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!
Zuriel, irritated Samuel paid no attention to her (despite healing the insipid man), sniffed, snorted, and then purposefully lifted her lips to pick at the Ascended’s hair. If her teeth caught some edges and pulled, she didn’t look even remotely ashamed.
The Sword, for his part, gave clear warnings that didn’t seem to matter in the slightest to the unicorn, and on a very soft, low sigh, his eyes went back to the fluid, the jar, and the other unsaid things launched, harpooned, and lacquered in between. He would’ve stuck to the whims of this bizarre event in absolute silence, watching as the glass filled, switching out containers with hardly a fuss at all. Samuel’s apprehension and nerves seemed to resonate, ricochet, and bound though, and Deimos likely had to have a part in assuaging those fears, in alleviating some of the concern, in filling up the void with something other than quietude.
“Safrin said to call for her when it was ready.” He presumed she’d embed the upgrade and fluid into the wooden frame somehow; deity prowess and powers at work. In the back of his mind he noted adding another honorific alongside Samuel’s, that of the goddess herself. She’d likely appreciate or expect it, especially if she had equal hand in the orchestration.
He thought about starting on the inscriptions immediately, but then shifted, a musing, a mulling, coiled and contorted, eyes glancing upward, staring at the ceiling, pondering, weighing his options. “Do you want to hear a tale?” Something to pass the time? Something to not make the hollowed sanctions feel so profound? Then his gaze rounded back to Samuel, arching a brow at the unicorn nearby. “You may choose.”
"Hey..!" Sam, irritated, reached up to tap the unicorn's face, trying to get her off his hair. He'd never been a huge fan of horses anyway, but right now when he was literally being bled, had just lost his fingers? This was not the time for him to be admiring Zuriel's mane.
Hearing that Safrin would actually be involved in the creation of the door protection gave him some reassurance. Not that he didn't trust Deimos' skills (after all, the man had just made him a magical prosthetic from nothing), but he had given something very precious here: he wanted to be sure it would only need to be a one-time gift.
If there was one thing Sam had not expected, it was hearing Deimos ask if he'd like to hear a tale, much like a father asking if a child wanted a bed time story. Still though, looking between his gushing wrist and the grumpy unicorn, he found some distraction would be very welcome indeed. "...Yes, please. Go ahead."
Zuriel snorted again, purposefully indignant, and likely would’ve stepped away had she not been there to heal the Ascended. There were a few warnings passed between unicorn and Sword, before she seemed to settle into a curl of her lips, a half-snarl to either of them. If she flicked her tail rapidly and it hit Samuel, she’d admit to nothing.
Deimos wasn’t sure if he expected Samuel to accept the offer, or pass it off, and they could sit, meander, and do nothing in silence, in hushed platitudes with naught but the lifeforce collecting in the jar. He might’ve preferred the latter, but given Samuel’s apprehensive ambience, sacrificial alms, and everything else notched in between, the General could stand to revel in some discomfort. But without any other cue, save for the go-ahead, he’d be forced to dig into personal experiences.
Which meant violence, vehemence, vitriol, animosity, and years upon years of built-up hostility between kingdoms, countries, and terrains. “I have plenty of war stories.” An arch to his brow, a tilt of his head followed after the rumble in his tones, merely to watch and see what happened in Samuel’s expression. There might have been a smirk or a snicker embedded along his features too, suddenly amused by the potential.
Sam tried his best to ignore the tail hitting him, feeling rather surly towards the unicorn as he was sure she felt about him. His cat had never given him this much trouble.
He had hoped, even if it would have been rather surprising, that Deimos could have had some cheery tale ready for him: in the moment with his bleeding wrist and lost fingers he was not in the best of spirits...but of course, the General offered a war story. Sam hesitated, though eventually decided that any distraction was still a distraction, so he would listen to anything Deimos had to tell. "Then tell me one...the...most hopeful one you have, maybe?"
Zuriel opted to suddenly immerse herself into cold shoulder antics, ignoring Samuel entirely, chin lifted in a seditious manner. Her healing properties still maintained and remained, but she otherwise didn’t bother with the Ascended at all. It might’ve been for the best.
Deimos arched a brow once more, listening to Sam’s request, his eyes narrowed in speculation for an instant. Hopeful? War wasn’t necessarily cheery, optimistic, or positive. There were methods to the chaos, the bedlam, the lives poised and at stake, the taking, the defending, the shielding; outcomes depending on retreats, on perilous, treacherous methods, on plots skimming and scheming, wreckage and ruin. Reflecting upon the ones they’d howled amidst, puncturing, piercing, lacerating, and tearing multitudes apart – the only venture he could decide upon was the first.
For despite their loss, it eventually led them to the Basin.
