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!
She has no answers for him, and The Order remains more than a nightmare. He had thought the world seemed unnaturally calm and peaceful, with so many of the races mingling at the Festival of Lights in Halo, and here in the Grounds...
For a moment he had thought they were gone, that these were better, brighter times. Realizing that they are not is hard. Heavy.
"It's alright," he reassures her, fleeing back to safer places, where he is not the one falling apart, but the one supposed to prevent it. She doesn't need to know, or have the answers. He doesn't know how old she is but she feels like a child, not much older than she looks, and it makes his heart ache.
"Don't," he murmurs before she rises, don't apologize, and Aamu easily lets her stand. His hands are tangled in loose strands of hair and stained with salt, but he folds them over his towel-covered thighs anyway. The dark hairs stand out against his pale skin. "Alright," he says again, feeling something he's not sure what it is. Desolate, because her slight and barely perceivable warmth is gone; proud, because she is trying to move on. "I'm just out here, if you need me."
He watches her go to face her fears, then deals with the mess left on the floor. Hair, seaweed, he collects it all carefully in his hands, leaving no trace of her first death on the floorboards. Into the fire it goes, spreading a smell he's glad he can't discern anymore.
Then he resumes his hunt for fat, to take care of the forgotten boots. He tends the fire, listening, always listening, ready to rescue her from the void and the water.
Was it all right? Probably not. They’d been immersed into another playing field; and the measures were indistinct, blurry, hazy, murky. And she was sorry that she didn’t have more information, that she’d been gone too. She shrugged to alleviate the weight from both of them, nowhere else to go, nothing else to do or say in these bizarre increments and emotions. Then she was wraithlike again, nodding at Aamu’s accord and willingness to help, despite knowing she probably wouldn’t ask.
She advanced towards the bathroom again, trepidation in steps and movements, clicking the door shut behind her, ushering an unnecessary sigh. The bucket in her hands, dust free only from the movement of her palms and fingers, was meant to dip into the tub, to grab hold of the water in a more manageable aspect. The youth stared down into the surface and cringed; trembling limbs extended to smother it into the liquid, listening to fill and flow while she shook and shuddered.
And promptly drained the rest.
Watching it flow down the drain was enough to appease her for another stretch of instances, and then she stripped, placing the threadbare rags on the floor, to discern and dispose of later. From then on, she found a rag, and stepped into the empty tub, cleaned without the fear of drowning, without the notion of tumbling amidst their waves and wares.
Eventually, the salt desisted and faded from her body, from her hair – but not memories. And perhaps that was what she’d have to endure, have to fathom, have to overcome. Remnants of yesteryear flickered down, down, down, and they were gone.
She left them within the resin, for later, stepping out to redress in the clothes she’d found earlier. Maybe anew. Maybe refreshed. Maybe not a witch of the sea, tossed until she’d been truly condemned.
And only thereafter, did she step back out into the farmhouse, uncertain of how much time had passed, stepping lightly over the cracks and surfaces.
Aamu is very good at waiting. It came with his Ascension, when suddenly he found himself with no biological clock telling him to sleep away a quarter of his life—and sometimes not enough things to fill his extra hours with. He went through a phase of climbing on the walls, another of powering down into fake sleep for weeks on end, and then, in the end, he learned to meditate. It satisfied his needs, and still does.
The fire is low and smoldering, spreading the necessary warmth to dry his clothes, but minds its own business as it eats away at thick pieces of firewood. Aamu sits on the floor, the pair of cleaned and oiled boots waiting by the kitchen door, his long hair dry and tangled, eyes closed.
It calms him. Centers him. Allows his mind to freely pick apart his thoughts, process memories, store away experiences, update, but he retains enough awareness to still be able to respond to his surroundings.
Sometimes, it's almost like he dreams.
She does not need him. He is not surprised: she seems too feral, too self-sufficient, to rely on any but her sister. It doesn't stop him from caring, from listening, waiting—when she finally reappears he takes a few seconds longer before rising elegantly and slipping back into his old, faded, dry clothes. Long fingers comb through his hair as he waits in the doorway to the kitchen, cocking his head as she arrives. She looks better: fresh, clean, alive.
His smile is small, warm, careful, hesitant. "Do you mind if I stay here?" he asks, quiet and delicate, as he is in all matters where he may break.
It was odd, to listen to the crack of the fire. She turned her head, followed it, into the berth and doorway of the kitchen, where the aperture opened to its wide expanse. Once housing a formidable, but struggling, family, now there were only two – and at his movement her eyes rose from the floorboards, to the smile residing there.
Maybe they were more than just a little renewed, after all.
But the question caused her eyes to widen, her brows to rise, before the calculating air of her mind took flight. Her gaze darted to the void around them, to the abyss that had represented happiness, rancor, regret, and now hollowed proportions. But it didn’t have to be that way. It didn’t have to be numb. It didn’t have to be cut away and apart.
So for once, she gave her own genuine smile – no malice, no menace, no wickedness coiled there. Perhaps it was something she wore before this world fell apart. “You can stay.” Permission for things to begin again.
