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!
Discussions on a number of topics occurred around the table; Bastien smiled at Aamu explaining their Ascended upgrades. For real understanding and unity, they had to foster understanding in those around them, especially newcomers. He knew when he had arrived in Caido he had found the Ascended odd; he would have never believed he could settle for this kind of life, yet here he was.
After a while, when there was a lull in the conversation, Bastien stood, looking over what everyone had made. "Once you are done with your lovely creations, my dears, there are some of the very trees outside this Sanctuary, just over the road - I will be going to hang mine there shortly, and any one else is welcome to join me." His own decoration only needed a couple more embellishments before it was ready, though he would of course let anyone else stay as long as they needed to to finish.
There's just no telling all the things that you’ll become
With conversations drifting all around her, the youth could concentrate and hone in on her own painting. A few times she slipped, the brush unfurling the treeline into something else, but altogether it presented picturesque, if one glanced and squinted, of a forest, surrounding an open field – a threshold of dreams left unfulfilled.
At Bastien’s insistence, her head lifted, blinking away the streamlined thoughts, and putting her materials away, back where she’d found them. “I’ll come,” she announced – the bauble finished, everything else taken care of. Otherwise stoic and quiet, her eyes darted and glanced towards others’ creations, curious and speculative, then looking down at her own.
Isla smiles and goes back to her work, choosing to paint her bauble using pale colours and a little bit of shining varnish to make it waterproof. It's just about dry when Bastien gets to his feet, the medic smiling and nodding in agreement. "I'll come along as well. I wonder how many others will have hung decorations there by the time we add our own."
Rising to her feet and brushing a stray bit of glitter off her clothes (she didn't even use glitter, but it has a habit of getting everywhere regardless), she collects up her bauble and holds it up for a moment to turn it in the air, making sure it was finished. "Lead the way," she tells Bastien with a bright smile when she's finished with her appraisal, stepping out from the table and reminding herself to come back here sooner rather than later.
and the sky was littered with the corpses of stars
They bound back toward their section where they had been working on their bauble with Mabel, adding some finishing touches of paint here and there along the lines, and waiting for it to dry when their father mentions that he plans on hanging the trinket out on the trees across from the Sanctuary. They wait for theirs to dry, but chime their agreement.
Soon enough, however, the trinket has dried and they’re tying a little string on it so they might hang it from one of the branches, before cradling the bauble and flashing Mabel a bright grin, before bounding over to stand beside their father for when Bastien and their group decides to cross the threshold out into the snowy cold.
Aamu has finished his little bird. It's a pretty cute thing, looking more plump now that it's painted in subtle beiges and blues, and for good measure he's strewn some glitter over it. The eyes are black and beady and he's pushed a small hook into its back and lets it turn slowly on its string. He likes it. He hopes others will, too.
When Bastien announces his intention to go visit the Firling Aamu's head snaps up. He'd been lost in his own little world, staring at the slowly turning bird. He keeps silent but puts the bird on the table and focuses on putting his paints back where he took them from, and carefully leaving the brush out for cleaning. Then he gets up and takes his chonky little birb, and follows the others into the cold.
You are the night-time fear
You are the morning when it's clear
Look out 'cause here I come And I'm marching on to the beat I drum
He gave an amused, if slightly self-ripping chuckle about some people being garish in appearance. Hell, when he first popped in here, he learned pretty fast that his old attire wasn't going to work. This one, while it still had a tiny bit of flash, did pretty well for him so far.
In a way, his thinking about how other places had trees like the one that recently shown up in Torchline became answered as he heard mention of a tree within these particular lands as he glanced down at the incomplete grandfather tree in his hand. "...guess Bartleby can be without color for the time," he muttered to himself as he stood up, making a few more carvings into it before picking it up and taking it with him to see where the tree wa---
"...brrr...not like Halo, but brrr..." That ripped out of him as he followed the others to get to where the splotch of green was in this place. "First Torchline, now here. Think one's shown up in every area with humans residing in it?" he asked before he thought on his words. He had his arms wrapped around himself in an attempt to keep himself warm, even putting his fingers in his armpits while holding what he had of his bauble in the elbow crooks in front of him.
“Go on ahead,” Wessex murmurs quietly, indicating that the rest of then should precede her. Something nags the Queen in the back of her head and she needs to take care of it. Since her bauble is finished, she’ll stay there, thinking with a deeply furrowed brow, waving on the others if they stop to see if she’s coming (they don’t). When the matter is resolved to her satisfaction, she suddenly rises, shakes her head to clear the cobwebs, and then places her tools in the sink.
Heading outside, Wessex takes the shortest path to the Firling and gingerly hangs her item on its branches, smiling at how tall its grown and the way its whole trunk still jiggles when it's touched.
{Fin}
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
