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!
The darkness was an absolution – and she was contorted in shadow, in unending Stygian abyss, as she beckoned and wandered, as her hands toyed with a dagger. Flicked it back and forth between her palms, to feel the weight, the brush, the rush of its power and zeal. She wished she’d had it earlier – could’ve orchestrated more and more damage, before everything else came to fall.
The skeletal structures at least made her feel more alive, less consumed with the rage seething in each limb. Like fresh wounds, it sprung between the residual channels and chambers of her heart, through the pulsing, beating ichor beneath pale flesh; like a laceration, but not showing the lifeforce fading.
Evelyn was gone.
Revenge was necessary.
The notions and purpose were simple, but the actions themselves not. So she’d have to become stronger. Better. Capable of grappling with those daring to befoul, maim, rip, and tear. She’d pull them apart one by one by one, and the world would see who’d have the last laugh.
She pointed the dagger at a few fallen stones, flicking her wrist, permitting it to pierce, to sharpen, into the wake – watched as it bounced and bounded off, fell to the broken roads and streets. A rinse and repeat method started then, dulled only by the maneuvering clouds overhead, hiding the moon, but not her ambitions.
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
He's a pale ghost in the dark, a drifting echo of a bygone time weaving down broken and ruined lanes. Fingertips trail along cracked and tumbled-down walls, but he doesn't stop to look inside any of the yawning houses. He knows they are empty. Whoever built them, inhabited them, were born and died in them, are long since forgotten. Discarded.
It tells the painfully obvious story of a prosperous settlement dwindling, dwindling, dwindling until there's barely anything left. Aamu runs his tongue along the inside of his teeth, then sighs.
Most of the rebuilding in the Sanctuary is recent, too. The people trapped in here seem to have faded over the centuries, just barely clinging on.
Had it been worth it?
No one's there to answer him.
The rhythmic sound—the clink and clang of metal striking rocks, the scuffle of feet—draws him in, guides his wandering feet towards a dagger flying through the air before falling to the rubble. Mabel shows up to recover it, throwing it again, and Aamu steps forward, hoping to beat her to pick up the dagger. He's confused as to why she's out here, why she's throwing a dagger around, and he feels sorry for the thing. Repeatedly striking and falling against rocks likely didn't do it any favors, and if he could get to it he could probably save it from future mistreatment, get out of Mabel why she's doing this, and then teach her how to throw it properly.
She expected him and didn’t all at once, a simultaneous pinpoint she couldn’t quite fathom. Not quick enough to recover her dagger, it fluidly melded into his grasp, and she was left mid-stride, angled and defiant, chin raised. It was a measure of sedition he didn’t necessarily earn or have any right to see, bear, or coax from her; an unfortune lining of her jaw rolling, clenching, to whittle away the other emotions.
Mabel didn’t ask him why he was here either – not when everything felt like a ghost. Perhaps he was revisiting worlds left behind and forgotten. Maybe he knew those who’d once lived here, carved these streets, and then left them abandoned. It likely didn’t matter. The hollow chambers of her heart reminded her of that, quickly, swiftly, a lurch in the system, in the ichor, in the hold and sway she had over the earth. Nothing much made sense to her any longer; a stray, set to wander until she’d sculpted her justice.
“Wessex came to see me,” by way of explanation, stepping forward, her voice not a whisper but a low growl. She stretched out her hand, asking for the stiletto without another word, too irritated, too annoyed, too heartbroken, too absorbed right back to where she’d started. “Said Evelyn was dead.” If her bottom lip trembled, she didn’t acknowledge it. Aamu had a right to know that the only other occupant that would’ve been in those forlorn roosts wouldn’t be coming home. “Murdered.”
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
Something's very, very wrong. It's in the way she's moving, a restless anger coiled about her limbs: it's in the way she looks at him. Defiant. He still doesn't know her age, but with the body she's wearing, the fragility she seems to carry locked behind her feral demeanor, the tilt of her jaw... She seems a child to him still, and he hates the world for how it has hurt her. Hurt him.
He remembers things he'd rather not. He remembers Oheň, twelve years old and sweet as can be, and then he doesn't remember anything else.
