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!
For all the pursuits, for all the knowledge shared, that one particular piece of clarity stuck in the back of Melita’s mind and gnawed; like teeth, like shards, like glass, pricking down her senses until she couldn’t wait any longer. Her offer had been placed out from within, and she needed to do something, anything, to make it cease, to make it stop, to somehow right the plight.
Because she’d been there before. She knew how this worked. She understood the way sicknesses warped and bled, altered and bent the skull, until every machination never felt like one’s own, and it hovered, chased, and tore worlds apart. She’d done it with her bare hands, howled into the void, pursued the hollowed fixtures, and screeched until poison infused, locked, and loaded. The youth would never wish it upon her own family, who continued to suffer, who continued to labor under these numerous pretenses. Was it because he was Ascended? But why did the disease affect everyone?
There had to be something. Something else. Not just flowers. Not just water.
A mixture of both? Another element missed?
Stubborn, the honeybee had set her jaw and maneuvered at a fast pace, packing her bag full of weapons and essentials, and only ceasing, only relenting, in her pursuits and movements to pick up Milo, and start their journey into the Climb. Through portals, through Seas of Glass, through tundra exploits, until they seemed to arrive down tunnels, down mystifying floors.
Out into a world of obsidian, of bizarre, blackened stones, reminding her briefly of the Rift, curling the blood in her veins. “What on earth…,” she murmured, looking back to her companion, and to Milo, before she advanced.
the hope and the hurt has lived inside of me but there's gold in the dirt
Sam hadn’t gotten better either. And while Milo’s never left Torchline before, not even for a quick trip to the Grounds or Halo or the Greatwood, this time it’s different. It’s all he can think about when the opportunity arises and Melita asks for him to join her. He goes, for experiences and hopefully a cure, both of them on a similar path, even if Milo’s experience with the Doctor was tenuous at best.
He’d heard stories, of course, fucked with him a bit with a summoned cat, and it’s that magic he keeps held tight to his chest as they cross the terrible cold of Halo and make their way to the Climb. He doesn’t know what to expect. He realizes now how cold and under prepared he is for Halo that he’s lucky the Climb isn’t worse into the cold. Luckily for him, this is far better than snow. Lava is something he’s seen once before, the heat another that his body is far more comfortable with.
He adjusts his pack, face flushed and sweat beading up along his skin, following Melita into what almost feels like a dark tomb. “Y’know, when I offered to come help ya I wasn’t expectin’ ya t’bring me to a black hole.” He murmurs, brows furrowing as he takes in the area, knowing nothing of what a black hole is in reality, but it’s an apt description.
The floor is slick and he slips on it before recovering, trying to take smaller steps to keep himself vertical.
i never took the time to see but i knew of its worth
Her hand, her arm, reached out instinctively as he seemed to slide – but he recovered on his own, proffering a cheeky smile in the midst of her discomfort, her consternation. Perhaps they were already out of their depths, striking out into a ruin that would only make matters worse. But they had to try, because if she didn’t, and things became worse –
She’d never forgive herself.
“Sorry. I didn’t think we’d end up here either.” Wandering, striving, advancing, but without a semblance of direction. Maybe she should’ve waited, should’ve asked other inquiries, pondered or rooted around for those who’d been here before. The impatience, the desire to help, for the wounds to cease and desist, had overridden any calculating measure, driven by her impetuousness, her impulsiveness, over and over again.
But they’d make something of this sojourn. The determination in her bones wouldn’t permit, wouldn’t allow, for anything less.
Her eyes shifted back to Milo, pondering their situation. She’d chosen the location, bizarre and bewildering as it was. She’d let him make the next decision. “Where do you want to explore?” Too many options, too many portions where they could snoop, decipher, and discover.
the hope and the hurt has lived inside of me but there's gold in the dirt
She reaches out for him as he slips, but Milo shrugs it off as soon as he’s gotten his feet back underneath him. His words aimed to be cheeky, amusing, playful to cover the nerves that settle deep in his bones – but they fall flat with her apology. So he decides to offer a bit of honesty, a shrug given toward Melita as he works at his lower lip. “’ve nev’r left Torchline before.” His gaze slips over toward her, unsure if he’d told her that tidbit before.
He was stubborn and stuck in his ways of finding that Torchline was superior to the rest of Caido, content to live and die in the same place. But then the portals happened, he still hadn’t had the urge. But here with Melita asking for help, company, while venturing to a different place and Sam’s inability to get better with the water… Well. That solved that.
