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!
While Bastien was a passionate believer in experience, learning as one went and making things up as needed, he did know there was some worth in planning; with his and Rexanna's child so very close to arriving he had realised he needed endless advice on any number of things, things which he knew general ideas of (when bathing a baby, it was best not to drown it, for instance) but not whole stories.
So he went to the Atheneum, where he had somehow managed to never enter during his entire time in the Hollowed Grounds, to look for a book that might give him some advice. Walking up and down the aisles, dressed in an unseasonably and rather inappropriate outfit of loose-fitting pants and not much else, he looked for anything that might seem to be about parenting, climbing up the ladders when provided to peek on the higher selves...but so far, his search had been fruitless.
With a sigh, he slumped forward on the top of the ladder he was stood on, pressing his chin into his hand. Perhaps he was destined to just struggle into fatherhood: after all, there likely weren't guides on how to look after an Ascended child.
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
It's strange, the places you go and the places you don't. Aisha had been to the training grounds countless times since coming to Caido, spending many a day sparring in the fields against living and dummy targets. She hadn't however, been to the Atheneum once, other than in passing and on the tour with Jigano. Even then, it'd been from the front, the inside not explored at all.
So the Atheneum it was today, though her sword was still strapped to her side. She felt almost out of place among the scholars she passed, looking for books and tomes when she was simply looking. Surprisingly or not, she didn't pass anyone she knew, until she noticed a rather defeated looking figure slumped on a ladder. An eyebrow raised, wondering what about the books had gotten him so disgruntled, she gave a slight smile as she called up to him.
"Hey, how's your wife doing?" yes, a joke. Hopefully not ill-timed, but she couldn't help herself.
At the sound of a call up to him, Bastien looked down with a hum, breaking into a smile as he recognised Aisha. He always made a point of knowing the faces and names of the people that came to his events, having long trained himself to be a host to rival any other. With a laugh, he nodded to her question. "Well, she's a little stiff, but we make it work, hm?"
More than happy to be distracted from his fruitless search for parenting advice, he slid down the ladder with a grace that spoke of a lot of time spent clambering onto and off of things, the Venice skyline once upon a time providing him with a wonderful stage for his performances. "The real question is how you are, Aisha? This will be your first Deepfrost, will it not?"
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
Happily enough, Bastien joined her in her humors, her smile widening as he laughed. She giggled at his reply, raising a brow and replying cheekily, "Kinky." It simply had to be done.
She watched as the man made his way down from the perch, a fluid venture that Aisha quite enjoyed. He was an elegant man, and if not elegant than theatrical. "I'm good. Can't say it'll be the easiest winter I've lived through," she said, pausing before adding, "But I think I'll live through it."
Bastien laughed at Aisha's joke, not above a bit of immature humour now and then. "Truthfully though, she made a miraculous recovery after our party and now seems to be more alive than ever! Which is fortunate, given what is about to happen." He looked up at where he had been searching for books, for the moment wrapped up enough in his own life that he didn't think Aisha would not know what he meant.
Pleased to be both elegant and theatrical he nodded, raising a brow in interest as she used the word 'Winter'. "Where I was from, we called this season Winter too. ..What was your world called, if I may ask..?"
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
Aisha's brow quirked up at the last bit of Bastien's reply, "What's about to happen, if you don't mind?" She'd never thought of her nosiness as a fault, where some might. In her opinion, knowing is always better than not knowing, even if the thing you learn is insignificant. Plus her lust for excitement always begged her to ask.
"Earth, but I've met some other people from "earth" and their version wasn't the same as mine," she said with air quotes on the word earth, her "earth" being slightly different from that of her player.
"Ah! The news is so important to me I forget we have not told everyone." A hand on his chest in apology, Bastien couldn't help the smile on his face as he got to tell Aisha of what was to happen: "I am about to become a father! The Voice is granting my wife and I a child." It was clear from the joy in his eyes he was incredibly excited about this, even with all of his doubts about fatherhood. As the day grew closer, he was beginning to lose his fear more and more.
When she said 'Earth' he only grew more animated, clapping his hands. "I too am from Earth! Tell me then, on your Earth, was there a Venice? An Italy?"
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
Since her original assessment of the new goddess of Caido, she'd met many ascended and changed her views a little. She would always be bitter that The Voice had brought her here, away from her life and her home, but she wasn't the monster that Aisha had assumed, and especially not her children. She'd yet to meet an ascended she didn't like, and Bastien was certainly among one of her favored bunch. She was nothing but delighted to hear the news!
Her mind briefly wandered to the day she'd met Deimos and gotten paints for her surprise project, when he'd been making baby toys. This had to be the baby he was talking about, and his secrecy about it made her feel even more as though she was being given the newest and most amazing gossip. A broad smile lit her face, "That's so exciting! I'm so happy for you two, any names in mind or are we waiting?"
For a moment Aisha's eyes widened, he too was from Earth. Though she should've known better than to get excited about meeting someone from her world, it hadn't happened yet and might never would. "I don't think so, my Earth had five kingdoms, and everyone was a shifter," she replied, not disheartened and rather happy to share. She'd grown so used to explaining her world to others that she'd simplified it to just that, a world of kingdoms and shifters. And only months ago there was so much more to it, time and change was a tricky thing.
