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!
rose vines are as lovely when they wrap tight over your limbs and shatter your bones
Her steps are quiet and slow, her features shadowed by a long cloak and the deep shadows. There's wonder in this underground palace of colorfully blooming trees, ferns and flowers snared in their far-reaching roots. Somehow there's still light beneath the jungles, glowing from petals and leaves.
As comfortable as it might make Aurelia feel to at last be beneath the ground again, dark as that may sound, she knows better than to simply trust the wilds. A place like this is sure to have its secrets.
She carries the bow Melita made for her, pale driftwood smoothed and tooled by hand ready in her own grip. A single arrow is notched to it, ready to shoot at anything that might leap out at her from the depths, a slight inclination toward any quarry she might find hiding here.
Suddenly movement catches her attention, perhaps a sound of something's weight along the ground barely audible above the ambience. But Aurelia has a trained ear and a suspicious feeling. The sharp of her arrow points in its direction, poised with the promise of a swift death. Yet she waits in tense silence. After all, there have been other explorers out here, so she won't shoot blind.
There’s only so much ash a blonde, pale girl can take before she starts to feel permanently dirty. Even without something as quaint as pores, sweating, or acne, there’s something obnoxious about the way it all lingers in the air. Acrid. A fine layer of white or grey, which makes Wessex occasionally look far more like a ghostly figure than she ever has before.
Which needed a visit to the ocean to wash away. And then, naturally, needed a walk and some time away from the Grounds and… everything that comes in the aftermath.
Someone else’s bow (just borrowed - don’t worry, she’ll give it back) hangs lightly in one hand, quiver tossed over a shoulder as the older woman tromps with surprising softness through the colorful, foreign foliage, until she comes to something that seems to head under…? The demigod pauses, tilting her head to listen for anything unnatural, and is that - ? With a soft hum to herself, she nocks her own arrow and drops into a more ready position, moving to the balls of her feet and growing unnaturally, inhumanly still.
rose vines are as lovely when they wrap tight over your limbs and shatter your bones
Only, from the shadowy depths of this subterranean jungle, Aurelia doesn't see or hear sign of another humanoid creature. No, what gurgles out at her from the undergrowth is something beastly in nature. Her pulse quickens and she tightens her grip on the arrow, but no sooner can she let the arrow fly than a giant cat leaps out at her from the dimly-lit ferns.
She attempts to release the arrow, praying it will save her, hoping it will find a weak point. But the tiger, in all its molten ferocity, snarls with intention as it pins her and her flimsy arrow to the ground. The sound echoes through the trees and shakes her to her core. Her breath is zapped out of her body with a short cry of fear.
Aurelia's not so quick to relent to such a fate, though, even if she believes she is absolutely, without-a-doubt fucked. A hand flies down for her trusted blade and, in one fluid motion, swipes it across the tiger's eye right as it's about to sink in its own knife-like fangs. It flinches with another animalistic shout and Aurelia is just able to roll out of its grasp.
She crouches onto her feet, staying low to the ground, hood fallen back from her glaring face, and readies herself for the next attack. Running would be futile, she knows that much.
No, it’s not what she thinks it was. Somewhere to her right, there’s a snarl and a cry of fear - a human cry - and Wessex doesn’t take the time to think before she starts to leap through the jungle towards the sound of the fight. “Hold on!” she calls out, feet flying over logs and wrecking ball-ing her way through bushes, thorns, and anything else that may stand in her way. What does she care? She can't feel it.
Except that in her haste, she just passes them, going too far to attack the big - cat? - from behind. And is it - metal? It sure shines like it. Catching herself on one leg, Wessex jerks back towards the woman and settles in beside her, raising her talons in defensive fighting stance. Before the creature can launch another attack at them, Wessex tries to strike first by activating her lasers and directing them towards the predator’s eyes. Even if she doesn’t get to disorient it, the heat on top of the woman’s knife wound should hurt like hell.
03-06-2021, 08:08 PM (This post was last modified: 03-08-2021, 12:29 AM by Aurelia.)
rose vines are as lovely when they wrap tight over your limbs and shatter your bones
A shout coils through her panic and Aurelia feels a pulse of relief that she's not alone, that someone else can hear that she's in some very deep shit indeed. They seem determined to help, that much she can decipher by the sound of their voice, but her eyes don't ever flinch away from the tiger's. Not even when she sees the drip of its metallic stripes, which is confusing in its own right but this is a matter of life and death. There's not time for anything else.
A whoosh a movement is what breaks through their tense moment, both Aurelia and the tiger afixing their eyes on the figure that manifests beside her. Suddenly a bright beam of dark, angry light melts across towards the tiger.
It snarls and snaps away, flinching, but its own defenses push it forth. Its claws grip at moss underfoot until it makes a swipe for them. Aurelia fumbles for the only thing she knows can close the distance, since her bow is haphazardly dropped along the ground. A match flickers to life and, using her Abandoned abilities, she sends bright flames in an arc towards the predator.
It retreats but only momentarily. Suddenly it's leaping from another angle, this time headed for the strange woman that came to Aurelia's aid. "Watch out!" She keeps back her flames but braces against the attack, praying to whatever will listen that this isn't the end for either of them.
Wessex is about to continue to just annoy the tiger to death with stinging heat and potential disorientation when something far better flickers to life beside her. Something dangerous and destructive simultaneously ignites in the Wraith, something emotional and vindictive and entirely untrustworthy around fire - but here it is and here she is. Neatly sidestepping to give herself some room from the other woman and to increase the danger zone, the demigod pauses to see how her flames are utilized.
