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!
With the construction of the hall and the trips out of Halo to talk to the other leaders having taken up her last weeks, Morgan was feeling quite exhausted, more so than she even did usually. She was working long hours to catch up on all Citadel business, talking to every kind of merchant and citizen, signing endless papers and helping with tasks It sat every end of the town.
When she finally got to stop and go for something to eat at the Kraai, it was dark; she wondered if it would even still be open. If not, she'd have to go to her mothers or the Palace kitchens for food, both of which made her inwardly groan: either way, there would be conversations she didn't want to have. At least at the Kraai, there was a good chance of an uninterested bartender silently passing her a meal.
It seemed quiet when she arrived, the door swinging open with a creak but hardly anyone inside; kicking the snow off her boots on the ledge, she leaned into the bar. "Anyone here? I am aware it's late."
It’s very quiet inside - only the most alcoholic patrons remain, and all the staff have left for home. All except one, and arguably the most important one, since he has the keys to the place. ”Never too late for you, Warden.” He’s sure the sound of his voice will be enough to make her skin crawl all by itself, but Neron steps out of the back room to sidle behind the counter, stacking clean glasses beneath for tomorrow.
”What can I get you? Food, drink, both?” he asks, already setting a wine glass down and filling it with something dark and rich and red - whether it’s for himself or for her remains to be seen. ”Or are you just here for my fine company?” Does Neron get more infuriating every time he sees her? Even he isn’t sure any more, but it has a bright and fanged smile on his face nonetheless.
Morgan had, in her desire for food and general brain fog of the busy day, almost forgotten who it was owned the Kraai now. As she heard Neron's voice it was all she could do not to groan and tip her head back, finding herself utterly confused by the man at the moment and not in a way she cared for. She watched warily from the door as he came out from behind the bar, taking a couple of hesitant steps in as she decided she did still need to eat.
If she were someone of greater imagination, she might have wondered if the drink he poured out was blood; as it was she ignored it, assuming it to be for another patron; she'd always been an ale person anyway. Sitting at the bar, she fixed him with a dry stare for his joke (Morgan desperately hoped it was a joke) and shrugged off her cloak, laying the heavy furs and leather down on the seat next to her.
"Food. Whatever's still warm will do." She pulled off her gloves too, laying them on the bar. "How late do you stay here? I know you don't need to sleep, but it's unhealthy to give the drunks somewhere to stay all night." Morgan didn't seem to make any effort to quiet her voice for the patrons of the bar, always wearing her opinions on her sleeve.
It was not for another person, but by the way she looks at it, Neron assumes it’s for him. He should have known the type of drink Morgan would enjoy, having been around her for long enough when their roles were reversed and he was Warden, and so he fetches her a mug of ale instead, raising his eyebrows as if to ask if it will suffice.
”I stay here as long as I need to. Whether the Kraai is open during that time is another matter.” So saying, he reaches up to ring a bell above their heads, indicating last orders. He’d been about to ring it in a few minutes anyway, but this gives him something to tell Morgan he’s not letting her Citadel drunks while away their time unnecessarily.
There’s still stew left in the kitchens, so he leaves to go and get it after pouring the last drinks for the late-stayers. When he returns, it’s with a bowl and a fresh hunk of bread, which he sets before her. ”Busy day?”
Neron seemed to know exactly what she was thinking, going to get a jug of ale instead; it wasn't until Morgan took it gladly that she realised what had just happened, how well he apparently knew her and her tastes. A little perturbed at being so easily read, she sipped suspiciously at the ale for the first few drinks as if checking if it was poisoned.
"..What else could you need to stay for, if the bar is closed?" She asked, now actually suspicious, mind immediately jumping to a million different possible shady businesses Neron could be running from behind the beer taps. As Neron rang the bell she looked around at the grumpy patrons finishing up their drinks, wondering if any of them were secretly contacts to the underworld.
When food finally did come out, smelling hearty and hot, she was grateful indeed and immediately began to eat, no hesitation for this. At the question she laughed and waited to swallow before answering: "Since I became Warden, I don't know what a non-busy day looks like. Every day there is something to do...I suppose you would know."
Morgan is suspicious and Neron is blasé, sinking down onto the small stool behind the bar to enjoy his wine while the Warden takes her meal. His steel eyes are on the last patrons, watching as they finish, one by one, and toddle off out the door. He lifts his glass to them; soon enough they are alone - alcoholics do not waste any time, he has learned.
”Well you see, the bar gets dirty with dozens of feet tromping through it all day and night, so it is in need of a good clean when the doors are closed. And sometimes people are terribly rude, and they purchase drinks and food. That needs to be replenished, so I need to write down what is running out, and what needs to be ordered. I can’t do that when I am serving beautiful women ale, can I?” He raises his eyebrows in amusement.
He took a sip of wine, nodding in agreement regarding the business of being Warden. ”Mm, I would know. I don’t envy you, having walked a mile in your shoes.”
Morgan was keenly aware of the people behind her leaving the bar, the atmosphere in the room changing imperceptibly as she was alone with Neron; she did not feel unsafe (as if. He was about as intimidating to her as a fly to an elephant) but certainly unsure, of what she might say that would come back to haunt her later, of what he might make her be confused about next.
"I'm surprised you clean it yourself. I thought you would have hired someone to do that." She commented between mouthfuls of stew, too hungry to hold off on eating before she'd said all she wanted to. Morgan was about to continue, say something about misguided youth she knew that would make good cleaners, when Neron mentioned 'beautiful women'. Sensing that the comment was likely meant for her, she gave him a flat look over her bowl. "Where are these beautiful women, then? I haven't seen them."
Taking a mouthful of her own drink, she sighed with a soft smile as she shook her head. "I wouldn't trade it for anything, though. I'm finally helping the Citadel to be what I always knew it could be."
