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!
Bastien knew that with a baby very shortly on the way, it was unlikely that he and Rexanna would have much free time for the oncoming future: even if the child grew quickly, he was hoping to teach them all about his craft, show them the world. He would not be a distant father as his own had been but someone involved and active in his child's world.
Still, he valued his spare time while he had it, so he had come to the Vlamvoed for bit of sketching, one of his old favourite activities from Venice. In bars people tended to let go of themselves, get involved in conversations and move in ways they might not if they knew they were being watched in a studio. It made for good drawings and studies. He was here on a busy evening, the Deepfrost cold and dark outside drawing in many patrons for the warmth and booze offered within. While he couldn't participate in the latter (he had a glass of water with him for appearances sake, and to sip at every so often) he was happy to sit and watch the merriment around him, record it in his sketchbook.
The drawings overlapped and ran into each other, happy faces and gesturing hands, the way someone's feet rested up against the chair: anything was worthy of study. Bastien was so deeply concentrating on his drawings that he may have been staring a little too hard at some of the bargoers, trying to get their features down just right; if anyone had a problem with that, they were welcome to come and tell him.
Too cold for her bird shift, Lily is relegated to the cat - which isn’t a bad thing, she just wants to be incognito today. Padding through the two-day-old snow, she quickly arrives at a much more lively place than her own, large and empty house. She slips through the door on the heels of a patron taking in the smell and the people - it’s very different than the last time she was here with Sunjata. More guests, for one, more unknown faces and fewer familiar ones since the slow trickle out of the Grounds, temporary and otherwise.
The entertainer refrains from shifting, thinking perhaps that alcohol might make her strangely maudlin tonight, and she isn’t in the mood to deal with emotions and feelings. Not tonight. Tonight is for… anonymous petting. Or something like that.
Spotting someone familiar who might not know she’s Attuned, Lily’s tail flicks up into the air and she saunters over to the sitting sketcher, weaving about his legs with a well-timed mrow or two to get his attention.
The sudden feeling of something weaving between his legs certainly did catch Bastien's attention, making him jump as his mind was diverted from his sketching. Looking down and seeing that it was not in fact a monster residing in the bar but a friendly ginger cat, he smiled and leaned down to hold a hand out for her to smell, then went to pet her if the cat seemed welcoming to that.
"Why hello, piccolo gatto. Do you live here, or are you lost?" He asked, looking about the bar to see if he could spot an owner or anyone watching him with the cat; when he couldn't he shrugged and patted the spot on the bench next to him. There had been many strays in Venice and he had always left out a bowl of water and food outside the sanctuary when he had been able; in some ways, this was quite nostalgic. "If you stay still enough, I may be able to draw your sweet face."
Lily pauses for a moment when he looks at her, twitching her whiskers in mock inquisition once Bastien offers his fingers. What’s interesting is the difference in smells - what registers as a cat (yes, it turns out, Ascended do smell like something) versus what doesn’t register at all as a human. It’s peculiarly delightful.
Mewing a reply to his question, she is less than specific, but seems to know that he’s talking to her and is open to her sticking around. Hopping up to to the bench after Bastien pats it, she doesn’t deign to stay in once place but instead tries to push her way onto his lap, moving to butt an arm with her head and maybe rub a cheek against it as well. However, once he offers to draw her, the cat does seem to become more still, wherever she is.
The little cat was quite charming and Bastien smiled cheerfully as she chose to sit by him, glad to have a companion for the time being. He'd never been one to keep a lot of pets but he had always tried to be kind to the strays he came across and there was something comforting in cats being the same here as they had been in Venice.
He let her move onto his lap, even if he had to lean awkwardly over her to get to the table now; as she went still he moved to pet her ears, asking: "Oh, you are posing for me?"
Taking advantage of the likely short time while the cat was still he began to draw a very quick sketch, glancing down occasionally at his new friend to make sure he had the details right.
