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!
02-26-2021, 05:49 PM (This post was last modified: 02-26-2021, 05:50 PM by Adam.)
ADAM
He'd gone 'home', as much as the corner in the Advocates could be called that, when he got back to Torchline, just to check if Pet was there; he wasn't. Adam had been both worried and relieved by that at the same time. On the one hand, he could stay in limbo for now, not have to deal with the certainty of any tragedies. On the other hand, he was in limbo, which fucking sucked.
It was weird, being both intensely messed up and in no pain at all. He stood on the pier, hands shaking as he lit a match under a joint he'd traded for some pills he had in an old pair of pants. What were they? He had no idea, but he'd promised the recipient they'd see stars. He'd be gone before they could come to complain. As for his own prize, Adam inhaled, but of course barely felt the heat or taste of the smoke in his mouth. It was unsatisfying, like a half-given kiss - he inhaled harder, almost sucking on the end of the joint, and still nothing.
Frustrated, Adam burnt down more and more of the joint until the end was at his knuckles; it should have burnt but instead all he had was the dull knowledge that his finger had been affected. The Voice's strange, dull version of nerves.
In a bizarre second it was in his mouth, Adam almost daring his taste buds to disgust him with it; it was as if someone in the next room was doing it, the smell and acrid bitterness only vaguely available, groaning, he spat it out on the sand, shaking his head and looking off over the ocean.
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"That's littering," Cam said, almost reflexively, when they saw the man spit his joint onto the sand while walking down the beach. It was also a little gross, but Cam was learning to adjust to Caido's standards of hygiene, which, while not as squeaky-clean as home, were not as bad as they'd expected from a world that seemed so far in time behind their own, either. Still, they didn't think littering was usually an active concern for people here, nor had they actually intended to confront this man about it. Turning a bit red, Cam corrected themself, "I mean, it doesn't matter."
Now they felt like they had to add something actually meaningful to the conversation they'd accidentally started, some reason they'd disturbed this man. "I'm not a big smoker, but I didn't think you were supposed to eat those. Did it taste good?"
That was not the cool observation Cam had hoped for. Oh well. Try again next time.
cameron ?
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In the rather simple, fantastical world Adam had lived in, where things made of plastic had been none existent and streets were typically covered in well, shit, the concept of 'littering' was pretty foreign. He frowned over at the stranger in confusion and irritation (he could still tell he was being told off) and watched as the waves came up to take away his admittedly kinda gross tobacco-spit. "Look. Sorted."
A moment stretched on where Adam wondered if he was gonna be left alone, but it seemed not; this person wanted a conversation. Normally, he loved the chance to flex his charismatic muscles, but in the midst of his cigarette-eating-breakdown, Adam wasn't in the most chipper nor sociable mood. "No, it didn't fucking taste good, but nothing tastes of fucking anything nowadays. I wanted to see if I could kick my stupid broken tongue into working, but-" He gestured wide with his hands. "-Nope."
"Still broken, like my goddamn limp cock!" Adam shouted out to the ocean, stepping back with an almost drunken swing, apparently not caring about sharing that personal information.
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Trash ending up in the ocean was kind of the opposite of what Cam had intended, but, well ... they weren't about to go grab the disgusting thing, and they really doubted they could make this guy pick it up, so they just let it go.
Adam's outburst soon gave them more to worry about, anyway. What were they supposed to say to that, exactly?
"Sorry?" they tried. "Are you, like, OK? Do you need to see a doctor?"
And maybe not yell about your dick in front of random strangers? Cam kept that part to themself. Maybe they'd asked for it: maybe this was their karmic punishment for trying to nag someone about disposing of their trash properly.
This guy was clearly having some issues that Cameron was not qualified to deal with, and while they'd be happy to lend a hand if they could, they didn't exactly have a script for this situation.
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Normally, Adam might have heard the confused tone of Cameron's voice and been embarrassed, worried he looked less than cool or sexy. As it was, where he was mentally, all he could really do was laugh about it. Shaking his head, he opened his mouth and pointed to the new fangs, sharp and gleaming in among his teeth. "My problem's divine, not medical. Fuckin' Voice broke all my shit."