He sighs a little bit, carefully stepping along the slick floor, making his way to the uneven pews and scanning them for anything of interest. “Could see if ‘nythin’ was left in the… Benches?” Closer to the center where something remains sat up, though he hasn’t quite given it all of his attention yet.
i never took the time to see but i knew of its worth
To a youth who’d been in three worlds before she reached adulthood, the prospect of never leaving one area struck her. The smile left for a moment, replaced by something akin to apologies and regrets, as if she’d dragged him out of every comfort he’d ever known. “Sorry,” she placated again, trying to find her way, her footing, in this dark, indulgent room, where everything seemed molded and melded into Stygian properties, and she wasn’t certain if they’d find anything worth note or healing here. “You can go back if you want. I can do this by myself.” A reassuring grin to replace the one lost, not quite meeting her eyes. Torchline was his home, and she’d yanked him from its shelter and sanctuary on a mercurial whim; because she’d known what it was like to traverse through kingdoms and sovereigns without a thought, without a care, without pre-conceived notions of what hell could be. She’d already lived it.
Her steps followed and traced, bending around the bizarre pews, reminding her of the Temple in the Grounds, but these were particularly grounded in something else, and she couldn’t quite pinpoint what bothered her. Her gilded gaze rounded back to the thing in the middle, and she nodded to him, inspecting benches seemed far easier for the moment then figuring out the fractions and fragments in the center. Melita was once more reminded of Kisamoa, and all his deadly artifacts, repressing a shudder as her hands went to along blackened stones, tracing over their structures to see if anything remained behind.
the hope and the hurt has lived inside of me but there's gold in the dirt
Her apology is met with another shrug, unsure what she wants him to say. He agreed, he knew what it might entail, even if he wasn’t fully prepared to deal with it emotionally. But at her comment of turning back and leaving, he glances around the dark room once more, his gaze eventually finding her as he scoffs lightly. “Nah, I told Sam I’d help ‘im.” He offers quietly, finding it to be a somewhat noble task to abandon everything he’s ever known to help someone that’d had a bad stretch of luck.
“Y’know, he drank the water, ‘n it took his hearin’ away.” A small frown crosses his face as he continues to walk slowly and carefully down the pews, following Melita’s line of sight with his fingers trailing along the black expanse of rockery. And when he reaches the center, he steps toward it – curiously focused on what sits in the middle though he doesn’t touch it just yet.
“Whattya think this was for?” He asks quietly, brows furrowing, attention focused intensely at the obsidian.
i never took the time to see but i knew of its worth
The acceptance rendered again, and she nodded, saying nothing more on the subject, pushing past the discomfort and apprehension, stowing it away in the back of her mind, in the inhale and exhale of her lungs. Onward, and onward, and onward, the same old tale, the same old saga, clinging desperately to her own determination, and any hope residing somewhere in the midst. The news about Samuel was all the more unpleasant, and though she had her own issues with the redhead, mostly concerning and surrounding Nate’s ascension, she didn’t want to wish anymore ruin and debacle on him. Unless it was by her own vengeful hands. “I’m sorry to hear that.” A frown while she wandered, calloused fingers still gently gliding over rocks and enamel. “There has to be something the Ascended could try.” Could use. Could heal from. She doubted it was an Old God curse – because why would they do it to their own followers and supporters? She doubted it was a New God curse as well, for the same reasons.
What outside forces were plaguing them? And why?
Her eyes followed Milo, until he hit the center, the middle portion jutting out, massive, encompassing. “I don’t know. It’s like the Temple in the Hollowed Grounds in a way. Makes you wonder if something was worshipped here.” Or maybe some rituals. Some sacrifices. Something coveted and contorted and blackened. “Be careful,” she uttered on a whisper, uncertain if he was going to reach out and touch it.
the hope and the hurt has lived inside of me but there's gold in the dirt
“’m sorry too.” Milo rumbles, a shrug of his shoulders. “Didn’t know they’d have sucha hard time, y’know?” He adds, trying to wrap his mind around it and what it all meant. Were the Ascended so much different from the rest of them? Granted, only Nate and Sam had been his encounters when it came to the Ascended. He didn’t know what else to expect.
They seemed perfectly human to him, and the fact that they could carry on with their lives and make things of themselves was another addition that Milo imagined most… Not people wouldn’t be able to do.
