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!
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
Rumor has it there’s a sickness going around – and if Milo has anything to add to it, he simply just assumes it’s a product of the Outlander’s first monsoon season. The fact he’d been out in it and came out fine? Well, that just proved the fact that he was accustomed to it.
What he isn’t accustomed to, despite the amount of times that Milo’s lived through the stormy season, was the rampaged product after. The Hanged Man was still down, needing repairs, and Milo’s spotted a few pieces of buildings that had managed to tear their way from the Port to the Rainbow Road. So he arrives, a cart in tow, the sun beating down overhead and shimmering his skin with a slick sheen of sweat as he begins to pick up the debris and toss them into the cart.
This, at the very least, would keep Zeph off his back. Pulling his own weight, and all of that.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
She hadn’t gone home yet.
There was a certain amount of dread mixed in, a coiled bout of apprehension, based on the nuances and information passed along the streets. Ordinarily she would’ve rushed to them, hastened off at the first mention of sickness, bombarded her way through, and tried to ensure they listened to everything any healer mentioned.
Except this sounded like nothing ordinary, and Melita wasn’t sure what she could really, truly do – besides hurt in her inability, in her ineffectualness, to do anything for them.
So the youth avoided for the moment, strolling further and further out, promising she’d be back before the sunset, before they even knew she was already here -
Another’s form appeared, strange and unknown, along the pathways nearest the blended hues and the factions of rainbows, and her brow arched, eyes watching as the cart was being filled. A distraction was certainly up her alley, and so she and Fangorn ambled closer, snatching up a piece of debris in her hands. “Do you need any help?” A call from the vestiges, light and airy.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
He doesn’t expect to find company among the Rainbow Road. But the sun’s overhead, and he supposes it’s only a matter of time before someone stumbles across him. When a voice comes from behind him as he’s grabbing a few broken pieces of what appears to have been a porch at one point, Milo tosses it into the metal cart with a bang, reaching up to wipe the sweat from his brow.
He spots her as she arrives with debris in her own hands, similarly fiery hair, gilded eyes, and a pumpkin that certainly looks like he might be a hellion of his own. A wide grin is shot Melita’s way, surprised that someone like her – rough around the edges but unsurprisingly stunning despite it – would want to help him. “Yer welcome to help if ya want.” He says, gesturing to the mess of things around them – the debris lost into the warm waters of the Rainbow Road.
“Name’s Milo.” He rumbles to her, flashing her an easier smile, before he reaches out to grab another piece of debris to toss into the cart.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
“Okay!” Bright and incandescent, simply willing to do something besides bide her time before the notions carved against her. She’d never dreaded going home before; so eerily uncertain of what she’d find. Of being utterly useless again. Here, she could provide and preside in action, and the apprehension might melt away in the sun, in working until her fingers stopped trembling.
The acceptance was enough, and she easily slid towards the cart, placing the refuse she’d already grabbed within – sneakily glancing at what was already contained – before peering over the edges and back at the stranger. Was crimson hair a common theme here? Because it represented fire, cinders, burning everything down around them? Or was it symbolic of warmth, the heat from the world? Both, or none at all? She couldn’t say. She wasn’t certain of anything more than her own properties, the inferno churning within.
Her gilded eyes swept back over him as he managed a name: Milo. Fangorn stood nearby and merely, openly stared. “I’m Melita.” Her smile was gracious and vivid, before scattering back to the rim of the Rainbow Road’s expanse, crouching lightly to snag at a piece of wood drifting upon the embankment.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
She accepts the work easily and Milo would be lying if he didn’t think that there was some relief within it. At the very least, it would speed up the process and offer company to shoot the shit with, even if he didn’t know her very well if at all. But they go and grab more debris, tossing it into the cart, when Milo offers his name and glances again to the pretty lady.
Her name certainly sounds familiar, though it takes him a moment to figure out where. He reaches in, grabbing another piece of loose board beginning to drift away in the vibrant hues of the water when he turns back to her. “Oy, you sailed with the Ark, yeah?” He asks, flashing her a bigger toothy grin before moving to stand beside her and Fangorn, leaning in a bit with a conspirators grin. “I work fer ‘em too.”
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
A lady she was not – no prim and proper miss, all fire and guts and vitriol, a curl of fire at her seams, molten veils ready to be extended at a moment’s notice. She had no qualms in getting her hands dirty, either in blood or debris, as she separated two boards from one another, placing one aside, studying it for a moment, pondering if it was salvageable. Fangorn grumbled, and gnawed on it, while she whisked away to the other, maintaining the semblance of their pattern, and permitting it to settle into the cart.
