youth craved vehemence for those she considered family, and Nate had slid his way in there, in between rock, crag, and blistering wakes. She’d surround herself in flames and take down the world if they asked it of her – and a serpent sway settled into her gut, a clenching of teeth over the vicious howl threatening to overwhelm and consume. Was that what Nate sought, after all this? Revenge? Justice? Or to slink away and simply meander in this essence, in this shell, in this threshold he may not have been able to escape or evade?
She made no note of what would happen to her uncle either, in the interim, when immortality scorched over Nate’s skin but didn’t touch Sunjata’s. When the potential threat of other things came to light, when the world sneered and roared around them. When choices would have to be made.
Her gilded eyes burned with ferocity, even when he looked away, even as the subject altered and changed, biting, biting, biting on the cataclysm waged inside her. “Two years ago,” even younger and dimmer then; but this would be her third LongNight coming, how she marked and chiseled the time away. While his voice was soft, hers was a crackling maelstrom, no longer so dulcet and composed, one more stoking away from an incensed bellow. Even at his tease, she merely shrugged, a smile touching the corner of her mouth and no further. Maybe even that was unnerving, before the cracklings of her abhorrence and rage.
The arm winding around her shoulders, closing in over her, might’ve been the only thing to anchor and give her pause, before any violent, turbulent, mercurial, tempestuous contortion. She breathed, and stared down at the sand, kicking a stone nearby. “Right.” Family, friends, loved ones. Things she had now.
Things she’d defend until her heart ceased beating.
Don't make me a liar, 'cause I swear to god When I said it I thought it was true
Being pressed like this was not a situation Nate often found himself in, and he found himself bristling at it a little, as much as he played at being flattered by the concern, by the utter fire and steel in her voice. It made him hesitate, a moment, a breath, before he answered, in a slow, casual tone. "Sam. When I was uh, with him before." It had sounded so rosy, back then. Sure, he'd been told he'd lose things, sensation, except for the bite, pain, pleasure, taste, but it was so hard to take serious when the other ascended still felt pain and pleasure, still tasted and enjoyed things. And it had made sense, an eternity spent with another who wouldn't age, wouldn't grow old or sick or plagued by injuries. Far preferred to his current reality, to the cortege of injuries Sunjata had lingering around him. To the fact that he didn't have a time limit, while (almost) everyone he'd surrounded himself with did.
It's not a topic he wants to linger on, not one he'd wanted to come up at all, leaving him twisted, strangely uncomfortable with who he is, what he is, in a way he's usually able to ignore quite handily. One of the hazards of letting someone in close, however much Nate might wish to avoid it.
Even his attempts to move away from her judgment, to shift the subject onto something brighter is rebuffed. All of the fire stays in her voice, a crackling anger that feels more directed at him, what he is, than it does towards what's wronged him. In time, he'll be able to read her better, read the intentions, but right now all he can do is smile, and shrug himself, trying to keep things normal. "Hey, I've nearly been here as long as you." He offers, though it was only his second Longnight coming up. And his first as an ascended, a thought that sits strangely in him. Has it really been less than a year still? It feels like he's been this way a lifetime.
His arm is far more warmly received, and Nate finds himself relaxing into that interaction, leading girl and gourd both onwards towards Aumakua, towards home. Hopefully, towards a place where the grip of nightmares will be looser around Melita, or at least, to a place where she can be watched over and comforted by those closest to her, to a place where she doesn't need to abscond to the lonely night to try and deal with them. He doesn't sleep, and he has few better things to spend his nights doing.
