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!
Adam was pretty goddamn down in the dumps, to put it lightly.
Not only had he come back as a half-dead robot vampire without any tastebuds, he'd broken up with his husband, been rejected by the girl he'd been sort of in love with for years, was covered in awful moulting hair from ignoring his curse and now it was raining like the end of the world outside.
His face was permanently fixed in a grumpy eye-rolling annoyance. Especially as he and Pet had set up together in the corner of the Advocates, and he didn't feel good kicking him out, so Adam was now sleeping just sort of anywhere on the floor of the Slagveld. He had been going to get a place, but it turned out what he thought was 'just going to be a little bit of rain' was actually a big fucking deal and now he couldn't leave.
Sliding down the wall with a huff, arms crossed and legs sticking out, Adam looked the picture of sulking immaturity. He'd grown a lot in the last years, but right now? With itching palms and a huge loneliness in his chest he was trying to ignore? He felt like that lost, annoyed teen with the cut up face again - only this time, he couldn't do mountains of cocaine about it. Out into the room, he groaned, a long sound best represented as: "Uuuuuugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh."
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
Bleeding, bruised, and soaked to the skin, Raza stumbles through slick streets of Haulani in the rain. Her knees are covered in mud from where she’s slipped and fallen to the ground, the skin of her palms scraped raw and ingrained with tiny pebbles, bits of dirt and debris.
She knows where she is, so that’s something - but it’s a small something, given the rest of her.
She knew the Slagveld had some medical supplies for those particularly bloody fist-fights and it was closer than the Hanged Man, Mik’s place, or Zeph’s. But it seems much further away than it should be, and her head isn’t quite right, it hurts to breath sometimes, and something, at some point, sliced multiple points of her open.
Maybe she should have stayed amongst the wreckage, the wood, the roof, the water. Maybe she should have -
Bangin’ on the door, Raza attempts to open it with a violent fling of what seems like all her remaining energy. It ain’t much, but maybe it’s enough to get her inside.
Suddenly knocked out of his self-pitying stupor by a bang on the door, Adam flinched back and hit his head on the wall; grumbling he climbed to his feet, sure that some debris or a particularly heavy lot of rain had just hit. After all, there wouldn't be anyone actually out in this weather, he was sure.
Still, the bit of his mind that liked to guilt him tugged him over to the door to peek through the keyhole; a lot of grey and wet, but - maybe a little movement too, something more alive than just the rain. Adam unlocked the door with the key he'd been given and told not to use during Monsoon period, and opened it a crack.
Of course, the second he actually saw someone, he no longer moved so slowly. "Oh, holy fuck--" Reaching down to grab Raza, he pulled her in, rain already pushing through the opening and flooding into the room. The second her feet cleared the threshold he slammed the door shut, leaning against it as he locked it. "The fuck you doing out there?!"
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
In truth, she didn’t expect anyone to be in the Slagveld either, which makes her very, very lucky and Adam? Well, who knows. At least he isn’t alone anymore.
Raza feels herself pulled forward and struggles to keep her balance, falling forward again as Adam locks the door behind them. Looking more like a lanky, drowned dog than anything human, she remains on her hands and knees while trying to catch herself up. “The Halenani -” she eventually gets out. “The roof - it’s - gone.”
And she thinks everyone is okay, but she just doesn’t know. Is it a priority? Not really - what could Adam do from here? And everything hurts. Really fucking hurts.
Once her breath is better, Raza tries to stand up, wincing as her knees begin to protest far too much. “Fuckin’ hell…”
Adam blinked at Raza at first, now that the initial adrenaline of panic was wearing off he had to actually understand words. He knew the storms outside were bad, had heard debris smash against the walls and ground outside, but that it had actually destroyed somewhere he knew? It felt all of a sudden much more serious; he supposed though it was better than it could have been, as Raza was right there before him.
"Oh, fuck." Was all he had to say about it in the end, which was probably about all he could say.