But he moves to the center, staring at the rock in the middle, listening to Melita as she continues to speak. “Whattya think it is?” His head tilts much like a dog’s would, pausing to contemplate it while he chews on the inside of his cheek.
i never took the time to see but i knew of its worth
A nod, swift, sure, and certain, while her mind was occupied in a convoluted sanction and section of layers, confusion, and torment. “We were always told they couldn’t get sick.” It’d been true throughout the circumstances with the Blight, though the Voice had been the cause. In this case, no one seemed to know exactly where it’d come from, how it contorted from person to person, or what would last for a cure. And that was with those who didn’t have fluid for blood.
She came up to him after finding nothing of importance along the other obsidian stones, wandering into the middle, where the bizarre formation seemed to take shape. Still, moments of the Rift, of Kisamoa, drifted through her pulse, and she fought off the notion to render it into nothing, to try and disassemble the weird notions. “Could it be a symbol of something?” The firecracker youth glanced up, to see if it pointed into any particular directions, if there was something aligned with skies or rocks. “Is there anything on top of it?” She figured he’d be able to see over or within, his stature a little taller than her. Or she could always stand on top of one of the rocks, striving to gesture and glance over.
the hope and the hurt has lived inside of me but there's gold in the dirt
“What else were ya told?” He asks, passing by the benches toward the center. “I dunno ‘nythin’ ‘bout the Ascended, really.” He lived with one now, sure, but there was something else that lingered in his mind, that he doesn’t know whether or not to trust them. Sam had been nice and kind, Nate was someone he tried to avoid if only for the connection to the Arbiter. The rest of it, though? He’s at a loss.
He follows her points as he tries to look for anything of importance, head tilting as he focuses on the weirdness of it all. A bead of sweat trickles down his neck and disappears beneath his shirt by the time he looks back at her. “Maybe it’sa place fer offerin’s?” He suggests, reaching out to touch the basin along the sharp edges carefully.
Nothing happens and he furrows his brow, leaning over the bowl to look into it. “I don’t see ‘nythin’.” He rumbles, tilting his head to look back at Melita with a raised brow.
i never took the time to see but i knew of its worth
Melita had learned through experience, through indications of the world – her mind musing while she frowned slightly, nothing found, nothing laden from the top of the bizarre perch. “They can’t be near fire. And they can’t feel pain.” Which made them formidable to certain extents; incapable of backing down, despite injuries becoming a prominent issue to their structure, one could surmise. She shrugged, wondering if there was anything else she was meant to indicate or remember; perhaps the rest would come later.
Just a place for offerings left dead ends though, even while she crouched and wound her way around the center, irritated at the lack of answers. At not being able to find or locate anything. At not being to help. At not being able to come up with a solution, an answer, for those still sick. A vicious little sigh exuded from her lungs, folding her arms in an act of petulance, surveying the rest of their options. “Do you see anything else you want to look at?” Or had they come to a dead end, incapable of finding anything of worth?
the hope and the hurt has lived inside of me but there's gold in the dirt
He remembers the fire from the first time he’d met Sam, how the Ascended had told him he could make a fire but had stayed a healthy distance away from it. As for the not feeling pain part? It surprises him a small amount, though he nods as he inspects the basin, finds that it results in next to nothing, and so he moves on – gaze lifting and scanning along the cavern walls for any sign of anything that might be useful later.
He finds nothing from his own search, and he ends up moving back toward the benches, sitting on one of the black stone pews as his head turns toward her. “I dunno. Seems just like’a black… Cavern? Kinda like the Fingers but not.” He reaches up to run a hand through his red hair, gaze following the lines of black until it seems like all the light disappears again in the center. “Y’got anythin’?”
i never took the time to see but i knew of its worth
Melita was very tired of being useless. Of being incapable of doing anything for any of her friends or family, save for telling a few calming stories, or trying to get them to drink water. It all seemed so very inept, and she curled her fingers into her palms, makeshift fists for a moment while she breathed in whatever remnants of sanctity she had left. “No.” She didn’t have anything except stupidity and ineffectualness. That much had been true from the beginning. Her eyes fell away from the blackened pews, the obsidian wares, and the naught it seemed to exude – just stones, with no guidance on how to solve the ongoing dilemma. “Sorry. We can go home.”
And in the back of her mind, as she began to shuffle out, she strived to renew the fiery emblems of her determination, pieces left behind, the rubble and ruin of the ongoing strife.
