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!
This is a multi pronged adventure, though Nate has somewhat lost track of the prongs. Meeting the returned ascended, and prepping for Longnight, and exploring the newly revealed edges of the Grounds, all wrapped up in a single nights embarkment. A crossbow sits strapped across his back, though he doesn’t anticipate using it, hoping the lands past the barrier scar will prove to be gentler than the Greatwoods had. The ugly stretch of land is where he waits for his sparring partner, impatient despite knowing he’s been the one to show up earlier than he said.
When his white haired sparring partner arrives, Nate pasted a grin on his face that seems somehow ill fitting, and shoved a hand out towards him. ”Aamu, right?” He asks brightly, absolutely and unintentionally repeating the name incorrectly. ”I thought it might be nice to wander out a bit, find a good spot to spar.” Maybe get to know each other. isn’t said out loud, but it is implied.
And if there are no complaints, that’s exactly what Nate does, stepping into the greenery and taking a completely useless deep inhale of the fresh air before he starts walking. He stays quiet for a moment, long enough that the familiar is behind them, before he tips his head towards his fellow ascended. ”So uh... is it nice being back?”
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
He shouldn't be surprised someone wants to test his mettle and improve his arsenal, but there he is: vaguely surprised, vaguely flattered, mostly focused. He's gleaned enough to figure out the Grounds has bad and lethal problems with monsters during LongNight, but until the meeting he hadn't truly grasped the scope of it.
And now that he has, well... Let's just say he absolutely understands what they are doing, and why.
Since they'd agreed to practice hand-to-hand combat Aamu normally wouldn't have brought his newly made (and not very fancy) sword, but the threat of The Order hangs heavy on his shoulders. He's not keen on being more defenseless than he needs to.
Nate is already waiting for him when he shows up, and Aamu takes the hand with ease. "Aamu," he corrects in the gentle and absent-minded fashion of one used to having their name mauled, peering up at Nate with bright eyes. His proportions are even more imposing this close. "And you are Nate."
He turns to gaze away from the Grounds. "Works for me," he says with a slight shrug, following the tall Ascended into a snowy landscape gradually shifting from thin and bleak to something slightly more healthy-looking beneath all that white.
He wonders how startling the difference will be in summer and spring.
The question draws a thoughtful sigh from him. "Hmm," he hums noncommittally at first, remembering Henry's reaction to the revelation Aamu had been unconscious for quite some time. He glances away. Truth be told, he'd rather not have shut down at all, gotten to live out his life, watched Oheň grow, maybe survived and been here anyway.
He sighs, again. Settles for a middle ground. "Consciousness is always nice, though I never died." Glances back to Nate. "I recognize you from the Festival. Some friends of—well, of yours, or Sunjata's, came back, right?"
All of this is absolutely in the name of preparedness, knowledge that he has no business accessing driving a desperate edge into every one of Nate’s preparation. He hides it well though, as the other approaches, the sword at his waist drawing Nate’s eye before introductions pass between them.
”Sorry. Aamu.” Theres a cheerfulness in Nate’s repetition that only comes from an air of faux confidence around the unknown, a category Aamu fell into easily, as far as the doctor was concerned. His name might have left the other as a statement, but Nate still nods.
The Grounds disappear behind them quicker than expected, hills picking up the slack that the greenery can’t show off, covered as it is by snow. Nate’s not sure entirely what he’s looking for in an arena, but he knows it will call to him when he sees it.
”Friends of ours, yeah.” He answers, clarifies, a grin on his face when the other ascended glances towards him. ”Some not so friends too, but..” Nate shrugs, then slows, looking around at the space around them before shaking his head and moving on, deeper into the frozen hills. It takes another moment after this for something to click in Nate’s kind, and he stops again, this time to stare at Aamu curiously, his head tipped to the side. ”What do you mean you never died? You... came from the same place as everyone else, didn’t you?”
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
"Don't worry about it," he replies with a wry little smile. In some ways he almost feels bad for correcting Nate's pronunciation (it was a reflex, honest), wants to convey it's nothing personal: it's not uncommon for people to misremember it, or find it alien as it rolls off their tongues. "I'm not sure what my parents thought when they named me that."
Or what his sister thought when she named her daughter Oheň.
He's not keen to linger on that subject.
