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!
Splish. Splish splish. Splish splish splish. It was raining. Raining a little, a drizzle of sorts, the pleasant kind of rain that you enjoy being out in and then pouring, suddenly and seemingly out of nowhere. The sky grew darker, darker, simply dark; cloaked is gray and weary clouds that quickly won out against any semblance of sunlight or even light. It was just dark, and so Korbin, outside because he never bothered to check with those who knew anything about weather, proceeded to splash his way through the puddles. Puddles being a very inaccurate term for them as it poured, the little things quickly turning to flood and small rivers, streaming down the edges of the dirt road and washing away the ground beneath his feet. At this point, even if he wanted to stop being a child playing in the puddles he couldn’t because they were everywhere, the earth a sodden and soggy mess beneath his feet. So much for his boots.
The next puddle is deep though. Deep and dark and far too deep. One foot lands expecting solid ground but there is none, and instead he’s falling and tumbling and passing out.
When he wakes, he assumes it was just a dream. It’s the logical assumption, after all, that something as strange as falling through a puddle would simply be a dream. Then again, Korbin has seen stranger in his life, though always it happens to others and not to him. He simply sees it, and to him, these people weird things happen to are akin to stories, something told at bedtime to keep you from misbehaving. Weird things never happened to him.
Well, guess he can’t say that now.
He’s not in the land he knows, not in his familiar mountains or the places he’d been traversing through trying to find some new place to call home. He’s….well, he has absolutely no idea where he is now. It’s cold and snowy and he’s covered in the stuff, having quite literally fallen into this place. Thankfully he’d been wearing the thick, black cloak his sister had given him (a thing he only left behind when the weather was truly hot). It’s wet too, but the wool is thick enough that he’s able to shake the worst of the snow off before it becomes a sodden mess. His boots and his hair are another matter entirely though, and he can’t even be bothered to try and help himself there. His best bet, at this point, is to figure out where he is and find some shelter.
So, he walks – trudges, really – through the snow and the slush. The only benefit of the current weather is it’s clear what paths are most frequently traveled, and eventually he finds a path that seems well used and begins to follow it. Around him old buildings begin to crop up, rising toward the sky with crumbling fingers. Wherever he was, this place had seen better days. What had happened here? There appears to be some sort of life though as he goes, many of the ruins sporting a patchwork of repairs. A few places even appear to be homes, of a sort. If nothing else, it’s clear there’s shelter to be found here. Now, either he needed a friendly face or a vacant building.
They came in a dream some time ago: white wings against a pale blue sky. He could have reached up and caught one as easily as one catches a ball. He awoke knowing this. Remembering, maybe — it arrived unconnected with anything else. Just the noise of wings and the looking up, the sleeping tension in his limbs. Or perhaps they only came because he met Kiada some time ago and watched her turn into a vulture. Because since then, he spends a lot of time thinking about her flying up around that spiral in the middle of the world.
He spends a lot of time dwelling on the spiral, in general, though he has more pressing things to occupy his time. Things like the coming darkness and the acquisition of food, water, shelter. He can't help but return to it: that static bolt of darkness. It is the biggest mystery of all. He dares not approach, remembering Kiada's warning, so he finds himself moving through the ruined streets instead. Peering up at it occasionally. Wondering if he might find someone with more answers to his many questions.
But what he finds instead is different, altogether.
Perhaps the size of the man catches his eye. Or the way the man walks, as if he has walked a thousand miles already. Either way, Seiji glimpses something at the edge of his vision and there before him is a stranger, soaking wet, trudging forward on what appear to be weary feet. Seiji remembers a time not long ago he wandered in a similar fashion, though back then he found himself instead in a dark wood, confusion ringing through his skull. Heartier now, he blinks and then starts toward the man, his gait a lively, bouncing thing. "Hello?" he calls, and pauses a little bit away. "Are you okay?" Surely the stranger doesn't mean to be wandering, wet, in this weather.
He has dreamed of wings many times, but never white. No, not in his family. Their wings were always black; some black as pitch, others tinged with the blue of evening, but always, always black. Their backdrop was rarely a beautiful blue sky, but rather towering mountains, flames, and destruction. Once, he carried black wings on his black. Ha, once. He thinks that like it was so very long ago, but it wasn’t. They were there, tucked against his back when he fell through the crack in the world and emerged here, sopping wet. The shock of coming to in some strange world still controls his thoughts though and he’s more preoccupied with trying to figure out how to survive than he is with the loss of his wings. The thought, truthfully, hasn’t quite settled in, though it will, when quiet settles over him or he first goes to use them and realizes they are simply gone.
Little does he know they morphed, transforming him into something other, giving him the ability to become the animal from which his wings were once shaped. That realization is for another day though. For now he is distracted by the voice that finds him, cheery enough, asking if he’s okay. What a loaded question that is, though certainly the other man doesn’t mean it as such. Still, Korbin finds himself silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to answer that. Part of him doesn’t want to admit that no, he’s not okay. He’s really really not okay. Still though, he is his mother’s son, and to admit that is to admit weakness.
He takes a moment to compose himself, to tame his racing thoughts. The man that approaches him looks to be about the same age, though shorter (a thing that is not uncommon in Korbin’s world). He was always a weed, and though he’s technically a boy with plenty of muscle to show (a product of having two brothers and the most vicious sister, along with simply trying to survive in the mountains), there’s still something lanky and lean about Korbin. Couple that with his boyish face, and he doesn’t look like he quite grew up, which he’s perfectly okay with.
“Nothing’s broken, I think, so I guess I’m okay. Though, as crazy as it sounds, where am I? I’m not entirely sure how I ended up here. Fell, landed here. Some strange shit happened, I guess.” There, an answer, a bit rambling and not exactly composed, but he keeps his easy, careless demeanor in place almost as if this happens to him every day. Though it definitely, definitely doesn’t. “I’m Korbin, by the way.” He adds, knowing he needs to have manners at the moment because he needs an ally right about now.
Just a breath of silence between them. A breath, and then the stranger's voice filling in the gap: easy, masculine, betraying no distress. His words themselves paint a different picture, however. Seiji listens politely. Then a smile blooms over his features, animate and welcoming. He knows what this is! "You are in Caido," Seiji says with a cheerful nod. "You are an Outlander — not from here. Me, too." He tilts his head just slightly as he looks the man up and down. His eyes are half appraising, half questioning, though he won't pry. "My name is Seiji," he says in response to Korbin's name. "Welcome!" This with a wry gesture toward the ruined buildings around them, the dismal chilly air. Haven't you come at a great time! But Seiji is never one to dwell on misery.
"You look cold," he posits. "I can take you someplace warm. I can answer some questions, too, but not a lot. I only got here a few days ago. There are a lot of us now, I think. Outlanders." The word still tastes strange on his tongue. The whole situation still buzzes strangely in his head. To think he was on the other side of the situation not long ago, at all. Wishing desperately he might wake up. He still wishes that, sometimes.
