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!
hold me close smother me, my little dracula wrap your arms around me
Aisha hovered above her friend, awaiting his choice of fantastical form. He settled on his own feline, probably for the best. One of them had to do the heavy lifting, Aisha would be the distraction. Warmth and excitement drifted through the attuned bond, her sharp eyes roaming over his ivory pelt, only broken by strips of night. Together they let the sounds and sights of the darker hours fill their senses, taking in every bit of biological information that came their way. She spotted the herd just as he said it, pitch black eyes absorbing the light as it reflected off the prey animal's robust forms in the distance. The bat's eyes were incredible, not even the leopard could see this far.
They're this way, she replied, confirmation that the deer were the chosen quarry. Expecting the tiger to follow, she swooped down closer to the ground, following the path her sight had lain for her. The scents grew stronger the closer they got, sending a shiver anticipation down her spine; breaking through the bond and sharing her exhilaration with him. They were getting very close, Wait here, let me spook them your way. If the bat could wink it would, as she pressed up higher into the air, until she was hardly visible against the black canvas.
She tore through the night to the opposite side of the herd, black leathery wings beating hard against the wind. Focus, determination, tenacity, culminating into joy at the core of her chest. Her wings tucked in tight, she dove for the doe on the farthest edge of the herd, a small golden bullet shot out of the sky. She thrust her wings back out, parachuting in front of the doe and startling her into action. The shiftless creature chuffed and took off in Deimos's direction, the rest of her family following out of sheer instinct.
Now, she signaled, flapping her mighty wings and tailing the group.
There was a semblance of freedom in the pursuit, in the hunt, in the blend of intrinsic, ingrained movements and minds. Second nature, in any of his forms, to blister against the elements, to scrape upon the background, to pierce and demolish, to devastate and ruin. This wasn’t without purpose – he’d never been a beast to slaughter without reason (even amidst the Basin; a colossus of distortion and melee, of shadows and strife, but only to those who ignored warnings, who proceeded straight into ominous threats). Deer for provisions, for supplies, for food would be an ample need in Halo, especially with the coldest months looming on the horizon. But it didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy it, savor the moments for what they were worth, easing into the predilections, sending the amusements laden between bonds, searing over the connections as he spied into the distance. It’d been a long time since he’d been permitted, outside of afflictions and sicknesses, outside of grief, anguish, and despair, to merely relish predacious commitments.
An ear flickered in her direction, and he listened, slowly lowering himself to hover over the ground in quiet, hushed, meticulous strides. There was no need for bounding measures yet, no need to explode into an impact of muscles and teeth; the calm before the storm. He might’ve snorted at her exhilaration, but understood it too – sharing a composed, calculating air through the attuned adornments, restless in his wake, waiting, waiting, waiting at her instruction, silent in the evening sprawl.
Bat wings and eerie, enigmatic quandaries likely drove the deer towards him – a prey animal prone to panic, to long, illustrious leaps and not very keen intellect. As a heathen in the tall grass, he was keen to watch and bear witness, to pick apart the animals one by one as they drove past, as they maintained a herd mentality and instinct. He, like most predators, wouldn’t be going for the mightiest or the strongest; but the infirm, feeble, weakened, or merely bewildered.
An elder doe, for example, cast towards the back, and incapable of keeping up with her frenetic group. The older one he noted, his turn to direct, pick, and choose. Then he was a launching mass of motion, a vicious, unrelenting force, intended precision and cataclysms, claws reaching for the deer’s left side.
11-13-2020, 12:51 PM (This post was last modified: 11-13-2020, 12:51 PM by Aisha.)
what will you do when the vultures come for you, run and hide?
The panicked herd fled, a foolish flight towards their destruction. The predator waited beyond the brush, Aisha was merely the catalyst. The deer chuffed and barked, ignorant to the plots and strategies of their pursuers, and as they neared the tiger she heard his voice down the bond. Dark nocturnal gaze swept the crowd for the doe he spoke of, settling on the straggler. She was a worthy target, providing plenty of meat and hides, and beyond the point of contributing to her herd.
She doubled back from following the main group, instead flocking towards the graying doe. She swooped overhead as Deimos launched himself, tackling the doe to the ground and ending her in a composed display of force, poise, and accuracy. The life was taken, and as always there was a hint of sadness for what was lost, death itself was never happy. Though it was appreciated, and the leopard inside her licked it's lips in satisfaction as the scent of hot blood filled her senses.
