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!
Ophelia's reading comprehension is not the greatest having grown up on a farm near the barrier, banned from ever leaving without supervision, but they at least know enough to have somewhere to build off of. They are still adjusting to their newly Ascended body, though with a euphoria that none of their prior experiences could ever hope to match. The Atheneum is a perfect choice to hide out in when the sun is highest in the sky. They are careful to remain away from the sun's rays while they are still so new and fragile, but it does not bother them in the slightest. They are free. Free to explore the Grounds and someday, all that lays beyond its borders. Free to learn, to experience. All without pain, or exhaustion, or fear.
It is such a euphoric change that they seem to float as they walk through the Atheneum, plucking tomes from the shelves with thin, spidery fingers. Ghostlike, large blue eyes peacefully surveilling the titles on the weathered spines for that which interests them and which they believe to be as close to their reading level as possible. The stack grows larger in their arms, until eventually they break away to sit on the floor, heedless of the tables and chairs in alcoves and hidden corners. The books are summarily spread around them in a half-circle, unashamed of their blatant strangeness as they lean over their own legs to peer down at the books, long curtain of flaxen hair shielding their peripheral vision.
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
A frequent visitor to the Atheneum amidst the heights of the sun, her own fingertips ran down the spine of some knife-wielding books, and then wandering further down the weaponry and armory line. She’d already read about half of them, but hadn’t asked Aamu to make any of the daggers, spears, or cutlasses; preferring the knack of throwing her stiletto into unattended wood-blocks. Her diligence was kept contained in the arms and alms of stone, creeping and keeping to the shadows, to the shelving adorned and draped in shadow, in a favorite chair.
But today there was another occupant, which stilled her eldritch movement. Whether this made her look more the predator in all her edged, fringed, glory, in the sudden silence and body ready to spring at any opportunity, probably didn’t matter. In all her seditious finery, the youth inclined her chin upwards, immediately threatened by someone else being in a shared space, brows furrowing. An angry, rude child in all mannerisms, save for the sudden curious tilt to her head. “What are you reading?” Her eyes on the circle of tomes on the floor, but not close enough to see the words – uncertain if she should advance.
The presence of another is not unexpected, but Ophelia is so intent upon their own journey through the stacks that the other individual may as well be a painting on the wall. They are single-minded in their focus as is, but they especially cannot let their attention wander now. Expanding their reading comprehension is a grand undertaking, and while they have endless hours at their disposal it will still require great focus. Focus that is shattered by the appearance of a younger woman approaching. Dark hair and a pursed mouth are Ophelia’s initial impressions of the girl as their own luminous large eyes rise from the books spread around their legs.
“I am attempting to determine the breadth of written word concerning The Voice,” their serene tones filter through the large space, a warm smile on their closed lips. “I am not the best reader, I was confined to my family’s farm most my life. Perhaps you would be so kind as to help me?” Their delicate, spindly hand moves the books at her side, patting the ground lightly with a slightly hopeful expression on their face. Unaware that the girl is a fellow Ascended, but eager as always to spread the word of their new goddess. Equally unbothered to reveal their own inadequacy with text; they have millennia to learn, what does it matter where they start off?
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
Oh, so there was the lure and snare. Much like a cornered predator, she should’ve been smarter, wiser, fully capable of seeing the trap laden in the potential of reading, in the inability of comprehending, in the Voice and tomes about the goddess. Why this one would want to know more made her wonder if this was some future assailant too, trying to pinpoint weaknesses in otherwise perfected beings. An edgy, restless, nervous sway held her at bay, eyes narrowing, pondering over threats and measures – glancing sideways more than once to see if there were other pitfalls and nets lingering elsewhere.
But Mabel wouldn’t beat around the bush – it wasn’t her way. Blunt, straight to the point, and keen. “Are you an Ascended?” Would it matter? Would the youth assist the other if they weren’t? There was a layer of uncertainty lacquered and stuck to her shoulders; because the temptation to thread her way into compelling another towards the brightened Goddess compelled in the back of her mind. But just to be sure, just to be certain, before she advanced or crawled along the floor – flashing her fangs (in threat? In justification? In allegiance and camaraderie?) in the hint of a grimace or smile. It was difficult to tell.
