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!
It is early. Early enough that the sun is only a suggestion on the horizon, Haulani sleepy and quiet and bearable. Already, this is Peter’s favourite time of day, even more than dusk, than the surprisingly bright night time.
This is a wander without purpose, without real destination. Perhaps his mind wanders a touch too much, perhaps his focus drifts around him, but Peter is never quite off guard, never fully relaxed, even alone as he is. So when the soft crack sounds behind him, almost like a foot stepping on a plant, he whirls, head cocked and eyes narrowed.
But there’s nothing, nothing at all, except the slight rustle of plants. And then the much more insistent rustle of plants, a tree that sticks out like a sore thumb trembling as it grows before his very eyes. Slowly, hesitantly, and well aware that he would look insane if there was anyone there to see him, Peter creeps up towards the tree, not sure what to do except poke at a branch.
His head darts around, the loneliness of the morning suddenly a curse, Peter needing the validation that would come with someone else seeing this tree. Anyone.
Arialla was a morning person, but even she didn't usually get up this early -- her habit, instilled in her at her old temple, was to rise with the sun. But she'd had trouble sleeping this morning, and after tossing and turning for a while, decided to just get up and take a walk to clear her head.
She wasn't the only one with that idea, clearly, but she would have passed this man with no more than a polite nod if he hadn't looked so startled -- and if she hadn't then spotted the source of his surprise. A tree growing so quickly the movement was visible ... Arialla stopped and approached more closely, not sure if this was a common sight in Caido. The man's reaction suggested not, but he might be new to this land too.
Weighing a few possible greetings, she settled on, "That's odd."
For all he had hoped for a companion to considerate this strangeness with, Pet does not actually expect the sudden appearance of Arialla, his focus stolen by the tree, and its quirks. Her words nearly make him jump out of his skin, though the most surprise he allows himself to show is a is a soft gasp, and the too quick snapping of his head towards her.
He pauses a moment as well, his hesitance more obvious, if only because he hadn’t been aware of hers. ”It... it is odd.” He agrees after a beat, deciding the girl wasn’t a threat and letting his eyes move to the tree again. So it wasn’t just him being caught out by something he had missed out on by growing up in a desert. This was something genuinely strange.
Without much thought beyond that, Peter’s arm lifts, and he taps at one of the branches, earning a giggle and a shiver from the tree. He pulls his hand back so quickly its nearly audible, his head cocking to the side and his gaze dropping to the girl beside him.
Arialla noticed Peter's gasp, his rapid movement, and realized that maybe she should have gone with a better greeting -- one that was actually a greeting. "Did I startle you? I apologize. My name is Arialla."
Then she turned her attention to the tree as his touch brought a giggle from it. Her eyebrows shot upwards. "Did it just ... laugh?"
Arialla couldn't help herself: she reached out and touched the tree as well, earning another mysterious giggle, one that she found contagious: she couldn't avoid laughing herself. Oh, this was strange, but it was the good kind of strange, the joyful kind.
"I didn't know that trees here could have sense of humor," Arialla said, her voice understated even as her eyes danced with amusement.
Apologies are something Peter has never learned to accept with grace, so he offers a strange quirk of his lips, almost a smile, and nods, his hand coming out as he offers his own name. "Peter."
But the tree distracts again, his touch bringing a giggle, and his fingers unfurling as Arialla reaches out herself. "I... think it uh, it did, yes." Between the tree and the girl though, it's impossible to keep in a soft huff himself, even if blue eyes are still wide with confusion, with interest.
Her words stop his laughter though, tip him back into pure interest. "Oh, are you... you're not from uh, " A hand lifts to gesture around them, waving, "not from around here?"
Arialla shook Peter's hand, quickly and somewhat distractedly -- not that she was trying to be rude; her focus was simply on the tree in front of her instead of introductions. She couldn't stop smiling at it, at the lighthearted cheer it injected into the season, which was a bit on the dreary side. Not so bad here in Torchline, but Arialla had visited the Hallowed Grounds in Deepfrost before, and she didn't think she would have survived the snow and sheer lack of light there.
Gods, this was her second Deepfrost in Caido. She'd been here for over a year. That thought made her smile falter, and she turned her attention to ruffling the tree's leaves, trying to get that sense of well-being back.
She nodded at Peter's words, her voice coming out a little more solemnly. "I'm not from Caido. I'm an Outlander. I shouldn't be so surprised, though -- where I'm from, there were spirits in some trees. We called them dryads."
Peter is content to watch her interact with the tree, instead of reaching out himself again. He doesn’t know if it’s the lack of sensation, or the simple weirdness of it, but something makes him hesitate, focusing on Arialla’s answer instead.
”Oh, me uh... me too.” About the outlander things at least, though the dryads comment immediately filled him with a buzzing curiosity. ”What kinds of spirits? Were they magic? I never... I never actually saw uh, trees, where I’m from. Except stone ones.” His mouth moves a mile a minute, words dragging in their haste to keep up.
Just as suddenly as the animation had come over him, it stops, a hand clapping over his mouth and an embarrassed, apologetic look crossing his face.