He didn't get to see her grow up. Didn't get to watch her grow into a defiant teenager, standing in front of him with that look in her eye. Didn't—
It doesn't matter. His free hand clenches, hard, pressing nails into his palm. Oheň's long gone. Mabel's here now, and she needs someone—maybe not him, but he's what's here, isn't he?
(Still fucking hurts tho)
Aamu ignores her outstretched hand for the time being, just listening: to her words, to her wounded growl, and there it is—
Dead. Murdered. Time and time and time again. The fucking Order, who else? He opens his mouth to speak, to say he's sorry, to.. offer his help again, anything, wants to pull her into a hug and hold her until the world gets its shit back in order, but—
He doesn't dare to. Doesn't want her to break, not right now, doesn't think she'd want to, anyway. There's too much frustration. He fears it would be like hugging an angry cat, and the last thing he wants to do is scare her off.
Instead, he gives the stiletto a cursory glance, vowing silently to filch it later and give it some love after its rough adventures, before holding it in the vicinity of her hand. With his other hand he places her fingers near the tip of the blade, showing her how to hold it for a proper throw. "You don't throw so much with your wrist," he murmurs, bending her wrist back very slightly and raising her arm, elbow to the front, knife-hand slightly above her head. "The bend controls how much it rotates in the air. Keep your elbow in a little, it helps the aim keep true. You throw by unfolding your arm-" and he slowly guides her hand down, keeping her elbow up "-and release, about here," he says right before her arm is entirely straightened out.
"But this knife is not ideal for throwing," at least not according to him. "It's perfectly throwable but not made for it, and I'd advise finding a better target. Like.. a wide tree."
Aamu gave her nothing to rail against – no frustration, no sentiments, no misgivings, no sorrow-filled pitfalls she’d heard a thousand times before. I’m so sorry for your loss they’d all say at the latest funeral, when they’d buried their younger siblings, or their mother, their father. Until it was just them. And she wasn’t sure if she was grateful for the lack of well wishes, for the falsehoods flown out when everyone was uncomfortable, uncertain what to do with grief. Hers was anger. Hers was justice. Hers was vengeance. And if she pushed into those voids, into those canals, then there wouldn’t be time to fall apart.
But she still eyed him suspiciously when her dagger wasn’t given back – a bit like a wounded animal – ready to spring, ready to bite, ready to unleash some feral, unhinged escape.
And instead of permitting her to peel off into her contemptuous-lined anguish, he showed her, channeled the angles and wrath into something worth savoring.
No one had done that before.
Her eyes widened, surprise registering amidst the other emotions, the unease, the restlessness, the pouring of shaking limbs and trembling hands, pooling, cooling, into other layers. Her mind had to work into other modes instead of just piercing edges, and she found herself listening, tilting her head, studying the way he balanced, bent, threw, and strived to teach her. A series of questions meandered on her tongue, but she didn’t give them voice, not yet. Mabel didn’t want to send him off into the rest of the hollowed abyss just yet.
She was guided, arm motioning not of its own volition, until she began to do it on her own. “What do I use instead?” The youth had only ever had pocketknives; no farmgirl was worth anything without one. And at his insistence, she ambled towards a lonesome tree yawning out of the ruins, the roots twisted and crawling over long since extinguished stones. It was wide enough in her opinion, and she kept the knife tucked in her palm, standing before its expanse.
Imagining damnation, allowing it to flicker and flow through her withering heart. Reminded of his movements, she strived for the same, and witnessed as her volley sent it skittering into the base of the tree with an audible thunk.
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
It's like she calms the moment he gives her something better to do. She follows his guidance, and he's glad to notice the strength in her arm, pleased she takes up practicing the movement the moment he lets her go. Pleased that he seemed to make the right judgment call, helping her take all those tendrils of frustration and hurt and channel them into something more productive.
It's all Aamu's done since he's come back, after all, only for him it's not knife-throwing, but blacksmithing work and taking care of Mabel. (Well—as much as an Ascended needs taking care of.)