Ophelia patiently waits out the youth’s wariness, unbothered by the tenacity and paranoia alike. Their parents had been far worse, and they’d had to live with them from birth. The question is forward and probing, a potential for needling that in others may inspire a rising of walls and reaction of defensiveness. Instead Ophelia smiles, revealing their own fangs to match the bared grimace of their unnamed companion. “Yes. Our Lady made me bright not long ago.” Though it explains the girl’s behavior now. Ophelia recalls their parents’ vitriol and stubborn, senseless faith in the Old Gods. They have to frequently remind themselves that others can feel that same way. That Ophelia may be at risk someday for their choice.
It’s a thought for another time. Patting the empty space again with a hopeful perk of pale eyebrows, they pull a book idly into their lap. “Perhaps we can rip out the bad pages together?” That might entice the girl, who seems more wolf than woman.
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
“Oh,” she uttered, stupidly, dimly, the reaction fading away the predaciousness, the cornered potentials, the thoughts of traps, snares, and other noxious blends of poisons. Fangs for fangs, brightened ones for brightened ones, and she was left to stand there with furrowed brows, arms limply hanging by her sides. “Congratulations,” she uttered instead, quiet, a light mumble, the uncertainty beginning to flare off of her in waves. Without a need to guard, defend, hiss, or rankle, her presence felt unfit for the void.
Except then she was invited further in, and her stare went to the patted, empty space. She certainly didn’t deserve that – couldn’t fathom why this individual, other than the semblances of brethren and kin – coiled the portions for her. There were more moments wrapped and quartered in hesitation, before the other offer, of ripping apart bad pages, settled into her scornful heart. “Okay.” She ambled forward, as if pretending to be dust and dirt and soot; unnoticed, until she settled there, hands going for one of the books. “I’m Mabel,” by way of partaking further into the mess.
Their smile only quirks fondly higher at the dumbfounded reaction, appreciative of the protectiveness that had preceded - and in some ways, caused - the reaction. “Thank you,” they utter instead, pleasure suffusing their odd features, large eyes crinkling at the corners. “How long has it been for you?” Perhaps she will find her footing with answering direct questions. Ophelia is no slouch at reading others and Mabel’s discomfort is a beacon, but they are also cursed with a wealth of curiosity that lends itself a little to easily to the act of inquisition.
Hesitation matters little when their lives are infinite, when the gesture is inevitably accepted. Ophelia is a paragon of patience. It makes their smile glow all the warmer when the younger Ascended folds down into the spot. “Mabel,” Ophelia parrots back, tasting the syllable and the intonations that live within it. “I am Ophelia. Athanasia.” It’s tacked on, half-forgotten. The name means little to them personally, but in the Grounds family names were remembered before firsts. Such was the way of barrier life.
Without further ado, eyes scanning a distasteful biased section in the page they are reading, Ophelia rips it free of the binding with a rending noise that fills the space between the stacks. Smiling as if they had not just desecrated a book out of dislike for the author’s opinion, they let the page flutter discarded to the side. “Perhaps we should become writers ourselves, hm?” At least it would facilitate their desire to spread the word of The Voice far and wide.
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
Natural camaraderie didn’t come easy to her. Awkward and stilted, once dead and now renewed, she was a static crackle of stubborn vivacity and eldritch combinations; listless one moment, and deadly the next. She didn’t have her sister there any longer to bounce off of, to wax and wane in the chaos; and now and then she was aloof, quiet, content to bask in her anger and whatever else came along. The inquiries, as she knelt, and then sat, bolstered, until Mabel figured she had to answer, rather than extend the awkward silence. “Two years,” and though she’d lost some of that time spent in the sea, and then her soul gone to another plain – she was here now.
