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!
Noah was learning more and more about the gods, and it was a good thing for him. When he was asked to bring an offering to Frey in regards to their fortification of Halo, the hunter eagerly agreed. He took the knowledge he had gained from Phoebe to gather his offering before he bundled it up and headed out to make his offering.
For being Leafchange in Halo, the day was unusually calm and warm. The sun peaked from behind clouds every now and then, shining down on the Citadel walls and making the ice glitter. Noah took a deep breath. Moving to a secluded place in the Citadel, he prepared to make his offering. The hunter knelt down and set his bag at his side, opening it carefully and placing the fruits he and Delphine had traded for in Torchline. Although they were dried to preserve their eating abilities, their colors still shone brightly: mangos, papayas, and pineapple were still brilliant, fiery colors. Next to the dried fruits, Noah placed four small paintings Delphine had made. They were each on leaves she had gathered from the Torchline jungle, but they depicted what he suspected was her view from her Hollowed Grounds cave in each season. He thought they were beautiful, and captured well what Frey tended.
"Frey, I offer these gifts to you in hopes that you will find favor with my people -- please, help us fortify our home to sustain life." He prayed, quietly, and honestly, and true.
will you hold the line when every one of them has given up and given in
Deimos had not been one to pray to Frey. Other than years before during Fiat Lux, he’d kept heed and away from their aspects, especially before their split; his preferences, if he had any at all, lending more towards Safrin. However, dutiful measures and the ongoing process of labor, efforts, and machinations surrounding Halo dictated that offerings be held, honored, and made towards the deity. The Sword wouldn’t be the one to mar or mark it at bay, simply because of discomforts or the blinding, glimpsing unknown.
He marched along in hellhound roots and paws, gliding across the snow and cobblestones as a sharp, monolithic outlier, cast in sable, onyx, and black upon the stark white or earthen gray. The fur provided him the ability to nuance throughout the landscape without ceasing, without chill, without other provisions, and the bag strapped along his neck provided the rest – the contributions carefully wrapped and placed within before he angled towards the Citadel’s shrine.
The beast wasn’t the only one though, and he snorted slightly at Noah’s presence – not taking the silent individual for one in such aspects either. But the world churned and burned at different rates, and no judgement or further scrutiny would pass through his mind. Instead, he shifted once more, human form again, a nod extended towards the hunter’s way, “Noah,” and a rumbling of tones as he situated and pulled out his own provisions to slide next to the councilman’s.
Fruit, snagged and snatched from a recent trip to Torchline as well, in a variety of citrus adornments next to a round bowl of cream, potted seedlings, already beginning to rise despite the ongoing chill (his enchantments might’ve had a hand in it), and wood carvings, meant to depict aspects of the lands they all journeyed within (mountains for Halo, the beach for Torchline, fields for the Hollowed Grounds, forests for the Greatwood, and lava plumes for The Climb). Only once he’d taken them all, given them their due space, did he bow his head, striving to formulate some measures of adequate speech for the occasion, silent, but capable of being carried across the attuned voids. Please take these offerings in gratitude towards your assistance in securing Halo.
Noah was not left to his prayer and offering for long before the sound of another caught his attention. He leaned back some, balancing on the balls of his feet and his toes. Deimos was easily recognizable at this point, and the hunter nodded his own greeting to him. Even when he was not sick, he was a quiet man. Noah respected that, his own stoicism something that native Halovians knew well. He was always the quiet one, and to have another man who held the same mannerisms was nice. Noah did not feel like he had to fill the air with words when he was around the warlord -- what needed to be said would be said.
He watched as the Sword laid his own offerings down to Frey. They were similar to his, which gave the hunter hope. It seemed that those outside of Halo were more in tune with the gods and their heralds, and for Deimos' offering to compliment Noah's made the hunter feel at ease. Finally, he felt, he had done something right in regards to the gods. He wanted to ask the warlord his feelings, opinions, and knowledge of the gods, but now was not the time nor the place--and, Noah felt a little off about it. When he had asked Loren, the Firebrand was amazed that Noah did not know more as a native of this world, and an attuned. Noah couldn't remember the god who helped him attune -- he had done it so young, and trauma had taken the forefront over some of his childhood memories. It was hard to recall something that did not center around his parents. He likened that fact to the people in his life telling him that if he remembered them, they weren't really gone.
