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!
03-03-2021, 09:07 PM (This post was last modified: 03-03-2021, 09:11 PM by Neowulf.)
and I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall
The Hollowed Grounds are not his; he can live with seeing them like this. Rubble and ruin, burnt and broken. He could turn his back upon it and spare it no further thought in his unnatural life.
But what litters the ground between burnt-out hollows, and what's trapped under caved-in roofs, and pitifully half-hidden under rocks and in crevasses—that's his. Some are barely more than ash, but some are bodies still, albeit slightly unconventional ones at times.
Sunlight dies, and he thinks the darkness will never be the same again. There's no way to not think about what transpired in the week of it, and remember all the things he did his best not to feel at the time.
He waits by a hand-cart that survived decently, a couple of rusty shovels in it.
He's not sure if anyone will show up. To the people of the Grounds, the prototypes were monsters: killers, a scourge, a plague. And it is true, they did set out to kill them, but somewhere in the process of it—
When he realized—
Aamu links his fingers together and folds them against his thighs. There's no excuses. There's no one else to blame. Stupid, naive—the charred debris that was once life too does not need this post-mortem kindness.
But it's the only thing he can do, so he'll do it all the same.
This is a PQ to gather up the crispy dead bodies and give them a proper burial. As many spots as there will be interest (and if there's none I'll just write a novel on my own!). :) I hope it counts for the SE in case anyone wants to join and use it for that, otherwise an admin can bonk me on the head
She's gnawing on a bit of peppermint bark (not that she can taste it), her interest captured by Aamu's posting. They'd all just been royally and nonconsensually fucked by the monsters, and this bitch wanted to giVe TheM A PRoPeR BuRIaL? "Why not just huck 'em over the bone bridge or yeet 'em off into the sea?"
Holding the stick like it was a cigarette (and gods if Edy didn't miss smoking, just for the sheer aesthetic of it), she points it at the shorter ascended with a snarky stare. "Cause if these fuckers come back because you had a soft spot about it, it's on your fucking head."
All that said, would Edy help?
Yeah probably. She didn't have anything else to do, after all.
"Tactful as always, Edrei." Isla should not look tired, given the nature of what they are, but mental exhaustion can be as taxing as physical, and everything that transpired over LongNight (yes, even the delightful parts spent rolling around in a certain room) has taken it out of her. She arrives out of her labcoat, at least, dressed in sturdy shoes and a light jacket to protect against any messiness for the work ahead.
Drawing up beside the Launceleyn, she offers her a friendly squeeze of the arm, an I heard what happened and I'm very glad you're alright. Then she turns to Aamu. "Most would not think them deserving of a proper burial. All I ask is that if there is opportunity to learn from them, you would allow me to look them over prior to putting them to rest," she says. Other than that, Isla's all ears.
and I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall
His reaction to Edy is mostly a curious stare, as if she's an intriguing oddity that he simply doesn't have enough energy to neither figure out nor be annoyed by right now. He didn't expect his initiative to go without some sort of challenge, but at least she doesn't seem outright opposed to it. Just kind of threatening. He spreads his hands in a placating gesture, willing to accept the hypothetical blame. "Then it would be a second chance," he murmurs, but he's saved from justifying it further by Isla.
And in truth, he's relieved to see her. It takes some of the weight off his shoulders, smooths some of the creases from his drawn face. He nods to her request. "Of course." It even seems honorable, in some way.
He turns from them for a moment to scan the horizon, but not much else stirs. He's grateful he has at least the two of them to help. It's still a daunting undertaking, but they're tireless creatures.
"Let's go," he says, depositing the shovels before grabbing the cart to push it along with them. "We'll get Isla some bodies to get started on first." There's just no tactful way to talk about post-genocide autopsies, so he settles for the blunt option.
I apologize in advance, I am trash at PQ running!
This round will just be going into town and gathering dead prototypes (and pieces thereof) to load on the cart. <3
Smiling and nodding at Aamu's acceptance, Isla takes a some soft leather gloves from her pockets to slip them on - who knows what sharp parts might be left on the prototypes, and besides which, she doesn't want to contaminate anything if possible. Drawing up beside the cart as Aamu takes it up, they trundle off into the darkened town. It might not be LongNight any more, but with the smoking ruin of buildings and their jagged silhouettes on the horizon, it feels sinister enough.
Isla doesn't find any whole bodies, not at a first glance. Pieces, though? There are pieces aplenty, and she gathers up what used to be an arm (though it has too many fingers on the hand) and a lump of metal and flesh that's supposed to be a torso to add them to the cart. "What would have happened to these, I wonder, if we weren't out here doing this work?"
