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!
07-12-2020, 05:32 AM (This post was last modified: 07-16-2020, 02:15 AM by Chulane.)
CHULANE
let's set the world on fire
Exploring was something he had been itching to do since he had come to terms with being stuck here in Caido. But then, he hadn't truly accepted he was stuck here until he'd been essentially trapped here by the season. And as soon as the weather cleared, he had indeed done that, branching out to explore the Grounds with Kia, but also making frequent trips back to the snowy realm of Halo to tend to his duties there - the city still had to fed, after all.
But somewhere in all that too, was the opportunity to explore Halo itself. And after bumping into Hester, the opportunity seemed all too achievable. He knew the girl had wanted to explore the world as well, and what better way to start than with a friend and the local surrounds?
'How far away from the Citadel have you been before?' he asked the sheep-shifted girl from his viewpoint high above, relishing in the feel of the air and wind as it lifted his avian form high above. Keen senses scouted the surrounds, giving him a view like no other of the world stretched out before them - the great inland sea, frozen with a vast sheet of ice on its surface. The Sea of Glass - aptly named, Chulane thought to himself.
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
To say she ever planned her days would gift Hester a great deal more responsibility than she actually had. When she had come across Chulane, her day had been open to join in on misadventures, a shifted romp through lands still dangerous but no longer deadly. And she had been planning on adventuring more, once she got the chance.
They were at the very limits of the attuned bond, separated by necessity of shapes, but that meant they were still within range for conversation. Not too far. There was a certain amount of distant jealousy buzzing through the attuned bond, Hester certain the view from above was far nicer, and far easier to traverse than the uneven icy fields she picked her way through. At least four feet were surer that two. There's a few caves, out towards the portal, and it used to be a rite of passage to spend a day out there. My brother followed me out when I did it, and ruined it for me.
Gods and spirits, she had thrown the ugliest tantrum about it, something she was a little embarrassed of now. I never really wanted to come out again until recently. Halo was too harsh to lend itself to casual exploring, and she had never been one to tempt fate, not when she knew the risks.
If he picked up on the jealously, he politely ignored it - he'd felt it himself, when viewing others with winged shifts taking to the skies. It wasn't until Flowerbirth had finally dawned that he had been able to recognise the second shift within him, the feathers refined by harsh stares and deadly talons, the eagle that truly defined the land he had come from. It made sense, once he had found it - it felt right. He tried to restrain himself from projecting too much of the sheer glee that thrummed through him at the glorious sight laid out before them, instead letting a content sense of comradery fill in the space.
'What did he do?' he asked with an air of amusement colouring the bond and his question, playful curiosity insisting he enquire and know more about this delightful girl.
'Well, I'm glad to have you with me today,' he said with sincerity, which quickly morphed into marvel through the bond as the clouds above shifted before the Sun, and the reflections on the ice sheet before them seemed to intensify. 'Gods, but it is beautiful,' he said with admiration as he looked out over it, swooping low, towards the woolly form of the sheep, as if to confirm that she could see what he did from her vantage point as well.
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
There was a quiet appreciation that came from the fact that her jealousy wasn't mentioned, and from the fact that the view she was lacking wasn't mentioned too much. Once day she'd see it, she was sure. Though, perhaps this will hasten her want, will be the catalyst to send her to a shrine and ask for something.
He followed me, and watched over me the whole night. It's supposed to be a solitary challenge. Hester explains exasperatedly, the eye-roll more than clear in her silent voice. It doesn't look good when you have a giant bear watching you. The observation took the challenge out of the task. Didn't you have anything like that where you come from? She was still endlessly curious about other worlds, the differences between here and there, and it only felt fair that as long she was sharing things, so did he.
A warmth flushed through the attuned bond towards Chulane, happiness and gratefulness both at the words he offered. The appearance of the sun steals away any words, any response the girl might have had. A lifetime living in Halo, and still some sights took her breath away. A bright field of mirrors and lights spanning before her, the sun reflecting gold in a dozen places, and glittering everywhere else. It makes all the darkness worth it, in a way. Hester sighs through the bond, the shadow swooping above her sending her running, hiding under shards sticking out of the ground, still trusting the ice this early in the season, in this shape.
'Ahh,' understanding blooms as she expands on her past annoyance for her brother. He didn't comment much more on it, but guessed that her brother probably wanted to keep her safe - he could see both sides of the argument, really.