At the question he instinctively pats his waist, but there's nothing there. He frowns gently, vaguely recalling he must've had at least a few throwing knives on him previously, why else would it feel so familiar to look for them? He makes a mental note to fix this problem.
"Typically, dedicated throwing knives," he says as he follows her towards the tree. "They're flatter, sometimes without a wrapped hilt. Balanced for flight and a predictable rotation, making it easier to reliably hit your target. Sometimes you only sharpen one side of the blade, lessening the risk of slicing your fingers on them when you throw."
He remembers that much at least, standing to the side with crossed arms and watching as she takes her first, proper throw. It's good enough—at least it went tip-first into the tree. "Better," he says honestly, going to pick up the knife and stand next to her. He grips it himself, showing her how he's holding to minimize the risk to his fingers. "Make sure to mostly hold it by your fingertips, and keep it away from the palm of your hand. Now." He faces the tree, left foot slightly forward. "Your throw went low, which means you released a little too late. I-" He pauses. Frowns. Goes on, quietly. "I feel like I haven't thrown a knife in a long, long time."
Then he throws it—it buries itself slightly below where he aimed for. He shrugs, mildly. Good enough.
She’d never seen proper throwing knives. Her life had been dedicated to chores around the farm, listening to a fanfare of worship she didn’t believe in, and striving to cultivate an obstinate land that refused to produce the same amount of effort as her family. So Mabel listened, an astute pupil, pondering over flatter convections and unwrapped hilts, proper balances. It made no sense to her – something she’d have to see to truly understand nuances and motions.
The youth took the compliment, but didn’t let it reside or rest too firmly between her shoulders. She could always do better. Maybe quicker. Maybe deeper. A dream of a single swipe, embedded in between layers of hearts and lungs. Of a dissipated, withered, decayed man, taking one last look at her before succumbing to his wounds. A feral, wild kill for a twin.
She would’ve applied his next set of complexities, but he’d taken the knife first – showing, demonstrating, holding my fingertips and not a grasping, holding, clenching manifestation, her release too late. Then Aamu took his own shot, and her gaze snapped to its placed, rooted section. She followed its movements, pacing in willow contributions towards the tree, hand grasping its threshold and pulling it out, backing away, away, away to stand where she’d been before.
Thereafter, she strived to follow through on the same movements, make them inherent things, her fingertips the only material grasping – flinging it away from her palm. It sung and snipped through the air, landing below where his mark had been. “Better?” She reflected back, a curl of a smile beginning to form on her lips.
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
Knife-throwing is easier (safer, more reliable) with a dedicated throwing knife, but using something else is very good practice. Maybe not ideal for a beginner, but at the same time, if she learns to throw something that's not made for the purpose..? It'll make her a better thrower. Aamu had gone through stages of throwing every knife he could get his hands on.
He lets her retrieve it, idly swinging his throwing arm and feeling his shoulder. Three hundred years gone in the blink of an eye for his mind, but he can feel them in his body. It hasn't aged—has barely degraded. But it feels unused. Out of trim.
He doesn't like it.
Watches with keen eyes as she takes up her stance again. Aims. Throws. He thinks the flight is better on this one—stronger. Truer.
Still it slams low into the tree, and he considers it for a moment. “Better?” she asks with a small smile, and "better" he responds, a proud wolf. His strides are fluid as he paces to the tree, leaving the knife in it for a moment longer. With a flick of his wrist a blade unfolds (one requiring far less maintenance than a regular knife) and he carefully scrapes bark away, leaving an 'x' visible enough to Ascended in the dark.
Another flick and his hidden blade is gone, and Aamu bends to pick up the knife. He counts his paces back, standing slightly closer than before. "Seeing where your knife lands compared to your target will help you get a feel for the aim. Let's try it a little closer." He doesn't say the rest: standing closer is more forgiving. She still hits a bit low, and he thinks this might help.
Again Aamu raises the knife and makes his own throw—quick, confident. With a thunk it goes tip-first an inch above the mark, vibrating slightly at the handle. Better, he thinks to himself, retrieving the knife for her and offering it to her hilt-first. "Give it a couple of throws."