So he nodded, and instead of just storylines, he created figures along the table, a token of clifftops and raging water first, a spiral of desert next, and then one massive sable dragon. “I belonged to the kingdom of the World’s Edge in Helovia,” and his index finger pointed to the cliffs, where the raging surf rallied and beat upon ramparts, where the fog and mist curled over enigmas. “The patron deity was the Moon Goddess.” Not unlike Safrin in a variety of ways – though the Reaper had known the latter much more than the former. “She spurred Mirage, leader of the Qian,” and here he pushed the black dragon forward, “to take over the Edge.” Rampant followers, caterers to the cosmos, to the constellations, to the lunar boundaries. “Mirage gained allies in the Dragon’s Throat, and invaded us.” He glanced up, after segmenting the desert, the flying lizard, all into a segmented accord towards his once home, ensuring there weren’t any questions before he continued. “We were easily outnumbered.” The beast made no mention of how they’d worked their way through slaughter and dominion, how their hearts beat within their ribs, how hard they strived to keep their land, how no matter what they did, it scarcely mattered in the end. There he paused – opting to see if Samuel was keen on this tale, or if he’d have to pursue something else.
Sam could see Deimos' hesitation and didn't say anything, just tried to silently urge the man on; perhaps it was hard to find the hope in war, but he didn't know if he could handle more doom and gloom right now than was occurring in his own life. Thankfully it seemed like the Sword finally settled on an appropriate tale and Sam made fittingly impressed noises at the appearance of the locations on the table.
'Moon Goddess'...not surprising that Deimos gravitated to Safrin then, he supposed. Deciding not to comment on that (sure he would be unable to say it without some kind of tone entering his voice) he just continued to listening, trying to involve himself in the world and story that Deimos provided.
While Sam would have never accused Deimos of being a good storyteller before this, he found himself quite involved now, wanting to know how their small army had overcome. "Then what happened?" He asked, leaning as forward as he could with his hands still in the right positions.
Perhaps it would’ve been a much better story to spin, had they won their battle. But he wouldn’t lie in this distinction, not when he’d been so readily carved, molded, and sculpted out of its remnants and bones, after its crushing blows and seditious spurs. Before Samuel could lean forward, before he could enact and instigate further, Deimos could hear the age-old, primordial bellows and howls echoing through his ears. It was as if he’d never left those cataclysmic battlefields, where the mist and fog soaked the earth, where the trees lined up in desolate copses, where mysteries and enigmas intertwined to unfold and unfurl and uncoil; never to be theirs again. He could recall the bodies falling, clashing, demolishing, lacerating, piercing, puncturing, until they couldn’t go on any longer; the outcome fated and decided.
His hand dragged the sable dragon across the table, placing Mirage’s namesake along the columns of the Edge. “We were defeated.” The rumble of the Sword’s vocals didn’t change, didn’t alter, didn’t give a hint to how much that entanglement still burned somewhere in the depths of Reaper transgressions, how it would be a pattern of conquering and devouring. “We were forced out of our kingdom, and fled as refugees to the Frostbreath Steppe.”
Maybe that was when the mountains, the cold, the summits, and the chill had scraped against his irreverent heart; when they had to abide by its mercurial, tempestuous wake, when they had to learn how to survive or die, fend in caves and flattened contortions of endless snow. In absence of a home, maneuvering the rest of the Qian allies back to their respective Throat symbol, the monolith constructed and contorted another piece. This was flattened, coated and lacquered in ivory, walls of snow, caverns and ilk. “We spent a season or so there, gathering ourselves, and trying to cause trouble.” Makeshift rebellions, petty thievery, irritating, vexing, letting the world know they were still there; fortified, malicious, vengeful heathens stuck in their own gallows.
"...Oh." Sam looked disappointed as Deimos revealed that the fight was not a success; he had hoped for an underdog tale of small against large, winning against the odds. Watching the dragon be pushed along the table he continued to listen, though with slightly less enthusiasm, wondering if he and Deimos had different definitions of 'hopeful'.
"The Frostbreath Steppe..it doesn't sound like a very nice place." Like Halo but somehow even more cold, from the name. Though the sound of trying to 'cause trouble' brought a little smile to his face as he imagined Deimos playing pranks and rebelling against the world. "How did you cause 'trouble'?"
Busy in his musings, in the moorings and trappings of yesteryears, the Sword hadn’t noticed Zuriel’s rapt attention. What captivated her was an uncertain precipice; by bond alone she would’ve known the stories, the images, curled and contorted constantly in the back of his mind. But the unicorn’s haughty gaze had dimmed, a tilt of her head, intent in study and perusal while her horn still glowed, appealing to healing properties for the Ascended.
Deimos arched a brow at the disappointment layered in Samuel’s voice; a shrug and shift to his shoulders. They’d been haunted by the poignancy of defeat too, the hollowed granules of the void, of the cold, of worlds they’d lost. “It was not.” Flattened plains only outlined by shifts of caverns, apertures that were neither warm nor inviting; a bleak outstretch of frigid land he’d eventually come to know and cherish.
He missed Sam’s smile, but not the insurrection – rebellion eternally in his blood, and those belonging to the oeuvres of the Basin. It was how they’d survived. It was how they’d thrived. It was how they’d carved themselves out of nothing, the obsolete, the fallen, the broken. Their heads hadn’t been down for long – baring their teeth, their howls, their vitriol. But Samuel had asked how, and didn’t seem to judge on the potential persecutions. “We wanted the Qian to know we were still there.” Around, as vengeful, rapacious, mercurial predators, that they were committed to existence, that they’d return and avenge. “Some were petty – trying to steal things from their kingdoms. Some attempted abduction of their citizens.” Ransoms would’ve been prolific, tidings of the bestial and barbaric. “Some snagged and clawed at information.” At throats, at forms, at citizens of glass and fog, of sand and dirt. The Reaper had been willing to do whatever it took. So had the rest of them.
