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!
Deimos seemed to stiffen as soon as Bastien mentioned Amalia, someone that he thought the Sword would like to think about: trouble in paradise, then? The part of him that loved gossip wanted to ask for more immediately, but that was won over by the kindness in him, which could tell Deimos was not keen to talk on it. Giving a gentle smile, he nodded. "Then make something for yourself. You don't seem like someone who's given himself many treats."
At least it seemed like he'd been right on the reminiscing. Bastien huffed a laugh, frowning with some confusion over the description. "Elephant like? In terms of his size, or did he have a trunk?" He asked, imagining a man formed not unlike the God in the shrine his mother had once had.
Bastien had always been good at laying pretty words over his own feelings and the words on Rexanna were no different, the sentiment true enough but the calm delivery the result of a practised method of pushing down pain; showmanship, of a sort. He turned the Luxere over in his hands a few times as he thought over Deimos' question, trying to separate his own good memories of Rexanna from places she particularly might have loved.
"Hmm." He looked up to the window, to the bright sky beyond. "Anywhere with a nice view, somewhere quiet. Maybe in the fields...near where we made the pyre. That is where we always went to find some peace."
He waited for some other ax to swing; that he’d uttered too much and the Ascended would dig, and then Deimos would reform to another brick wall, another fortified dimension of onslaughts and heartaches. Perhaps Bastien was perceptive enough to notice, to know, it would be a slippery slope, and let it be. “Oh,” he uttered, staring at the unicorn in his grasp, as if he hadn’t considered making something for himself. The artist was correct in those assumptions; it’d been a long time since the Sword had thought about anything he would’ve liked or cherished. “Okay.” A quiet acceptance, a nod, before conforming to finishing the equine.
At the further insinuations of Tembovu, the snort following through wasn’t withheld. “He could turn into an elephant.” Much like the rest of the shifting, Attuned adornments here. The day Deimos saw another of such ilk would be a poor one; the memories not hazy, despite being from a life before. Hatred, grudges, and abhorrence ran deep, embedded and chiseled through mountains and demolition.
Then there were the aspects of where to place the Penumbra and Harpy memorials – a thought that he’d never thought he’d have to endure – and he listened to the options. The Fields, sanctums and sanctuaries laden – maybe they could tuck it in a corner somewhere, hushed and unobtrusive, where respects could be paid and endeavored, without recalling the tragic losses of Fiat Lux. “When you are ready then.” They could march over and contort, create, make something that honored brave, strong women gone far too soon.
The idea of treating oneself seemed to be entirely new to Deimos, who reacted as if Bastien had told him of something very strange indeed. "If you were to make yourself something, do you know what it might be?" He asked, gently prodding for Deimos to explore the options more; Bastien suspected the man was likely to pick something practical, rather than simply pleasing, but it would be a start.
With the Attuned here in Caido, hearing a man could turn into an elephant was not the shock it once would have been; an inappropriate joke about trunks came to mind but he swallowed it, thinking that Deimos was unlikely to appreciate it.
"I am not sure it will be any time soon...but I will let you know. It will be hard to bring the feelings back up, the longer I spend calming them down, yet..." Bastien shook his head and sighed. "I can't face it, just yet. I'm still at the point where I often think I will go home and find her there in bed. That I may get to tell her about this awful dream." He blinked a few times and swallowed, the only indication of fought-back tears.
At the first instinctual pull and tug of Bastien’s question, he would’ve said a weapon. A streamline of dominion and prowess, some serrated edges to bludgeon an enemy, to render adversaries and monsters torn asunder. But that didn’t seem very inclined towards arts, and such armaments in plaster or sculpted denizens wouldn’t be effective. So he wondered, very briefly, of things he enjoyed, of worlds apart from here, of beauty and enigmas that didn’t seem to quite touch upon these realms. Or he was very biased. “Could I paint something?” Instead of sculpting, because he wasn’t sure he could do it justice. “There were auroras, back in the Basin…” Favored and revered, portions of light even his darkness couldn’t taint or devour.
With no further comments on Tembovu, the Sword was content to leave the subject matter behind; instead tending to cloven hooves and leonine tails, while listening to Bastien. And they were comprehensive reaches and heartaches, where reality slowed and seemed dimmer, unfathomable, intangible, a nightmare with no basis, until it suddenly was. Because she wasn’t coming back. Because there were no Penumbra smiles lingering at thresholds, because there were no more cloak and dagger secrets, because there were no more shared motives. Glancing upwards, Deimos could see that he’d reopened wounds and lacerations, and clenched his jaw, the regrets piling on top of one another. “Sorry. I understand.”
Bastien was expecting that Deimos might make a large sculpture, perhaps something like a bear, big and angry and strong like himself; he was entirely shocked when the Sword asked instead of he could make a painting, though clearly he was delighted by the question. What more depths could he find in this man with time and the magic of artistic expression?
"Of course! There is no limit to mediums in my Sanctuary. A painting of the aurora sounds magnificent. I will find you a good sized canvas, and it shall be ready for you when you wish." He promised, already having an idea of what he might use and the paints he would prepare.
Nodding at Deimos' condolences, he supposed there was little else to say about the whole situation with Rexanna: nothing they did would bring her back, which was the only thing that would truly make the both of them happy. "...Azrael will love these toys. I can see parts of their mother in them already. If you wanted to be there when I gave these to them..?"
The toys completed, lined up neatly in a row or occupied in Bastien’s hands, the monolith merely waited for some version of acceptance. The promise and preparation surprised him, and he didn’t know why, considering how often the man seemed delighted by all things artistic, and he bore a nod at the kindness he didn’t deserve, at the knot coiled in the measures of his spine.
The next suggestion even took him completely aback – so much that his eyes widened and it took him a moment to recover, before slipping back into the well-purposed and practiced mask. Azrael was one last lingering piece of Rexanna, and while Deimos didn’t think he’d merited or earned a right to be in the same presence of the child, not after his actions, not after everything (they are not Kiada he had to remind himself), he surprised himself by nodding. “Sure. That would be nice.”
Except, of course, it wouldn’t happen anyway – not with the way the world worked, festered, and decayed.
