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!
Every now and then a new decoration appears on the Firling. It seems to grow just fine in the cracks of dirt between the stones. Someone - or someone(s) must be waterin’ the tree, cause it seems to grow an’ grow an grow throughout Deepfrost. Which is great, y’know? Torchline ain’t a place where pine trees can usually grow. They got a shit ton’a a palm, but a pine tree is a Rae-sent miracle.
Now, Raza ain’t really the artsy type. She certainly appreciates beauty - in all it’s flesh and inorganic forms - but she ain’t a craftsman. An’ some’a them are goin’ all out for their baubles.
So the bar owner decides to do somethin she’s always wanted to do an’ one night, steps out’a the Hanged Man with her trident and scoots a ways away to a more empty part’a the beach. Now, Raza is a bar owner but she’s heard alot and knows that sand an’ heat create glass. But that’s about it. Not entirely sure what’s gonna happen, she plants a metal rod in the sand, steps back to give herself some room, and then raises the points her trident to the sand, triggering its lightning strike.
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
More empty is not necessarily empty, though Peter generally has the good sense to be an unnoticed presence, a pair of creeping, unblinking eyes taking in things. It’s not like he’s even really on the beach, and it’s not like he’d simply happened upon some private moment - he’d been lingering in a tree, enjoying the way the sounds of the ocean mingled with the night time sounds of the jungle, and creeping as close to a doze as he can.
And then there are crunch footsteps, and Peter is suddenly a voyeur in a very strange ritual indeed. Who wouldn’t be interested? And who could have seen what was coming?
The strike of lightning is so sudden, so bright and loud that Peter yelps, and falls from the tree with a thud and a foreign sounding curse, too irritated at himself to worry about being caught snooping.
I don’t know where I’ve been But I know where I wanna go
The yelp surprises Raza as much as it surprises whomever is yelping. She immediately assumes a defensive stance with her trident tines aimed in the general area of where the sound came from. Despite this being (kinda) outside her bar and theoretically a safe place for her, the Torcher feels the need to puff herself up like some kinda’a dominant animal.
She puts on her best I’m the boss, don’t fuck with me, voice an’ begins to advance slowly, the sound of her footsteps absorbed by the sand. “You better fuckin’ show yerself,” she demands before stopping where she can still kinda-sorta see. Her lightning experiment is forgotten for the moment, paused in lieu of discovering the creeper who just lingers quietly in the dark like, well, a creep.
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
All at once, the worry about being caught catches up to him, Pet rising to his feet and brushing himself off. An insipid stare moves over the threat of the trident, before lifting up to Raza’s face. Two scarred hands raise, showing off their emptiness before Peter hazards a step closer, trying to resist the urge to apologize as he does.
Words rise to his tongue, sitting there while he mulls them over, leaning to look past the woman at the recently struck patch of beach. ”You scared me.” He offers finally, brows knitting together in a frown that almost borders on a pout. He’s not going to let himself be threatened when he was here first.
I don’t know where I’ve been But I know where I wanna go
A short man eventually disentangles ‘imself from the shadows an’ comes out to the circles’a flickerin’ firelight. Raza sizes him up with a deft look, weighs his words, an’ slowly lowers the trident. Her eyes still radiate some kind’a distrust, but she no longer stands so aggressively. Don’t get her wrong, she ain’t about t’turn ‘er back on the man, but side-steps are better ‘n purely backin’ away.
“An’ you were been creepily quiet, so -” so as far as Raza Ekambe is concerned, they’re equal. Her feet bring ‘er back to the melted ground an’ she sets the weapon down at her side - within easy reach - but begins to feel around on the ground. Once she identifies what she’s lookin’ for, the woman starts to dig, scoopin’ sand out from a specific area.
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
Distrust is still leagues better than outright hostility, though both are familiar to Peter, for a number of reasons. ”Should I shout next time?” Pet asks in a voice so flat it’s difficult to tell if he’s being serious or just kind of an ass. Against his better judgement, he follows after her, somehow more silent in the sand than he had been in the underbrush.
”What... what are you uh... shocking the ground for?” Curious despite himself, Pet is carefully out of range from Raza’s trident, though still closer than he necessarily should be. Hands tuck into his pockets, tight against his sides, flattening his silhouette strangely against the flickering firelight.
I don’t know where I’ve been But I know where I wanna go
It ain’t Raza’s job to tell men how not to be creepy. If they don’t know, then they don’t know - an’ maybe one day they’ll learn, but that ain’t ‘er problem. She shrugs. Makes a face. Declines to answer that part’a his question. Her hands continue t’scoop out the sand, kinda like a sea turtle’s flippers when they’re tryin’ t’lay eggs an’ make a nest. Except what she’s unconverin ain’t anythin’ like a nest.
It’s a bumpy rod. Kinda looks like coral, or it would if Raza could see as properly as Peter can. “Y’know how they make glass?” she asks, briefly lookin’ up through her top-heavy mess’a hair. “Heat’n sand. Well. I got heat ‘n sand. Wanted t’see if I could do it.”
By now, they both know the answer is no, it doesn’t quite work like that. Don’t mean it ain’t ain interestin’ experiment, an’ soon she stands to try an’ yank it up from the ground.