And now, to the hopeful stature – and in the midst of silence, he created another beacon. This one was bigger, brighter, than any of the others combined – mountains and peaks, summits and hills, vibrant with ivory and hues of the northern lights, made to blend against the backdrop of glory and power. “But all this action caught the eye of the God of Time. He bid us to come to the mountains.”
It was not. Deimos' simple way of speaking brought a smile to Sam's face despite the subject matter and the scenario it was being told in. No further detail, no complaints, just a confirmation. Sam almost wished he could be so collected and plain in his words, only communicating what was needed without going on a million different anxiety-ridden tangents.
The way Deimos described their 'trouble' was a little dryer than Sam had expected (and maybe hoped) for; he also noticed that the man didn't implicate himself in any of the actions described. "And...did you get any good information?" He asked, not wanting to know exactly how it was obtained.
He made an interested hum and leaned forward as Deimos created the beacon. Sam nodded, waiting to hear the upturn of the story that he hoped might be coming.
Deimos’ words were measured; had to be, from the thresholds he’d grown within. Assortments of vulnerability, of mistakes, of mishaps, in the art of their precision, were swiftly snagged, caught, and a gnarled noose around one’s throat. Speaking bluntly, plainly, keenly, with facts and veracity, or simply not revealing any information at all, had worked for him – though they were often riddled with misunderstandings too, for the absence of emotions or not being enough. An arch to his brow at the inquiry also hastened the tiniest of smiles and smirks. “Sometimes.” A thousand things left unsaid in those syllables; lifetimes of anguish, despair, and then seditious, irreverent spades, the cycle of vengeance and vehemence sprung from ashes in their wake.
He paused, momentarily, from creating and contorting the realms of Helovia’s cinders and snow, replacing the glass jar (already filled from Samuel’s flowing wounds), with another empty container.
Then the Sword returned to the beacon of power and prestige, to a world he craved and yearned for and couldn’t have again. “We followed his call, and he asked us what we wanted.” Standing there, amidst the summits, with the peaks rising above them, clear, potent, and supreme; and he’d been the first to step forward, despite Psyche’s rage at the insurgency (maybe that’d been a sign all along, well before he understood or pondered schemes behind DarkEmpress’s reigns and falls). “We asked for land. A home.” A shelter in the storms, in the fragility of their mass, of their stronghold, a surging, seditious multitude without a world to call their own. After, the beast inhaled, a sharper inclination, as he spread the figments of the cliff, the eminences further, so they reigned like towering palisades over any of the other figures he’d created. “He gave us those mountains, called the Aurora Basin.”
Deimos went to replace the jar under his wrist with another and Sam obediently clenched his fist to push more fluid out, though he wondered just how many jars the man was intended to take from him: he supposed Zuriel was replacing his fluid...but he still didn't have full faith in that, truthfully.
There was at least the distraction of the story and the given visual accompaniment which Sam focused on as much as he could, glad to hear that the tale at least ended (?) with the army finding themselves somewhere to call home. "And.. the Aurora Basin, was it nice there? What you'd wanted?" He wouldn't be surprised to hear the Gods had played a trick and given them a desolate wasteland, given how the Gods could be in Caido.
“Yes,” could’ve been a simplistic answer, but the pull of the mountains had been so much brighter, so much sharper, so much more than the plain distinction. It’d been exactly what they craved: dominance and supremacy, an unfolding of land and enigmas, bewitching sights and sounds, something to call home beyond refugee wares and torn-apart inhabitants. It’d been a place to settle, to brood, to seethe, to plan, to plot, and in its place they’d found a sanctum, a sanctuary, a refuge, a place of repose; never once invaded on their soul.
Perhaps the corresponding grin, the genuine reverence in regards to the created landscape before him, would say enough.
But he didn’t cease there, the gilded palms glowing once more, connecting back to things he’d lost along the way – to a world he couldn’t have again, but fondly express through memories, through artifacts. “We had a lake that never froze,” and therein he placed the watery substance, in the deep valley. “Hot springs,” and he concocted them off to the side, below cliffs and caves. “And a horizon that displayed colors at night.” And therein, he strived to paint the borealis as best he could; incapable of mustering its regal entirety – but varnished and lacquering it with the vivid hues all the same: streaks of green, of blue, of red, of pink, of purple, as they blended together across midnight skies.
Sam smiled as Deimos confirmed that their promised land had lived up to expectations, the 'hopeful' part of the story finally coming to light. The model of the place he made so deftly and skill-fully with his hands made the tale all the more engaging and Sam wished that he could have all the books in the Atheneum visualised like this...maybe he could ask Deimos to help with some of the readings for children some time.
"It's beautiful." He whispered, watching the aurora flux and shine. "Did you...get to stay there until you came here?"