Aisha smiled and congratulated him, something Bastien was glad for: he knew that some in the town would be repulsed by the idea of two Ascended having a child. While he was no stranger to prejudice nor was he scared of it, it was nice to know he wouldn't have to deal with it in this particular conversation. "I believe we have a few in mind...my personal favourite is Azrael. We do not know if the Voice will give the child a gender, so.." He shrugged.
Her version of Earth with only five kingdoms and animal shifts...well, it was certainly a leap away from the one he knew. Still, Bastien didn't look too disappointed: he'd met enough people from his own world and it was interesting rather than disheartening to hear about another way. "Wow! What were the names of the five kingdoms? Perhaps I will recognise one."
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
Azrael, Aisha liked the way then name buzzed on her tongue, she'd always been a fan of the sharper sounds. With a name like that, there was no way the baby wouldn't come out a baddie. She smirked at her own amusing thoughts, and offered them to Bastien, "I love that name, I'm sure they'll appreciate their parent's good taste."
The names of the kingdoms, things on her world worked a little differently, and she had a feeling he wouldn't recognize those she gave. But, she was still happy to list them, and maybe give a little history with pride, "They're all named after the current reigning family, but are generally referred to as the north, south, east, west, and central kingdoms. In my life they were Uros, Qiar, Khai, Khan and Mach," she explained, sounding far more like a teacher than she'd ever hoped to. Still, it'd been a minute since she'd had the monarch family's names on her tongue, those other than her own at least.
While he certainly didn't need Aisha's approval for the name, it was nice to hear that she thought it sounded good; he had privately worried that his own flamboyant tendencies had led him to approve a name that others would find outlandish (not to insult Rexanna's taste, but he remembered the names she had told him of her twins).
Bastien repeated each of the names she told him to make sure he remembered them, though it was true that he didn't recognise any of them. For a moment he paused, unsure of where to go from there, but then he held up a finger and ran to find some paper and a pen, returning when he had. "There must be some similarity. Tell me, did your maps look like.." he began to scribble, eventually coming up with a rough map of the world as he'd known it to be in his time.
"This was Italy." He told her, pointing to his once-home.
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
It was nice, somewhat cathartic to get lost in a conversation like this. To talk history, geography, learning and teaching about her home as if it was still relevant to her life and not the past. Aisha was still searching for a way to meld the two worlds together, for they often seemed so far apart. Talking about it with someone who understood what it was like, it just felt good.
After she told him the names of the countries and their monarchs, Bastien paused and went in search of pen and paper, when he returned he scribbled a map, asking if it looked similar. Aisha shifted closer to him, narrowing her brows as she considered it's components, and actually recognizing some of the shapes though misplaced as they were. "Maybe if you rearranged them and pushed them closer together," she said, her own Earth a bit more pangeic.
Italy, no she didn't recognize it. "Is it a country or a kingdom? How did the government work in Italy?" she asked.
"Closer..? Hm. So less ocean, in your Earth?" Bastien asked, briefly lost in thought of how that would have changed the Earth he had known. Having left the world long before the concept of a Pangea was made, he had no real way to visualise the map Aisha meant. "I see. I wonder...if it is perhaps far back or forward in time. There is a man in Torchline from 1986. That year seemed very distant to me." And Nate had looked at him as if he were a fossil in return.
"A country and a fine one at that. I actually was born in France -- " He pointed to the right place on his makeshift map. "-- but moved to Italy to pursue my dreams of being an artist. Venice, the city where I lived...it bled creativity and life." The love he felt for his city had only grown since he'd come to Caido, a combination of nostalgia and grief raising it to near mythical proportions in his mind.
The government was somewhat harder to explain. "Venice is a state unto itself, a republic. The man at the top is the Doge, then his few followers, usually wealthy merchants." It was clear from the disdain in Bastien's voice that he didn't care for the system. "The charm was in the people living true lives, not those bullying the rest for a life at the top."
Still my heart is heavy With the hate of some other man's beliefs
"Less ocean in between, yeah," she nodded, still considering the map he drew with rapt attention. There were quite a few similarities the more she looked, she could pick out the edges of the eastern kingdom, her home, stacked precariously at the borders of his. It was interesting, exciting, and her smile remained. "Could be, maybe a separate branch of history or something," she was no quantum physicist, but she could try and make sense of it at least.
Bastien moved on into telling her about his own home, France, and then Venice, elegant names that somehow had a similar aura to the man himself. The talk of art and creative devices, Aisha had never been very good at art, unless one counted swordsmanship, but her city was full of it. "Venice sounds beautiful, my home city was very colorful and lively too. Especially in comparison to the grounds."
The government was a different story it seemed, he held much less regard in his voice as he described it. It sounded similar to the monarchies of her world, with one person at the top and their council around, providing their input, voices only heard through a monetary interpreter. Wealth had translated to power - the lack of that system in the Grounds was very welcome, even for someone once stationed at the top. "My home was like that, but things are kinda different here."