Aisha dove for the ground, meeting it with boots instead of claws. A heavy huff of breath, her hands pressed against her side; the thrill of the hunt still coursing through her veins. Her hazel eyes met the icy blues of the tiger and a smile broke out across her face, "That was good, I missed that."
It was a ritual he’d followed time and time again, grappling, pouncing, mauling, until life drained away, until all that remained were carcasses and food, intending to utilize every aspect of the animal who’d had its last rush of air, its final heartbeat. He’d been so embedded with death that it wasn’t a figment he thought about until it was someone close to him – and then it gauged and carved, then it sculpted and tore – but there was no satisfaction in it. The violence and vehemence done, his jaw snared and snagged around the deer’s throat, the flickerings of the creature fading away, and he began to drag it back to where they’d once been.
Easier, he shifted in semblance and accordance with arms, hands, and legs – lifting the doe over his shoulder, tilting his head in retrospect to Aisha’s response, the lightest of smirks reappearing. He’d missed the vitriol, the raw undulation of power, the unfurling, unleashing, of machinations; away from the melancholy that plagued and overwhelmed, that marched to a beat of a different kind of damnation. “Do you want half?” An offering; he could cut the beast apart right then and there, once she’d been drained, automatically tying a foot around some rope left in his bag, and tossing the fibers around the limb of a nearby tree. Tried and true, done many times over along settlements, outskirts, camps, and citadels; he tested the weight of the bough before raising the doe upwards, placing an incision in the nape to begin the expend the ichor.
Thereafter though was a waiting game, and from where he stood he arched his brow, a more pointed look towards his fellow warrior. “What do you plan to do next?” Ambitions and aspirations – where she’d go, where she’d linger, what she intended to do, with the world churning and coiling, with the rapid changes only escalating, prevailing, over extended nuances.
what will you do when the vultures come for you, run and hide?
Aisha watched as Deimos shifted back to the man, stretching and shrinking the bones of the tiger in an act of old magic. There was something very comforting about being with other attuned, sharing the bond both ethereal and social. They were connected to each other and to the earth, therianthropic beings that on her homeworld was the norm but here, they were something special.
Deimos posed a question, "As altruistic as I may seem, I don't hunt just for the thrill of it," she replied with a soft smirk, watching as he tied his knots and began to bleed the doe. "I don't need a lot, take what you need and I'll take the rest," she added a few seconds later, moving to lean against the tree, facing Deimos. He brought up questions of the future, questions she herself had been pondering and dwelling on. What was her next step?
"If I said I knew I'd be a liar," she replied with a weary huff, all the nights she'd asked herself 'what's next' and she still didn't have a lick of an answer. "But I'll figure it out, this one here is a good place to start," she said, moving her hand from her side to to the scabbard at her hip. Fighting was her art, her sword was her quill. She'd etched masterpieces into thousands of straw dummies and suits of armor, and if there was anything she was sure of it was that her future held more of her craft.
There was a pause after that as Aisha considered the other less assured thought that'd nipped at the back of her mind of late. To speak it was to give it power, more incentive to explore this path that begged her to turn. She didn't know if it was a good idea, it almost felt like giving up in a way, something the warrior did not do. "What do you like about Halo?" Dissing the grounds was all fun and games, talking about 'getting out while she could'. But it did trouble her a little; after all she'd put into making it home, why did she so desperately want to leave? Had things really changed so much? Or had it just never been enough?
Another low chuckle echoed and bounded from his chest, real, tangible, whole, when Aisha cast her remark. He’d take enough to feed a few families along Halo’s residents, and then be content. So while he worked, the beast merely listened, a clear semblance by the way he tilted his head in her direction, the sharp slide of his gaze every so often. To hear she wasn’t certain wasn’t a surprise – many of them remained knotted and gnarled in various directions, none at all, or gazing upon options, pathways, that could simmer, seethe, or ignite either way. The Sword’s had always been flanked and regarded in fortifications, but the who, where, and why had altered course, and while some contortions instilled their murky abyss, those lines had remained the same. A glance towards the blade on her hip caused the indent of a smirk, then he went back to his hunting knife and its own edges, casting determined lines along pelts.
“There will always be a need for protection and defense.” A quiet murmur, consigning himself into those impressions and standards both of them held aloft. How many times had something occurred, bombarded, and sieged? How many times had they gone against monsters, either human or fellow creature? Getting stronger, training, was deemed par for the course, but there could be a goal, a direction in mind too. Perhaps Aisha would find it along the way, as she became more and more immersed in other lands. “Sometimes it is the circumstances around us that shapes it.”