Noah knew better than that, now, however.
will you hold the line when every one of them has given up and given in
Had Noah asked, Deimos wouldn’t have judged along the parameters of deities – not from his standpoint, which had only been altered after his arrival to Caido. His disposition towards the primordial, celestial beings amidst Isilme, where they machinated hate and craved war, and Helovia, where they were either absent, indifferent, or manipulative, varied here, but only after experience after experience. And even then, he was relatively hesitant, asking for information, or for assistance in things he otherwise couldn’t do himself. Perhaps it was due to the Abandoned blood in his veins, beyond his control and nothing he shunned, hid, or found shameful; he utilized the ichor, the pulsing, pervading tactics to protect, shield, and ensure others were out of harm’s way. If he was going to weighed differently because of how he was born, he wouldn’t carry the same prejudice into this venue, this realm, this timeframe.
But instead the silence flickered and lingered on, and the beast waited for some signal, some sign, uncertain of how these offerings filtered into the hierarchy of things. Waiting, perhaps, as nature intended, kneeling there before the shrine, embedded and infused with the cold, content in the chill. He managed to incline his head, a slight tilt that could’ve been inherently feline or merely predacious, a raptorial scrutiny, towards the quiet, hushed companion, and for once he found himself needing to push words into the range. The semblance almost made him laugh.
Rather than break apart the stillness though, he aligned it towards the attuned bond – his eyes circumventing back to the ground, to the snow, pulsing a wave of gratitude, an air of appreciation and recognition for the other man’s efforts. Thank you again for helping me when I was ill. For it might’ve been just as easy to ignore him, there, inclined on a sick bed, completely out of his mind.
Noah, too, waited. The last time he had visited this Shrine with an offering he had not been visited by a god, but by a spirit. At least, he thought it was a spirit. He couldn't be totally confident. She, after all, could have just been a partial-shifted attuned playing a wicked trick on him. But, he hadn't seen her since, nor did he have any knowledge of a shifter with such a form as her. No native Halovian could shift into a luxere, but this spirit-attuned-woman-creature had proudly boasted a luxere head. He was not sure what would come of these offerings. After the pair waited in enough silence, however, Deimos broke it.
He came across the bond, and Noah looked towards him. The hunter offered him a kind smile and a nod. "Don't mention it." Noah had been raised to be good. His father wanted the Olsons to be known for their goodness, for their willingness to help and to serve this place and its people. Noah was not a hero, no adventurer, no demi-god. He wasn't the one out searching for cures and exploring new lands and meeting new gods. He was just the one offering food and comfort. It's all he could do, truly. He wasn't powerful.
The hunter lifted his body from it's crouching position. He turned to look towards the sky, and he murmured something under his breathe resembling a number. He was counting the hours of daylight he had left. They were fleeting. "I'll be hunting tomorrow, if you'd like to accompany me." Noah extended the invitation as his icy eyes moved back towards the General. He was not sure how much the man knew of the tundra, and Noah was a willing teacher, should he accept.
will you hold the line when every one of them has given up and given in
Similar again then, in aspects of gratitude, shrugging the acknowledgements away. Perhaps Noah too was amongst the first to offer power, might, strength, demolition, or ruin, as the word often committed; attempting to make himself useful in any regard. To not be worthless, ineffectual, or inept, struggling just the same, edging his soul closer to oblivion and fires, waiting until the right moment to cast himself off and away – better and better each day, in healing those broken, battered figments. The Sword blinked at the man, quiet and self-assured, nodding his head in admitting to not bring the subject up again, then lowering his piercing eyes back to the ground, to altars, to naught.
And still, it felt like a debt was owed.
The proposition and potential appeared no more than an instant later, and the beast rose too, away from bending and crouching amidst hushed quandaries and inexplicable enigmas, his head turned over his shoulder, grabbing hold of his bag. “I would be willing.” Nuances of vehemence, of vitriol, of unleashed, rampant hostility across the wide open tundras sounded like dreams and notions of yesteryears, and suddenly he couldn’t have yearned for anything more. “What do you hunt here?”
So the hunter was right. It seemed that Deimos had some more things to learn about Halo as he transitioned citizenship. "Mostly luxere, but there are a few other species of deer too. Luxere are most common." Some people found it hard to believe that Noah could stomach hunting deer-type creatures when he had a deer-type shift. For Noah, there was nothing really to get hung up on. People needed to eat, and luxere were in abundance here on their tundra. Well, as "in abundance" as any animal could be here. Noah often used his reindeer form as a lure for the creatures. Eventually, he knew, he would be powerful enough to compel animals to come in his range. Just as Deimos tried to compel the ursurs they encountered in the cavern. "I'll meet you at the gate an hour shy of sunrise." Noah noted, before he dipped his head in salutations to the warlord and headed towards his home.
-FIN
will you hold the line when every one of them has given up and given in