”I suppose I will, eventually. But for now I’m just getting to know the place myself. I feel it’s only right that I get to grips with it before I put someone else in charge of keeping it clean.” Taking another sip of wine, Neron sidles out from behind the bar and moves over to the front door of the Kraai, pulling the deadbolt across so that no further patrons could enter.
”Clearly you haven’t been looking hard enough,” he muses back at the Warden, a sly smile on his face before he forces himself back to a neutral expression. Part of him wants to ask whether or not the job he had done as Warden hadn’t been good enough, but honestly, he lets it go after only a moment. He was never meant to lead the Citadel - it had just saved his neck to do so, once upon a time. ”I’m glad,” he says, returning behind the counter. ”This work suits you.”
"It's hard to imagine you walking around here with a broom. You fit shouting commands at a poor servant more." Morgan remarked, smirking as she thought of an image of Neron dallying about in a maid dress with a feather duster. She followed him with her eyes cautiously as he walked around her to put the deadbolt on, raising her eyebrows but not commenting on it: she supposed it was reasonable he might not want any more customers entering.
She rolled her eyes at him and continued to eat her stew, ignoring the part of her that did feel vaguely flustered, an emotion she was not used to and did not care for. Morgan was not accustomed to be referred to as beautiful, never having worked to create such an illusion; she was hard, she was ice, she was a fighter: she had never had the time to paint her face or select flattering clothing.
Wiping up some gravy with the bread, she smiled softly at Neron's comment, actually somewhat touched by it. "Thank you. My father always thought I would be the Captain of the Guard, and I was good at that, but...this feels right. My mother is still waiting for the day I become a spirit medium like her, but..." With a quiet laugh, she shook her head: not the work for her.
”I shall choose to take that as a compliment,” Neron says with a smirk from over the rim of his wine glass. ”I’ll be sure to hire such a poor soul one day. For now, however, there is no better way to learn a place’s dirty little secrets than by getting your hands dirty yourself.” He winks. As a Launceleyn, a lawyer, a spy and a failed Warden, his hands can hardly be counted as clean in the first place.
He settles in his seat again, surprised to hear her open up about her past, her family life. Finding himself intrigued by the sudden thaw in the Glacier, Morgan will have herself an avid listener on her hands. ”Your mother is a spirit medium?” He raises his eyebrows. ”What does that entail, exactly? You speak as if it’s something you can learn - I presumed that sort of talent was innate. Or are you able to tell the future and have been holding out on me?”
It wasn't, Morgan nearly said, but bit her tongue; she found that she usually wanted to quell the first instinct in her when it came to talking to Neron now, forcing herself to consider the man differently: he was not, she had to admit, the villain she had built him up in her head to be. While absolutely not what she would define as a good person...he wasn't someone she wanted to be unnecessarily mean to.
She made no comments on him getting his hands dirty, not sure she could handle where that banter might go.
"Yes, she always has been, since before I was born." Morgan confirmed, a little surprised by the interest but not opposed to talking about her family, especially in such a private atmosphere. Finishing her meal she pushed the bowl aside, taking the mug closer to herself. "Spirit mediums don't tell the future. She talks to the dead." She said, as if it were obvious (she felt it was). "I have...always been attuned to spirits in the natural world, but never to those of people. When I was younger I was skeptical of her abilities, but as I've grown older I've come to respect more things I cannot necessarily understand or explain."
Morgan pushes her bowl away and Neron runs a long finger around the rim of the wine glass. Were it made of finer stuff, he might have even been able to make it sing. Alas. Listening carefully as she explains - talking to the dead has a raise of the eyebrows, certainly - the Hailstorm sips again at his wine. ”And have you ever done it? Spoken to people who have passed on, I mean,” he asks. Perhaps it’s the tragedies that have struck the Citadel as of late, but he can’t help but think about it.
But then she speaks more, and Neron wonders more what kind of natural spirits go to follow the Warden around when she’s trying to find some peace and solitude. ”I would have expected you to be able to explain anything, given enough thought,” he says, lips parting to speak again when there’s a sudden slam from out the back of the bar. ”...Like that, for instance,” Neron mutters, getting to his feet.
Morgan shook her head, quite glad that she'd never had that particular ability. After her guards had died, her mother had offered to host a seance and she had vehemently turned the offer down, unable to face the potentially angry, disappointed faces of the soldiers she had let perish in her care. "Even if I could, I doubt I would use the power."
She raised her eyebrows as Neron said he expected her to be able to explain anything, knowing that there were many things in her life that she could not provide explanations for. Morgan was about to say as much when the slam drew both of their attentions away: immediately she got to her feet too, not so much expecting spirits as a potential burglar, or maybe even some evidence of Neron's nefarious back room activities.
"I will follow to assist in the case of an intruder." She said quietly, drawing her dagger from her boot as she followed behind him.
”Wise and beautiful,” Neron quips about Morgan’s decisions not to go chasing the dead once they were already gone. It was a sentiment they shared, undoubtedly - but there would have to be more on that later, given the sudden new developments. ”My hero,” he murmurs, unable to stop his mouth from running off without him, but the smile he shoots over his shoulder is nonetheless grateful.
They head through the back of the bar, past the kitchens and in towards the stock room, where it’s blowing a gale, frankly. There’s another slam - the culprit, it turns out, is an empty crate being blown all over the storage area from an open back door. ”I haven’t checked out here yet... must have blown open,” Neron reasons. Or something - someone, if they were unlucky - has snuck in while they haven’t been looking, and is now running around the Kraai.
”Can you give me a hand?” The back door (which leads out into the pitch black street) is tightly wedged open, and needs to be locked up regardless of the state of the bar.