Aamu chuckles slightly at Nate's response, responds to his grin with a slight one of his own. "I'm glad you got them back," he comments, honest, watching the barrow hills of King's End roll into view. He opens his mouth, fills his faux lungs with cold air, but before he has the time to comment on it (ask about him) Nate picks up on what he said before.
He stops with him. Lets the heated air out in a white sigh. "I was merely the guide. I am from—before. From before the barrier." He turns to watch the dark horizon. His voice matches the mournful quiet of the night. "I was dead in every sense but the literal. Shut down for three hundred years until the Voice dug me up on some mountainside and told me to lead them back to life. A very confusing end to a very long and confusing sleep."
He throws his arms out and spins around, not keen on letting Nate ask further questions about it. It's difficult, painful, distracting. "Where are you from?"
Cheerfulness blooms into warm chuckles, a hand rising to clap Aamu’s shoulder. ”It could always be worse.” He commiserates, without actually offering any worse alternatives, his mind failing him.
Somewhere along the explanation, Nate gets a touch lost, loses track of things just a little bit. He doesn’t think it’s exactly his fault, and not exactly Aamu’s either, but there’s a lot of the middle part of this story missing. He doesn’t ask father it, and doesn’t ask after the difference between being truly dead or not. Though the idea that he could survive well over three hundred years has some part of him squirming with queasiness.
Nate is just as happy to leave the subject behind us, to grip onto this new one with greedy hands. ”I’m from a place called America. I don’t exactly miss it.” Not exactly true, but simpler to say than anything near the truth. ”There are uh... some big differences, between here and there.” Some is an understatement really, and something Nate doesn’t really elaborate on, looking around at the spot they’ve stopped with a critical eye.
”This should work.” Shrugging out of his jacket and the crossbow, Nate sets them to the side, stretching out of habit rather than need. ”Have you ever fought hand to hand before, or have you just used uh, swords?” The doctor looks rather pointedly to the sword on the others waist, interest in his gaze.
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
And perhaps that is the problem: it's just something that is too alien, too strange, never should've happened. It asks more questions than it answers.
Aamu is equally glad that Nate's willing to drop it. He can't change the facts of it, anyway, and he has no way of making it clearer. Sure, there's some details here and there, but at the end of the day he can't do anything about the fact that he got turned off and stayed that way for three centuries.
"You're an Outlander," he says, vaguely surprised, vaguely excited, the word unfamiliar in his mouth. America. He wants to leap on Nate, pin him in the snow and not let him up until he's answered Aamu's every bright-eyed question, but something (aside from it being rude) gives him pause.
Maybe it's the way he words it. Maybe it's the way he looks around. It's an echo of what Aamu did, after all. It says: I don't want to talk about it. Aamu can respect that. "Well," he begins, mild as ever, "I'm glad you've found your way here, then. Things seem to be going quite your way."
Aamu studies the way Nate moves with undisguised interest (purely scientific, I promise)—from the way he puts away his jacket and crossbow to his limbering stretches, as if it would tell him something. Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't, and then he begins to shrug out of his own coat, folding it with great care. "Only if I've been forced to," he admits, rolling up his shirt-sleeves. "Swords and knives are what I'm best with but I've dabbled in a bit of this and that over the years."
”Yeah.” Nate notices the excitement, even if he doesn’t quite get it, his head cocking. ”Were there not as many of us around in your time or something?” It’s half a joke, though morbid wonder gnaws at him now. Is he new, in more ways than he’d thought initially? Would it even be strange to learn at this point?
Well, that’s one thing they have in common already, pasts that should be stay put, untouched. Perhaps one day he’d be able to open up more, but for the moment, Nate just nods, laughs. ”You have no idea how well things are going.” It’s almost a brag, would be more impressive rid it were true.
Whether it’s intentional or not, Nate starts to take his time now that there are eyes on him. Stretches his motions out that much more, flexes where he maybe doesn’t need to. And he wraps it all up with a wink, before he straightens, a brow quirking at the neat way Aamu sets aside his own items. ”Maybe we can trade next time. I always kind of wanted to learn how to use a sword.” He’d learned to be a decent hand with bows and other ranged implements, but his real skill lay in this.
Almspt automatically, Nate drops into a boxers stance, hands up, feet apart, and a challenge on his face. ”Show me what you got.” It’s easiest to start like this, to see what the other ascended knows already, and work from there.