"That's about the most shit answer I've ever heard." Edy trills toward Aamu, clucking her tongue and wagging a finger in his direction for good measure.
"Y'know doc, now that I got the parts you really want—" (does Edy mean her genitals or her ascended parts?) "—I'm always up for an exam." Waggling her eyebrows just in case Isla was blind and deaf and thus somehow had missed all the Rapacious was so subtly trying to communicate, the not-teenager flounces off down a street.
She's not really doing anything helpful, other than kicking things, singing quite loudly (it isn't that bad, though), and occasionally throwing something into the cart (or near to it).
and I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall
He's still not sure how he feels about Edy: his eyebrows rise in a fairly mild expression, but he's not sure what it's conveying, because he's not sure what's going on in his head. Or hers, for the matter. Oh, well.
He can live with that.
It's too soon to figure anything out anyway.
(Too painful.) He's content to let them do the talking, though all of it goes over his head. Woosh. He stops the cart every once in a while, watching Edy cavort down the street and (rather disrespectfully, to be fair) help collect the pieces of their elder sisters and brothers and everything in between. Aamu's too tired to argue, just stooping to pick up whatever misses the cart, but for the most part she's got a good aim, and Isla finds she's lucky with not getting cut on sharp bits.
"I don't know," he says quietly, pulling the cart along. He thinks of Osozo, and every dead body in between here and there. It's a good thing they will not grow tired, because this will take a very, very long time. "It's not like it's anything for scavengers to take an interest in, but I can't imagine the Grounders would want to live hip-deep in crisp bodies, either."
Aamu shrugs. From behind doors and windows the locals shake their heads at the idea of giving the monsters any sort of respectful burial at all.
Edy, on the other hand, finds herself confronted by a small gang of children and teenagers: they're local Grounders, dirty and sooty and thin, pointing their accusing fingers at her. She is part of the reason the Grounds almost burned down. She and her kind. Did anyone even ask them for this? And who knows if all the monsters died, huh? HUH?!?! Good fucking job the Ascended did of butchering the Grounds!
Isla finds some interesting bits, if you want her to!
Edy does a decent job of chucking parts into the wagon, not hitting anyone else (yet...). She's also confronted by a bunch of kids. Oh no.
"Be nice," Isla says mildly to Edrei, though she knows that her words are unlikely to have any sort of effect on the not-teenager. "If I examine you, it will be with very cold hands, and you will need to keep yours to yourself. I'm not sure you'd be so up for that." Maybe there's a ghost of an amused smile on Isla's face, maybe not. Either way, she continues to collect the bits and pieces of the monsters as they trundle along.
Aamu is right, and it will take a very long time for them to make any sort of dent in this, but it's a good start at least. Isla does find a few interesting specimens to look at, and she carefully places these apart from the others on the cart. It's about then that she notices the kids and the literal time-bomb they've chosen to shout at.
"Edrei, just ignore them," she cautions, though she's already stepping back by Aamu. "This could get bad," she says softly.
Isla collects her interesting bits and sets them to one side on the wagon, and tells Edrei to maybe just ignore the kids. (Fat chance amirite).
"Can't feel the cold anymore, remember?" Edy says with a delighted cackle. "And if you give me half a chance, I'll show you just how little I need to rely on my hands." She adds, mischievous amusement rolling off her tongue now in loud waves.
Glancing towards old short-and-stoic, Edy just wrinkles her nose. "We are the fucking Grounders, if you hadn't noticed. " She pointed out bluntly. And honestly? If they didn't want to walk through a bunch of bodies, maybe they shouldn't have committed genocide. So, you know. Consequences.
"Oh yeah? You're so hot fucking shit huh? You and your punk friends? Come here and name one person you know who hasn't had a family killed the monsters, how about that?" She challenges, hands on her hips. "Buildings can be rebuilt. Lives can't. Fuck off."
03-13-2021, 06:10 PM (This post was last modified: 03-13-2021, 06:13 PM by Aamu.)
and I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall
He considers what Edy says for a moment, idly turning some charred part over in his guilty hands. He's not seeing it, not thinking about it, taps it once before placing it into the cart. "I stand corrected," he says softly. Perhaps he doesn't consider himself a Grounder (obviously), but that's neither here nor there. She's right in all the ways that matter.
That's why we shouldn't have done this he wants to say, standing among the lost lives, while Edy lectures the kids. They seem more interested in just ridiculing and taunting her than being reasoned with—they're just restless kids looking for someone to blame, too broken and traumatized to know how to be grateful. "Hasn't Fred? Not had?" Someone pipes up, quickly taken up by cries of "Yeah, Fred!" and "Fred's family's fine!". (Is Fred even real? Good fucking question. Probably not.) One of them even picks up a piece of debris and chucks it towards the Ascended, and a few more follow suit.
