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!
We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be
An abyss unfurled before him, and the beast thought he’d been here before. Perhaps it was the Edge, before they lost it all, mystifying in its rolling fog, in its curls of enigmas, in the beckoning onslaught of water against cliffs. It billowed, pervaded, and presided, and he wondered if there was a chance to win it all back. If this was an end or a beginning. If this was destruction or sanctuary. If this was nothing or everything –
His gaze sharpened, because he wanted to see, wanted to know, wanted to reach for something out there in the midst and mist. A shudder rippled and curled through him, and his mind honed, called for an ability he’d never had in Helovia – because then he might’ve been able to blow dragons away, away, away, from their avaricious grasping wake.
The Mastered contortions of air pushed towards the fog – intending to send it rolling away, and over the sea.
--
Deimos uses his Mastered Air to try and clear the fog away.
Air manipulation: Can create and control the air. Must be within a 30ft radius.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
During PQ/PQ+/KQs/Drops, you roll with advantage on luck-based rolls and receive an extra name during drops.
DEIMOS
Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
She dreamed in visions of white – of reaching for things she couldn’t see, couldn’t have. It wasn’t unusual, to falter into those avaricious, ravenous states, where she could remember bits and pieces of worlds gone and gone and gone. But the youth couldn’t recall a realm of fog, unless it’d been in the Rift, and so she shifted from side to side, wondering if there was more cruelty beneath her feet.
But the clouds seemed so encouraging, so brilliant, so bright against her eyes.
And if she just touched them lightly, if she just spread her feet over their sanction…
Perhaps she was falling. Perhaps she was descending. Perhaps she was plummeting to her doom. It wouldn’t be the first time – but she hoped to awaken along the sea, along the waves, along the current – for her toes to graze and float above the surface, where she could have the moral craving. Her favored anklet dangled, beads and shells and all, along her skin, reminding her of bliss, of eternities upon the ocean.
--
Melita tries to fall through the fog and land on the water, using her:
Type: Light
Water Dancer | This delicate anklet, when worn, allows the user to step upon the surface of water as though it was solid as the ground. Can be used once per thread.
Lena was a dreamer; sometimes of kindness, where realms and worlds ceased in their hatred, in their menace, in their claws. Sometimes of peace and repose, where there were no thoughts of strife, where compassion was keen and rendered for eternity, where Voices and Ascendeds didn’t walk the earth, where reality would likely never take shape. This one was different, blinding and beautiful, and she could’ve rested amongst and amidst the clouds for eternity, stretching her arms as if grasping for the sun, the stars, the moon, and everything in between.
But oh, what fun it would be to leap and launch!
To go for whatever rested there, calling to her, come find me in some pearlescent shades. She couldn’t identify the noise, the sounds, the whirl of need, but it rested and resided in her heart. So she adapted, adopted, the fox shift, ivory fur to blend into things of uncertainty, as if there were no apprehensions, no trepidations, to the maddening mission.
Then she jumped, pouncing, bouncing, into the glory of the day.
--
Lena attempts to use her arctic fox shift and just jump into the fog/sea.
Arialla was quite accustomed to dreaming about fruitless searches by now. She had them all the time: dreams in which she sought her family, her home. Often she found herself wandering through an distorted version of her village, looking for her family members, surrounded only by faceless shadows. Other times she was on the beach in Torchline, combing through the sand for something she could barely even name but desperately needed.
This dream was different. The fog wasn't pleasant to be in, but at least she knew what she was looking for: the ocean. If she could find the ocean, all her worries would subside ... Well, no way out but through. She started walking.
-----------
Arialla has no helpful abilities for this so she's just going to walk through the fog!
The Chief had had his fair of bizarre dreams in recent times. Dreams of fire, of lava, of despair and loss. Of his beloved falling, of her being swallowed by the glowing molten rock.
So it was a strange sort of relief to have a dream that wasn't that.
The fog stretched out before him, an endless sea of white noise. It felt heavy - noisy, yet also deafeningly silent. He stepped forward, first as a human, then as an eagle, feathers erupting all over, flapping his wings, trying to get lift and momentum.
Because there was something he had to find, to discover, and his eagle shift was always good at that. As dreams were wont to be, he didn't question it, but as Chuy was wont to be, he tried to decide a clever way of achieving this objective all the same.
The brightest colours fill my head A million dreams are keeping me awake
She was hunting. Teeth, claws, wings, scales - all were working together to make her the killer predator that roamed the skies above. And when she chose her prey, they barely knew it, until the last moment, when they were downed, and consumed in an instant by her gaping maw.
At least, that's what she was dreaming, until a shift of landscape and form rolled out before her. The Blade accepted the change smoothly, transitioning into a curious squat as she surveyed the new realm before her, instinctively reaching out to Dramyrth as she did so. He was here as well, as he always was, crooning a soft lullaby above her, no doubt a great influence on the dream she was having previous to this fogscape.
Now they were hunting something else. Something precious, something just out of their reach. A jewel, a thing of beauty, for dragons and dragonhearted girls to hold and admire. Amaris stepped forth into the fog, her dragon above her, walking in the surface of the ocean, as it was her dream she was commanding, and using what insight from Dramyrth she could to guide her way.
--
Amaris walks on water (dreams yay) and has Dramyrth alert her to anything he might see.