She was tempted to ask him where he’d learned all of this. What he’d done in previous wars, when he’d been called up to defend things and materials, when it hadn’t been a cycle all over again. If this footwork, or the flicking of a wrist, was such a residual, inherent thing that it required no thought; and if she could be like that too. If she could lunge into the void and howl at the moon and maul those who’d wronged her.
But she didn’t – taking it all in, absorbing, piercing away from the intrusive notions, and heaving a breath she didn’t require. The snicker in the corner of her mouth on the echo drove in deeper though, and she advanced several steps on his request – witnessing his next volley. Better and better still.
That was how they were going to be – ashes into cinders. Cinders into embers. Embers into flames. Flames into infernos. Engulfing, swallowing, and consuming the world around them.
Her hand went to the hilt again, winding along her arm, remembering the orchestrated movements, practicing the way her fingertips played across the unfurled steel. It’d yet to break under the strain they’d given it, despite it not being manifested for this sort of ritual, this sort of precision, might, and prowess. It would suit its purpose though, and she could imagine the carving, the sculpting, of vengeance from its metal; through sentiments, through ruminations, through barely-veiled hatred for those who damned and threatened them.
Then she hurled it, a flick, a trace, of it singing through the air once more – and a vibrant thunk, higher and higher, resounded, reverberated, in the silent stokings of a smirk. In the quiet, between fangs and shadows, no words necessary as she pulled it out, glancing expectedly up at him.
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
Once she's taken the knife again he folds his arms behind his back, holding his elbows and waiting. Watching. Breathing. She positions herself, raises her chosen weapon again, aims, throws—and the dagger quivers in the tree, higher this time. A better throw, a better aim, a better boost to her confidence, surely. Why make things more difficult than they have to be? "Good," he says when she looks at him, that thing (grief; pride) in his chest still aching.
It's not that he regrets teaching a young woman to throw knives, it's the fact she has need of it at all.
Aamu swallows a frustrated growl and cocks his head to the side, contemplating the tree. "From here on it's just practice, practice, practice," he muses quietly. "Find out what works, what doesn't. Get the feel for the rotations, the aiming, different knives, different distances. Remember the form, your elbow, and you'll be able to figure most things out."
He glances down at the knife she's holding. It's nothing fancy, nothing special, but it's a tool: for cutting leathers and threads, skin and arteries. Neither more nor less than the weight of the heart holding it.
The intent it is wielded with.
He reaches out in the moonless dark, placing the tip of a finger against the cold and lifeless metal. "This is a good enough blade for stabbing, too. Want me to show you?"
Pleased with herself at the state of the minor lacerations to the tree, to the indentations to the trunk (imagining, perhaps, vengeance, a man gutted, left to suffer and sputter, no one coming to his aid), a grin began to form, unbidden, along her mouth. Confident. Assured. She was no gift to knives or interplay of dagger intentions, but eager enough to become that.
And unaware of Aamu’s mixed emotions, trepidations, the semblance of alarm – to her this was a natural state of things. What she needed to do.
“I can do that,” the youth promised, as so many did, with convictions mustered and ambitions fired, conforming to their dim minds before anything else mustered made sense. Headlong, self-assured, and audacious, no matter what ran through their veins.
And then his offer – for more, more, more, caused her eyes to widen, for her grip on the hilt to tighten further. The smile she wore grew and unfurled into something far more dastardly – she didn’t hide it from him. Not the intent behind her eyes.
He’d know anyway. What she’d do to avenge a sister, a twin, a bond of souls. “Please,” came on a nod, on a feral, intertwining nuance; offering the dagger over again. For her to take her place amongst those wielding, dangerous, and wolfish. Hungry, rapacious, avaricious for it all.
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
(But it is not you, Aamu: it is the world, the priest)
He's only doing what he can to prepare her as best as he can. He wants her to come back home. Doesn't think he can talk her out of it now, anyway. It'd be like abandoning her, throwing her to her own wolves and walking away. This way, this way she at least has a chance, this way maybe she'll hold back longer, practicing something useful, either until she's ready to take her revenge or the need of it fades.
He doubts the latter'll happen, but it's besides the point. Her eyes are eager, hungry, as they glitter faintly in the moonless dark. Were he her sister's killer he would be afraid. The desperate always find a way.