The name curled in the back of her mind though, and her brows furrowed again at the thought, but she didn’t mention it. Maybe the title had come from a long lineage of farmers who struggled their way through the sad, pathetic, desolate lands; toiling and toiling and toiling with little to show. It was the pattern of her own family, dedicated until they perished and died. The question lilted there, half-frozen on her tongue, but it didn’t stay long enough.
Too distracted, too deterred, by Ophelia’s blasphemy upon the books.
She gasped as the page was ripped out – bizarre, perhaps, to have never thought about doing the same. Tomes had once been sacred things, places to drive her sentiments and semblances into. To desecrate one shocked her – even in the midst of all her vengeful tactics. She tried to cover it up by glancing at the book itself, by glancing at the page with all its slander. Reaching, somewhat bolstered and encouraged by sedition, she grabbed hold of another tome, parsing through the content quickly, efficiently, before snickering, and tearing one asunder too, balling the paper up in between her fists. “What would you write?”
Ophelia gives a small smile out of the corner of their mouth as Mabel joins them on the floor. There is no stiffness in their joints to be felt, nor the coolness of the floor. Only the joy of companionship. Two years sounds less like an eternity now that their life is effectively endless. Only weeks ago, two years had seemed like a mountain before them, incapable of being summited. Waiting in vain for their father's life to end and free them from their chains.
Those thoughts - and whatever ones furrow and coil amidst the girl's brow - are shattered and discarded in the wake of the sound of the page ripping beneath their hand. All measures of human weakness erased and eradicated, leaving a hand that does not tremor with feebleness as the desecration takes place. Mabel's gasp is met with a serene smile that does nothing to hide the foxlike glitter of vindictive glee in Ophelia's pale blue gaze. A gleam that only brightens as Mabel mimics their actions, the sound of rending pages filling the air once more.
"About the importance of invention, and the inherent weakness of human vessels," they reply easily, as if this is a thought they have fostered for many years. "We crafted and honed medical talents to lengthen natural expectancy, and yet frown upon the totality of escape The Voice offers. Humans are fickle, confusing things." Spoken as if they had not been human themself mere weeks ago. Then again, Ophelia had never been quite right from the moment they'd been born. "I would pen the histories of human suffering, endured and accepted, and contrast it to the near-eternity of painless existence we've been awarded." Calmly they strip another page out of the book, this time shredding it with their nails before letting it drift to the floor. The savagery is tempered by their genuinely curious glance towards Mabel. "What would you write?"
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
She didn’t miss the vindictiveness in the others’ eyes; sometimes she spawned the very same nuances. They’d just been lost in the annals and angles of time and moments – where she’d flickered around in her eldritch sorrow. Away from the gaze, she dropped her eyes back to the books, set her fingers over another portion of paper, slowly inching her digits over the brim, and then listening to the ripping decibels as it echoed over the halls. Slowly, carefully, painstakingly, it curled away from its predecessor, doomed and damned to be read no more.
And while she enigmatically tore things apart, Mabel listened – to weaknesses of humans, to the frailties of man, to the way the world shifted, changed, and how some refused to bend and sway with it. She smiled then, at Ophelia’s blatant, future essays, how the pen could be mightier than the sword within those moments, spelling and spilling out the sins and the virtues one by one. Superiority amongst the calloused wakes, amidst those who would bend their knees and bow their heads for Old Gods – heralds and deities who did nothing for them. No matter how laced and interwoven their faith. No matter their blinding outcomes. So stupid. Her family had been so god damned stupid.
Then she and Evelyn had been left – until there was one, and then one again.
As for what she’d write? If only she could muster eloquence for pages upon pages. Her smile lingered a little, even as she stared at stone and marble and desecrated notes. “About the power we have, above all others.” Reigning supreme – the gifted, the talented, the ones not savored but surely the most satisfied. “That we will always be the better ones, no matter how hard they fight.”
Resounding notes fill the towering space, slow and methodical, purposeful. It contrasts to the surety and speed of Ophelia's own tearing, and the scholar wonders privately at the nuances, curious what it says about the two of them - if anything meaningful at all. Their smile is encouraging and bright, as if they are waiting on the other bank of a shallow river, waiting for Mabel to join them instead of desecrating blasphemous material in painstakingly written tomes.
