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!
The heat flared up against his skin, and he couldn’t recall, remember a time when he’d felt so physically wretched. Mental exhaustion was one thing, but the ache in his bones was something not drawn from fatigue, but like that of some sickness he hadn’t had since he was a child. The morning sun felt like a vice, the press of summer like a noose, and at the same time, all he wanted to do was curl up into a ball beside the hearth in his home, like a cat, drawn into the flames.
The bizarre fixations along the corner of his eyes were no better – and he might’ve thought them ghosts. Each shift of his head brought on more aches and pains though, so he didn’t follow their lines and auras for long, trying to shift one foot in front of the other, heading towards the shrine, single-minded in his pursuits.
Because at least he had this – the information Safrin had told him to gain, in order to re-forge that damned door into something worthwhile for LongNight.
He made it to the sanctum and bowed his head, for that hurt far less, and he could stare at the ground while he attempted to collect himself. The wraiths nearby had started humming, and then he realized it was a drumming sound (calling him home? To war?).
Struggling and striving for composure, the monolith stood unsteadily, mouthing the words, as if he required practice, before finally giving them the rumbling vocals. “Safrin, I have spoken with individuals about the weapon.” The door, the sword, they all blurred together – and maybe they were one and the same, when all was said and done.
Safrin appears, though dimly. After her meeting with Sunjata she is wary, and for good reason it seems. Ghosts slide in and out of the Sword's line of sight, whispers of memories long past, and futures which haven't transpired yet.
"And what have you learned?" She asks. When last they worked together to create items of incredible power, things...did not go the way the Sword had planned. This time she'd give him every opportunity to understand what it was he asked for.
That he wasn't in his right state of mind was...a shame, but perhaps not her problem.
His head spun towards the dimness of the goddess; then they wandered over the phantom satellites, pressing in on the corners of his eyes until he was forced to blink, squint, wincing at the onslaught of pain, at the choking, strangling chords around his skull.
Her voice sounded far away, and he tried to follow it, to examine it, to decipher. What have you learned? So many things, and not nearly enough. The words stuck to his jaw, and he hung them out in the ethers, to slide through wraiths – he thought he saw the Penumbra in amongst them, and wished the world would open up beneath him, swallow him whole. “There are some who want to see the Ascended annihilated. Gone.” The man with the abhorrence in his eyes, that burned against the back of his mind – a vision before him now, wondering why he hadn’t slaughtered him where he stood.
“There are those who would rather see the sword or door destroyed.” He stilled, looking up, but not at Safrin, and into the sky, following something mystical and intangible. “So it does not fall into the wrong hands.” Were those his?
His thoughts curled and coiled in his blood, and he ceased for a moment, before remembering where he’d trailed off. “There are those who would use it for good, against the LongNight monsters.”
His answers are lacklustre and obvious. She'd been hoping for more insight, but then, with his mind broiled in sickness, perhaps that was too much to ask. "And where do you fall? Would you allow such a weapon to exist that it might be used for one week a year? Where would it remain for the rest of the time? With you?" Her brow raises. Madness slows the gears of his mind as infection works its way deep into his core. Safrin can feel a dark heat emanating off of him and it makes her stomach threaten to curdle.
"Are you able to accept the consequences of such a weapon?" Should it fall into the wrong hands, it would be yours that find themselves covered in blood.
He wanted to fall now. He wanted to flicker and be discarded into tiny pieces, smashed against the surface of the earth, where everything would no longer hurt.
Instead, he sat, feeling the ground move underneath him, the twist and turns of his actions driven back to haunt him. “Yes. I did not want it to go to waste. In case – ,” In case it would be necessary down the line.
In case the Ascended, and the Voice, did become an issue.
“If the Ascended did not want to fight the monsters. Or if Ludo allows me to complete Kiada’s quest.” The grass felt like a thousand whispers beneath him, each one displeased. A buzzing. A droning. Stitching of fates. “Yes.” He’d taken the consequences last time, and he’d paid for it dearly too. His hands had always been covered in blood. They held his head now, as it screeched in agony, as Penumbras slid their daggers into his ribs.
“I can hide it.” Where no one else would see or find or know about it.
Safrin knows and cares very little about Kiada or whatever quest she had with Ludo, and so she simply shrugs.
"So long as you know what you do, of what you ask." The goddess replies, her eyes tinged black with galactic intrigue and warning. She believes that the Sword thinks he can handle the consequences...that he's prepared for the ramifications...
but he isn't.
"Very well." And so it is that the door becomes a sword. It is an ornate thing, large and bulky though Deimos will be able to wield it easily. It sings with a dark potential, craving violence, sparkling with starlight.
Ascended Sword | Made from starlight and ascended-fluid, this blade can kill an ascended instantly (with permission); in PQ+/KQs the blade's damage increases the more ascended fluid it sheds. Is particularly lethal to Samuel Wordsworth.
Maybe later, he would notice the power and precision, the might and violence, the craving and yearning of vehemence in the armament. For now, he can only nod, granting delirium and lunacy and not much else as he took it within his hands – mind attempting to conjure a means of hiding it, of where no one else’s palms could rest upon its existence, where it would remain until he needed it for LongNight, or any other ridiculous venture.
“Thank you,” he chiseled and rumbled, a wave cast from one hand as the other allowed the blade to rest within his belt, amongst the many other assorted weapons. His eyes looked upon her again, but didn’t really see, didn’t really know, didn’t really acknowledge, stumbling out the way he’d come, gaze upon the ground.