'We had some 'coming of age' traditions, but nothing like here - mostly celebrations and gift giving, or an excuse to get very drunk.' He learned early on that alcohol consumption was an unpleasant and entirely unnecessary activity, and so had avoided it. There were no challenges, no specific trials or tribulations they had to go through to prove themselves.
It was all rather boring in comparison, really.
The mirror-like surface was enchanting, mesmerising, and through the bond he hummed an agreement with her words, thinking them quite apt given the sight before them.
Then he is swooping, though he hadn't intended on scaring her, he let the bond flood with amusement at her reaction. 'Wanna play a game?' he asks as the idea comes to him. It was a game that he probably could play in this shift (for eagles were indeed known to steal young sheep straight out of the paddock), but he had other ideas too, another shift he could use. 'Hide and seek?' he added, wondering if she knew it, if there was a Halo variant, as he circled high above where he last saw her.
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
Of course her brother was only being protective, but that didn't mean Hester was going to take it as anything more than a slight, a tamping down where she had been trying to grow. That was a concern for a different time, because she was satisfied with the thrum of understanding that came from the eagle.
You mean like a birthday party? There's a very clear teasing lilt in the bond, made even clearer by the showy trot she stepped in for a few steps, before returning to her easy stride. We have them too. With presents, and drinking, and all that. A thoughtful pause, then, with a kind of resigned honesty: 'Course, most people will drink for making it through the day too. Perhaps she was biased, but after a childhood spent accompanying her father to pubs, and an adulthood filled with plans to play in more of them, she'd seen more than her fair share of casual drunks.
The conversation drifts away though, the sheer magnificence of the sight before them making words seem inadequate, no matter how she tries. This is truly Halo at it's finest, the sights preserved only for those willing to scrape a living into the ice.
There's a kind of hot embarrassment that floods through the bond in response to the amusement, though it's followed by Hester's own sheepish (ha) amusement, feeling silly for being overrun by her instincts for a moment. What kind of game? Comes the immediate question, Hester squeezing under an ice shelf and appearing under the circling hawk again. Don't you think you have a bit of an unfair advantage in hide and seek? Not that it stopped Hester from immediately poking around for a hiding spot, cloven hooves picking out a delicate path under and around the panes of ice.
'More like a birthday marathon,' Chuy replied with wryness colouring the bond. 'Drinking alcohol was something of a competition, and at 18 it was legal, though many drank before then anyway. There were over 20 pubs in the closest city, every birthday they would do a pub crawl, and whoever made it conscious to the final pub was declared King of the grog.' His dryness and abject disinterest in the antics of his friends probably summed up his true feelings on the events that he grew up with. He'd never been one for drinking alcohol with the intention of completely losing oneself in it, hating the sensation, though giving into it in social settings more than once.
Laughter rumbles through the bond, imitating that which might rumble through his chest were he in human form. The conversation shifted, forgotten as the sight before them and the idea of a game took over. 'Alright,' he conceded with a playful hint that suggested he wasn't really conceding at all. With a flap and a tilt to his body, he directed his path some distance away, coming in to land so there were several icy pillars between them, his form shielded from view (it was hide and seek, after all).
But when he landed, he shifted, fur and spots taking over where feathers were, a smooth and virtually silent landing as a leopard found itself upon the icy setting instead.
'Shifts that can't fly,' he beamed across the bond, purposefully devious, giving the sense that he was wearing a shit-eating grin. 'I'll count first. Better get hiding,' he taunted, before humming a soft one, two, three.. through the bond, using the time to really lean into the instincts this form offered to him, to embrace the wildness that was the leopard, the predator, the hunter.
And when he got to ten, he silenced all sense of himself across the bond, letting the instincts take flight instead, letting himself explore, find a trail to follow, and seek the hunt.
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
A pub crawl? Comes the incredulous question through the bond, some kind of amazement and some kind of horror both fighting for equal attention. All of Chuy's tone suddenly makes sense, the spectacle far beyond anything Hester's imagined. We've always only had just the one. I suppose... we do have two now, but... There's the sense of a head shaking in utter bewilderment, the gesture mirrored by her horned head, far below the other attuned.
Hester barely had time to glance up, to see the diving hawk as agreement and amusement both sounded in her head, her clip-clopping steps pausing to watch the descent. The next words spurred her into motion again, still feeling a little under prepared, but glad she'd gotten at least one concession.
Unfortunately for her, hiding was not exactly something that came naturally to her shifted form. She would have to be clever. As the numbers grew higher, Hester let more and more anxiety slip through the bond as she searched for a spot, finally creeping into a small niche made by two sheets of ice crashing into one another. It was deep, and low down, and hopefully, if she curled up with her back to the entrance, she would have enough camouflage to be passed over.
