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!
Gnashing away her rampant irritation, the youth had taken to snagging bundles of cloth, fabric, and sticks, meandering and threading her way down to beaches and dunes, until the warmth blended into her toes, and the familiarity gave her some peace. She’d taken to wandering lately, further and further out so the world couldn’t brand, couldn’t scorch, couldn’t ravage and savage her so easily, so the incandescent, emboldened fringes of her soul weren’t brought down into annals and canals of darkness. Fangorn followed along, bounding or elongating vines until they wrapped into the rocks and crevasses, until girl and gourd were merely blips on the horizon, chasing down nothingness.
Eventually, she settled, as much as she could, with feverish tints to her blood and impulsive reaches in her wake. Melita dropped to the sand, indifferent to the way it billowed or sank into her clothing, once a child of the desert and oasis, and now a belligerent piece of ash and soot and flames on the sea. The bundle of small twigs and twine in her hands was placed before her, completely unremarkable, and her fingers wove along the boundaries of one, encountering bumps and gnarls, and picking a darker hued branch and bramble, beginning the base of her creation.
Saiden had squirreled himself away in the small building housed on the sandbar. With just a touch of air magic he made a cooling breeze, one that made the structure sing with a haunting melody. It seemed appropriate for the task at hand: he had the cloths he'd taken from Jiao before she joined the crew.
His calloused and scarred hands worked them, wrapping them around some seaweed that he'd picked up along the shore. Holding a section in place, he wrapped a short and thin length of cord around it, one he'd pulled from a fishing net. As a flash of movement caught his eye, he glanced up from his work.
Poking his head out of the doorway, he grinned when he saw Melita and Fangorn. "Great minds, huh?" He gestured around at the otherwise empty area to indicate what he'd meant.
The honeybee wasn’t surprised to hear Saiden’s voice over the wind – she expected a majority of the crew to be wandering around, no longer upon the ocean, waiting for the next, upcoming voyage (with any luck, there’d be no ghost whales amidst the sojourn, and they could encounter something else for a change). She hummed under her breath while she worked, only turning her head over her shoulder at his question; for no one had ever said she had a great mind.
“I suppose,” came on an arched brow and a ruffian smirk, and then she dropped her gaze back to the task at hand. Much like she’d done with Eloise’s lantern, the youth had managed to perfect the art of knotting anything (likely from their days at sea), applying, wrapping, and tying so the sticks were bound together. “What are you up to?” Her inquiry launched along the breeze, eyes riveted to her movements and motions, head tilting vaguely, an examination in simplicity, in pondering where to go next in the makeshift sculpting.
Arching his brow right back at Melita, Saiden cocked his head to one side. "Ye suppose?" Chuckling, he winked at her (though with only one eye it was kinda hard to tell). "Well I know," he declared with a chuckle.
He nodded at the materials she was working with. "Much the same as ye, I imagine." Ducking back inside, he grabbed his bundle of cloth, cord, and seaweed. Settling onto the sand besides her, he wrapped another length of fabric around the still damp vegetable and knotted some twine around it. "Ye worship Ludo, right?" He glanced up from his work to listen to her response, expression intent.
Melita couldn’t be certain if there was a wink embedded in his singular eye, or if it was simply a rapid blink, so she snorted, shook her head, until all the crimson locks were out of place once more, tugged along the wind – flames in the breeze. “How did you lose your eye?” Not remotely tactful, impulsive and straight to the point, figuring the fellow sailor wouldn’t mind if the audacity and boldness layered upon their quieter sanction of the sand.
Her gaze inspected his wares, then glanced back to hers, pondering the cord and seaweed, then figuring hers would make do. Her hands wrapped around some portions of bright hues she’d found along the market, bartering some stones and meat she’d hunted down the previous day – it would’ve been colors Clementine adored and cherished – to blend into the thickets of wildflowers, to wear on illustrious, incandescent mornings, when and where everything was a song. She grabbed hold of a rock and began to wrap one of the strips of pink linen around its features, to amount to the outlines of a cranium, before glancing up with a wry smile. “I do.”
Saiden grimaced. Reaching up with one hand, he scratched beside the eyepatch, causing the skin in his empty socket to pull. Wincing at the discomfort, his scowl deepened. "I made a dumb bet with a spirit that appeared when I tried to pray to Ludo. My eye for somethin' shiny if I could beat it in a game of knuckebones."
He sighed and shook his head, looking away so he didn't have to see what Melita thought of that. "Clearly, I lost. But I'm hopin' to pray to somethin' that'll heal me."
Returning his attention to his work, he stuffed some seaweed that had poked out of a hole in the cloth back inside the middle of the doll. Shrugging at her next question, he tied a knot to prevent more of the greenery from escaping. "I'm trying to get closer to it."
With the beginning of the framework completed, she tied off that portion, wrapping some thread around to keep everything in place, while she worked on the body. Her eyes caught the way Saiden stuffed seaweed within, and she pondered, then decided to hasten it forth with sand, filling in the pockets and holes she’d already created and manifested. His story, about bets, about shiny filaments, about lost eyes for ambitious, unfortunate blunders, caused a frown, though she didn’t raise her head, keeping the filaments tucked down towards the doll. It was silly, to lose something so precious as one’s sight for knucklebones – for shiny shards he probably could’ve found anywhere.
But she didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. He clearly already knew.
