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!
With your big heart, you praise God above, but how's it working out for you, honey?
Somehow, he'd made it back into the Sanctuary in one piece, though maybe not in his head. Bastien had wandered far in the last few days, gotten to the Temple in time for the meeting only to find himself burnt and scared, had wandered the Grounds for a while in desperate panic before seeing the lights of Sanctuary once more. He was home, but he didn't know where Azrael was, didn't know what was truly happening.
Every hour or so, he remembered Rexanna was dead, and every time the pain was new.
Maybe as a distraction, maybe because it was his default, he had begun a painting. Usually, Bastien liked to line up all the colours he was going to use in a row, decide things like composition and do a sketch; none of that now. Barely using the brush (often switching to his fingers) he created a blooming mess of colours on a dark canvas. Enough of the artist in him remained to stop it from getting muddy, but it was hardly a cohesive piece, plenty of white space still left as he dawdled around the canvas and stared at the paint.
The open door to the street would allow anyone outside to hear him talk to himself as he worked: "Oh, no, no. Not there. That isn't right...we need to communicate...big!! Big love, like...The...Ear! Voice? Ear Voice."
We read the writing on the wall Braced each other for the fall
"Ear voice?" Edwyn was absolutely in the habit of talking to himself. In fact, he often narrated the things he was doing in his head. It helped his process as a writer (or so he told himself, surely it wasn't some sort of symptom of anything), and helped him not feel so alone. Peaking into Bastien's studio and spying the master hard at work, the ascended might have left his counterpart alone, were it not for the fact that he was sick.
Just how did Edwyn know this? Well because it was Bastien of course. Bastien with the lost wife and infant running about. Bastien, the greatest artist in all of the Grounds and honestly, probably in all of Caido. How could Edwyn not know? Aside from him being an entirely new character. And so, letting himself inside if only to make sure the artist wasn't a risk to himself, Edwyn leans appreciatively against one of the walls, his arms loosely folded over a crisp white shirt, as he nods approvingly at the canvas upon which Bastien smears paints.
"You can almost hear the ear voice in that." He praises in a gentle and sincere voice, his blue eyes focused on the swirls and blobs that compose this latest masterpiece.
With your big heart, you praise God above, but how's it working out for you, honey?
Hearing 'Ear Voice' spoken back to him, whether by one of the new choruses in his head or by someone living in the real world, alerted to Bastien that it really wasn't right, but he couldn't work out which part of it was wrong. While he frowned and thought it over he turned to see if this voice was attached to a face: finding that it was he grinned, throwing his arms open sloppily and spraying paint from his brush across the floor and walls (and the canvas, though by accident).
He recognised the man before him, though couldn't quite recall the name in the moment (not particularly personal - he'd forgotten and then remembered most of his friends several times in just that morning); not that it mattered. Bastien was far more preoccupied in listening to what Edwyn had to say on his art, which made him beam with pride. "Oh, thank you! Though...I'm not sure...perhaps it is hearing I want. It's difficult to know; do you want seeing or hearing when people come to your art? Or maybe touching? ...Smell...?" While Bastien was often eccentric, to anyone that had seen him talk before, it would be clear he was not simply giving one of his usual rambles, but jabbering incoherently.
"You could make some art here too, if you wanted!" He declared, once again waving a hand around and spreading paint across the room. "For whatever you want!"
We read the writing on the wall Braced each other for the fall
Despite this messy greeting (artists though it was), Edwyn flashes the other man a wide and bright smile as if nothing at all was amiss. Indeed as Bastien asks his question the writer leans in, listening intently as if being schooled by one of the absolute masters of his craft. And, despite Bastien's illness, he was that.
"Any of them. All of them." Edwyn replies with sudden passion. "For them to taste the paper and touch the colours. To drink it all in with their eyes." Honestly, it was a rather romantic and wondrous notion, to be able to create for so many of the senses at once. "If anyone can do it, it's certainly you." The writer adds, his flattery not false at all.
If ascendeds could blush Edwyn just might have as he beams at Bastien. "And..if I said I wanted to sketch you? Just as you are right now? Would that be alright with you?" It's asked almost shyly, like some novice asking to sit in on a master class of which he has no right to be present for.
With your big heart, you praise God above, but how's it working out for you, honey?