He turned towards her with an inquiry, and her brow arched, head taking on a radiant, wild tilt as conspiracies and furtive gestures appeared to unwind. With an impish air, she collected another board, a trickle of water dispersing, splashing from the force of her movement. “Yes.” That he worked for the Ark too was a curious note, because she’d never recognized or seen him before. That could’ve been from her lack of perception or attention though, and not his fault. “What’s your job?”
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
The confirmation has the grin on his face forming a bit wider, a bit brighter. And when he turns to deposit the rubble he’d picked up, he reaches for another to at least pull his attention away from her. It works for the moment, reaching out for another piece that might be salvageable, dropping it to the side of the cart where they could better assess it later.
“I’m a runner on the docks.” He offers, turning back to her with another piece of wood in his hands that he deposits into the cart. “Work with Zeph, mostly. Don’t get’ta go on the ship much.” He shrugs, finding nothing within the words that bother him. No, he always seems to find sailing as a boring venture – with nothing but water for miles and miles. Milo imagines his boredom would grow huge considering his needs for constantly being in motion.
He considers her again briefly while he continues to work. “What was it like? Out there?” Sure, he’d heard the rumors of how the Ark had returned battered and bruised. But he might as well get the information from the source rather than gossip.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
On tiptoes and edges, she peered further into the water, fingers delicately nudging a board caught along some stones, careful not to leave them in for too long, uncertain if she’d be burned (do embers, do flames, catch fire from another?), and opting not to completely risk it. Eventually it came free, and she lifted the object, turning it over for inspection (it wouldn’t last or hold for anything – reminding her briefly of Mae and her salted bow), and only thereafter, lifting her gilded eyes back to Milo.
“Oh. Do you enjoy it?” She made no mention of Zeph; whom she still had a bone to pick with, wondering if it was worth the imminent agony, of pushing, of pulling, of irritating and boiling over, or to let it go. She’d always had a difficult time with grudges.
She walked towards the cart, depositing the flattened board there, dusting off her hands in search of something else. His inquiry brought her attention away from the embankment, musing over how to best answer. “Brief lulls of tranquility – before monsoons and ghost whales were upon us.” The honeybee wild-child would allow Milo to interpret that as he wished. “Saiden said its different each time.” She shrugged; still not quite certain how to gauge and weight the experience with herself.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
“’S pretty good.” Milo responds with an easy grin shot her way. He’s always been an active child, one that bounced off the walls whenever monsoon season hit and he was forced to remain inside. It was one of his biggest difficulties, but he’s managed pretty well so far. “Lots to do, always more work t’be done.” He shrugs as he deposits a piece of metal into the salvage pile.
But then he’s asking how the trip went, how the Ark had done out on the seas again after its unfortunate stay during Flowerbirth. And he clutches the handles of the cart before he goes to push it a bit further down the Rainbow Road, listening to the adventures and tales she tells. “Ghost whales?” He says, pausing in his step to turn and look back at her with surprise glimmering along his face. “Eh, sounds pretty awful if ya ask me.”
Another checkmark to Milo’s ever growing list of reasons he doesn’t want to join the ship crew.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
She was a restless sort of individual too – all flames, desperate for the cinders not to go out, chasing down action and motives and ambitions, because she wasn’t certain what would happen when she stopped. Would the walls close in? Would she lose everyone or everything again? No time for lulls, for listlessness, for languid stretches of time, to go, go, and go, become stronger, mightier, than the void, than the world, than the tug of earth consuming them all.
A runner; why hadn’t she thought of that? A light little grin followed through, hidden from view as she ducked her head and found more remnants on the shoreline, meandering down the pathways as he maneuvered the cart. “There is always something to be done on a ship too.” For some reason she thought she needed to defend it, the illustrious Ark, and her decision with it. “And I get to fire cannons.” When they weren’t firing on her, and burning flesh.
She’d give him the notion about ghost whales. “Not my favorite ocean creature.” The wrinkle to her nose was the only indication the animal had bothered her at all – Melita was no stranger to the sea, to the power undulating beneath depths and fathoms.