Deimos had only just turned back to the doe when Aisha voiced her inquiry about Halo – and it gave him some pause, a moment or two of self-reflection. The General made no mention of how the affliction had carried him there, as if the backdrop, the scenery, the tundra had been the last thing the Reaper had seen, and it was damned to be the Sword’s too. Of how he likely would have remained frozen, dead, and covered with snow, with ice, bones never found. Of how he’d ultimately almost given in, fallen, piece by piece by piece, strand by strand, until he’d been completely unfurled, desperate, alone, and done.
His attention still on the carcass, the monolith ensured his voice would carry, and none of it containing the measures of sorrow and somberness in the wake of all these changes. “I used to live in the mountains, so I am reminded of a home I once had.” Of a world he couldn’t honor or yield within again; but the summits, peaks, and valleys were still here. “The people are strong. Survivors.” They had to be, out along the glacial footholds. “And friends took me in when they could have easily left me.” Worthless and inept, delirious and out of his mind. “I thought I would pay them back.” Which would remain to be seen.
what will you do when the vultures come for you, run and hide?
"Sometimes it is the circumstances around us that shapes it," his words a truth that could not be avoided. A swordsman could have all the skills in the world, teaching and training and hot blooded war games, but how she utilized them was entirely reliant on the situation. A warrior with no war was just a tale, a memory of when they had risen to the occasion. A captain with no soldiers was just a soldier themself. Maybe that was part of her problem with this place, it felt as though her potential was snuffed, snatched from her by the sudden shift. She nodded and glanced down for a moment, arms crossed thoughtfully as she readied her next question.
Aisha seemed to have incited some reflection in the hellhound with her curiosity, he paused. The woman watched his back as he faced their hunt, she wondered if he could feel the way she considered him, did interest flow through the bond the same way joy did? Could he tell that she was asking because she wanted to know where she might fit outside of the grounds? He continued to face away when he gave his answer, though his low tonality reverberated on the open air, clear and loud.
"I'd like to meet your friends someday, think we'd get along?" she asked, a playful smirk returning to her eyes.
The measures of where they yearned to fit, to match scale for scale, from measure to measure, was a tried and true human deliberation. Some didn’t care, and they could float, wander, as they pleased. And some strived with great difficult to savor a place where they were needed, wanted, and craved. He understood it well – and had more than once, in his stoic, impassive, reticent, rebellious airs, not cared. Had remained so utterly indifferent, had waged wars against fortifications and behemoths, had callously dragged his blade into the earth, given it life against the other emboldened, tenacious vestiges. And here – here he’d tried, and for some time thought he’d had it figured out. Could train. Could defend. Could protect. Could shield. Could siege until he had nothing left to give.
And then he’d lost most of the things he’d wanted to save.
Something pulsed within the bond, and his eyes narrowed, feeling the plunge of inquisition, consideration, and he turned away from the doe, head twisting over his shoulder. “Probably.” Halo respected hard, tenacious workers, those who didn’t give in, those who tried even after blunders and mishaps, on those willing to build themselves upwards and onwards. “I am certain they would welcome someone with your skills.” Perhaps she’d been fishing for compliments, and he’d bit on the hook – another half-grin emerged, and then he turned back to his work, carving out the remains.
11-17-2020, 03:09 AM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2020, 03:11 AM by Aisha.)
what will you do when the vultures come for you, run and hide?
Aisha liked to think she was a hard worker, and that other's viewed her as such. She was confident in the work she did, in how she did it and the effort she put in. She didn't ask for validation as anything more than a coy joke, a pattern of speech and a presentation of cockiness and ambition. But still there was always that hint of uncertainty, that nagging feeling of was it enough, am I enough, that was soothed by affirmation, endorsement. To be told that she would be accepted by his city of survivors based on merits, it felt good.
"Flattery Deimos? Gods you're over selling it," came her more teasing response, sarcasm to hide the way she truly took and appreciated the sentiment. She'd never be caught slippin. He turned back to the doe and continued his work, Aisha shifted to better face him, leaning her shoulder and side against the trunk and watching him work. "Really though, I amgoing to visit. A little adventure will be nice." As if there isn't always enough trouble to get into here for those who look.
She stalked forwards a few steps, placing a soft punch against his arm, "And don't come up short on the letters this time, I wanna know how things go."