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
"No," he responds, pale eyebrows shooting up in slight surprise. Wessex had told him the Outlanders were a fairly recent development, but he supposes if you're not among the first then perhaps you do not question it at all. "None at all." He thinks, sooner or later, the Voice would've opened portals to other worlds anyway—out of curiosity, the challenge, who knows? It just happened to be necessity that won out.
He chuckles himself: it's more like a breath, but the smirk is there, slightly twisting his lips and sparkling in his eyes. "Maybe one day you'll tell me," he answers brightly—and is it accompanied by a wink? Perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't, but he does think it would be nice to know Nate better.
He'll have to rebuild somehow, after all. Forge new connections, find new meanings. Why look further than he has to, when what's right in front of him seems pleasant? And quite limber. Aamu's a little taken aback by the wink, wondering if he just witnessed an intentional display of something, his eyebrows rising slightly again. "Of course," he says in that murmur-y way of his, undoing his sword belt and placing it neatly atop his coat. "I am more than happy to teach."
And happy to make a fool of himelf—that's at least what it feels like as Aamu watches Nate drop into a ready stance, and prompting him to do.. what exactly? Attack him? Aamu's body goes to the closest thing it knows, which is reminiscent of a knife-fighter's stance in a street-brawl. Not very useful when you don't have a knife. "Consider me a complete idiot in this," he remarks, mellow and amused, helpless and confused. Still, he feels prompted to do something, padding closer to Nate with that fluid, elegant grace of his, and then.. not really doing anything, except maybe wait for Nate to hand his ass to him.
As it turns out, it isn’t that strange, confirmation sending Nate’s own brows up in an uncanny reflection of the other ascended. ”Must be weird to have come back to... all this then.” A hand lifts to gesture at the hills around them, meaning the world at large though how well that actually translates is a guess. Still, despite the time, the worlds that desperate their experiences, Nate can make the other man crack a grin. That has to be a win somewhere, huh? ”Maybe I will.” He agrees cryptically, grinning all the while.
It never hurt to grow closer to the Family, after all, no matter the choices he had made, the things he’d done that still made him feel greasy and ashamed. In the moment, he can focus on this, can pretend that everything is easy and simple. ”I’m looking forward to it.” Another laugh leaves him, and they drop into a ready position.
”A complete idiot, huh?” A surprised tease, before Nate steps forward, a fist flying out to catch Aamu’s shoulder, not as gentle as he’d go with any other beginner, but still gentler than a real punch. The goal is to make the other man stumble, then sweep his legs out from under him, though Nate doesn’t fully account for the ascension, the lack of a pain response, and it’s a fair bit clumsier than it could be.
There’s no reason to press any more than that, Nate offering a hand out instead to help Aamu steady himself again. ”You don’t need to lower yourself that much. It’s fine for knives, but you want to be able move easily.” He demonstrates how he sinks into his starting stance, feet apart just so, his fists raised to protect his face, his vitals. Giving Aamu a moment to match him, and look over him to ensure he’s right, Nate nods, a lifts a hand. ”Punch me. Plant your feet and move with it.”
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
"Yes," he breathes with the slightest smirk, too experienced to let his attention be drawn into quips and teases; there's more he'd like to say, but he's too busy watching Nate's actions. Aamu knows full well that he's about to get hit by something, just not where.
Or by what, really. Hand-to-hand? Not really, he thinks as he's busy falling into the snow. Too many body parts involved for that name.
His mind replays. The punch to the shoulder. (All's fine, his monitoring systems assure him.) The leg-sweep. Neat, nimble, effective. Aamu likes it. Thinks he probably could've dodged, or at least mitigated, a bit of it, but he was too curious to see what would happen. Oops. Well, at least he has more sense in a real battle, and now he knows more than he did five seconds ago. With a small smirk he lets Nate haul him back up, and he nods.
His blue gaze flicks from place to place on Nate's body, studying his joints and foot placement more than anything. Aamu copies him with relative ease, drawing upon a long background of learning other forms of fighting: at a glance he's well balanced, if unsure of these exact movements.
Punch him? Okay. Where? No idea. Aamu does as he is told, and it's, well... He knows how to utilize his body: how to put power into his motions, even though he's not going for a full blow strength-wise. But the rest, like punching technique and aiming? Eeh... Not so much.
At least he knows this, and hungers for the corrections and pointers.