Power surges around her and she well remembers the flames from LongNight. Best to keep these at a distance. So when the beast seems to attack her next, she reacts - or overreacts, given that the tiger only wants to eat (so she might assume in hindsight) - and tries to create a fire inside the creature, wielding the woman’s fire magic in a way she never has before.
A barrier to protect herself. Something that will kill quickly as internal organs are seared and it is roasted alive from the inside. A painful way to go, but the tiger might yet get in a parting blow, as Wessex has opted to concentrate on an attack instead of dodging.
--------------------
Magic: Magic Re-Resonance | When abandoned magic is cast within 20ft of Wessex, she can duplicate the ability at its mastered level once.
Type: Grey | Rank: Mastered
03-08-2021, 12:29 AM (This post was last modified: 03-08-2021, 12:31 AM by Aurelia.)
rose vines are as lovely when they wrap tight over your limbs and shatter your bones
Aurelia's eyes widen as her magic is suddenly mirrored, and what was once a tiger becomes a smoldering, splitting, screeching monstrosity. Its launched attack is cut short by the magic inflicted upon it. Aurelia is lurching backwards until her spine arches against the supportive trunk of a tree, hands fumbling to catch her befoer she falls onto her ass. Her own fire fades into wisps of air as she abandons her magic (an ironic phrase, I know).
To her knowledge, she hadn't done that to the tiger. Had she? It recedes into a pile of burnt, stinking flesh and bone, no more life left in it. It's been caught from within until it burst like a flame - or a bomb. Blood smatters the direct vicinity, even a bit of it slapped across Aurelia's boots.
She heaves calming breaths, eyes scanning the stranger in front of her. "Th-thanks," she stutters, still unsure of if it was her that exploded the tiger - or the other woman. Her back remains pressed against the tree. "Who the hell are you?" She suddenly blurts out.
Some part of her ought to be sad at the tiger’s demise, the way the body both melts and explodes, unti there’s just a jumble of flesh and bones and molten metal pooling on the ground. After it’s obvious the danger is gone, Wessex squats down to investigate the phenomenon, unaware that the other woman has more or less thrown herself against a tree.
She wants to touch it, but doesn’t know if it’s hot (because metal that runs like this is supposed to be hot, right?) and there’s the feeling of eyes on her, which makes her pause before stretching out her hand.
It hovers in front of her, hidden from the woman’s view - but when she speaks, Wessex turns around and pushes up from her knees. “Not a problem,” she offers with a thin-lipped smile, as if she might just go off hero-ing (re: she absolutely might) all the time. And as for the second question? “I’m Wessex. Theskyra.” Extending a hand, she conveniently leaves off all the other parts of her identity.
Just to be polite, the Wraith returns the question. "You?"
03-08-2021, 07:42 AM (This post was last modified: 03-08-2021, 07:43 AM by Aurelia.)
rose vines are as lovely when they wrap tight over your limbs and shatter your bones
The name sounds important and almost familiar, like it should ring some sort of bell, like she should know who 'Wessex Theskyra' is. Unfortunately, her memory fails her in this experience of near-death, as fight or flight (emphasis on fight) slowly works its way out of her brain. Her breathing settles and her stance relaxes.
She peels herself away from the trunk of the tree and blinks down at Wessex's hand. After some contemplation, she takes it and gives it a firm shake, offering her own name in turn, "Aurelia Murlow. I'm from Torchline." She adds on that bit of information as a bit of a habit at this point, and perhaps because she's begun to find pride in it now.
"Did you..." her hand pulls back and she glances down towards the remains of the tiger, "was that you that...?" She trails off, hoping the question is obvious, "I didn't think my magic could do something like that." Strangely, rather than be horrified by it anymore, she's actually kind of... impressed.
“Grounds,” Wessex replies heavily, tone laden with something else as she points her thumb briefly back at herself once they’re done shaking hands. While the Queen is trying to figure out whether she wants to stick around and chat or just melt away into the Undergrove, Aurelia asks a question. She misses it initially. “Hmm?” Following the Torcher’s gaze to the melted pile of smoldering goo, she tries to put it together with what she did manage to catch.
“Oh. Yeah, that was me. Sorry if you didn’t want to kill it, I tend to - react without checking in.” Or she’s just a monster, killing everything in her wake. But even that turn of phrase is just a liiiiiittle too self-pitying for a stranger.
“You okay?” The girl seems fine, other than a little surprised and shaken, but there might be something that happened before she got there.
rose vines are as lovely when they wrap tight over your limbs and shatter your bones
Aurelia can sense something a little less than pride, like her own, at the declaration of being from the Grounds. Her head inclines with a curious furrow but she doesn't know how to address it, or if she should.
She shakes her head almost immediately. "Nonono," she lets out a soft, relieved scoff, "it's fine. Sometimes there's no time for that sort of thing, right? I think it might've eaten me if you hadn't shown up. I've just... never seen someone do that before." Her gaze follows Wessex's down to the... remains of the tiger once more.
With a heaved breath, she finally lets herself more fully relax. Not that she thinks they're completely out of the woods jungle yet, though. After all, they're still in the Oerwoud. "I'm fine, I think," she does make sure to check herself for injuries, where she'll find a few cuts and scrapes from hungry claws that bleed through her cloak, but thankfully nothing debilitating. Promptly, she winces, as if suddenly becoming aware of the injuries.
"Should probably head back to town and get bandaged up, though," she laughs humorlessly.
"Would you mind uh... coming with me?" her gaze treks up towards the woman's awkwardly, not one too inclined to ask for help, "in case another one of those shows up... If it's not too much trouble to ask."
This portion of the thread is now over (but not fin'd, that would happen in the linked thread. Both count as exploration for the purposes of the seasonal event requirements). Good luck getting home.