The silence in the bond is a touch Hester doesn't expect, and she reaches out for the other without thinking, the mental equivalent of an outstretched hand. Embarrassingly, it takes her a moment to realize, to withdraw the gesture and commit herself completely to hiding.
He was amused, thoroughly so, of the various reactions his fellow attuned allowed to leak over the bond. The anxiety in particular, seemed to call to the predator within him, the leopard relishing in the idea of stirring up such things in its prey. Its approach should stir up such things in its chosen prey, for it was a formidable beast - at least when its consciousness wasn't controlled by the kind, friendly man.
They were hunting not to eat, but to play, to capture and win this game they had assigned each other. His radio silence was, he hoped, matched by the mostly-silent nature of his physical movement too, as padded paws carefully trekked across the icescape, pausing every other stride to test the air with his nostrils and tongue, tasting the air and redirecting his search as suited.
Ah, but it was almost too easy, as he felt her beckon, her friendly extension towards him; combined with the instincts and senses he was putting to use, he honed in on where she was likely to be, crouching low as he rounded the ice sheets. At the entrance, he did almost miss her, but a moment passed and his sights were able to adjust swiftly to the darkness and identify the difference between fleece and snow.
He crept closer, his tail twitching in excitement, lifting a paw to gently bop at her woolly hide. 'Gotcha,' he murmured through the bond with amusement clearly evident, purring all the while as he backed away to give her space to move easily again. 'Start counting!' he prompted with a final pulse of challenge, before turning deftly on his heel and running away, silencing the bond again.
Eventually, he found a space quite high up, but still visible if one knows to look up. It was an icy pillar that had splintered, leaving a convenient shelf-like structure about three metres high, which he had climbed similarly to how he would climb a tree in this form, leaving claw marks behind in the otherwise smooth surface of the pillar. Still, he held hope that she would not see the evidence of his hiding spot, and give him the opportunity to ambush her from above.
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
With the way she had to curl in upon herself, the only sense left to Hester was her hearing, and it was a poor shield to wield against a born hunter. Still, that doesn't mean she doesn't strain her ears, hoping that maybe, she'll get lucky. And maybe it's simply her familiarity with the ice, the noises it makes, but she catches the faintest scuff, just outside her little niche, and curls up tighter. For a single, breathless moment, she thinks maybe, she's gotten away with it, maybe she's tricked Chuy.
Then a large paw came down on her side and had her jumping to her feet, legs all akimbo. A spooked laugh echoes through the bond, each little hoof stomping in succession. You got lucky. She shot back immediately, no small amount of amusement in her own words. She straightened out in the space provided to her, then began counting, making sure to drag out the numbers as long as possible while the big cat sprinted away.
She reaches ten and trots out of the little space herself, looking back and forth for any evidence of the other attuned. There is a little trail left by the speedy escape, but it tapers off to nothing quickly. Hester doesn't have any particularly strong sense, any way to track down anything, but she does have one strength. Finding the tallest ice plinth she can, she begins to work her way up it, hoping that a higher view will present some missing clue. Sure hooves carry her to the top of her chosen shard easily, and from there its simply a matter of looking around, looking for something that seems out of place.
It takes a few passes before the marks on a nearby ice pillar jump out at her, belying some kind of mad scramble upwards. Bounding down from her high vantage point, Hester approaches the pillar and rises up on her back hooves, the front pair holding her upright against the pillar. I can't climb this, but you're up here, aren't you?
It was harder than the big feline made it look, scaling an icy column and then sitting atop it, and remembering to keep his tail from twitching over the edge of it. He pressed himself flat against the edge, relying purely on his hearing as the sheep-form attuned approached, excitement building as he heard the light clip-clop of her cloven feet on the ice, passing a few times before they paused. When he heard her through the bond, he peeked out over the edge of the pillar with azure blue eyes first, before relaxing some and letting his tail droop over too.
'You got me,' he admitted with a chuckle through the bond, before shooting through a sharp note of exclamation through the bond, a silent way of saying Surprise!, as he was suddenly leaping down beside her with a yowl sound rolling from his throat. He was intending on stirring up those instincts in her again, on startling her with his sudden arrival to the same level as she - another way of testing this form, of hunting without hurting his friend. Had he aimed his fall to land on her (or a wild animal of similar size) he estimated that he could've broken bones, disabled, maimed.