As she began to try stand up, the effort obviously painful, he shook his head and as gently as he could, touched her arms and tried to guide her back down. "Hey, hey, you can just rest down here for a minute. I don't want you getting up, falling over and fuckin' slamming your head on something. Sunjata would probably kill me if someone died in here." A quiet not-quite-laugh left him and he stepped back to look her over. "...Are y'hurt...like...seriously? I don't...know a lot about medicine, but Nate might be around?"
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
Something makes her laugh - probably the oh fuck because no, there hadn’t been any fucking. Never got to it. Cherries blown away, the sound of the silver bowl clanging up against a wall lost in the howl of the wind. Her laugh dies sadly away as she realizes it really isn’t that funny and besides, it hurts her sides. Holding her side, she lets Adam guide her to somewhere easy to sit, complacent and easily pliable - for once.
So when he asks her if she’s hurt, she nods and starts to try to peel off the dark, dirty shift she had on at the Halenani.
“M’side,” she says quietly, wincing as she tries to raise her left arm. “And m’knees. Head, I think. S’a bit like I’m underwater.”
Her knees, at least, are more obvious. Maybe not in the dark of night and against the rich hazelnut hue of her skin, but they’ll be swollen and purple come morning.
She laughed at something, Adam didn't know what (none of this seemed very fucking funny). All he could really do was stare, even as she showed her injuries to him. Like he'd said, he was not a doctor or healer; the Voice had given him the ability to float a couple of feet in the air or make himself really heavy, which was...fun, but not much use in emergency situations.
"Head underwater doesn't sound good. Uh, I think...I think the advice I remember for that kinda stuff is to not go to sleep. So...don't." He provided, wishing he had some more useful ideas. "Sunjata I think has some bandages and stuff under the ring in case a match gets too fucked up - are y'bleeding?" With his Ascended eyes, he could see the bruising and swollen skin on her knees, but that would heal and not be fatal; Adam peered at her side, trying to see if it required immediate attention.
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
Not go to sleep… so don’t.
“Don’t go to sleep,” she repeats dutifully back, even while her head sinks into a hand. She’s tired, yes, but that’s not at the forefront of her mind right now. It’s the cold, the wind and the water that seems to have seeped into her bones. Raza does her best to help Adam out, but her fingers fumble with her clothing and she can’t quite figure out how to get the short, flimsy thing off.
Despite her efforts to assist, she really does very little except start to try to take her clothing off. The Ascended might be able to tell that there are some stinging cuts and abrasions, but nothing too deep that nothing that could cause blood loss.
“M’cold,” she says by way of explanation, any fucks about modesty thrown out the window with the howling wind and the Torcher way of life. All that matters to her is that she needs to get warm. And stay awake. And even that is second to getting warm.
Okay, warm he could handle. Alive in the morning maybe not, but warm, yes. "Wait here." Adam said once he'd decided she wasn't going to bleed out in his absence; holding on his hands to gesture she'd need to stay still, as if she was in fit state to go running about anywhere.
Dashing out the door and upstairs, to the 'secret' Devil's Advocates, Adam went to his and Pet's corner - and thank the Gods, Pet wasn't there - to get one of their many blankets. Carefully selecting one that was his, because their things had now been depressingly split up, he grabbed it and with it bundled up in his arms, peered over the top as he ran back down the stairs.
"Here." He laid the blanket down and moved Raza to sit on it, then lifted the back up to come over her shoulders; it was big enough to cover her, dark blue and with a heavy knit that immediately felt like a warm hug; he'd chosen it because he knew it was comforting for himself. "Try not to bleed too much on it. Um...I could...uh...make you a drink or something?"
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
Wait here. Oh that’s funny. Where was she going to go?
Another slight chuckle, cut off by a wince and sharp inhale. Ok, so laughing is not so great.
Raza’s arms wrap around her knees and she pulls herself in as tight as she can manage, knees bending as far as they can go in this state as she tries to conserve her body heat. Adam has managed to choose an excellent blanket, and as it settles over her shoulders, she manages to look over at him with a small “Thank you.”
