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!
The glow stones bathe the Glade in their gentle light. It's a soothing mixture of sun and stars, casting a soft glow on the undersides of young leaves and reflecting in the late-night dew. They're like additional clusters of stars mirrored by the ones in the sky, and in the cold grass lays Aamu. He breathes, not because he needs to but because he wants to, and watches his breath form white clouds in front of his face.
He's curled on his side, resting his head on one folded arm, the other extended so that he may touch the glow stones, one fingertip idly tracing their outlines. Behind him his disheveled braid is spread out, escaped strands like a spiderweb in the grass.
He's found solace from the bullshit here, basking in the glow and remaining there until the sun rises and blisters his sensitive skin—but now it's night again, the first rosy hint of dawn beginning to creep up on the eastern horizon. The stones reflect in his eyes, a sky of its own, and he pretends that he is not slowly going blind.
Kinda backdated to when he was still a moth lol open for anyone <3
It’s an old, old tune that digs itself deep into her ear, something hummed to babies in their cradles and sung whilst drunk or in mourning - or both, often enough. A song her mother sang quietly whilst cooking and her father whilst chopping (perhaps the sole memory of him, the thwack of the axe against the log, timed perfectly to last word in a verse). A song long dormant, until someone (it doesn’t matter who) said a certain phrase, and the words came (mostly) flooding back.
The Glade is on a convenient path to the Outskirts, where Wessex had planned to practice with her discus - and as she isn’t expecting anyone to be there, the Wraith is muddling through the song aloud. She isn’t particularly in tune, or perhaps the song is meant to be in a minor key, but her voice carries clearly enough ahead of her. “Wearing scales of the dragon, the…” there’s an obvious space for words she can’t remember, “dragon, Theskyra women roar...”
Her disc flies idly up into the air, straight up and down, as she strolls, catching it neatly every couple of paces.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
Too moon-drunk to care that he's being a lawn ornament Aamu listens, until the murmur becomes words, sung off-key without a care. His fingers cease their reverent dancing upon the glow stones. He can't quite decide if the song is familiar or not, it sits in the strange limbo of his disused memory, and as the Wraith herself comes into view he's uncertain if he wants to move or not. He feels like she might not have seen him, a grayscale smear in the dewy and cold grasses. He's not sure which way he prefers it.
But, ah—much as he's disappointed and upset with the recent turn of events, and unimpressed by what he's been told, it's unfair to straight up judge her and then not talk to her. He wants to be bitter and wounded, but this respite between wars will end. There's no time for it.
"Hello Wessex," he says from his place among the glowing stones, on a whim rolling slightly onto his back and stretching like a cat while his piercing blue eyes follow the trajectory of the discus.
She doesn’t see Aamu so much as see the glow stones and then see Aamu. Whatever place she had in mind is more or less swept away by the soft, pale light flooding the Glade - and as they were both near the Moth Man, she, too, is caught up in the evening’s unexpected spell.
“Aamu?” A question already answered, the Wraith drifts towards the man and then lowers herself down beside him, folding her legs smoothly underneath herself and dropping the disc to the dew-covered grass.
“What are you doing?” she asks, though this, too, is obvious, as she reaches out to touch the mini-moons and gather a few in her pale hands. Together, her nanites and the rocks are luminescent. It strikes her as odd that after some forty-odd years and hundreds of night-wanderings through the Glade, that she finally fully appreciates the glow stones for their simple, entrancing beauty.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
Yes, Aamu indeed. The stars and stones glitter in his blue eyes, wash them both in their pale enchanting light as she lowers herself to the ground. Aamu finds he doesn't mind. There's no threat, no tension, just the gentle glow of the stones. Stretching done, he resumes his previous position, propping his head up on his folded arm and peering up at the sitting Queen.
"Enjoying the night," he says from his place in the grasses, watching as she scoops the stones into her hands. It makes her look—different. Younger? Softer? He's not sure. Just knows that their pale and careful light touching her face changes something in it. He's content just to watch, wonders if she'd be the same. Replays the song she sung in his head. The Theskyra family was old, known even to him. He'd heard it before. (Or had he? whispers the voice in the back of his mind. Maybe he's just fooling himself to not go mad. Maybe he went mad a long time ago.)