But maybe, she hadn’t been used to being, and feeling, so very small and insignificant.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
A hum of a laugh slips from his throat, his shoulders rising and falling in a shrug. “Most’a my family are fishermen.” He glances back over to her with a small laugh and a smile. “I didn’t wanna follow ‘em and spend my days ona boat.” But the grin grows a bit more conspiratory as he focuses on Melita’s comment of cannons, glancing to the light marks that are left behind on her flesh – singed and healing. “How’d it go?” He asks, leaving the question open for her to pick how she wanted to answer.
As for Ghost Whales? It was enough to send a shiver down Milo’s spine as he continues to to clean up the Rainbow Road. “Nev’r seen one-a them in person. Hope I never do.” He offers her, moving back to the cart to survey their work. “Have ya been with the Ark crew long? I haven’t seen ya before.” He asks, resting a hand on the cart and taking a sip of the water in a canteen he’s brought that’s managed to keep it cool. He offers the canteen to her once done, the day too hot to go without hydrating themselves.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
She listened while she worked, restless entities spilling through ichor and existence, spying a portion of a deck, or a dock, and intending to fish it out through a crouch and several well-orchestrated sticks pulling and pushing it closer. Maybe Milo was the black sheep of his bloodline, not intending to follow down lines already honed and sewn in the sand. “I didn’t follow my family’s occupation either.” A wolfish grin followed, but she wasn't sure why. Healing; she wouldn’t know what to do beyond picking a few herbs, and she knew it was too dangerous to try without experience or knowledge. She let the notion of her father’s roles roll off the back of her spine, because he didn’t count for anything. Not when he hadn’t wanted them.
The dock safely in her grasp, she pulled and tugged a little more, before it rose onto the bank. Her eyes lightly ghosted over mended scars, marks of burns and backlash. “Could’ve been better.” Not like she’d hoped – the cannons at her beck and call, the gunpowder in her hair, the cinders in her soul. They’d landed upon skin and flesh and bone instead.
“I don’t recommend it.” Ghost whale sightings, coming to grips with the massive size, the bleached adornments, and the promise of death. She hadn’t been ready to meet Mort that day. But she could see how hundreds of others might have glimpsed upon the leviathans and knew their moments were gone. “No. This was my first outing.” Not long, and based on Jack’s reaction to Ludo, she wondered for how much longer. Her hands went absentmindedly to the canteen, pouring some of the water into her mouth. “Thank you.” And then placing it back in his grasp.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
// every time you cross my mind, i brought another memory to keep yours inside i saw us drown like high tide, and everything is nothing if you're not here tonight //
“Aye, you rebel.” Milo offers her, an elbow sneaking out to elbow her in the side with an easy bubbling laugh slipping from his throat. He’d never been much for fishing, sitting on boats doing nothing but waiting and collecting the fish when they came and trying to wrangle them into place. No, he was far more suited for a space where he could burn off all of his excess energy, where he could keep secrets and be a part of a bigger family, one that seemed far less involved in making sure he was the perfect child.
There’s a small nod granted to the mention of the cannons going better, and he refrains from asking if the burns on her body are from it – instead, focusing on the comment of ghost whales and whether or not Melita had been here for a time before and he’d simply just not known. “Ah, got a taste ‘a the sea before, I’m guessin’?” Comes his quiet prompt as he offers the canteen to her – nodding when she takes it and thanks him, before she’s handing it back after a sip.
He slips the cap back on and puts it in the sand under some shade, a decent amount away from the water that might try to snatch it up. “So plannin’ on workin’ for Jack long, then?” He asks absentmindedly, finding it easier to talk about this than anything else.
Eating fire is your ambition to swallow the flame down
She snickered at the notion of rebel, as if the mere word could conjure the flames, the embers, the cinders curled in her blood. Revolution amidst toils, rubble along the grain, and Melita somewhere in between, a bastion of tempestuous strength and audacity. She took to aiming for his side with her elbow in retaliation, the air of confidence and ridiculous aloft in her lifted chin.
But the youth didn’t expect the next inquiry, and her features softened for a moment, gaze away and up, glancing over the brightly hued water. This place in particular didn’t remind her of the Dragon’s Throat, but other bodies of fathoms and depths did – the sand, the shoal, the surf, and then everything else laden in between. Like days where she and her sister and Iskra had spent their moments with noses pressed against god’s glass, glancing at the fish swimming by. “Where I was born, yeah.” The wistful smile was gone in a flash, replaced by something else in the shifting topics, in the way she moved from him and towards another board rolling towards the shore.
“Maybe.” She shrugged; not quite settled into the role, uncertain about what would happen each time.
to be lit up from within, vein by vein to be the sun