"Power is something I know little of," Ophelia admits plainly, ever one to face their own faults. "I agree we are superior by virtue of our absence of human weaknesses, but I am still so new to this life. My only power now lies within my words." And those, clearly, are well-crafted despite a life of near-muteness. "Perhaps we can grow stronger together. What fear is there in training when we cannot feel pain?" And they will have all the hours in the world to learn, to strive for greatness, to bumble through beginner errors until they reach proficiency - with or without a teacher.
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
Her eyes glanced down at another page, and when there was no blasphemy, no diction of cruel entities, she turned to the next, fingers sliding down, down, down over words and phrases. Thereafter were more, more, more, and then her digits gripped and pulled like little claws and little knives and little ventures of hatred, curling and coiling into the nuances of slashing things apart. Even if it was just a book. Even if it was just opinioned fathoms from one fiend to the rest. They wouldn’t be seen again – and in one some part, some way, that was triumph.
The dominion of her gaze remained on the tome she mishandled as they spoke, her head tilting a fraction, indicating listening, the flickers of speech flowing through the brine and gallows. Even if Ophelia knew naught of those demolitions, there were many ways they could be taught, they could learn, they could see. And Mabel curled a smirk within, bare bones and skeletal fixtures. “Power and revenge are all I want.” And if she said it enough times, maybe the notions would come true. Maybe she could unfold and immerse and rampage until there was naught left but the promises of vengeance she’d made in their wake. I told you she could serenade through blood-soaked stilettos and gnashing teeth.
But fears? There were plenty of those. Her gaze slipped away from the book and fully onto the floor, surrounded by more tomes, more dialects, more future ruin. “There is always death. I fear that.” But only because she knew it intimately.
Ophelia eagerly watches Mabel destroy and tarnish, ripping through words that are falsities and prejudices nobody should have to read. Certainly not in the Grounds, where their family has found themselves collected. They are doing a civic service, truly, and Ophelia is delighted to share this moment with their newly found sister.
"Revenge. Against who?" There is no judgment to be found in their tone, as serene as if they were talking about the weather. Simple curiosity is the driving motivation behind the question. Perhaps a kinship that will prompt Ophelia to lend themselves to the cause, to assist Mabel in achieving her revenge against this new shadowy figure forming in Ophelia's mind.
Ophelia rips another page out, and crumples it this time before tossing it to the floor where it bounces half-heartedly. "It is intimidating," they agree softly, unaware of Mabel's firsthand experience. "But if I could not continue to live, then I would rather return to The Voice in death, and know I am safe with Her." Giggling quietly, they turn their luminescent gaze towards Mabel from the corner of their eyes. "Though I would hope training would not be quite so dangerous."
With your naive heart you praise God above But how's it working for you honey? Do you feel loved?
More and more desecration pulled from her claws. She couldn’t help it now, not when she’d been immersed, her eyes barely even scanning a page before it was obliterated – nameless words and nameless facets and nameless authors with no credit for their adversarial cause. She worked while she spoke, and if the parchment was torn with a harsher decree, with a relish, with a savage, interloping wake, then she didn’t care, didn’t care, didn’t care. “The person who murdered my sister.” A personal fulfillment if there was ever going to be one – slashing them across the throat until they bled over fields, over grass, over stone; she was indifferent to the poetry and visuals. Just the motivation was enough.
“She gave me another chance,” she finally admitted, her eyes scanning the floor, with the crumpled notes, with the liturgies no longer in writing, no longer for anyone else’s eyes. “And many others.” Could the Old Gods have done that? Would they have bothered? Or were they so stuck in the past, that it wouldn’t have mattered? “It was safe, but not enough. Not for what we need to do.” Her eyes didn’t go to Ophelia – she’d let them take whatever they yearned or needed from that interloping, woven gesture. “Training is fun,” came with a distinct snicker, all fangs and debauchery.