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
Unfortunately for Raza, and anyone else Peter might have the misfortune to interact with, being creepy is simply a part of who he is. Birds fly, fish swim, Pet lurks in dark corners. For the moment though, he seems to have traded out creepy for curious, stepping closer again to look over the bartenders shoulders at what she’s uncovering.
And if he’s being honest, it doesn’t look like much. A strange, knobbly kind of rock. He manages to tear his gaze away from it to look at Raza when she speaks, nodding silently, and then looking at the knobby rock with a new appreciation. It is interesting, in a way. ”Glass is... slow heat, isn’t it?”
Without asking, Pet steps wide around the woman, and adds his hands to her effort, his steady, tireless, meager strength added. It’s more selfish an act than it might seem; now that he knows what it is he’s looking at, he wants to see the entire fractal structure.
I don’t know where I’ve been But I know where I wanna go
Is it slow heat? Raza shrugs. “I dunno. It’s hot heat -” as if there’s any other kind “- but I dunno about a speed.” She’s seen the ovens and the twirlin’ rods, the glow’a bubbles and the blowers as they create. But speed’a things? Nah. That never crossed ‘er mind. “I know booze. An’ Torchline. Not arts n’ crafts.”
Somewhere towards the end’a the bumpy glass-slash-rock it diverges into three parts, loopin’ ‘n curlin’ a bit. With Pet’s help, it’s more quickly revealed an’ the bar owner pulls it out. It’s kind a heavy, an’ now that it’s out it definitely looks more like coral.
“Huh.” There’s no use hidin’ her disappointment. “Well I guess that end is kinda pretty, yeah?” Indicatin' the end'a the fulgurite, she crinkles her nose an' swings it round so she can get a better look.
The question hangs in the air. My, how quickly Pet goes from creep to critic.
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
It’s impossible to try and explain what he means, at least for Peter, so he drops it with a shrug shrouded by by his copious layers. He’s in no place to judge, it’s not like he actually know how sand works, or the first thing about DIY.
Peter’d head tilts back and forth as he examines the fulgurite, more focused than a predator on the first prey its seen in weeks. ”Yes.” Comes the decision, solemn and quiet and punctuated by a vigorous nod. ”Its like... a little tree. A uh...” He knows this, it’s on the tip of his tongue. ”Branch! Like a branch.”
Though now that it’s been revealed, there’s another question wagging in Pet’s tongue. ”Whats it for?” It seems like a lot of effort for a simple experiment, as far as he’s concerned.
I don’t know where I’ve been But I know where I wanna go
Yeah, it is kinda like a branch. As she swings the thing ‘round, Raza discovers that its hollow inside, and maybe, just maybe, they can break off the pretty part.
It would be a very Torchline-esque bauble, if it does break.
“A bauble t’hang on the Firling,” Raza confesses. Once she says it aloud, it sounds fairly stupid, especially with the mishapen, uglyish creation before ‘em. Now she finds it slightly ridiculous an’ amusin’ an ends up snort-laughin’ at the thought that she, Raza Ekambe, could make an artistic bauble. Hell, she could’a traded for somethin’ pretty ‘n shiny ‘n all that.
Oh well. Since it’s here an all. And Pet’s here (even if she doesn’t know his name).
“Fuck it,” she declares boldly, coming down to a knee an’ balancin’ the fulgurite where she wants to break it. Raza reaches out for the metal’a her trident an’ brings it down on the glass-rock thing, breakin it into a fancy branch end an’ an ugly rod end.
“This’ll do.”
An' no one will ever know it was her. Other than this guy, a'course.
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
”Oh, the uh... the tree thing.” It seems appropriate, if nothing else. At least, it does once it’s been broken down to size, the prettier end of it separated from the long stick part. He’s hovering now, entirely too close for even his own comfort, though it’s overridden by curiosity.
The woman, stranger still, says ‘this’ll do’, and Pet just doesn’t understand. ”How will it..?” Without finishing, he starts digging through his pockets, going back and forth methodically until he pulls out a length of pink ribbon, stolen from a child’s hair the first day he’d been back. He ties a thick, intricate knot in one end, then offers it up, thinking the longer end can be threaded through hollow interior of the fulgurite so it has some way to hang. ”Will this help?”
I don’t know where I’ve been But I know where I wanna go
Not sure what he means by the unfinished question, the proprietress pauses while he suddenly begins to dig through his pockets. The pink slip’a shiny fabric causes her own question t’catch in ‘er throat.
Where this man might have gotten’a girl’s ribbon is entirely too unsettlin’ for Raza to really think about. If pressed, she might have, but it’s so much easier to just accept it as somethin’ harmless (he might be an uncle, a brother, or found it in the street) than as something’ to get fussed over. Instead, she hands the makeshift ornament over, the pale, knobbly branch white against the darkness of her skin under a LongNight sky, an’lets ‘im thread the material through the hollow inside.
Once done, she experiments by ‘angin it from a finger an’ nods in silent satisfaction. Rough. Inelegant. Imperfect. Makeshift. Just like her. An’ maybe the guy, if she ‘ad to hazard a guess. Without really extendin’ an invitation, other than “Well, come on then,” Raza turns begins to walk towards the center’a Haulani, where they can put the bauble on the Firling and, dunno, maybe learn each other’s names, at least.
{Fin}
she's got a real quick trigger and some new demands