He doesn't think she deserves it. None of them do, honestly; like Isla said, they did what they were told. It's not a fight Aamu wants to take. He wants to flee, take the cart and go collect the dead elsewhere. Like a coward.
Edy's already told them to fuck off, what more can he do? Ask them to go home, and invite a tirade about how their farmsteads are burned down? "Leave her alone," he ends up saying, hoping a second voice will make the kids see reason and get lost (or at least change target to Aamu, who feels depressed enough to not give a shit). This earns him a few bits and pieces thrown in his direction; a piece of cooked Ascended bounces off his forehead and a rock strikes his shoulder. Aamu looks very disapproving.
Edy's not very successful in dissuading the kids, who are now even throwing rocks. Boo. :( It doesn't hit anyone this round though.
Aamu convinces them to leave Edy alone, so they throw at him instead and he gets hit a couple of times.
Isla can't stop Edrei from shouting abuse back at the kids, much as she can't stop them from pelting them with bits of dead stuff. And that utter powerlessness is eventually what has the fury starting to bubble away in her gut, the medic straightening up and taking a step forward towards the gang.
Only it isn't a footstep, really - it's a paw, and a massive one at that. She's shifted into the manticore quite on autopilot (and damn if it doesn't feel good), the soft-spoken doctor able to (quite literally) roar her distaste at the kids who are trying to make an already awful situation even worse.
So with rows upon rows of teeth bared and the sound of her disapproval ringing around the street, Isla stares them down over Edrei's shoulder, huffing a hot breath into her hair.
Isla gets annoyed and roars at the kids, using the manticore shift she gained from Remi during catching fire
If she was who she had been, these pissants would have run home with no eyebrows and their hair singed down to the roots. But now? Now all Edy can do is ball her hands into fists and look like some disgruntled housewife shouting at kids to get off her porch.
And fuck if that doesn't make her mad.
So as Aamu shockingly comes to play the hero (thanks bro), and Isla roars behind her (sweep me off my feet, why don't you), tears all but well up in Edy's eyes. Her family is fucked, she doesn't know what her place in the world is anymore, and having these two blue-eyed assholes stick up for her against some rowdy kids who probably have lice, is literally the nicest thing anyone has done for her in years.
Well, other than the Voice bringing her back from the dead. That was alright.
"Yeah you'd BETTER run." Edy cackles, her spirits lifted for the moment. Of course that just means there's farther for them to fall when she realizes that she doesn't mean shit to Isla or Aamu. But that's for later.
and I've only got my brittle bones to break the fall
And run, they do.
There's nothing quite as effective as scaring off a pack of helpless children as a screaming manticore. They don't stop to count the teeth (well, aside from that one nerdy kid some older sibling dutifully pulls along) as they scatter with a mixture of startled cries of alarm and some last minute insults about how Isla acquired her shift, and how all Ascended are trash, and the like. But for the most part, they just scatter like dust in the wind—harassing a manticore isn't as fun. Stakes are higher.
Aamu finds himself dwarfed, and he's okay with that. The manticore is very impressive, and Edy's got enough aura to feed a starving village. Aamu's content to be insignificant compared to them. "Neat," he says from behind them, meaning Isla's shift. He wonders who it's from.
But they still have work to do, though he toys with the idea of simply harnessing the manticore to the cart instead, but it seems like too much work to find her a fitting harness. He's willing to let her do what she wants, he's sure she can be useful even if she gallivants around as a manticore. He stoops to pick up another body part and place it into the cart. "Maybe we should go down that street-" and he points to a side street they haven't cleared "-and then head back. One of us could get started on the grave while the other two keep collecting."
Isla, relatively at home in the manticore's form after having used it twice now, both to fly and to fight, gives a rather dignified snort in the children's direction, as if to punctuate Edrei's words. With a rumble low in her throat that's as close to a purr as the big cat part of her shift can give, she butts her large head against Edy before loping back towards Aamu in little more than two strides.
Mention of searching one of the side streets has her ducking her head in a nod, and she paws at the ground (easily dislodging some of the earth) as if to suggest that she also doesn't mind digging duty, if and when it comes to it. And so, with wings tucked in and looking much less predatory than before, Isla sets off down the street that Aamu indicates and sniffs around for more body parts.
Any she finds she'll return to the cart by virtue of carrying them in her mouth. Unfortunately, those will be left with perhaps a few more teeth marks than before. It can't be helped, with the rows of razors that line her jaws.