As it was, he landed beside her, the look on his face smug and thoroughly pleased with himself. With a purr, he crooned to her 'Get hiding!' before turning with a sweep of his tail to face the icy pillar and close his eyes shut tight, counting a soft one, two, three.. again.
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
There's two deliberate and excited stomps on the ice as Chulane's mental voice rings out about her, her instincts having been proven right. Though it's a victory she only gets to enjoy for a moment, the leopards sudden drop sending her scrabbling, the warning she gets not coming nearly soon enough to actually move. A surprised bleat leaves her, echoing through the sheets of ice and drowning out the clacking sounds of panicked hooves on ice.
I will ram you. She warns, the sternness in her body language, her lowered head softened by the laughter, the giddy excitement running off of her, through the bond. The turn is flipped again though, and Hester has to think quickly, try to make a plan on her feet.
Or maybe it's time to give into her instincts, to let the sheep take over. The only thing her body tells her to do is run, so run she does, sending noise echoing through the panes of ice, her path twisting this way and that, crossing over itself again and again. Her steps slowed as the numbers grew higher, and in a final, human flash of inspiration, she carefully picked her way backwards, scrambling up a short shelf, and trying to tuck herself out of view again. This time, when time was up, she was silent, not giving a hint to where she had gone.
Laughter abounds, the bond is full of it, as he relishes in the surprise he managed to give her, and the threat she shoots back at him. But she soon trots off, to hide, to give him something to hunt, to seek, to search for on this icy realm they have claimed as their playground. She is noisy, and he realises that it is a tactic, a way of overloading his senses so that he can't track her accurately. He counts, and when he gets to Ten!, he silences the bond again, pleased in a way when Hester silences it from her end too. He would always be pleased for his friends who showed improvement, and this game had turned into a way for both of them to hone their skills; he in hunting and stealth, her in fleeing and hiding.
Immediately he opened his eyes, turned and scouted the area for any trace of her direction. Hard hooves left a few minor marks in the ice, his keen vision picking them out, and his nostrils tasting the trail to confirm. He was filled with confidence, pushing forward on broad paws along her trail at speed, excited at the idea of solving this particular puzzle piece so easily.
It wasn't until he had gone several strides beyond the end of the trail that twisted and turned and overlapped itself numerous times that he realised what had happened.
He'd lost it.
A low growl rumbled through his chest, frustration flickering through his form, as hairs raised on end all along his nape and back and his tail swished violently behind him. 'Tricky,' it was a singular word, presented without the flavour of emotion to tint it, sent with the hope of presenting a reaction, a hint of her whereabouts.
He had to calm down, to refocus, to pick up the trail again, and hope that it might lead him to her this time, instead of round and round again. With a huff through his dark nostrils, he shut his eyes once more in an attempt to recentre himself, sensing the woolly scent all around him, but it was there too much - the cheeky sheep had done a good job of overloading the senses he relied on to hunt. 'Ah, you've got me this round. Where are yah?'
There's an art to life's distraction, to somehow escape the burning wait, the art of scraping through
The call of Ten! seems to echo through the icy shards made by the sea, freezing and shifting, though there is no sound to actually bounce around. Only an unanswered mental shout, Hester holding all her thoughts close to her chest in a tight grip, not letting herself reach out like she did last time, not wanting to risk revealing herself prematurely.
Much as she may want to peek, to look down over the sides of her raised up hiding spot, she holds fast, and waits silently, not moving, unsure of where the big cat was, where it could appear from. Once or twice, she even looks up, afraid she'd somehow left herself open for ambush from above. It isn't until the single word rings out in her mind that she starts to relax a touch, her attempts at misdirection apparently successful, judging by how distant Chulane's mental voice sounded.
Still though, Hester keeps silent, doesn't reach out. It's not that she thinks it's some kind of trick, she simply knows if she were to speak up now, she wouldn't be able to silence herself again. So it's more waiting, her ears flicking, listening to the faintest scrape of paw pad on ice, for the creaking of a body moving over the frozen wasteland.
Hah! Not the most elegant noise of delight, but it's the first one that leaves Hester, as she stands, slides her way down the short pillar she'd been hiding on. Hooves are not necessarily made for such terrain, but they don't hinder her descent at least, and in a moment she'd bouncing up to the big cat, horned head held high, a cheeky tongue sticking out of her mouth. I didn't think I'd get one over on you. She admits lightly, leaning in to tap her head against Chulanes. Do you want to do another round?