Long, pruney fingers clutch at the edges of the blanket, seeming to try and make it a part of her, blood and all, with a deep shudder. In a few minutes her chattering teeth seem to calm down, but Raza but her mind has started to drift a bit. “Talk to me,” she says suddenly, looking over. “'M real tired.”
It seemed like his blanket selection was working, Raza relaxing under it's heavy warmth - though Adam immediately worried he'd make her relax too much, which was the exact opposite of what he was trying to do. God, this was why he wasn't in any kind of healthcare; people were too easily broken. "Y'welcome, just, yknow, be careful you aren't so comfy you're gonna drift off."
At least talking he could do; it might even be said it was his best skill.
"Er, okay, so..." Flopping down next to her and balancing his arms out on his knees, Adam began to ramble, no specific topic on his mind. "The bar...man, I used t'like it there before I died and all but now it's just kinda sad. Seeing everyone else drinking and shit - being Ascended is pretty fucking lame." A laugh that lacked any real amusement passed and he pushed a hand into his hair. "You uh, ever considered it? Y'know, going to the Voice?"
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
She manages a weak smile, not sure she can promise that, given everythin’ that’s swimmin’ in her head right now. Muddy water, the lot of it.
But her hands are still here and so are her nails. Adjusting so that one hand holds the blanket around herself, Raza takes the other on her shins, prepared to dig into herself (if she can remember to) when she gets real tired. And she should turn a bit. Yeah, that’ll help. Shiftin’ more to let herself angle towards Adam, the Torcher listens and then shakes her head.
“Nah. Gods ain’t for me. They cause more trouble’n help I think. An’ with m’bar - what could she do for me? I gotta taste things. Like t’fuck.” She shrugs. None of ‘em had ever done much to win her loyalty, least of all a brand new Goddess. “Ludo was nice," she finally concedes, "But death ain’t m’thing.”
Raza's attitude was pretty similar to what his own had been pre-death; Adam wondered, not for the first time, if coming back to life really had been worth it when it meant loyalty to a Goddess he was at best indifferent towards. Sighing, he nodded and shrugged, looking off to the side. "They are a big fuckin' hassle. Feel like half the issues in this place could be sorted out if everyone just agreed to ignore the Gods for five minutes."
Just talk, as people. Find their commonalities instead of listening to differences fed to them from the Gods. Maybe it was optimistic, but he liked to think they'd make at least some progress that way.
"Ludo was nice? I usually hear it's fucking creepy. All raggy and floaty and shit like a ghost." Adam shuddered; he'd seen Ludo a couple of times from a distance and had never stuck around to see more. "You're from around here, right? Like, from this world? Cos I gotta tell you, in my world all this shit would have been wild."
If you hear the call of arcane lore, Your world shall rest on Earth no more
this lighthouse I built to guide my feet has burned out and I forgot where I'm going
Sighing, Raza finds she doesn’t have the same energy for this conversation as the previous one with Arialla (which shouldn’t come as a surprise, considerin’ she’s just talkin’ to stay awake). Slowly noddin’ her head up an’ down, the Torcher agrees with the Ascended. “Aye. Things were fine while the heralds were in the bubble. Can’t blame folks fer wanton t’be free, but the heralds are -” pausing, her mouth tries to form the word she’s looking for, but her brain just can’t quite find it.
“They just keep goin’ at it.” Raza finally ends up sayin’, visibly a bit flustered, as she hunkers into the blanket some more.
“Creepy don’t mean it can’t be nice. Gave me a lightnin’ trident an’ everythin’” And Raza, like any true Torcher, can be bought. Maybe that’s why the heralds have success here, they’re at home in the hot house of bribes an’ manipulation in a way the Voice won’t lower herself to.
“Yep. Torcher born ‘n raised. M’Pa had the Hanged Man afore me.” A brief pause as she shifts, coiling long limbs up an into her chest some more, leaning back on the couch’s arm in a way that hopefully won’t agitate any of her bruises. “Wot’s yer world like?”