Aamu takes the offered knife, gripping it securely.
What will you do when this is over? he wants to ask her, but instead he steps behind her. What will you live for then? The tip of the knife touches the side of her throat.
"You want a sharp blade for these. Hold the knife so it's flat, sharp edge facing away. Stab into the center, then force it out forwards and slightly to the side." He mimics the move next to her throat. Then he flips the dagger, holding it as if he were to stab down forcefully. Lifts her hair, and touches its tip to the base of her neck. "The sharp edge faces the spine. Stab deeply and pull the knife towards the spine. This one takes practice to get right, and please don't practice on me. You need to hit between the bones making up the neck."
The knife's tip leaves her neck, her hair falls back, and instead he lets it point between a few of her ribs. "Lungs. Quick, too. Can't scream for help. Stab with the blade flat between the ribs." Aamu steps around to her front. Taps the knife against where a human's heart, and then liver, would be. "Heart. Liver, down here. Same principle, go between the ribs." He flicks the blade again, holding it so it faces up. Lifts one of her arms, and points it into her armpit. "This is easier from the front. Sharp edge towards yourself. Thrust up into the armpit, and pull back towards yourself. You have more force that way; if you do it from the back you have to push it away from yourself."
He flicks the knife again, holding it to stab down. Takes a small step back and kneels, letting its tip point at her groin. "You want the blade to enter up here, about, and then cut down. Or, even lower-" Aamu lets the knife tickle the back of her knee. "-here. Messier, you might have to stab and hack a few times, but it causes pretty rapid blood loss if you get it right."
Slowly Aamu rises back to his feet, and holds the knife out to her. "The ones unrelated to organs work quite well on Ascended too, as we can still 'bleed out'. Now point out the places on me, hold the knife as you would, and talk through it. This knife is sharp on both ends so you don't have to think as much about which way it's facing, but pretend it's only sharp on one side. Better to get that down and not botch it if you find yourself with a more traditional knife."
She openly accepted the vices, the potential for violence. The youth bore no shame in it, even though she couldn’t possibly know what it entailed. Just the blunt, hard-edged glory of it. Just the lines of blood streamed upon the floor. Just the ghostly howls and bellows during LongNight. Just the intrepid, decayed, withered contortion of it all; when she so willingly presided and courted death. She thought nothing of how this might have tortured him; he was an experienced warrior, she was an ignorant fool. Both could bend and learn. Both could be sated.
And so she absorbed, took in the endless information, the way serrated fringes faced spines, imagined the cool embrace of its flicker against her throat. Wondered what it would be like, to simply cut and maim there, have it all be over and done with. No suffering. Satisfaction.
Between bones. Over napes. Alongside ribs, to and through heartbeats, within lungs so they couldn’t scream, so they couldn’t beg for mercy, so the world wouldn’t hear them shatter upon cobblestones. Her arm was lifted, and she tilted her head to watch, not the least bit bothered. Enamored, twisted, drawing the information and motions in like a moth to a flame – all of them contorting into her brain to use. To exploit.
Then he wanted her to turn the knife on him; and that was a wonder too.
She didn’t hold any rage for him.
So Mabel clenched her jaw, and followed through, steeling, forging, pointing the knife against his neck to start, like a recitation – barely pressing into his skin, mimicking the move he’d slid along her flesh. “Hold the knife so its flat. Stab into the center. Then forwards, slightly to the side.”
If you dig under my feet You will find things that you don't want to see
He is not afraid of knives wielded by friends. Stands, patient and allowing, watching the metal as it moves closer to his throat. There's no gleam to give it away: a perfect night for murder.
Its tip is cold. Feather-light against his skin.
He wonders what it feels like to die.
He's not afraid of death either—after all, he has it on good authority that Mort's realm is a lovely and peaceful place. Some day, he thinks, he'd like to go there for his final rest.
But there's so much left undone yet. Words stir the air against his ear, a recital of death, and the pressure from the knife's point releases. "Good. It'll cut the main artery to the brain and destroy the windpipe. Next."