"Wearing scales of the dragon," he hums quietly for the luminous rocks, "the.. soaring, proud dragon, Theskyra women roar..."
Huh. What a simple concept. How long has it been since she’d enjoyed the night? Probably last Longheat, where there are flickering visions of a naked Amun and herself dancing under the light of the moon.
So it takes delirium, or the curse of the Moth Man, for her to relax - it’s eyeroll inducing, honestly, a sad cliche, but in the light of the glow stones that thought simply fades away.
There’s another verse lingering somewhere in the back of her mind, on the tip of her tongue as they say. She’s niney-percent sure of the the words, about to hum them out, even, when the verse is repeated to her and she snaps to, both surprised and unexpectedly alarmed. Not by Aamu himself (no, he can’t hurt her), but to have one’s thoughts filled in in such a way - and how could he, she’s the last.
“How... do you know that?” she asks, with big glow-stone eyes, her mind lingering somewhere between trembling in hope and knowing it can’t be possible. (Whatever it is).
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
He likely wouldn't have noticed, if it isn't for the fact he's watching her from the corner of his eye. Most of his attention is on the pretty rocks, this is true, but how their light on this night transforms her face is ..curious. Intriguing. It's a bit like there's another Wessex in her, and it's only now come out.
(Or it's all a trick of the light.)
Regardless: while he's mostly humming for the glow stones he still sees the slight shift in her, the way she snaps her gaze to him, and perhaps there's a little bit of cheeky, feigned innocence in his eyes when he looks up at her. Just a smidge. "Don't you think it's strange how some families are full of pride and tradition, while others literally don't give a shit? They come and they go, they form and fall apart, and no one thinks twice about leaving the name behind."
He sighs and reaches up to brush an irritating strand of pale hair from his face. "Theskyra was a proud family back then. Wasn't a name you left behind. Wasn't—well..." He falls silent for a moment. "I guess they all got stuck in here, huh?" One hell of a way to end a dynasty. He sighs again. "Anyway. They sang that song a lot. Didn't have to be a Theskyra to know it by heart."
His question makes her her chuckle to herself, amused, because yes, there has been a fair amount of family dramas in her lifetime. “Not strange so much as… interesting. A study on people and their identities.” They could almost do the same, now, and see how things have changed. Or not changed. Is she still proud? Yes. But it’s not because she’s a Theskyra, it’s because she’s accomplished so godsdamn much, given the time and her circumstances.
“It’s also interesting to see how traits continue on. I’d be lying if I said I’ve become something of a proud woman.” An unapologetic grin flashes across her face, because some would call it once of her worse qualities. Wessex just thinks it means she’s got some hard and fast boundaries.
“I think I’m the last one. Haven’t found a Theskyra in Torchline or Halo yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.” Is she hopeful? Not particularly. But perhaps someone, somewhere, has been living under a rock or has changed their name, or something has happened. “It’s both a terribly lonely and freeing place to be,” the Wraith muses aloud, shifting from simply holding the glowstones to funneling them from hand to hand.
“Do you remember your surname?” Turning the question on Aamu, she looks at the light-drenched, moon-wrought man and wonders who might have birthed him, who he might have climbed trees with, or fought with. Who he loved, other than the Voice.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
He supposes interesting might be a fairer word to use for it, yes. Idly he rolls over on his back again, lifting his cupped hands full of earthen stars towards the sky and watching their light spill around his fingers. "I always wondered how much they policed their own relatives," he admits. "If you were pressured and punished into acting a certain way." Of course, Wessex cannot answer him: she's three hundred years too young and, as she confesses, probably the last.
And as an Ascended, she well and truly is the last. He suspects Azrael was merely crafted to resemble their parents, a divine gift and undoubtedly their child, but by a different process than the organic one.