Well there’s really no target like his chest, is there? Impossible to miss, and difficult to actually hurt, even before ascension. Nate leans into the blow anyway, stepping back with a laugh. ”Not bad.” Comes the rumble, overflowing with amusement. ”You have a good arm. You just need a little finesse.” Rolling his shoulders and shaking his fist out.
”Keep your wrist straight. My old ma-” He cuts himself off, looking almost confused for a moment, though he covers it up with a step back, a light grin. ”I was told when I was learning that the best punch is thrown when you’re trying to punch through what you’re aiming at.” To demonstrate, he throws his fist at the air, following through with his whole body, nearly throwing himself off balance with it.
A distraction, maybe, but an apt one. Flashy enough that his earlier stumble is masked easily.
Once he recovers, lighter on his feet than his size suggests, Nate faces Aamu again, and lifts a hand up, a true target this time. ”Try again. As hard as you want.”
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
'Not bad' can mean so many things: from just what it sounds like, to a polite way of saying 'that's awful', to not wanting to praise someone for something actually well done. Aamu suspects this one is somewhere in the region of 'huh I didn't think you'd know how to use that sapling body of yours, but your technique is shit'—and he's fine with that.
Nate's misstep is interesting, but Aamu politely ignores it. Instead, he dutifully watches the man's wrists as he proves his point by punching through the air, nearly falling flat in the snow in the process. "Careful," Aamu says with a laugh, before looking down at his own stance and fists. He bends his wrist a couple of times, rotates his hand, before setting it straight and doing a few mild, minute punches to get a feel for it.
"Are you sure?" Aamu eyes Nate's hand, not doubting him per se but wary of hurting him. Then again, he must know what he's doing, right?
Aamu adopts the stance Nate showed him previously, wiggling a little back and forth to test it out. When he punches again it is once more surprisingly powerful for his slight frame, and he does as Nate told him, envisioning the idea of his hand passing through the other Ascended's.
”Theres worse things than falling.” Nate jokes, very nearly falling to the ground just to prove his point. He doesn’t, can’t bother with the effort it would take. They move right along instead, tuning up Aamu’s stance until he’s ready for the next step. ”Wouldn't have said it if I wasn’t sure, slugger.”
If Nate is surprised by the force of the other man’s punch, it doesn’t show past the whoop of excitement that leaves him, his grin widening into a laugh. ”Look at that!” No matter the kind of mood he’s in, there are some things the doctor is determined to do different, some skills he wants to pass on without all of the pain he’d endured, and this is one of them. Nothing but praise on his lips for the good, and gentle corrections for the less than.
Obviously there’s no actual sting, but Nate shakes his hand like there is, and pulls his fists up into a ready position. ”In an actual fight, you want to keep at least one foot planted as much as you can.” Nate shifts forward, one foot lifting and the other dragging behind, then stepping back in the same way. ”And you always want to be paying attention.” Wi Ry that point made, Nate swings, aiming too far left to actually hit Aamu, just to see how he responds to it.
All dressed up like a switchblade knife Let’s hang in love from the gallows
He supposes that's true, and wonders if it has anything to do with Nate's little slip earlier. It bears some thought, at least, though Aamu merely responds with a bit of a twisted grin. This is not the time nor the place, and he thinks it won't be for quite some time either. He'd like to get to know Nate better first.
It is an unusual movement for him, an unusual impact, but not much seems to have happened—there's no pain, no broken bones, just the vague sensation of having slammed his knuckles against something a bit too hard. It's fine his systems assure him, and he lets Nate's soaring spirits lift him, too. His laugh is a rather quiet thing, but his eyes glitter in the dark. Part of him wants to wave it off, say that he wouldn't be able to hit Nate if he was moving, but—why bother? It's an exercise, and Aamu's already on a crusade to make people accept praise and kindness. It'd be horribly hypocritical of him to brush it off.
"Feet, right," he murmurs, watching Nate's footwork as he shows what he means. Makes sense, honestly: if you don't have any feet on the ground, you have no stability, no power, you can't make a quick escape, and paying attention, well—
He sees it in the corner of his eye and instincts kick in. Aamu steps away and forward, light on his feet, dropping his newly learned fighter's pose for whatever comes naturally to him. He lacks a long weapon but reaches out all the same, trying to snake his arm around Nate's, not sure what he can achieve but feeling like Nate deserves something for his sneak attack.
He suspects it'll just end with him on his back in the snow again, though.