Was he actually mad at her? Who knew. All Adam knew was that he was mad about something.
Anyway, back to the person in front of him. "Why're you down here by yourself and not at one of the parties?" He gestured loosely up to the town, to where he was sure at least some people were drinking and making merry. "Can be dangerous around here when it's dark, y'know. On the beach all by yourself." He let his eyes linger on Cameron for a moment, though there was no real bite in his words; he was more trying to be left alone than genuinely threatening.
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"Ohh." Cam didn't really know enough about the Ascended to realize that Adam was one of them, but it made sense for a god to have the ability to curse someone with impotence. Just ... "Why?"
Blushing, they added, "I mean, you don't have to tell me."
They kind of hoped he wouldn't, honestly. Even if they were a little curious as to what could piss a god off and demand that specific punishment -- at least, they assumed it was a punishment.
Then the conversation turned back to Cam, and they blushed even more. "Oh, I'm not much of a partier."
The truth was, the ebullience and excess of Torchline's LongNight celebrations made them uncomfortable. They'd spent most of the "holiday" indoors, doing chores for room and board and just trying to learn more about Caido.
When Adam pointed out the danger, Cam narrowed their eyes at him. Was that a threat? Could they do much about it if it was? "Well, you're out here in the dark all alone."
cameron ?
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"Oh." Realising that Cameron apparently didn't know that particular detail of Ascending, Adam sighed and put his hands in his pockets. "The Voice gives you cool fangs and shit, changes all your body...but she changes some things for the worse too." He had agreed to it, didn't really regret the choice yet, but was growing increasingly bitter as time went on and he realised what it actually meant to do without his senses for the most part.
He could tell by looking, actually, that this was not the sort of person that went to a lot of parties. When they narrowed their eyes he considered frightening them off for good, getting out a dagger or something...but Adam had matured a lot in the last couple of years, and found himself instead just shaking his head and shrugging. "I can see in the dark and it's the only time I can get out. Can't do sun either, when the Voice got you. D'ya want me to walk you back to town? I...did actually mean it, about there being dangerous people around."
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"Oh, that's the Ascended thing, right?" Cam gave Adam a once-over that probably wasn't nearly as surreptitious as they thought. If he hadn't said so, they never would have guessed that he was some kind of ... magic robot vampire? The concept was still wild.
"Uh, you don't have to do that," Cam said, to Adam's offer -- because they genuinely weren't sure being around Adam was any safer than being alone. Though they had had this much of a conversation without him trying to strangle them. Cam supposed that yelling about your most intimate problems to someone did kind of forge a bond of some kind. They wavered visibly; they might have said no, but if Adam insisted, they'd probably let him walk them back just to keep it from being awkward.
"So, how did the Voice 'get' you? Like, how'd you become Ascended?"
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
"Yeah, the Ascended thing." Adam sighed, wishing he could have that kind of distance from the topic again, but now it was very much front and centre in his life. "I suppose I'm meant to drink blood, or something, but I haven't gotten around to that yet." Far as he knew, the Voice sorted that out when you visited her shrine, if you didn't have anyone to suck on.
If Cam didn't want to be walked back, he wouldn't insist: being miserable on the beach was a perfect way to feel sorry for himself and his current situation; when he was alone again he'd be able to get back to staring at the ocean and thinking about how brooding he looked.
He did smile at the question he was asked, looking down to the sand and scuffing a dent in it with the toe of his boot. "Oh, so that's kind of an interesting story. I died. Like, actually died, and was dead for uh...I think it was nearly a year?" Time had been...odd, and his memories surrounding the fatal incident were blurry enough he couldn't quite recall the exact season it had happened in. "The Voice let me come back, s'long as I was one of her guys. So I guess it was worth it. You're new around here, aren't you?"