He laughed, though it wasn’t a loud, booming thing, a quiet, nearly broken chuckle, rumbling through chest and lungs. Eyes fell, understanding the nuance of the joke, of striving to make moments bearable instead of stifling, instead of overwhelming – light, joviality, amiability, out of the hellhole he constantly spun upon. Then the gaze lifted as she shifted closer, in his sights, so he couldn’t hide, so he couldn’t stifle, so he couldn’t lurk in the damnation lurking below the surface. “Was worth an effort,” the half-smile there, resting in the depths of his mouth, in the sigh as he worked, in the echoes and fronds of more contemplations, considerations, and circumstances surrounding the void. “What would you like to see?” To make her visit worthwhile, to make it an adventure, rather than a muddling, confusing sentiment of movements, and motions.
And while he went to further carve and portion the deer, the punch to his arm caused the arch of his brows, glancing down at her, snorting. “You would not have wanted any letters from me while I was ill.” He couldn’t imagine spelling out anything of worth, let alone sense. “But I will try.” A token promise and vow, an assurance to course its way through.
what will you do when the vultures come for you, run and hide?
There was always so much joy in making others laugh, Deimos's soft chuckle made her endlessly proud in her ability to soothe. He gave his reply, to which Aisha tipped her chin down a bit, contemplating her answer, "Snow I guess, did you know I'd never seen any before I came here?" She had taken a minor tangent, remembering the sweltering heats of her summers and the mildness of her winters.
"I want to see it all, where you work, how the place functions. And I'm assuming from what I've heard that Halo has a nice armory?" Resplendent munitions and halls of polished armor had always drawn her attention, she would certainly like to see what they were working with up in the icy fortress.
At the knock to his sleeve Deimos glanced down at her, offering her his word. She'd never any reason not to believe him before, so his assurance satisfied her. "Good, so will I," she replied, sliding around him to the other side to get a closer look at the deer. It was coming along nicely, carved to proportions that would suit them both. She ran her fingers along a patch of fur that wasn't yet tainted with blood. It was soft, but turning cold. Silently she stroked that spot, giving her thanks, and her apologies.
Deimos likely wouldn’t be able to ever adequately express how much her presence, snark, and general ambience comforted him. That she was alive. That she wasn’t broken or beaten down. That she contained all the fire, vivacity, and vitriol he remembered, recalled, from days not spent in misery. It reminded him of better moments, not so stark and heavy, not so burdened and disastrous, not so completely undone; permitting the semblances and impressions to pervade through the attuned bond while he worked – finally somewhat at ease. He remained a diligent, composed figure, but the rigid, unyielding, unbending contortions and adornments had left him – a breath not sharpened, keened, or held in grief or anguish. “Never seen snow,” and the beast shook his head, as if he’d never believe it – but there were so many worlds beyond this, where the heat scorched and scarred, where mountains didn’t exist, and where gods didn’t persist or prevail.
“It is suitable,” came on a grin; though far more boyish and juvenile. To see it all was an encompassing expression – he’d be avoiding the areas considered to be crawling with cannibals or the dragons’ caves, but they could go to the Sea of Glass, race across the tundra, and carve their way through the Citadels’ streets.
Eventually, with words and vows exchanged, all that was left to do was cut portions. He completed the actions with little fanfare, placing them amidst individual bags concocted and created from his hands, and then placed the soft hide within her designated sack as well. “You will need it for Halo,” and a smirk emerged, before he whittled away at the bones too, since they’d be useful for other adornments and valuables. Towards the notion of sojourns, he added on a tilt of his head, on a rumble of deep tones. “Send me a note when you are ready, and I can meet you at the portal.”
11-17-2020, 10:32 PM (This post was last modified: 11-17-2020, 10:32 PM by Aisha.)
what will you do when the vultures come for you, run and hide?
Their joyous reunion was drawing to it's end, the night growing darker and the wind colder. Aisha chuckled along with him, enjoying these last couple minutes as he finished up their hunt, carving it into sections and designating them places to stay. His magic would never cease to amaze her, the way he could conjure wonderful things from nothing, from pure potential energy. Inside he placed the vestiges for her, bones and hides and meat tinted red. She took it, weighing it in her hands before swinging it over her shoulder.
"I appreciate it," she replied, regarding the hide. She stepped back a bit, a smile curving her lips and crease lines next to her eyes. "I'll let you know when I'm coming," she then began to back away, making for the manor before adding one more affectionate goodbye, "I missed you, I promise it won't be too long."