It’s really nice to see this side of Bastien; sometimes Lily forgets about the kind side of the man who took her in and gave her a place to sleep when she first got here. He showed kindness when he didn’t have to, and though she also found his disappearing trick mean and selfish, though she sometimes finds him annoyingly vain - she tries to remember that she, too, can be like that. His hands caress her ears and oh it feels good.
Lily begins to purr, closing her eyes briefly and holding still long enough for him to do a quick sketch. That is, until a sound in the corner of the room grabs her attention. Pale green eyes fly open as she stares intently at a spot, tail lashing back and forth. She begins to push away from him, the predator inside her needing to get closer to the prey in the wall.
Bastien had gotten down the starting lines: the soft angle of the ears as they raised up from the cat's head, the fur sprouting from her cheeks. He was about to start on the eyes, try and capture the inquisitiveness he saw in them, when Lily began to struggle on his lap.
Immediately he raised his arms to let her go, knowing that it was unwise to hold a stray cat down when it wanted to leave: besides, the best art was often made in fleeting moments; maybe there was something to be said for the unfinished sketch, the way it spoke of the quick nature of their meeting and time together. Leaning on the table he watched the cat go to capture whatever it was on the wall, idly sipping some water.
Unbeknownst to many, there is a tiny hole hidden by a chair in the corner, and it is part of the small network of mouse tunnels making its way through the VlamVloed and yes - nearly all of the settlement. What Lily hears is the scrabbling of tiny claws as one of the aforementioned mice dares to come out to look for some food - they, too, know that LongNight is coming - though it means something different for them and they grow bolder now.
Leaping from his lap, Lily lands on light paws and then jumps up to the chair that’s hiding the hole, crouching down behind the arms just enough to hide whilst maintaining the advantage of surprise. Soon, a whiskered nose pops cautiously out of the hole, then ducks back in. It takes a moment for it to reappear again, looking right and left before scurrying along a baseboard, and as it passes the hidden cat, she pounces, catching the mouse by surprise! The battle is brief but deadly - Lily soon emerges as the victor, a now limp mouse held proudly in her mouth.
With this prize so clearly displayed, she comes back to Bastien, tail waving like a flame in the wind.
Given the cat's absence, Bastien had moved onto sketching the bars patrons again, the half-finished drawing of the cat occupying a corner of the page sectioned off from the rest by a decorated line, doodled on with little stars and curves. Not expecting to see the cat again he had begun a study of a patron at the bar: some farmer, a sturdy man with a red face and rough hands, gesturing wildly as he drunk and spoke.
When he saw the flash of orange again he looked up with a 'hm?', the smile on his face at seeing the cat swiftly turning to one of faint disgust. "Oh, a meal! Well, congratulations piccolo gatto, but please eat it away from me." He understood the cycles of life, was not easily squeamish...but that didn't mean he wanted mouse guts on his pants.
And here is where Lily decides to get a bit mischievous; because what’s the fun of being a good little piccolo gatto all the time? Registering the disgust on Bastien’s face for what it is, she is mock-indignant that he doesn’t want the gift she’s worked so hard for.
So it’s time to go full cat.
Disregarding any kind of instruction regarding where she should eat her meal, Lily mrows plaintively in the back of he throat as if to say, but I caught this for you. She even tries to leap up to the table, tries to interrupt his sketching. If she’s able to do so, she’ll drop the dead mouse on his book and then skitter away just as quickly as she came. If she can't, well, she'll probably at least try to knock things over and maybe ruin a couple of drawings before running back out the door.
Really, given his experiences with the naughty street-cats of Venice, Bastien wasn't sure why he had even tried to tell this particular kitty what to do. Just like any of her species she immediately ignored his instructions, not only coming closer but jumping up onto the table and depositing a mouse right on his sketchbook, drawing a groan of irritated disgust from him. "Thank you." He said sarcastically, as he watched the cat walk away.
Standing up he held his book open until he could get to a bin and slide the mouse off it, the dead creature leaving a smear of some unknowable substance on the page. He sighed, wondering if it was worth getting an entirely new book: perhaps it would be nice to keep the memory, even if that memory was held in mouse bodily fluids.