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"So you really are vampires," Cam said -- not disgusted or afraid, just interested. "I mean, no offense. I've just heard a lot about the Ascended, and it's hard to know what's true. Someone told me that you all have glowing eyes and can read people's minds."
Cam could see for themself that the glowing eyes thing wasn't true, though. Presumably Adam couldn't read minds, either; that or he was very good at hiding his reactions to Cam's errant thoughts.
"Oh." Cam took a moment to contemplate what you said to someone who had died and come back. Sorry? Condolences? They wanted to ask what it was like, dying and being dead, but they didn't want to dredge up any painful memories. Maybe just: "That's rough. I'd ... probably choose being Ascended over death too, to be honest."
They didn't know that things like not being able to taste or a lack of sexual sensation would even bother them, honestly. Food and sex were overrated, in Cam's opinion.
"Yeah, I am," they added. "It's obvious, huh?"
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
"Oh, hey yeah! Most people here don't know that word." He'd asked about vampires when he'd first landed in Caido, and had been met with resolute confusion and silence. It seemed here, Ascended was the word, and before the Voice had brought her children into the fold, no one had even heard of fanged monsters sucking blood. Adam snorted at the idea he could read minds, shaking his head. "No. I wish. Maybe if I ask the Voice really nice, she might let me."
It was, indeed, rough, to die. "Yeah...it was a pretty easy choice. I'm complaining and all, but..." Adam waved his hand about in the air before him. "It's nice to be able to be here complaining at all, I guess."
He laughed, now settling into a much friendlier tone and affect as his initial bad mood wore off. "Yeah. I was new too, once. It's a lot to fucking take in, huh? All these A words and Gods and places and stuff?"
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
"So you're not from here?" Cam asked, their interest piqued. Then they shrugged, chuckling a little. "Eh, reading minds is overrated. I'd rather not know all the stuff random strangers think about me -- I can guess, you know?"
That ... had come out maybe a bit more self-deprecating than Cam had intended. They hurried on: "Nothing wrong with complaining. It helps to vent, I think. Like, just because it could be worse doesn't mean it couldn't be better, too. Did that make sense?"
They weren't sure they could untangle that sequence of negatives and conditionals themself. Oops. Well, no harm done, except maybe to the English language.
"It definitely is. Are you, uh, from Earth too? I know there are other places, but yeah -- back home we didn't even have any concept of other worlds existing, so suddenly showing up here was a bit of a shock. Sometimes I still don't think it's real, but I might as well go along with it, you know?"
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
"No. I dropped here 'bout...uh...maybe three...two...years ago? It's kinda hard to remember." Especially with a year or so missing in the middle. It seemed like it had been forever since he'd fallen down from the ceiling of the Rathskeller right onto a table; he wondered if he ever got to go back there, how he'd do things different up until this point (for a start, he'd stay far away from any and all Gods).
He only nodded to the mangled fortitudes, getting the gist even if it didn't entirely make sense. "Sure. Though in this place, I'm not gonna hold out too much hope of things getting better."
"Earth?" Adam paused, thought about it, then shook his head. "Nope, don't think so, though I met a guy from a couple hundreds years on from me in my world, and he called it something entirely different, so who fuckin' knows." It was difficult to get his head around, but his worlds timeline was not at all concurrent with this one, so literally anything could have happened after he was there. "What was Earth like?"
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
"What makes you say things don't get better here?" Cam frowned. They knew life in Caido was hard, probably harder than on Earth in many ways, but they were surprised to hear Adam sound so pessimistic, so bitter. Cam thought Caido was, well, neat. Even if they missed their modern conveniences, especially their laptop and camera.
"I think it's been Earth for a pretty long time, over in my own world ... It's, uh. Very different from here. Caido is like ... " Cam paused, not wanting to say "medieval" or insult Caido by implying it was primitive -- the words "less advanced technology" wouldn't do. But: "Earth was never really like Caido, with magic and gods and stuff, but it resembled Caido more a couple centuries ago. We've developed a lot of different tech since then. But, still, no magic ... What was your world like?"
cameron ?
"Cameras" by Ennev is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
