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!
Bastien made a comment that the Earth she had described was not the same one he knows and was used to, and Nairi nodded in response. If he was indeed from the past, he would not have known of this. She continued to dip her paintbrush into more paint, before moving onto the empty section of the wall to paint more spirals of different sizes. Spirals were good, so she continued to paint more of them.
Her assumptions was confirmed when Bastien mentioned the year he remembered leaving Earth. 1773, that must have been really ancient especially when one considered her own timeline.
They didn't have a lot of things in 1773, but at least there were still people in the city, and life in the towns and buildings, and not the wrecks and all that quiet and emptiness that filled her world. The only sounds one could hear in the cities were the groaning and moaning of old abandoned buildings or crumbling wrecks of towering skyscrapers.
"1773? This is making a lot more sense now. The year I come from is 2287. The Great War started and ended on Saturday, October 23, 2077. It has been 210 years since the bombs dropped that ended the world."
NAIRI
If you're not lost, you're not much of an explorer.
2287? God. A year so far flung into the future that Bastien had never considered it. It was long past the time he would have lived if he remained on Earth, yet he still felt his heart ache for the residents of the planet at the time of this great war Nairi informed him of. Bombs large enough to cause such mass destruction seemed bizarre, a blank spot in his imagination because he could not even picture the idea.
"...I...see. But..." Desperately he tried to pull something hopeful from the story. "You are still alive and telling the story, hm? So it has not ended. Just...changed. Would you say that was right? Obviously you know better than me, cara, but if there are still people to tell your stories..."
Troubled at the apparent fate of his planet, Bastien's brush stopped and he put it down, opening his door and reaching around inside it to bring out some pastries he had been meaning to save for the end of the job, but felt he wanted them now. Politely, he held out the plate to Nairi before sitting on the doorstep and eating one himself.
Nairi nodded gravely. "Yes, we are still alive, although we are living in a shell of what the world used to be like. The world we live in is a result of our ancestor's actions, or mistakes as some would call it. The empty cities and towering wrecks are a testament to this anytime any one of us enters the city. We can only imagine what it was like before the bombs dropped."
She then gave him a smile, understanding that he was trying to cheer up her. There wasn't a whole lot of that in her Earth. It was a dog-eat-dog world, and she had to do her best just to survive. Nairi then noticed that Bastien looked terribly shakened by fate of future Earth, and she saw him open the church's door and retrieve a plate of pastries. Her face brightened visibly when she was offered the food. She'd been more hungry that she'd thought. Thanking him for the offer, she took one, before taking a sit next to him.
NAIRI
If you're not lost, you're not much of an explorer.
The world she described really did sound a horror. Bastien wondered how long it had been as she said. Why had no one made it beautiful again? Planted trees, painted the walls, rebuilt? He did not understand what level of destruction could make those things impossible; clearly the society was intelligent as Nairi was speaking and painting fine.
"Are there no artists there? No one to restore the place to some glory? Even after the worst wars in my...time, there are wonderful works of art that come from them." A lot of the most lauded and famous paintings were the results of conflict. It had never been his area (too messy, too full of suffering for the average person with money to support) but he had long admired the works of those willing to go there.
She sat next to him and he watched her eat for a moment, wondering how frequent her meals had been back in her world. "...Do you have new buildings? New homes?"