Arialla noted Peter's embarrassment and gave him what she hoped was an encouraging smile. She didn't mind talking about home -- sometimes it made her sad, but other times it felt like the only way to keep her home alive in her mind.
"I never actually saw one, but everyone knew a friend of a friend who'd gotten cursed by one for carving their name into a tree or cutting one down without leaving the proper offerings to appease them." It never really occurred to Arialla to be skeptical of her homeland's legends, to wonder if some of them were simply tales -- not after she'd personally met one of their gods. "Let's see, if I recall correctly ... There were dryads, spirits of a single tree, and hamadryads, who embodied an entire grove. Then you had naiads in the rivers and springs, river gods, and Nereids, nymphs of the sea ... We didn't necessarily refer to such things as 'magic' at home; they were simply part of the natural world."
Trying to reciprocate his interest, she added, "Stone trees? I've never heard of such a thing."
Peter’s eyes are wide, unblinking, drinking in every bit of Arialla’s storytelling. A world alive, in more ways than one, some undercurrent, deep and respected, thrumming through it. The hand clapped over his light eases, the smile helping to reach him. ”That sounds...” He doesn’t have words for it, his head shaking slowly as he struggled, failed, moved on. ”Did everything have a... a spirit? Or god?”
It’s clear Pet doesn’t expect the interest to be turned back on himself, and he blinks finally, his tongue slow. ”Well... they used to be normal trees.” Not that that actually explains anything. ”I was um, told, I guess, that there used to be a forest, before the desert, and instead of... instead of turning into sand like everything else, the trees were stubborn, and turned to rock instead.” It sounds less fantastical, less magical than dryads, and a fang worries at his lip. ”People would uh... take pieces of them, to make into charms. They were good luck?”
Arialla nodded. "Most everything, yes. Aspects of the natural world ... Groves, springs, rivers all had their own gods. The sun, moon, stars ... My village prayed primarily to the gods of the sea, Poseidon and his Nereids, Proteus and Amphitrite ... We thanked Demeter for harvests and Artemis for hunts, Apollo for song and Athena for weaving ..."
She trailed off, not sure how to explain her wide array of gods in comparison to Caido's relatively few deities and their broad domains. It felt strange, here, to have a goddess for the stars but not for the sun or moon; not to ascribe a name to the stirring of the seas, to the east wind, to each individual grove and spring.
"So you're from a desert?" Arialla asked. She knew what the word meant, but it was hard for her to imagine a place without rain, without water, having spent all her life by the sea. Another nod, too: "I can see why they'd be good luck, if the trees were strong enough to outlast the drought by becoming stone. I wonder if they'll ever sprout again ..."
A pointless and perhaps painful question, she realized, when Peter could never go back to see if they did.
Peter is endlessly interested in the world Arialla describes, so far removed from anything he’s experienced. So far removed from Caido even. It seemed a double edged sword though, to have so many things to be mindful of, so many eyes lurking in everything. That at least was a familiar feeling, one that has Pete ratifying uncomfortably, straightening up and rolling his shoulders, trying to push away the watchful memories.
”Yes.” Weeell. ”It was, er... there was a city, uh, close enough to get to in... a day, maybe? And... the ocean past that, but... black, and heavy, and... not like here.” It’s so different, so difficult to explain, even without considering his relative lack of conversational skills.
Automatically, a hand goes to his pocket, meaning to pull out a charm he’d had when he first came to Caido, just to show her, only to realize that it wasn’t with him since he’d come back from the dead, that it was probably still lost in some deep, frozen cave. ”Some people said that there was still trees. Living ones. Um, in the desert. But the uh... they moved around, and stayed hidden.”
"That sounds ... very different from anywhere I've ever been." Arialla had almost said strange, but she didn't want to make Peter feel any more awkward than he clearly already did. She would have liked to know more, really, but he seemed uncomfortable talking about his home, so instead she turned her attention back to the firling.
"I wonder if this one is capable of moving ..." Arialla blinked at how much the firling had grown just in the time she'd taken her eyes off of it to talk to Peter. If it kept at it at this rate ... "I wonder how big it'll get."
”I... mostly like it better here.” A twist overtakes Pet’s lips, the corners quirking up in thin amusement. He could say the same thing about where she came from, with its bounty of divinity. They could probably say the same thing about most places outlanders came from, truth be told, though thinking too hard about places he’d never had to fathom before gave him something of a headache.
Her words brought his attention back to the tree, his head tilting comically to the side. ”Maybe... when it’s big.” Though when it would be ‘big’ and how long that might take were not answers Peter had. ”I saw trees... trees like this in the Greatwoods. And their uh, their tips were too high to see.”
While he could spend the morning simply talking about the firling, Peter was very rudely reminded that it was morning the first rays of light peeking over the tops of buildings. ”I-I need to uh, to go. It was nice, really nice to me-meet you.” Bowing his head, and then immediately feeling self conscious about it, Pet takes his leave, hurrying back to the shadows to scuttle away again.