As far as healing, or drawing any herald his way, he was already at a disadvantage in utilizing magic. Not his fault, and she wouldn’t judge – and the honeybee could proffer as much advice as she could manage. “Oh, well. It likes toys and games. And deals in memories.” Would Ludo be willing to mend Saiden? Would Safrin be a better option?
Nope, Melita didn't need to say anything, seeing as Saiden was already kicking himself for his decisions. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that. Losing the eye had been tough, but he was able to see well enough for most tasks, so mostly his pride had been wounded.
Continuing to work in silence a bit, he shaped the cloth into a wispy pair of sleeves. Luckily, it was already a bit ragged, giving the whole doll what he hoped was an appropriate appearance. "Aye, that's what I thought. An' unfortunately healing's not really its forte, as I understand it." He sighed as he adjusted the strap of his eyepatch.
Some lessons were harsher and harder than others; and while Melita had her fair share of duplicity, scars, and loss, the impacts likely differed here. A physical devastation, in a way, even though he had another eye that was probably perfectly fine and adequate – other than depth perceptions. Her head tilted, wondering if she should feel sorry for his efforts, or merely remain silent, with no further need to rub salt or sand into the wounds. She chose the latter, tying off a limb filled with the dune’s essence, before emptying more into the other makeshift arm.
But the honeybee still pondered ways or means to alleviate, brow furrowing vaguely, nose wrinkling in thought, tongue poking out while she concentrated on a piece of fabric not applying to her wishes. “True. I haven’t heard of many going to it for healing.” Maybe in the hopes it would know that one’s beloveds had made it to Mort – but otherwise, she hadn’t pictured the ragged herald as a mender of sorts. “What about Safrin?”
Saiden hummed as Melita brought up Safrin. "That's a thought." Flashing a grin at the redhead, his fingers moved to the top of his doll. Taking a white shell from the sands, he lashed it down where the doll's head would be, creating a facsimile of Ludo's mask.
Not looking at her, he cleared his throat. "The Voice restored Nate's eye. So, I was thinking of her as an option as well." He glanced up at his crew mate, arching an eyebrow at her. Although he didn't know her relationship with the new god, given the animosity between the old and new, he had a pretty good guess what she'd feel about that.
The youth worked on the other limbs of the doll, meant to be hidden beneath the rags, intertwining more and more sand until distinct shapes were made, molded, taking form. She tied off the ends again, weaving the bows and strings into the fabric itself, beholding it for an instant more in quick perusals and studies, before the other notion, the other option, lingered in the air.
She was instantly a rigid, contorted sprite, needling and thorning her way into the dune. Her jaw locked, and she said nothing at first – wiling and willing away the moments passing through her lungs, through her skull. That she didn’t immediately sneer showed some level of growth and understanding, that she didn’t suddenly burst into flame and vitriol a testament to self-control lingering within her bones. “I trust Nate, but I don’t trust her.” The stubborn, defiant set to her chin might’ve honored the animosity towards the Goddess; everyone was entitled to their own decisions, their own values, their own merits – but she’d never follow that figure’s. Another undulation of her shoulders, a shrug, and her gilded gaze remained on the doll. “Up to you.”
Inspecting the doll, Saiden turned it this way and that. It took longer than usual, but with only one working eye, visual inspections were harder. Which was why he squeezed it and had his hands roaming over it, making sure it wouldn't fall apart and that nothing was out of place. Teasing a few more strands of fabric out to make the rags more, well, ragged, he set the doll in his lap.
Shifting so he could regard Melita, he watched her stiffen. "Why's that?" Turning to gaze out at the horizon, he sighed. "Perhaps I'll try Safrin first," he offered, though the thought of visiting a shrine again caused him to tense.
Melita began on the rags now, after she’d completed and knotted along the limbs, after the contortions seemed finished, and not leaking sand. They were billows upon billows of bright, lively proportions, not the usual onyx, sable adornments; pink and gold, inlaid with pockets of flowers, warm sprigs and tender blooms, petals of blossoms and figments of tender things, rather than the dusky hollows of death.
She expected the inquiry, and didn’t cease in her ministrations when he asked, prepared in her regard for the Voice. “She caused the blight a few years ago.” The youth made no notion or hint of her own suffering in the affliction, how warped, how devastating, how treacherous, how awful she’d become, eternally wondering if it had been her actions had been the product of the sickness, or merely a catalyst for everything lodged within her figure, her soul. “And did nothing to stop it. But Vi did.” The god of life, cutting through the dominion of damnation.
Going in another direction, stepping along a different tact and track, she folded the proportions over the doll, and sought to cut off the remaining cloth. “Safrin likes gifts that honor her beauty.” A hint, and she finally tilted her head to survey him again, a whim coming over her as she noted the subtle tension. “I can go with you, if you want.”
Whistling a low note as Melita brought up a blight, Saiden glanced over at her. "I heard rumors of this blight, but just that. What was it, and how was the Voice involved?" He shifted in the sandy ground so he could watch he redheaded woman better, his single eye obviously restricting his field of vision.
His eyebrows nearly shot up to the top of his forehead when she offered to go with him to visit Safrin. "Really?" He grinned, his entire expression lighting up. "Ye'd do that?" Beaming at her, he leaned forward, scooting a bit closer to her. "I'd very much appreciate that. And I don't even know how I'd begin to pay off a favor of that magnitude."