"The last Theskyra," he muses, watching the cascade of glowstones from her hand, lowering his own raised palms to rest them on his chest. "It sounds grand. Poetic. And it's really mind-boggling, because half a year ago for me there were so many of you."
He doesn't like the question she asks him, though. He picks up a stone and turns it in front of his face, staring intently at it. "Yes," he says, rougher, harder, and offers nothing more of his own volition.
“The way my mother used to tell it, a lot of them were stupid. The barrier would fry anyone who came to close to it, and generation after generation there were always a few idiots who would try their luck. Between that and disease and famine, our numbers quickly fell.” She can talk about with almost a callous matter-of-factness, because there’s distance. They’re people she doesn’t know. Her name, of course, but little more than that and it’s easy to shake her head and condemn them.
Except she knows how it feels, to want out. To remember the way it used to be. “I know how it feels, to want out. To lose the world, it -” Cutting herself off, she shakes her head, unable to voice what it must have felt like. Everyone had lost something, hadn’t they? In Aamu’s case, his life. The Grounders lost their freedom. The Old Gods abandoned their heralds. She sighs and lets the rocks roll the other direction, enjoying the clacking sound they make against each other.
“I had a sister. She - she would have been a good mother. She would have liked to make more of us.” Looking over at him as he becomes terse, offering nothing of himself.
“That bad, huh?” A poor attempt at a joke, an attempt to keep the door open between them. Her head tilts a bit to watch him, to see if she’s unknowingly asking the wrong thing or if he’s just an excessively private old man.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
Well. That was one type of Darwinism. He tries to fit this in with his memory of the Theskyra, tries to imagine those proud and capable people (and yes, some of them haughty and vain and stupid) suddenly trapped in a lethal cage, and never, ever coming out. "I can see them doing that," he finally says. "Either because they couldn't admit defeat, or because they're Theskyra, so they're special, right? Strong and mighty Theskyra."
He wants to press her on what she's not saying, but lets it be. He knows what it's like to lose the world too, except he doesn't have any dangerous barrier to walk into for a quick end—no tangible thing to beat himself against in anger and frustration. There's just him and his grief, and somehow it fucking fits inside his body.
"What happened to her?" He can't quite imagine her—a kinder, softer Wessex? Maybe the Wessex that has her face lit up by glowstones.
He's silent for a moment, unsure of how to answer—unsure of how much he wants to answer. "It's not that my family was bad," he finally says, voice a little hollow as his fingers dance restlessly on the stones. "But when.. hm." He's not sure he actually wants to talk about it. He's not sure he doesn't want to talk about it either.
"I just associate the name with a really bad event," he finally says, voice rough, looking away to hide the shimmer in his eyes.
It doesn’t sound like Aamu has a good opinion of her family, but in the end, she has to give some strangers the benefit of the doubt. “Maybe,” she concedes. “Maybe the early ones didn’t want to live in a cage. Maybe it got so bad for the later ones that it was worth the risk of trying. Or yeah, maybe they schemed and thought too highly of themselves and that they might succeed where others failed
Maybe they were taken by monsters. And maybe now she’s avenged them.
Maybe they died of dehydration from diarrhea or starvation or in fights. Maybe the women grew barren at the loss of their cycle. Maybe, maybe, maybe…
“I wish I knew.” Because knowing, at least, is half the battle.
As for Magrethe? Wessex sighs and lets herself fall to one side, laying down and facing the stars, her face no longer lit by stones, but turned to a familiar, comforting sight. “She got sick and wasted away,” the demigod says softly, folding her hands on her breast and purposefully driving her attention upwards. “First my mother, then her. A long, incurable thing. And then she was gone.”
And I was alone. Is still alone. Except for the Voice.
“Well. I won’t press you.” If he doesn’t want to talk about it, who is she to make him? The curiosity burns inside her, gnaws at anything from the before times. Any inkling of what life was like then, anything to learn from - she would gobble it up and still ask for more.
No, I’ll be the stone
I’ll be the hunter, a tower that casts the shade
I lie awake and watch it all
