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!
Gods, but he doesn’t want to do this, doesn’t want to see the always-scowling Queen when he tells her one of her precious Ascended was found dead and half-buried. The alcohol’s worn completely off now, the tipsy outing thoroughly ruined by the pigs’ discovery. Elish had said not to do it in that part of the woods, but did they listen? No! They never listen to Elish. He’s a dumb fuck.
Well. This time they should have listened, and the irony isn’t lost on Ald. It’s a night of bad luck, innit? Drew the short stick too, which is why he’s standing here, steeling himself to knock on the Wraith’s door. The others lurk around the corner in safety, body in hand, still filthy and getting cold, still carrying baskets of mushroom.
He forces a swallow down and raises a grimy hand to rap sharply on the Queen’s door. Ald may not be trembling, but that doesn’t mean every part of him ain’t clenching up tight.
Surprisingly loud in the midnight silence, the rap easily gets the Wraith’s attention from wherever she is inside the house. Daphne’s gone for the night, so it is indeed the Queen who answers the door, questions already written on her face. She isn’t mad, just curious, already wondering what it could be to bring them here at this time of night - a time when most non-Ascended are asleep.
“Yes?” Wessex says, opening the door wide enough to allow the man to enter if he wants to. She takes in his expression and generally dirty demeanor, perhaps the tension in his muscles if she can see them. “Is everything all right?” It isn’t, of course. She already knows that in the bottom of her gut. Anything that comes in the middle of the night is bad news bears.
It takes him a moment to answer, so he answers the question with a shake of his head. “No. ‘Fraid not, yer Majesty. Uhhh -” he glances briefly towards the corner of her house before looking back at the tall blonde again. Huh. She really doesn’t age, does she? Fuckin' weird.
“Ahh, we found somethin’, out in the Outskirts when we were truffle huntin’. It’s, ah - it’s somethin’ you prob’ly need ta see.” And then he looks pointedly at the corner, where Eilish and Turk lurk outta site. But they don’t show. And now Ald’s rather frustrated. He raises a hand to make sure they see the sign to come out with the girl. “Ey! Come on!” he hisses into the dark, tryin’ to make sure he doesn’t wake anyone else who might be in the house.
Sure enough, that gets ‘em, and the two men come from around the house, bearing a small body between them.
This isn’t at all what she expects, not tonight, not something she needs to see, not truffle hunters and not - not a small body. Not the jolt of denial and fear that seems to shoot through her, in the absence of a physical gut-clenching or heart-stopping hammering. Not what her eyes focus on, the blonde hair and the dirty, pale, half-decomposing skin. No smell of rot, of course, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t decomposing.
The Wraith’s lips purse together tightly as she steps out from the house and silently approaches the two bearers. “I’ll take it from here,” she murmurs, reaching out for Evelyn. Because it is Evelyn, isn’t it? Yes, of course it is.
“Thank you,” the Queen says once the girl is safely in her arms.
Eilish and Turk hand the body over without comment, looking nervously at each other and then to the Queen, as if she might rain hell on their heads for bringing her bad news. Turk gets a glimpse of the Wraith’s face (their sight will never be as good as hers is in the dark), and he’ll swear up and down that he saw tears there. Or whatever it is that Ascended leak.
Her tone, her gentleness with the body, her solemn thank you temper their fears and their perceptions. Ald even dips his head and manages a “Yer… welcome?” before Wessex disappears into the house and the door shuts behind her. However the three men waste no time in leaving, practically bolting away from Theskyra House and back into the dark, back to Ald’s house, where they can drink some more and sort their mushrooms and live to tell the story to others tomorrow, their own personal run-in with the Ascended demigod.