A million dreams is all it's gonna take A million dreams for the world we're gonna make
Saiden shaded his eyes against the blinding white of the fog. When it deposited him into an ocean, he grinned. Treading water with practiced strokes, he swam in a circle, trying to pierce the mist that shrouded the watery world.
Unfortunately, it turned out to be rather impenetrable. Brow furrowing, he treaded water for a bit as he considered his next steps. Then his smirk returned.
He knew how to find pearls: his whole life had been spent on the sea, after all. So he struck out, swimming for what he hoped were shallower waters. If he found them, he'd search the sands there for oysters.
Saiden tries to find shallower water and hopefully oysters.
you think i'm happy because i'm smiling,
but it's the easiest thing to do
Juniper could have used a nice, relaxing dream to relieve the stresses of her waking life -- which had increased notably ever since she'd accepted partial responsibility for the well-being of the Fae. She took that duty seriously, and it weighed on her greatly.
This, however, was not the nice dream that would have lightened it. She spent enough time searching for things she didn't really understand when awake; she didn't need to do it in her dreams, too. But here she was, so she might at least try to get clear of this unpleasant fog.
Wings fluttering, Juniper flew through the fog, looking for any sign of change.
--------
Juniper takes to the air to search through the fog!
if you looked a little closer,
you'd find my eyes aren't smiling too.
There is only the mist. Though the salty scent of the sea is thick around you, there is no ocean to be found yet. No pearl for you to wrap your fingers around and greedily press to your chest. This world you find yourself in is thoroughly lacking in metaphysical furniture which gives you no concept of scale or time, distance or your ability to affect your environment.
Before you the mist ebbs away revealing a path to the left and to the right. Both appear identical, with no footprints or indications of travel one way or another. The contrast of white on white is so subtle that you likely have to squint just to discern that there is a path before you.
In the distance, you think you hear a seabird. Or perhaps it was a scream.
For this thread, posts under the 100WC will be accepted (though you need to write more than just "so and so goes left"). Post your decision at the bottom of the thread: left, right, or other (go a different way, do nothing, etc)?
We're lost in the space between
who we are and all that we're trying to be
Mist upon mist, fog upon fog, and nothing in between – no billowing, no movement, only the cover of ivory bursting before slate eyes. The search for something was the singular thing keeping him tethered to this plain, otherwise he existed in the stark parallels of worlds before, abolished, and gone.
It eventually faded, and there were figments, fractions, fragments to follow. Senses were naught here, no intermingling of his machinations, no calculations put to use, no tethers wrapped in their threshold. His gaze narrowed, but no need for speculation, for wondering, beyond the need, the avarice, clinging around bones and hearts. So he marched, like a dutiful soldier, to the right.
---
Deimos chooses to go to the right!
During PQ/PQ+/KQs/Drops, you roll with advantage on luck-based rolls and receive an extra name during drops.
DEIMOS
Stop trying to show how to save our souls
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
you think i'm happy because i'm smiling,
but it's the easiest thing to do
This was ... spooky. Juniper had only approached the sea a handful of times; the environment was so foreign to her that she couldn't say what in the dream was strange and what was simply out of her experience. Perhaps thick fogs and strange screams coated the shore often.
Her wings stirred the fog, but not enough for her to see -- no, there, a path. And ... there, another one. She almost wished she hadn't spotted the second; now she had to choose. An old Fae children's rhyme for making choices swam into her mind; she sang softly, "Ash, oak, beech, rowan; Mathair tell me, may I, I can?"
Left. All right, then.
----------
Juniper takes the left path!
if you looked a little closer,
you'd find my eyes aren't smiling too.
Maybe she could travel on the air. The notion seemed silly, and she laughed in spite of it, as she motioned and maneuvered, as she skipped along this white-washed plain, understanding nothing, existing in dreamlike voids, corresponding to her whims, her desires, her capricious endeavors.
When the fog shifted, lifted, the haze only persisted, and she was frozen to the spot, fingers itching to glide out, to touch, to have, and naught in her grasp. There appeared to be pathways lined along the sanction, but the girl had never been the type to take something traversed and well-sojourned, capable of making her own blazed trails. With another warm bout of giggles, the youth went straight, limbs and legs outstretched.
10-07-2020, 05:08 PM (This post was last modified: 10-07-2020, 05:09 PM by Arialla.)
Arialla
Arialla took the distant cry for a seabird, and it squeezed her heart with a homesickness she'd thought she was mostly over. She saw the ocean every day in Torchline; it should have lost its power to affect her so. And yet here she was, salt in the air and longing in her heart. Maybe she was looking for a way home.
She paused at the crossroads, trying to determine where the call had come from -- though the bird might be further up the beach, and she knew how sound could bounce in fog, and, also, this was a dream and had no need to adhere to any such logic. But she had no other indication of where to go, so she might as well use it.
Right, she decided. It had come from the right, so that was the way she took.
The fox didn’t fall, didn’t break, didn’t shatter – but oh, did she dream.
White upon white, ivory upon ivory, and her fur could’ve blended in with the motions of ghostly, ethereal abyss. How lovely it would’ve been, to stay here for all eternity, to bask in the glory of serenity, tranquility, and everything else it might’ve offered.
But there were other things to be had – and while Lena wasn’t a greedy soul, she was curious. And as the paths emerged, as they seemed to appear through the cosmic existences, she wandered, meandered, in the slightest of trepidation. Which one was best? Which would be the better option?