"I like your ambition." Bastien nodded passionately, thinking over the words as he dipped his fingers into red paint and threw drops with a flick of his wrist over the canvas, most of them ending up on the floor beyond it. "I do hate to take us out of philosophical questions, but do you think literal taste would have value?" He leaned in and sniffed at the canvas, as if expecting it to suddenly have the aroma of a delicious meal. "Some wine mixed in with the paint, perhaps? A few spices?"
He jumped back at Edwyn's offer, entirely enthralled with the idea of being sketched. "Absolutely! Yes! Of course! Such a thing would fill my heart with joy!" It had been too long since he'd had an art session with someone else - since Rexanna's death, he'd not been in the mood. "Ah-- I should...um...I don't know your name." He admitted though, wanting to clear that up before they got much further. Whether it was a quirk of the illness or a genuine slip up, he had no idea who the man before him actually was.
We read the writing on the wall Braced each other for the fall
'Only one way to know!' Edwyn agrees enthusiastically, and had there been a bottle anywhere around, he'd have mixed it in with the paint himself. "Just think, a bouquet for the senses and the eyes. Raven hair that smells of blackberries, bees glued against the canvas to simulate the buzz of a crowd!" He's raving a bit, but then again so is Bastien. And even so, what of it?
"Ah, I am so honoured for the opportunity." The writer gushes, hands to his heart in praise and appreciation. Edwyn was truly an odd sort, a shining ball of light who seemed nothing but genuine and utterly pleased all the time.
"Oh, it's Edwyn." He offers, not at all put off by the lack of recognition on Bastien's part. What with Rexanna and Az the man can hardly be blamed. Beside that, his genius must take up so much of his mind. What use are names, anyway? "Now don't let me disturb you at all. I want to capture you exactly as you were. Are." He corrects, before sitting himself down on the floor. At the angle he's at, Bastien looks like a giant as he pours over his canvas.
With your big heart, you praise God above, but how's it working out for you, honey?
"Oh, yes! An installation...perhaps it could even be literal, paintings of the food and sensory experiences themselves on the walls, but nothing of the real thing in the space - only the aesthetic, the scent..." Bastien tapped the side of his head a few times, as if trying to save the idea in his mind for later (though, with the illness making his thoughts foggy and distant, he was absolutely not going to remember it).
While he was not quite entirely there at the moment, Bastien always appreciate a smiling face and good attitude in his studio. So often people brought their troubles there, created art out of angst and little else; he understood so much creativity came from pain, that it was inevitable and not their fault, but it was still nice to see a happy face once a while.
He nodded, understanding well the desire to capture a subject in their natural enviroment, and went back to his own painting, standing and considering it for a long time before adding a speck of colour here, a line there. "So do tell me. How long have you been drawing? Do you create often?"
We read the writing on the wall Braced each other for the fall
"Oh I love that. Maybe it could be a commentary on hunger. Or how easily the senses can be tricked?" He could see it now; could especially see Bastien at its center, explaining in uncertain terms what it was all supposed to mean, bamboozling those around him with his accent, wit, and vocabulary.
Lost in the whisper of charcoal across the page, the writer looks up with a Hmmmmm?, before his mind pieces together what it was the other man had said. "Oh, not long. Really only since I became an ascended. Before that the world was...harder to understand. To pin down, if that makes sense?" Edwyn smiles, fully prepared to laugh at himself for his poor descriptions. "I've always sketched though. I found that it helped me remember small details I wanted to later include in my writing. The way an eyebrow twitched, or the particular shape of a jawline, or a mountain."
With your big heart, you praise God above, but how's it working out for you, honey?
"Yes! Yes! Oh, those fools in Venice would have never understood that kind of genius!" Bastien was almost slashing at the canvas with his brush now he was so excited, each mark of the paint flying off the edges and splattering some part of the room, whether it was floor, tables or someone else's poor work.
Harder to pin down. Bastien tilted his head at the phrase, not quite sure what Edwyn meant but unsure if it was due to the words being genuinely unclear, or his fevered brain being unable to understand it. He could at least comprehend very well the use of sketching for memory, though, his own diary and personal sketchbook very much making a time capsule of the year he made it within. "Yes! Have you ever gone back to look at them and seen a totally different person from yourself in the now?"
